He was utterly convinced he had cleared every obstacle in his path. Victory was already in the bag.
Anderson had even started planning what he would do with that mysterious Seiji Fujiwara after he swallowed the Fujiwara conglomerate.
He drained the champagne in his glass in one gulp.
Then slammed the glass down onto the floor.
The crystal shattered with a sharp crack, and the entire room fell silent in an instant.
Everyone held their breath, waiting for the next command from their god.
Anderson spread his arms wide, like a king about to ascend the throne. He announced in a booming voice:
"The party is over, gentlemen!"
"Now, let us begin enjoying the real spoils of war!"
"Turn the entire Japanese market into our personal ATM!"
"Yes, Boss!"
The fervent response nearly blew the roof off.
No one knew that on the other side of the planet, a colder, more authoritative pair of eyes was quietly observing this revelry.
...
...
Tokyo time, morning.
The Japanese financial market faced the darkest day in its history.
The massive capital coming from Wall Street charged across Japan's economic landscape like a well-equipped invincible armada.
"The Nikkei Index has plunged 1,500 points within three minutes of opening!"
"Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toyota Motor, Sony Electronics... over thirty blue-chip stocks are facing hostile takeovers, with their share prices forced down to the daily limit!"
"Panic selling has begun! Trillions of yen have evaporated in an instant!"
In the news studios, every single economic commentator looked ashen.
With trembling voices, they broadcast this one-sided slaughter to the public.
On television screens, countless investors at the exchange were huddled together in tears.
The despair was so thick it seemed to seep right out of the screen.
Inside the government buildings at Kasumigaseki, officials at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry hadn't slept all night.
Yet all they could do was watch helplessly as the economic firewall was torn apart, layer by layer, under Anderson's savage assault. As if it were made of paper.
"Bastard...!" A board member of the central bank let out a despairing wail as he watched the unbelievable capital flows on the screen.
Within just a few hours, Anderson's overwhelming and rapacious trading tactics had cast a vast shadow over all of Japan.
And yet, at the very eye of this storm, the top-floor office of the Fujiwara conglomerate was a picture of total opposite calm.
Seiji Fujiwara sat leisurely on the sofa, savoring the freshly brewed top-grade Da Hong Pao.
Beside him, the former "Empress" Fuyumi Irisu now knelt on the carpet in a posture of utter submission.
What she wore was no longer cold business attire, but a soft silk house kimono designed for serving.
Before her, an enormous single-eye pattern hovered in the air, formed from countless streams of golden data.
The Eye of Odin.
Reflected clearly within that pale-gold pupil was Anderson's top-floor trading room in New York.
Around the main display, countless threads of golden light traced the entire shape of Anderson's vast capital empire.
Every flow of his funds, every contingency he had prepared, every leverage point hidden in the depths, had nowhere to hide under the gaze of the Eye of Odin.
Fuyumi raised her head and looked up at this all-knowing, all-seeing eye.
The last shred of pride and unwillingness in her heart finally crumbled into dust.
She had once believed she could match wits with the world through her intellect.
But before this eye, she finally understood that her so-called "intellect" had been nothing more than a frog at the bottom of a well, making laughable guesses about the size of the sky.
She was now the "operator" of this eye. The Valkyrie seated at Odin's side.
"Mr. Fujiwara."
Fuyumi spoke slowly, her voice cool and respectful. "Anderson has already deployed seventy percent of his liquid capital, launching saturation attacks on twelve key sectors of the Japanese market. Based on the Eye of Odin's preliminary calculations, if we don't intervene, Japan's financial system will completely collapse within three days."
As she reported, she extended her slender, pale fingers to refill the teacup in front of Seiji with hot tea.
The motion was elegant and practiced, as though she had rehearsed it a thousand times.
Seiji didn't look at her, nor at the eye. He simply lifted the teacup and gently blew across the floating leaves.
"Did you understand his strategy?"
"I did." Fuyumi answered without hesitation. "His strategy seems savage, but it's actually insidious. The twelve sectors he's attacking are all tied to our country's livelihood foundations and high-tech industries. His goal isn't simple profit. It's to use financial means to thoroughly destroy the very roots of our country's industries, paving the way for the Monsanto-Kirin Alliance's subsequent invasion of our real economy."
"Good analysis." Seiji finally turned his gaze toward her, a hint of approval in his eyes.
"So, with your past intellect, how would you respond?" he asked with interest.
Fuyumi was silent for a moment, then shook her head.
