"Ah… be gentle with me!"
In a deserted corner, Levi stood inside it with a twisted expression.
What invincible body? He was just pretending. It was all to keep Qingque from using that against him.
He absolutely could not let his weaknesses be exposed.
But Qingque really was a pretty good friend.
All along the way, she never asked out of curiosity what exactly had happened back then, or what exactly had happened to him.
Standing there waving his hands around to ease things for a moment, Levi suddenly felt something.
His brows instantly knit together. He stretched out a hand, and flames ignited out of thin air at his fingertips.
"Strange…"
Looking at the flames in front of him, Levi frowned deeply, a strong sense of confusion rising in his heart.
He flipped his free palm, and the greatsword appeared in his hand.
He glanced at the greatsword, then at the flames burning on his fingertips.
Levi swung his arm, and both vanished at the same time. Feeling the strange sensation inside his body slowly fade, he muttered to himself, "Probably some residual Honkai energy left behind from using the greatsword."
After all, he wasn't a Herrscher and didn't have the ability to connect to the Imaginary Space.
He couldn't obtain Honkai energy in this world that had no Honkai.
The wisps of Honkai energy inside his body most likely came from the Greatsword invading his body.
But Levi wasn't worried it would cause too much harm to him.
After all, he was now a high-quality human with "Honkai resistance."
This tiny bit of Honkai energy couldn't do anything to him.
He left the corner, went to a roadside shop to buy some food, and prepared to head home.
When passing the place where he and Qingque had separated, Levi sharply sensed something and turned to look in one direction.
What met his eyes was a flowing crowd and the Cloud Knights on patrol.
There was nothing suspicious.
"It feels like someone was peeking at me." Looking at the lively street, Levi scratched his head and left.
———
[The Herta Space Station]
Its owner, Herta, stared at the text displayed on the communicator, her face black as a black hole.
'Reverse Butterfly my ass!'
Looking at Herta standing there trembling all over, Screwllum and Ruan Mei didn't make a sound.
For the usually composed Herta to show this kind of anger was really rare.
But it was no wonder she was this angry.
She had wanted to contact the other party to probe whether they were related to Asta's disappearance, but before she could even ask anything, she was met with this kind of insult.
Anyone faced with a conversation like that wouldn't be able to stay calm.
"Lady Herta."
Screwllum, who was operating his equipment to investigate Levi, spoke again.
"I discovered something. The other party has extremely strong hacking abilities. There are traces of him in the company's systems."
And the method was very familiar, very much like what that Stellaron Hunter named Silver Wolf would do.
But it was only very similar. In some fine details, the two were still different.
Even so, this was enough to confirm that the other party was one hundred percent connected to that Stellaron Hunter.
Or he was her disciple.
Just as Screwllum was about to go further, it was as if he had touched some kind of trigger.
A strange piece of music sounded all around.
Immediately after came the station's system broadcast.
[Ding! Firewall breached! Initiating emergency defense measures!]
[Ding! Defense failed! System starting emergency reboot!]
[Ding! Reboot failed! Reboot failed! Emergency self-destruct program activated!]
[Countdown… ten, nine, eight…]
[Ding! Self-destruct program terminated!]
The station staff, who had already been frantically searching everywhere for Asta, heard the system broadcast and instantly fell into even greater panic.
Luckily, Herta reacted quickly and personally spoke up to calm everyone down, preventing unrest among the station's personnel.
Most of the people on the station had joined because they could work with Herta. You could say they were all die-hard fans of hers.
In a situation like this, Herta speaking was like giving them a reassurance pill.
After all, in their hearts they trusted Herta one hundred percent, her abilities and everything else, all one hundred percent.
After calming the restless staff, Herta turned to Screwllum and asked, "What did you just do?"
'You directly made the station's systems lose control.'
'And also, what the hell is this music that's slowly starting to play?!'
Screwllum slapped the side of his own head, and the strange music started playing from his body.
"My apologies, Lady Herta. The other party tampered with their own account, and I didn't notice it right away."
"I am very sorry for causing this result."
"Now isn't the time to apologize!" Hearing the sound coming from behind Screwllum, Herta smacked her own forehead. "What you should do now is find a way to get rid of the sound on your body."
Of course Screwllum understood this and immediately began dealing with the problem in his body.
As a sapient machine, his physical structure was completely different from flesh and blood.
Put simply, he was a machine that had developed the ability to think.
A flesh-and-blood body can be invaded by bacteria and fungi, and a mechanical body can likewise be invaded by viruses.
That was exactly his current situation.
After some time, the music on Screwllum showed no sign of disappearing at all.
"I'm sorry, Lady Herta, Lady Ruan Mei. I'm afraid you will have to endure this noise for a while."
Through his examination, he discovered that the virus had created a level of authority inside him that was higher than his own.
Using that authority, it took control of the sound system and looped this audio clip.
"After doing all this, the virus made no further moves. Guess: this is probably just a small warning, plus a prank."
"Creating an authority level higher than your own?"
Ruan Mei repeated Screwllum's words, as if confirming whether he had really said that.
"Yes, Lady Ruan Mei. I was also very surprised by this."
This operation was equivalent to modifying a sapient machine's underlying code to create a level of authority higher than the machine itself.
If the virus couldn't be removed to destroy that authority, or if he himself couldn't be upgraded to that level, then this sapient machine would effectively become someone else's slave.
"Is there a way to solve it?"
"Answer: no method has been found at present."
A now-calm Herta's eyes were cold. "Looks like the other party is no small figure."
'To make members of the Genius Society helpless like this, with such ability, how could he possibly be some minor diviner from the Divination Commission?'
Looking at it this way, the other party's conversation with Asta was most likely deceiving her.
And Asta's disappearance was probably done by that person as well.
At that moment, a completely unfamiliar male voice sounded from the station's broadcasts in every corner.
The voice was deep and a little funny as it said, "Whether it's morning, noon, or night, good day to you!"
"..."
"It's soda-bean juice!"
"Alright, alright! Soda-bean juice! Soda-bean juice!"
———
Taking two cups of Immortal Happy Tea from the vendor, Levi started walking toward home.
But after only two steps, movement from his jade communicator made him stop.
Standing there, he took out the jade communicator and took a look, and immediately broke into a grin.
"Which unlucky bastard is it this time, trying to snoop on my privacy and getting caught?"
"Based on the signal source, it is determined to be the Herta Space Station, boss. At present the virus has breached all of the station's defenses, and your jade voice is also being broadcast."
"Nice work! You wage slave!"
"..."
"Wait! What place did you say?"
[T/N: There's a monthly discount ongoing on my P@treon page for the next three days. You can get 20% off on your membership. Enjoy~
p@treon. cum/AmbitiousTranslator ]