Mo Chen didn't trust Isolde or her consortium. But she trusted the intelligence on the tablet. It was detailed, actionable, and painted a picture of Kraken as a hydra-headed monster that needed to be decapitated all at once.
She agreed to the terms, but on her conditions. No direct contact. Intelligence would be delivered through dead drops. There would be no financial support; she would fund her war through her own means. And the consortium would stay out of her way.
Isolde agreed. The devil's bargain was struck.
With the consortium's blueprints, Mo Chen's burning campaign evolved from disruptive to apocalyptic. She didn't just target Kraken's money; she targeted its muscle.
Using the [Scorched Earth Protocol] again after its cooldown, she designated a Kraken weapons depot in North Africa. Another million dollars of her personal wealth evaporated. Three days later, the depot was a smoldering crater, the result of a "munitions accident."
She used her market manipulation tactics to crash the stocks of several companies that were secretly owned by Kraken, harvesting the profits to fund more burns.
She was a one-woman army, waging a shadow war funded by destruction. Her personal wealth, despite the massive costs, was growing exponentially as she found more creative ways to "destroy" value. The system was thriving on the chaos.
But Kraken was not a passive target. They were adapting. They tightened security. They moved assets. And they were hunting the source of the fires.
The war was escalating, and the flames were getting higher.