While the American government desperately tried to pinpoint a looming volcanic threat, Within the Zhongnanhai – Beijing: The meetings in Beijing were a stark contrast to the West's open, if chaotic, debates. Here, in the inner sanctum of the government, the tension was a taut wire, thrumming with contained fury and strategic desperation. President Li Wei, a man known for his iron will and unwavering control, sat at the head of the Politburo meeting, his expression grim, his eyes narrowed with a frustration that bordered on rage.in President Li and his senior strategists grappled with a more infuriating, intangible challenge: the complete incapacitation of their most advanced destroyer, the Silent Hunter, and the chilling vagueness of the Seer's earthquake prophecy.
Immediately after the Seer's initial broadcast, when the image of their sleek, cutting-edge warship appeared under his control, the Central Military Commission had erupted. General Li, Chief of the Joint Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army, had personally overseen the frantic attempts to regain control.
"Report!" General Li barked into a secure comms line, his face a mask of furious disbelief as he stood before a bank of screens displaying the Silent Hunter's last known telemetry.
"General, all attempts to re-establish contact have failed," a young, harried cyber-specialist reported, his fingers flying across a keyboard. "No signal, no power, no data. It's as if the ship has... simply ceased to exist, digitally. Physically, our satellite imagery confirms it remains at its last reported coordinates, fully intact, but inert. A ghost ship."
Submarine tenders, tasked with close-range visual inspections, reported back with unnerving consistency: the Silent Hunter floated silently, its lights out, its radar dishes still, its decks seemingly empty. There was no visible damage, no sign of a struggle, just a profound, unsettling stillness. It was as if the vessel had simply been switched off, its complex systems rendered utterly, perfectly dead.
Now, days later, in the austere, high-ceilinged meeting room in Zhongnanhai, the Silent Hunter's fate dominated the early minutes of President Li Wei's daily emergency briefing.
"General Li, any progress on the Silent Hunter?" President Li Wei asked, his voice betraying a hint of the frustration he felt. The public humiliation of their flagship being taken by an unseen entity was a bitter pill.
General Li rose, his shoulders stiff. "Mr. President, despite every available resource – our top cybersecurity experts, naval engineers, intelligence analysts – we have made zero progress. The Seer didn't just hack the ship; he severed its connection to our entire network, then seemingly neutralized every onboard system. There is no power signature, no internal communication. It is a lifeless hulk, yet fully capable of floating." He paused, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "It is a deliberate, calculated insult, Mr. President. A demonstration that he can reach into the very heart of our defense systems and render them impotent."
The Director of National Security added, "It also proves his mastery over our most secure networks. If he can do that to the Silent Hunter, what stops him from doing it to our national power grid, our communication infrastructure? He holds our digital sovereignty hostage."
"The Seer's intent is clear," Premier Zhang stated, his voice tight. "He seeks to destabilize us, to force our hand. To accept his... 'benevolence.'" The word was spat with disdain. "He has offered no specific coordinates for this 'earthquake.' It is a weaponized ambiguity."
General Wu, head of the People's Liberation Army, slammed a fist on the table. "Our geological surveys show no anomalous activity. Our seismologists, the best in the world, confirm this. It is a bluff! A digital trick!" Yet, the image of the Silent Hunter, a jewel of their navy, rendered useless, and the reports of the nuclear strike on a distant land, haunted their collective memory. The Seer was no mere trickster.
"A bluff that carries the weight of millions of lives," President Li Wei interjected, his voice cutting through the rising anger. "The cost of dismissing his threat could be catastrophic. But the cost of a nationwide, unplanned evacuation... that too is catastrophic. Billions in economic losses, unimaginable logistical nightmare, social unrest. We cannot empty our entire country."
The debate raged. Some argued for a massive, targeted internal migration, even without precise location data, focusing on vulnerable coastal and densely populated inland areas. Others argued for a strong, unified front of defiance, attempting to rally the populace against the Seer's psychological warfare. The idea of accepting his tools, the Babel Protocol or the "HOPE" AI, was met with deep suspicion, seen as a direct threat to national sovereignty and the Party's control.
"We must maintain order," a senior Party official insisted. "Panic is his goal. We must counter it with discipline and organization. But how do we organize against an invisible enemy who predicts an unknown location?"
The irony was not lost on President Li Wei. Their nation, built on order and centralized control, was utterly paralyzed by a threat that refused to conform to their structures. They were masters of moving mountains, but how do you move an entire populace when you don't know which mountain will fall? Their scientists worked day and night, scouring every inch of the country for any seismic anomaly, any faint tremor that could give them a clue. But the earth remained stubbornly silent, awaiting the Seer's terrifying cue.
The pressure mounted with each passing day. The American volcano's countdown was a public spectacle, a grim demonstration. But in China, the silent, unknown location of their predicted earthquake was a far more pervasive, suffocating terror, slowly strangling the breath out of the nation. The government knew they were racing against an unseen clock, with no precise coordinates, against an adversary who had just demonstrated the ultimate power to enforce his terrifying will.