Leo received Evelyn's message at his desk. He read the stark, efficient words and felt a flicker of something that resembled professional respect. She had seen the board, understood his move, and correctly calculated that a direct confrontation was a suboptimal path for both of them.
He replied with a single line: 8 a.m. tomorrow. The coffee shop in the lobby of the Argent Tower. It was neutral territory, a sterile glass-and-steel cafe frequented by financiers and lawyers, a place where conversations were private even in public.
The next morning, she was already there when he arrived, sitting at a small, isolated table with a black coffee. She wore a simple, impeccably tailored grey business dress, her posture radiating a coiled, efficient energy. She looked less like an auditor and more like a scalpel given human form.
"Mr. Zhang," she said as he sat, her voice as crisp as her attire. She did not offer to shake hands.
"Ms. Reed," Leo replied, his gaze calm and analytical. His System was already running a deep scan.
[Subject: Evelyn Reed] [Alignment: Lawful Neutral (Absolute)] [Primary Motivation: Ideological Purity (Efficiency, Truth)] [Secondary Motivation: Ruthless Ambition] [Threat Analysis: Will not bend rules, but will weaponize them without mercy. Cannot be manipulated, only aligned with.]
"Let's dispense with the formalities," Evelyn began, getting straight to the point. "Your PMO project is a high-concept fabrication designed to game a poorly conceived metric. It's statistically beautiful, but hollow. Am I correct?"
Leo didn't flinch. He neither confirmed nor denied it. "The results it has produced are a matter of public record."
"The narrative it has produced," she corrected him instantly. "Which brings me to my point. Your rivals are incompetent. Eleanor Vance is a bureaucrat who mistakes volume for value. Mark Jennings is a parasite who mistakes connections for competence. This KPI Death Match is a fundamentally flawed system designed to reward the most ruthless survivor, not the most effective leader."
She took a slow sip of her coffee, her eyes never leaving his. "You are currently the most ruthless survivor. However, your foundation is a lie. A brilliant one, but a lie nonetheless. It is a vulnerability. And I exist to exploit vulnerabilities."
This was the core of it. She was laying her cards on the table.
"And yet, you requested this meeting," Leo stated, prompting her to reveal her gambit.
"Because the inefficiency of our respective companies forcing us into this conflict is a greater strategic failure than your narrative-driven analytics," she said. "My purpose here is to identify the optimal leadership candidate for TitanCorp. Wasting my time exposing your clever lie while two incompetents continue to burn company resources is, in itself, inefficient. We have a shared interest in removing them from the board."
Leo's Business Instinct skill flared. He saw the path she was laying out. It was a temporary alliance, a truce of monsters for mutual gain.
"What do you propose?" he asked.
"A joint venture," Evelyn replied. "You have the institutional knowledge and the strategic ruthlessness. I have the unimpeachable credibility and the external authority. Together, we stop auditing each other and start auditing the system itself. We expose the fundamental flaws of this Death Match in a way the board cannot ignore. We make it clear that the only two people who truly understand efficiency are sitting at this table."
It was an audacious, incredibly risky plan. It was a direct challenge to Arthur Harrison's authority. But it was also perfect.
Leo's phone vibrated silently in his pocket.
[New Quest Triggered: The Unholy Alliance] [Description: A rival of equal or greater strategic acumen has proposed a temporary truce for mutual benefit. Navigating this alliance will be as dangerous as fighting the war alone.] [Objective: Utilize Evelyn Reed's credibility to dismantle your rivals and reshape the parameters of the competition.] [Warning: This ally's ideological purity makes her predictably dangerous. Betrayal is a statistical certainty if objectives diverge.]
Another notification immediately followed, linked to a deeper, more fundamental objective.
[System-Level Quest Updated: Earn Loyalty, Not Fear] [Description: High-level alliances are temporary. True power requires a foundation of absolute loyalty. Your current team operates on fear and respect; this is insufficient for the wars to come.] [Objective: Identify and recruit a core group of loyal, high-potential subordinates who will follow your vision, not just your orders. This will be your informal elite team.]
Leo looked at Evelyn. She was a powerful piece to have on his side of the board, but the System was right. She was a temporary ally of convenience. He needed soldiers who belonged to him.
First, however, he had to win this battle.
"I agree," Leo said. "The game is inefficient. Let's design a better one."
Evelyn gave a curt, satisfied nod. "Our first move, then. We co-author a new report. Not an audit of a department, but an audit of the competition itself. We calculate the man-hours wasted, the resources duplicated, the drop in collaborative projects since this Death Match began. We calculate the exact, multi-million dollar cost of Harrison's little experiment."
A slow, cold smile touched Leo's lips. It was a declaration of war against the game master himself. "And we send it directly to him, and to the board."
"Precisely," Evelyn confirmed.
The alliance was forged. Two of the sharpest minds in the corporate world had just joined forces. Their target was no longer each other, but the very system that had pitted them against one another.