The trading screens flickered with wild greens. Lin Chen stood silently in his office, eyes locked on the surge graph of NovaGen Solutions. The biotech startup he had casually invested in during a prior system event was now soaring at an insane 215% rise over 24 hours.
People were calling it the miracle stock of the quarter.
What they didn't know was that Lin Chen had planted his roots there far before the media had even heard of the company.
He was about to sip his tea when the system pinged again—but this time, it wasn't celebratory.
[System Alert: Emergency Triggered Task]Code: Blood Thread ProtocolTitle: Clean the Money. Clean the Name.Synopsis: NovaGen Solutions is being used as a vehicle for laundering funds connected to Erebus. Your profits are now flagged by international watchlists. You have 48 hours to identify and remove all digital and paper trails, or suffer public exposure. Reward for Completion: +10,000 Gold, +20 Luck Points, Black Market Access Pass Penalty for Failure: Government Investigation, System Debuff (Stealth Ability Locked x7 Days)
Lin Chen frowned.
So that was it. NovaGen's suspicious volume wasn't just due to good fundamentals or market sentiment. Someone had piggybacked on his early investments, using the momentum as a smoke screen.
And the name that came up again? Erebus.
He activated the System Eye, and instantly, layers of data unspooled like threads across his retina. The surge wasn't organic. The system highlighted a sequence of coordinated fund injections through small brokerages in Eastern Europe and Singapore—thinly masked in diversity funds and shell investor pools.
All roads eventually led to a single offshore vault account tagged: Aeternum-073X.
He opened the internal intel vault and ran a cross-match against Erebus-linked transactions. The result turned his stomach: Aeternum-073X matched 94.3% of known Erebus laundering methods.
He had been played.
Or rather, someone tried to make him the frontman of a crime he didn't commit.
The system gave him three tool options:
Ghost Ledger Key – Overwrites transaction histories up to 72 hours prior (Cost: 15,000 Gold).
Legal Diversion Blueprint – Uploads an alternate investment record backed by fabricated investor identities (Cost: 12,000 Gold).
Firewall Cloak Mk.II – Scrambles IP tracebacks across 300 global nodes (One-time use, Free with Black Market Access).
He chose the first two.
Gold drained from his system wallet, but security was priceless. He activated the Ghost Ledger Key and began rewriting the investment path, rerouting his initial NovaGen stakes through defunct holding companies long buried under legitimate IPO dust.
The Legal Diversion Blueprint ran a parallel process, generating virtual investors from dead sectors: antique art dealers, old money wine consortiums, and one particularly obscure whale from the vintage piano restoration community.
It was absurdly elaborate—but convincing.
To clear his name completely, he needed to draw Erebus into the light. He devised a bait strategy, using a secondary company—Ionis Holdings, a minor fintech brand with minor traction but a perfect profile for bait.
He began leaking "promising insider info" to forums and semi-private investor circles. With help from the system's Market Manipulation Sandbox, he simulated a minor price surge, enough to attract algorithmic trading bots.
Within 10 hours, Erebus-linked wallets had begun dripping funds into Ionis.
Perfect.
He injected code from the Phantom Broker Asset Card, turning Ionis into a trace trap. As Erebus began layering funds through Ionis, Lin Chen copied transaction IDs, digital certificates, wallet hashes—all timestamped and watermarked.
Then he sent it to an anonymous tip inbox at the International Financial Crime Taskforce (IFCT).
When the media tried to investigate NovaGen's rapid climb, Lin Chen's fabricated trails held firm. His legal documents were impeccable, his investor story seamless.
The authorities soon focused their energy on Ionis Holdings and the unknown funders behind it.
Lin Chen walked away not only clean but sharper than ever.
[System Task Complete: Blood Thread Protocol]+10,000 Gold+20 Luck PointsNew Feature Unlocked: Black Market Access Portal (Beta)
He exhaled slowly, eyes cold.
Erebus had made its move.
Now, it was his turn.