When the Association recovered the wormhole device, they certainly didn’t expect that the enemy would use it to breach the defenses from the inside, even managing to invade the secret underground computer room.
In other words, it’s highly likely that the thief is the creator of this device…
“Go up and retrieve the relic first!”
Kamui shouted this at Clara, but she herself was entangled by shadow soldiers and even attacked from front and back.
She pushed aside the one on her left, then grabbed a shadow soldier with her right hand and leaped into the air, then thrust her left hand into its body and fumbled around…
“Got it!”
She forcibly yanked out the core body of the shadow soldier.
Crushed it.
The shadow soldier, its form collapsing, turned into black sludge and spilled from Kamui’s hand.
During this, it only managed to leave some scratches on Kamui’s western-style dress battle suit—marks that could barely be called battle damage.
As both of them took to the air, the shadow soldiers began climbing atop the server racks and fired pitch-black energy bullets from their blade-like arms at the two in the sky.
The spider-shaped sub-units crawled around everywhere, but they and the shadow soldiers didn’t interfere with each other at all, as if the other party didn’t exist.
At the same time, the shadow soldiers attacking Clara and Kamui also avoided touching these sub-units and the hero network’s mainframe, as if following some agreement.
It was as if neither side had reported the opening of the wormhole to the control center, or even the event itself.
As expected, the culprit behind all this is…
Clara sat astride the squid broom and circled the blue giant iron sphere, but she could find no entrance on its surface at all.
“Quick! Have Miss Alice open the shell!”
If we don’t get in soon, we won’t be in time to retrieve the stolen relic.
“And tell the hero closing the wormhole device to hurry up!”
If the wormhole isn’t closed, shadow soldiers will keep pouring in endlessly.
These negative energy aggregates from the Dark Domain were sticking to the sphere’s surface in half-body forms, firing black energy bullets at Clara like so many anti-aircraft turrets. As their numbers increased, the barrage they formed grew denser.
But Clara dared not rashly return fire—she had promised Alice to avoid directly attacking the hero network’s mainframe…
In contrast, Kamui’s idea was simpler and more brutal.
“If all else fails, just shut down the system and power supply! Let’s break in!”
“No, you absolutely must not do that!”
Alice directly objected and explained.
“The hero network can’t be shut down so roughly. Even a normal terminal forced to unplug can cause problems, let alone such a massive system… It takes time.”
“But the relic is about to be stolen!” Kamui shouted.
“Right away, I’m dealing with it…”
Alice was busy, but Clara was quite idle.
Flight had always been autopiloted by Nyx, and evasive maneuvers were the same now. Although the anti-air barrage was getting denser, flight was always autopiloted by Nyx, and evasive maneuvers were the same now.
Whether they got hit or not depended entirely on Nyx’s performance.
Incidentally, Miss Kamui, annoyed by the shadow soldiers and itching for a fight, dove down to beat up the shadow soldiers out of frustration.
Speaking of which, what exactly did the inside of this iron ball look like?
Clara thought silently.
‘With such a massive volume, is it crammed full of various components? Or is it a hollow iron shell?’
[I don’t know. Nyx’s scan can’t penetrate this shell.]
Nyx, while dodging the shadow soldiers’ concentrated fire and using its touch tentacles to counterattack appropriately, answered Clara’s question.
[But since a wormhole can be opened inside it, there must be some space.]
“And the locations of the two relics?” Clara asked again.
[Can’t scan, so not specific. One of them is at the edge of the iron ball.]
[The other relic is at the center of the giant iron ball.]
[In other words, it’s not that the “hero network” used technology excavated from “God’s relic”; it itself is a supercomputer driven by “God’s relic”.]
This was in line with previous conjectures, and Clara wasn’t too surprised.
However, Nyx had no reaction to other relics, but it had a special craving for the hero network and the stolen relic. Could they be of the same series?
Alice’s voice interrupted Clara’s thoughts.
“It’s open.”
On the shell of the iron ball, which appeared to have no gaps, a low door suddenly opened—about the size that would require Clara to crawl on her hands and knees to go through.
It was the size of a dog door.
“Couldn’t you make it bigger?!” Clara complained.
“That was designed according to the size of the sub-units; it wasn’t meant for people,” Alice replied.
“That excuse again?!” Clara twitched the corner of her mouth.
However, Kamui had already flown to the opening and was ready to go in first.
Whoever goes in first gets the big credit!
It’s hard to say Kamui didn’t have such utilitarian ulterior motives; Clara guessed somewhat maliciously.
When Clara also crawled into the doorway following Kamui, the entrance behind them closed again.
“Huh?!”
“This is to prevent Dark Domain individuals from following you in,” Alice explained, and also cautioned, “From now on, everything you see will be top secret, and you must keep this secret afterward… If necessary, the Association will forcibly carry out memory clearance, so please be aware.”
Clara didn’t want her memory cleared.
But that was a matter for later.
Although the doorway behind them had closed, the tunnel itself still had a faint blue light, like the flowing light strips wrapped around the giant iron ball, illuminating Kamui’s… behind.
Her western-style dress battle suit had been cut into a short skirt while she was beating the shadow soldiers, and now with her crawling posture, naturally…
It was white.
“Hey, don’t look!!” Girls can always sense others’ gazes; Kamui immediately turned her head.
“But where else can I look?” Clara asked back pitifully.
“Crawl with your head down!!”
If the real culprit behind all this was indeed the hero network itself, then Clara had no mind to appreciate Kamui’s panties. They had essentially entered the domain of the final boss.
If this damn system wanted to kill them, now would be about the time to strike.
Fortunately, they encountered no shadow soldiers or classic cutting lasers in the tunnel, and the tunnel itself was only about two or three meters long.
Clara and Kamui entered the small room inside.
The core of the hero network was here.
A blue crystal cube embedded in the wall, with circuit etching marks radiating outward, was emitting flowing blue light that spread throughout the entire room.
The wormhole was here, but no more shadow soldiers were coming out of it.
Finally…
There was one more person: Xiaohongmao.
That petite hooded loli was kneeling on the ground in a doggy crawl position, stretching out an arm, trying to pull something out from another tunnel.
Hmm, a bit cute.
When she turned her head, it revealed a pair of cold, faintly glowing cyan vertical pupils.
“Huh? I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere?” Kamui, whose memory was unreliable, said so.