The adrenaline from Yoo-jin's decisive command drained away from the room, leaving a vacuum that was quickly filled with a thick, suffocating dread. The cancelled mission wasn't a relief; it was a surrender. They had been outmaneuvered so completely that their only viable move was to forfeit the match before it even began. They sat in stunned silence, the weight of their predicament a physical pressure. The grand, vengeful offensive they had planned just an hour ago now seemed like a naive fantasy.
The debate about Ryu's motives resurfaced, but it was quieter this time, stripped of its accusatory heat and replaced with a desperate, academic curiosity. It was the only part of the puzzle they felt they could safely touch.
"Maybe… maybe he felt guilty," Chae-rin murmured, her voice barely audible. She was staring at the phone on the table as if it were a venomous snake. "When we talked, before I knew who he was… he seemed lost. He said he was tired of the game. Maybe some part of him wanted to do the right thing, just once."
Da-eun, her anger now banked into a low, simmering coal, shook her head. Her skepticism was still present, but it was no longer aimed at her teammate. "Or maybe OmniCorp cut him loose after his mission failed and this is his revenge. We can't build a new strategy on the hope that a corporate spy suddenly developed a conscience. Hope isn't a strategy."
"Da-eun is right," Yoo-jin said, his voice flat. He was pacing slowly behind the table, his mind a maelstrom of recriminations. He had been played. His "Honey Trap" operation, which he had considered a brilliant counter-espionage success, was now revealed to be a leaking sieve. "Ryu's motive is a secondary concern. It's a distraction. The primary, catastrophic concern is that Nam Gyu-ri knows about the recording. Which means our M.A.D. deterrent is gone. It was an intelligence failure of the highest order. My failure."
He blamed himself entirely. He had allowed his personal history with Nam Gyu-ri to make him overconfident, to believe he understood her playbook. He had prepared for a chess match, and she had responded by revealing she knew every move he was going to make.
As they grappled with the enormity of this new reality, Yoo-jin's phone buzzed sharply on the table. The screen lit up with a name that, on any other day, would have been a welcome sign of a useful backchannel communication.
Director Yoon - Stellar Entertainment.
Yoo-jin picked up the phone, a knot of fresh anxiety tightening in his stomach. A call from his reluctant ally at this exact moment felt less like a coincidence and more like the other shoe preparing to drop. He answered, keeping his voice level. "Director Yoon. What is it?"
He put the call on speaker so the team could hear. Director Yoon's voice came through, strained and rushed. "Yoo-jin, I don't have much time. Something is happening."
"Slow down, I can barely understand you," Yoo-jin said calmly. "What's wrong?"
"A media outlet," Yoon said, his voice raspy with stress. "One of the big ones. They called me for a comment."
"Which one?"
"Prime Dispatch."
The name landed in the room like a dead weight. The team exchanged horrified glances. Prime Dispatch wasn't just a gossip rag; they were the apex predators of entertainment journalism, known for meticulously researched, character-assassinating exposés that could end careers overnight.
"What do they have?" Yoo-jin asked, his voice hardening.
"It's an exposé," Yoon stammered. "On you. On Aura."
"About what?"
"The indie artists," Yoon said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "The five from the Producer's Challenge. Prime Dispatch has a story, a big one. They're claiming the whole thing was a sham."
Yoo-jin's blood ran cold. He thought for a terrifying second that they had somehow discovered the truth about the M.A.D. situation. "What kind of sham?"
"Not what you think," Yoon clarified quickly. "It's worse. They're framing it as a story about predatory contracts. They have an anonymous source, a 'disgruntled Stellar insider' who claims to have witnessed your methods for years, who says you have a pattern of exploiting vulnerable artists."
The mole. The realization struck Yoo-jin with the force of a physical blow. The asset Nam Gyu-ri had used to get information on Da-eun's father was still active, and was now being deployed for a direct character assassination.
"They're framing the Producer's Challenge as what, exactly?" Yoo-jin pressed, needing to know the precise shape of the knife being twisted in his back.
"As a cynical, predatory ploy," Director Yoon explained, his voice grim. "They're saying you used the public sympathy from the plagiarism scandal as cover to identify five desperate, unknown artists. That you used your newfound fame to lure them in and lock them into exploitative 'slave contracts' to quickly and cheaply build your own kingdom. They claim to have details of the contracts—which are obviously fake—and quotes from this 'insider' about your manipulative nature. They're painting you as the very monster you claim to be fighting."
The sheer, diabolical brilliance of the attack was breathtaking. It didn't target their music, their finances, or even their business operations. It targeted the very foundation of their identity. Their entire public image, their entire brand, was built on being the champions of the artist, the righteous, transparent alternative to the corrupt corporate machine. This story would turn their greatest public victory into their most damning scandal.
"When are they running with it?" Yoo-jin asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Tomorrow morning. The article is already written. My call was the last fact-check. Yoo-jin… this is bad. This is a Nam Gyu-ri special. It has her fingerprints all over it. It's a narrative kill-shot."
"I see," Yoo-jin said, the two words feeling utterly inadequate. "Thank you for the warning, Director."
He ended the call and placed the phone back on the table with a slow, deliberate motion. He slowly turned to face his team. Their faces, already pale with defeat, were now etched with a new kind of horror.
"We have another problem," he stated, his voice devoid of any emotion. "In approximately twelve hours, Prime Dispatch will publish an article painting me as a predator who traps artists in slave contracts. The story will be sourced by Nam Gyu-ri's mole inside Stellar and will frame the Producer's Challenge as a masterclass in exploitation."
He let the information settle, watching as his team processed the devastating implications. This wasn't just another battle. Nam Gyu-ri wasn't just trying to beat them in the market or in the courtroom. She was trying to erase their story, to poison their legacy, to turn their very name into a synonym for hypocrisy.
She had them surrounded. They were facing a multi-front war: a legal assault designed to cripple Da-eun's family, a compromised intelligence operation that had been turned into a trap, and now, a massive, public narrative attack designed to turn them into the very villains they had sworn to destroy. Every path forward was a minefield. Every defense was already breached. They weren't just losing; they were being systematically dismantled.