?Chapter 742:


    “Don’t worry. My defenses are unbreakable — no hacker alive can get through, not even Hawk from ST.”


    Kolton’s tension eased at those words, some confidence returning to his posture.


    He replied,


    “Perfect. If they can’t crack the system, they’ll have to take the ship by force. And when they show themselves, I’ll hunt down everyst one. I want the names of those bold enough to challenge the Cooper Group from the shadows!”


    “I’ll crush anyone who dares defy the Cooper Group!” Kolton proimed, his voice a zing crucible of righteous indignation.


    Emboldened by Thomas’ assurance, Kolton’s eyes glinted with resolve. He grabbed his phone and called his subordinates.


    “Trace their IP address and ry it to the operations team. I demand to know the identities of these insolent upstarts who presume to challenge me!”


    At hismand, the covert operatives tasked with safeguarding thework surged into action, their fingers dancing across keyboards in a fric counteroffensive against the digital intruders.


    Swiftly, they repelled the initial onught.


    “Sir, we’ve thwarted the first assault,” one operative reported, his voice taut with focus. “But the source address was routed through abyrinth of nodes, obscuring the true IP.”


    Before the words could settle, the operative’s screen erupted in a constetion of crimson alerts.


    “This is dire,” he muttered, his tone edged with rm. “We’re not facing a lone attacker. It’s a coordinated syndicate,unching a multivector assault.”


    Kolton’s brow arched in astonishment.


    “A syndicate?” he echoed, the word heavy with disbelief.


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    Thomas’ visage flickered back onto the screen, his presencemanding.


    “No cause for rm,” he dered, his gravelly timbre a steady anchor amid the storm. “Your foes have clearly squandered vast resources on a cadre of hackers, but they’re no match for us.”


    Thomas’ voice, deep and resonant, quelled the unease coiling in Kolton’s chest. It summoned a memory of a past conversation when Thomas had spoken of the hacker underworld’s titans: the formidable ST and the ascendant Pris, locked in eternal rivalry.


    There was, however, another ancient and mysterious hacker group whose strength rivaled either of these two giants.


    Many believed that this group had vanished into history’s folds, but Thomas had imed its annihtion at his hands.


    Kolton’s gaze swept over the operatives around him, their faces illuminated by the glow of monitors. A sudden suspicion flickered. Could these be the remnants of that fabled group, now bound to Thomas’ will?


    The thought draped him in a mantle of calm.


    “I’ve been overthinking,” he murmured, dismissing his doubts.


    From the looks of it, tonight would likely pass without any major incidents. Barring the emergence of some prodigious hacker from the shadows, only a union of ST and Pris could breach the fortress of Thomas’ defenses. And that was clearly impossible. ST and Pris were sworn adversaries, their enmity a bedrock of the digital realm.


    “My gratitude, Thomas,” Kolton said, his voice steeped in reverence. Ordinarily, Kolton cloaked himself in a veneer of cool detachment, but before Thomas, he shed all pretense of indifference.


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