Chapter 23 - This Will Be Fun

Andrew cursed in Russian.

"One person! They broke your code and went through our entire team of trained experts?! Who the hell are they?"

Knox started to fix some of the code walls and set his phone on speaker before setting it down, "It doesn't matter. Fire the team that protects the first wall and demote everyone else. Those who are staying will go without pay for a month. This kind of blunder can cause our company's downfall. If they aren't capable of stopping it, they aren't needed."

"I understand I'll do that right away. By the way... the treatment... How is it going?"

The calm conversation suddenly became extremely cold at the mention of the treatment. Andrew was one of the only people who knew how Knox was poisoned, therefore even he felt hesitant about asking about it.

The memory itself even caused Andrew to feel a fresh wound in his heart.

When a minute passed without Knox responding, he quickly tried to retract his statement, "ignore that I'm just glad you are ok. Trust me, I can definitely take care of the company until you are better."

Knox sighed at his friends obvious dejection. "Don't worry Ivanov said I would be fine after a few months."

"That's good! That old man has never been wrong when it comes to medicine; you will definitely get better. If you need anything just give me a call."

"Mmm I'll call you after dealing with this issue. Tell the security team to focus on tracking the person's signal."

"Understood!"

The phone call ended.

Knox reached over to the night stand to click off the phone before focusing back on his ŀȧptop screen.

So far it seemed like the hacker was only poking at the code of the fourth wall without going through them.

Knox's abnormally icy eyes gleamed with excitement.

Whoever this person was, they were a monster when it came to technology. In all of his years of life he has never seen someone who could break past his codes with such simplicity.

It was to the point that they weren't even taking it seriously at all anymore.

His pale pink lips tipped up into a cold smile, 'This should be entertaining.'

With extreme precision he proceeded to start fixing every wall that the hacker broke down. As it was his own system within milliseconds of a wall being broken down it was placed back up better than new.

This dance of cat and mouse went on for a while without either party getting any advantage. However, as time went on Knox started to develop a strange feeling of stress that he hadn't experienced in years.

Why did it seem like this person was still not being serious? As soon as this thought appeared in his head a coded message appeared on his screen.

[Oh my... your skills are rather good... how cute. Tell me how much does Cloud pay you? In a few years I'll pay double, no triple.]

Knox felt like throwing up blood. How cute! No matter how far he searched back in his memories he never had someone address him like that.

Normally, he wouldn't waste time to respond to such an insult. However, he felt compelled to for some reason.

[Cloud doesn't pay me at all, in fact, I pay it.]

The person took a moment to text back after he dropped that bomb.

[From that statement I can ȧssume I'm in the presence of Knox Mikhalson? It's an honor... However, in a few years I still promise to pay more ;)]

A familiar annoyance grew in his heart. Why did it feel like he had been aggravated by this person before?

[I'm not interested in working for someone who will be as good as dead soon.]

[After your security team finally succeeds in tracking me? Therefore, what if I'm not dead soon?]

Knox didn't bother to feed into this person's clear attempt to aggravate him.

[You will be.]

Another message came in, however he didn't bother to decode it and started to fix the walls quicker. He was sure whatever the message was it would be some kind of smart ȧss reply.

As long as he could find the time to fix the third wall he was rather sure this person wouldn't be able to break into it again.

After all, they had already exposed all of its weaknesses.

The codes being fixed and broken started to go at record speeds. However, no matter how fast Knox was he found himself coming short to the other person.

Being focused for so long while already being extremely sick caused Knox an extreme headache.

Cloud's security team still didn't find out where this person was located? While the person was very good they should be fully distracted at the moment. It looked like he need to reevaluate the skills required on their resumes.

The best thing to do at this point was a system lock down. Knox was still deciding to make the call when something he never expected happened.

The person completely stopped fighting against him.

What were they trying pull? Knox didn't pause from fixing the wall. It might be his only chance to push the person out of their system.

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On the other side of the wall Rory stared at her screen in utter horror. It was fuċkɨnġ lagging?!