"With my past intellect, there's no way to respond. In the face of absolute power, no scheme has any meaning. All I could do is what I did before: mobilize every resource for futile resistance, then watch helplessly as everything marches toward destruction."
Her answer was honest to the point of cruelty.
Seiji laughed.
He liked the girl's honesty.
He extended his hand and gently stroked Fuyumi's smooth, long hair.
"He's too eager."
Seiji's voice was soft, almost as if he were talking to himself.
"Like a bull charging into a china shop. Too focused on the destruction in front of him to notice he's stepping on fragile glass under his own feet."
"Let him fly a little longer. The higher he flies, the louder the crash when he falls."
Fuyumi followed the direction his finger pointed and a flicker of confusion crossed her eyes. She couldn't see how the debt crisis of some small South American country had any connection to the financial war unfolding in Japan.
But she didn't ask.
Her duty was not to question, but to execute.
Seiji watched her obedient demeanor and gave a satisfied nod.
The hunter had laid down his first trap.
Now, he only needed to wait for the arrogant prey to come crashing into it on its own.
...
...
New York, three in the afternoon.
In Richard Anderson's trading room, the atmosphere had shifted from celebration into something close to manic ecstasy.
"Boss! The Nikkei has broken through the 15,000 mark! We did it!"
"Sony's stock has dropped below its IPO price! Their board is holding an emergency meeting and is preparing to surrender to us!"
"All of Japan is trembling beneath our iron hooves! This is a day for the history books!"
Anderson leaned back in his comfortable leather chair, his feet propped up on the priceless mahogany desk.
His eyes were closed, savoring the constant reports of victory from his subordinates as if listening to the most beautiful symphony.
He could even imagine how the politicians at the Prime Minister's Office in Japan must be tearing their hair out.
How those so-called business elites in Tokyo's office towers must be huddled together in tears.
The thrill of manipulating the destiny of an entire nation left him intoxicated.
He opened his eyes and looked at the sea of red on the screen that signaled the crash, a cruel smile spreading across his face.
"Pass down my order," he said slowly.
"Begin Phase Two of the plan. Launch a probing attack on the Fujiwara conglomerate. I want that arrogant young man to know that what he's taken over isn't a gold mine, but a powder keg with the fuse already lit."
"Yes, Boss!"
The head trader immediately turned to deliver the order.
But at that very moment...
Tokyo, Fujiwara conglomerate headquarters.
Seiji set down the teacup in his hand. He spoke a single word softly to Fuyumi beside him.
"Now."
Fuyumi bowed in acknowledgment.
She extended her slender finger and lightly tapped the holographic projection of the Eye of Odin, woven from streams of golden data.
The target was precisely the sovereign bond fund Seiji had pointed to earlier.
Located in South America. Utterly unremarkable.
The instruction was issued in an instant.
Through an anonymous hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands, a sum of capital came crashing down upon the already fragile financial system of that small South American country.
...
New York.
Just as Anderson's head trader reached the doorway, the trading room's internal alarm system suddenly let out a sharp, piercing buzz that shattered the air.
The wail of alarms froze the fervent atmosphere of the room in an instant.
"What's going on?!" Anderson sat bolt upright in his chair and barked the question.
A trader responsible for global risk monitoring rose from his seat, his face deathly pale. With a trembling voice, he reported:
"Boss... something's happened! Our 'Pioneer-3' hedge fund... it just... it just blew up!"
"What?!" Anderson frowned. "Pioneer-3? Isn't that just a small venture investment of ours in the South American market? How could it blow up?"
"It's... it's Bolivia..." The trader's voice carried disbelief. "Just now, the three major international credit rating agencies suddenly issued a joint announcement, downgrading Bolivia's sovereign credit rating directly from B- to D... sovereign default!"
"This sudden 'black swan' event has detonated the entire South American bond market. And our Pioneer-3, because it held a massive position in Bolivian sovereign bonds... in a single instant, it just... it just evaporated!"
The entire trading room fell into dead silence.
Anderson's expression darkened.
The Pioneer-3 fund wasn't large in scale. Just a few hundred million dollars. To his vast empire worth tens of billions, it was a drop in the ocean.
But it was like a perfect feast suddenly invaded by a disgusting fly.
Too coincidental.
The coincidence was almost eerie.
Why would the three major rating agencies, in such perfect unison, target some unrelated small country at this precise moment?
"Just an accident?" he murmured to himself.
"Boss, what do we do now?" the head trader asked carefully. "The blow-up of Pioneer-3, while not a major loss, has torn a small breach in our capital chain. If it's not patched in time, it could trigger downstream credit risk."
