Chae-rin's analysis landed in the studio with the force of a perfectly aimed bomb. It was so terrifyingly logical, so psychologically sound, that it blew away all of their previous assumptions about the conflict. They were not just fighting a corporate war; they were engaged in an artistic duel to the death with a woman who had built her own soulless champion.
Yoo-jin, though shaken, was galvanized. Chae-rin had just handed him a new, clearer map of the battlefield. He immediately pulled out his phone, his mind already shifting from processing the shock to acting on the new intelligence.
"Min-ji," he said, his voice crisp and urgent as she picked up. "I have a new directive for you. I need you to go back to all the OmniCorp data we have, every fragment. Forget looking for financial leverage or org charts. I want you to search for any and all documentation related to Project Nightingale, specifically Nam Gyu-ri's level of creative control and her personal investment in its development. I need to know if she was just a hired gun for this project, or if she was its architect."
"Understood, CEO-nim," Min-ji's voice came back, all business. "I'm on it."
The atmosphere in the studio shifted. The creative session was over. The war room had expanded its walls to include this space. Jin, Yoo-jin, and Chae-rin gathered around the main console, its large monitor now linked to Min-ji's workstation. They watched as she dove back into the digital guts of their enemy.
This was a different kind of intelligence gathering. It wasn't about finding a single "bomb" file; it was about connecting disparate dots, looking for a pattern of influence in a sea of corporate jargon. Min-ji used backdoors and digital breadcrumbs left over from their M.A.D. recording. She pulled up development logs, internal budget requests, and a chain of heavily redacted internal memos.
"Okay, I'm in their old project archives," Min-ji's voice narrated over the speaker. "Chae-rin was right. This is bigger than we thought."
On the screen, she highlighted a series of budget allocations for the AI project. "OmniCorp's main tech division provided the foundational funding and the base machine-learning tech," she explained. "But about a year ago, the project was split. The core tech remained under OmniCorp R&D, but a new, special subdivision was created to oversee the AI's 'artistic direction' and 'emotional learning parameters.' It was given a huge, discretionary budget and operated almost completely independently."
"And the head of that subdivision?" Yoo-jin asked, already knowing the answer.
"Nam Gyu-ri," Min-ji confirmed. "She wasn't just the lead producer. She was its absolute ruler. The memos show she had final say on everything from its vocal timbre to its lyrical sentiment analysis. She wasn't just managing the project; she was raising it."
The picture was becoming clearer, more horrifying. This wasn't a product she had been assigned. It was a personal creation she had leveraged a multi-billion dollar corporation into funding.
"Wait," Min-ji said suddenly, her voice dropping. "I found something else. It's buried deep. A fragment of a deleted file in a recycled server directory. It looks like an early-stage project proposal, from before Nam Gyu-ri was even officially hired by OmniCorp. It must have been part of her pitch to them."
She worked quickly, her fingers flying, recovering the corrupted text. A few paragraphs of the proposal materialized on the screen. The language was academic, cold, but the vision it described was monstrous. It outlined a plan for a new kind of virtual artist, an AI that could move beyond simple mimicry. It spoke of a system that could "algorithmically deconstruct the core components of a human artist's creative soul—their melodic tendencies, lyrical choices, emotional resonance—and then replicate it with perfect, flawless, and infinitely scalable execution."
The team stared in silence, reading the chilling manifesto. This was the blueprint for Kai. This was the gospel according to Nam Gyu-ri.
Then, Jin pointed a trembling finger at the top of the document. "There," he said, his voice rough. "The codename."
The project's codename, in this original, private proposal, was not 'Project Kai' or even 'Project Nightingale.' The simple, stark heading at the top of the page read:
PROJECT: VENGEANCE.
The truth was now undeniable, laid bare in cold, hard text. Kai was not just a product. It was not just a new form of entertainment. It was a purpose-built weapon of revenge, conceived by Nam Gyu-ri long before she had the power to create it. It was her masterpiece.
As they sat there, reeling from the confirmation of their worst fears, a small, unobtrusive alert popped up in the corner of Min-ji's screen. It was a notification from one of her social media monitoring bots.
"Hold on," she said, her attention immediately shifting. "OmniCorp's official press account just posted for the first time since the showcase disaster."
She clicked the link, and the official statement filled the screen. It was a masterful piece of corporate spin, a clinic in damage control. It began with a carefully worded apology for the "misunderstanding" at their private event, blaming the protest on "misinformation spread by malicious actors." Then, it pivoted beautifully.
"In light of the passionate public interest in the future of music," the statement read, "OmniCorp is more committed than ever to pushing the boundaries of art and technology. To that end, we believe now is the perfect time to introduce the world to a new voice. We are therefore proud to announce that we are fast-tracking the global debut of our revolutionary virtual artist, Kai."
Yoo-jin's blood ran cold. She was using their own attack as a springboard for her launch.
The statement continued, detailing a massive, global marketing campaign. But it was the final sentence that mattered. It was a simple, declarative statement of intent.
"Kai's debut single, 'Hollow Soul,' will be released worldwide on all major streaming platforms in exactly four weeks."
The episode title. The release date. It was a declaration of war.
The team stared at the screen, the words burning into their retinas. They now had a hard deadline. A ticking clock. The race was on. The Aura Chimera album was no longer just a shield or a comeback. It had to be ready to go to war with its own digital ghost in exactly one month. The showdown was set.