The air in the conference room was finally clear. The toxic fog of suspicion and resentment had been burned away by the harsh, clean light of the truth. The team was quiet, but it was a new kind of quiet—not the tense silence of a cold war, but the sober, focused silence of soldiers who had survived a friendly fire incident and were now stronger for it, their bonds forged in the heat of a shared, dangerous secret.
It was Da-eun, ever the one to look forward to the next fight, who broke the contemplative silence.
"So now what?" she asked, her voice pragmatic, her gaze sweeping across the room. "We have this… this bomb." She gestured to the laptop where the recording was stored. "And we know we can't use it without blowing ourselves up. And Nam Gyu-ri is still out there, attacking my family and planning whatever her next move is. Are we just stuck? Do we wait for her to make the next move and just keep reacting?"
Her question hung in the air. The reality of their stalemate was a heavy weight. They had the ultimate weapon, but their finger could never touch the button.
"No," Yoo-jin said, his voice ringing with a newfound clarity. He walked to the whiteboard, the familiar motion of a commander taking control of his war room. He picked up a marker. "We're not stuck. We're not going to wait. For the past few months, we have been playing the game on her terms. A game of secrets and shadows, of attacks and counter-attacks."
He uncapped the marker and, with a single, decisive swipe, erased the last vestiges of their old battle plans from the board.
"We've been reactive," he continued, his voice building with passion. "She launches a plagiarism scandal; we create an elaborate lie to defend ourselves. She attacks your family, Da-eun; we launch a quiet legal counter-offensive. We keep winning the battles, but we are letting her choose the battlefield. From now on, that stops. From now on, we go on the offensive. But not with secrets and counter-espionage. We will fight her in the open, in the one place where we are stronger than her. We will fight her with our music, and with our stories."
He turned to his newly unified team, his eyes blazing with a new, aggressive strategy. "The Aura Chimera album," he declared, his voice resonating with purpose, "is no longer just an album. It is our primary weapon. Our public declaration of war. Every single song will be a targeted strike against OmniCorp's entire philosophy."
He began to sketch out a new concept for the album, a track list that was not just a collection of songs, but a manifesto.
"Track one: 'Hollow (Ghosts' Anthem).' That's our opening statement. The story of the stolen soul. But we're not done with it." He looked at Jin. "We're going to re-record it, an acoustic version, even more raw and vulnerable than the first, and release it with the album to remind the world of the original sin."
He pointed to Da-eun and Jin. "Next, the two of you are going to write a new song together. A true collaboration. I want a fiery, aggressive rock anthem. I want it to be about artistic ownership, about the rage of having your identity stolen and the fight to take it back. It will be the sound of defiance."
He then turned to Chae-rin, whose eyes were now clear and bright. "Chae-rin, you will have a solo track. A quiet, powerful, devastating ballad. The theme will be the value of a single, unique human voice in a world that is filling up with copies and echoes. It will be your story, but also a hymn for every person who has ever felt voiceless."
He looked at Ji-won. "And you, Ji-won. I want an instrumental track from you. Something complex, chaotic, beautiful, and utterly unpredictable. A song that no machine could ever dream of composing. We will call it 'The Human Algorithm.'"
The artists were captivated, their creative spirits ignited. This was not just a track list; it was a mission.
"But we won't just release the music," Yoo-jin continued, his vision expanding. "The release will be a full-scale campaign, a global movement. We will do interviews with every major outlet that will have us, but we will steer every single conversation to the topic of 'real versus artificial' art. We will write op-eds. We will host panels. We will partner with independent artist guilds and music schools to run workshops on protecting your creative and intellectual property in the age of AI. We will not just be a musical group; we will become advocates. We will make it impossible for anyone to talk about the future of music without talking about us and our philosophy."
He took a deep breath, his gaze landing on Da-eun. "And as for the lawsuit against your father," he said, his voice hardening, "we will fight it in the same way. Openly. We are done being quiet. Our legal team will issue a formal public statement. We will announce that we are aware of the 'legally dubious and clearly corporate-funded nuisance suit' filed against our artist's family. We will state that it is a transparent attempt at intimidation by a corporate rival, and that we will be fighting it vigorously and publicly. We will not let them bully a good man in the shadows. We will drag them and their tactics into the sunlight. We will paint them as the villains. We will use their own attack to fuel our narrative of being the small, independent company that fights for people against giant, soullous corporations."
The team was on fire. The fear and suspicion were gone, replaced by a righteous, unified fury. They finally had a plan that wasn't about defense or survival. It was about attack.
As they began to brainstorm ideas, shouting out lyrical concepts and melodic fragments, Min-ji, who had been quietly working on her laptop in the corner, suddenly spoke up, her voice cutting through the creative chaos.
"CEO-nim," she said, her tone urgent. "Our 'ghost' has sent us a gift."
All eyes turned to her. She was referring to Hana, their unwitting spy, who Chae-rin had been coaching to maintain friendly, occasional contact with the OmniCorp recruiter, Min-hee.
Min-ji projected her screen onto the wall monitor. It was an image of an internal OmniCorp memo. "Hana said Min-hee sent this to her this morning," Min-ji explained. "As a special, exclusive invitation for a top finalist. She thought it would make Hana feel important."
The memo was a corporate invitation, sleek and professional. It detailed the location and date for the inaugural "Innovate Dynamics Finalist Showcase." It was a private, high-tech, high-security event where OmniCorp executives and potential investors would be present to witness a presentation on the future of art and technology, and to see the new talent they had acquired through their various online competitions.
"It's in two weeks," Min-ji said, zooming in on the text. "And the keynote speaker, the one who will be unveiling OmniCorp's 'new paradigm for artistic partnership,' is Nam Gyu-ri herself."
The team stared at the invitation on the screen. It was a glimpse behind the curtain, an invitation directly into the enemy's inner sanctum.
They had a new mission. Their first offensive move would not be on the charts or in the press. It would be in person.
"Well," Da-eun said, a slow, dangerous grin spreading across her face. "It would be rude not to accept the invitation."
They were going to crash the party.