Anderson pondered for a few seconds, then waved his hand.
The arrogant look of total control returned to his face.
"Just a stupid accident... That bunch of South American garbage is always teetering on the edge of default."
He made his decision.
"Pull one billion dollars from the capital pool dedicated to attacking the Japanese market. Patch this breach immediately! And while you're at it, blow up every one of those small funds that joined in to short alongside us!"
He would crush this discordant note with absolute power.
"Furthermore," Anderson added, "the attack plan against the Fujiwara conglomerate proceeds as scheduled! Don't let this trivial matter ruin our appetite for the main course!"
"Yes, Boss!"
The traders sprang into action.
Anderson watched the screen as one billion dollars flowed like a torrent out of the massive capital pool, surging toward that small breach.
He watched as the breach was instantly patched, even reversing course to devour several speculative small institutions around it. A satisfied smile appeared on his face.
He firmly believed this was nothing more than a minor episode.
His invincible financial battleship couldn't possibly change course just because it had collided with a single seabird.
He had no idea whatsoever that the sum of capital he had moved to swat this "fly" had landed his foot perfectly squarely inside the real trap, the one the hunter had so meticulously laid.
Under the gaze of the Eye of Odin, the golden data stream representing one billion dollars slowly turned an ominous blood-red.
The fish had taken the bait.
...
...
Tokyo, Fujiwara conglomerate headquarters.
The instant the capital flow representing one billion dollars in the holographic projection of the Eye of Odin turned completely blood-red, Seiji set down the teacup in his hand.
He spoke calmly to Fuyumi beside him:
"Spring Trap."
His voice was quiet, but carried a chilling indifference.
"Yes."
Fuyumi extended her finger and pressed the final confirmation key in that vast starry sea of golden data.
...
New York, Anderson's trading room.
Just as Anderson was feeling smug about successfully "patching" the leak, a glaring red alert exploded onto the massive main screen before him, multiplying like a virus.
[Warning! "Fortress-7" fund under sniper attack from unknown algorithm! Capital chain ruptured!]
[Warning! "Megalith Hedge" fund liquidity exhausted! Forced liquidation!]
[Warning! "Global Vision" fund...]
In an instant, alarms rose and fell in waves throughout the entire trading room.
"What's going on?! What now?!" Anderson sprang to his feet.
"Boss! It's bad!"
A trader's voice turned shrill with sheer terror.
"That one billion dollars... the one we just used to patch the South America hole... it triggered a... a hidden chain financial bomb we've never seen before!"
"What bomb?!"
"I don't know! I don't know!"
The trader was pounding the keyboard like a madman.
The code scrolling across the screen was too fast for the eye to follow.
"That capital, like a key, simultaneously unlocked the underlying logic vulnerabilities of seventeen seemingly unrelated hedge funds in our portfolio! These vulnerabilities... they're like dominoes, and they're triggering an avalanche of cascading liquidations!"
"Impossible!" Anderson rushed to the main screen.
His eyes blood-red, he stared at the figures jumping nonstop on the display.
"My investment portfolio was built by the world's top team using the most complex models! It's impossible for this kind of cascading vulnerability to exist!"
But reality mocked his confidence without mercy.
On the screen, the astronomical figure representing his total assets was plummeting at a speed that could stop your heart.
10 billion!
8 billion!
5 billion!
2 billion!
That wasn't a decline. It was evaporation.
It was being devoured frantically by an invisible black hole.
"Quickly! Stop it! I order you, stop it now!"
Anderson grabbed a trader by the collar and roared. "Sell! Sell every asset we have! Whatever the cost! Now!"
"We can't, Boss!" the trader cried out in despair. "We're locked down! Their algorithm is like a ghost. It's predicted every single move we make! Every position we sell only drops us into a deeper trap, and the losses just accelerate!"
"Useless! A pack of useless garbage!"
Anderson shoved him aside and sat down at the trading terminal himself.
His hands flew across the keyboard in a frenzy, trying to use his legendary trading skills to pull back this losing battle.
But it was no use.
Every operation he made vanished without a trace, raising not even a single ripple.
Anderson felt like a powerful man with his hands and feet bound, forced to watch helplessly as an invisible enemy carved through his flesh, slice by slice.
He suddenly realized.
This wasn't an accident.
This wasn't a coincidence.
This was a flawless killing maneuver, one tailored for him from the very beginning, perfect as a work of art.
That young man called Seiji Fujiwara...
He wasn't the prey!
He was the true hunter, the one hidden deep in the darkness!
And he himself, from the very start, had been the prey being toyed with.
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