Herta Went Completely Mad-What Was This Little Girl Made Of?!

Herta's puppet charged forward.

The hem of her purple-and-white dress tore as she ran, catching on the sharp corner of a metal console and leaving a large scrap behind.

The delicate hat on her head had long since flown off.

Her mechanical joints were running beyond capacity, grinding with a shrill screech.

Tap, tap, tap!

Her little leather shoes struck the alloy floor at an astonishing pace.

She ignored the smoking instruments around her and the sharp smell of ozone in the air.

Her slender arms, made of synthetic silicone, stretched straight ahead.

All ten fingers spread wide. Like a drowning person grasping for one last piece of driftwood, she clawed desperately at Su Chen's shoulders.

Only a tenth of a millimeter remained.

Thud.

A dull impact rang out.

Herta's hands struck an invisible wall.

The tremendous momentum had nowhere to go and rebounded straight into the puppet.

Crack.

The mechanical joint in Herta's left elbow snapped on the spot.

An oil-stained golden gear popped out of the seam and rolled far across the floor.

Blue sparks poured from the severed wiring in her joint.

Herta did not even glance at her ruined left hand.

She threw her whole body forward.

Like a sticker slapped against a windshield, she pressed herself against the spatial barrier called Limitless.

Her delicate synthetic-silicone face squashed against it.

Her nose flattened.

Her lips twisted sideways.

Her mechanical eyes were so close that their focusing system began to beep in alarm.

"It's not quantum!"

Herta shouted.

The speaker module in her neck overloaded, filling her voice with harsh electrical static.

The sound scraped through the silent corridor and made everyone's eardrums ache.

With her one intact hand, she clawed frantically at the empty air.

Her nails scraped across the Limitless barrier with a teeth-grating squeal, but could not raise even the slightest ripple.

"I can't detect a single energy particle! It's not imaginary!"

The red light in Herta's eyes flashed wildly, a sign that her core processing power had been pushed to its limit.

She slid a little way down the barrier and dropped to her knees.

Then, like a gecko, she desperately pressed her face against it again.

"No physical laws... Is its mass zero? No, its mass is infinite!"

She clutched her head with both hands, raking her once-smooth brown hair into a bird's nest.

"The logic doesn't work! This violates every known law!"

Su Chen stood where he was, his head tilted slightly back.

Cold air blew down from the corridor ceiling, tousling his white hair.

He frowned in irritation.

This little runt of a puppet was far too noisy.

He had only just cleared out the warships outside. He had not even had two seconds of peace and quiet.

"What kind of energy system is this?!"

Herta jerked her head up, her remaining hand clinging tightly to the air.

She stared at the azure eyes behind Su Chen's sunglasses as though she were looking at the most precious specimen in the universe.

"Let me study you!"

Herta's voice was nearly a scream.

"Name your price!"

She panted, her mechanical chest heaving violently.

"You want money? I'll transfer half the space station's shares to you!"

"You want Curios? I'll open my private collection of eight hundred Curios to you right now!"

"You want planets? I'll have the Interastral Peace Corporation buy you ten Star Systems at once!"

Welt stood a few steps away.

His Adam's apple shifted with difficulty.

He swallowed, his mouth dry.

This was Genius Society Herta.

An Emanator of Erudition, one of the most arrogant and rational scholars in the universe.

Yet now she was kneeling on the floor like a madwoman throwing a tantrum in the street, offering enough to buy half a galaxy without a shred of dignity.

All to study a little girl's "energy system."

Su Chen curled his lip.

He slipped a hand into the roomy pocket of his uniform and felt around.

He had finished his lollipops. Only a few mints remained.

Annoyed, he unwrapped one and tossed it into his mouth.

"You're too loud."

Su Chen spat out the words.

His voice was thick with impatience.

He extended one slender, fair-skinned finger and, through the Limitless barrier, lightly flicked Herta's squashed face.

Thunk.

A faint spatial repulsion burst outward.

Herta's puppet body toppled backward.

It rolled twice across the alloy floor before striking an abandoned hibernation pod and coming to a stop.

The corridor fell silent again.

Only the pod creaked as it rocked from the impact.

Welt raised a hand and took off his black-framed glasses.

A white film of mist coated the lenses, all from the cold sweat evaporating off his forehead.

He wiped them hard with the sleeve of his suit.

His fingers shook badly.

The edge of a lens tapped against his cuff link with a series of tiny, crisp clicks.

Fear.

A deeper, more absolute fear than he had felt facing the Doomsday Beast flooded Welt's lungs like ice water.

He put his glasses back on. His vision was still a little blurry.

To that white-haired little girl, a member of the Genius Society was no different from an annoying fly.

She brushed Herta aside without even bothering to look at her again.

Welt took a deep breath.

His chest ached with tightness.

So this was the Imaginary Divine Court.

A little girl had appeared out of nowhere, calling herself the Seventh Seat.

She had erased an Antimatter Legion fleet with one finger.

One passive ability had shattered an Emanator of Erudition's logic.

Then what about the six ranked above her?

That Female Lord who had sat in the VIP Lounge earlier, carrying the oppressive presence of an ancient god in her every gesture...

She ranked fourth.

What kind of monsters were the top three?

If this organization wanted to destroy the Astral Express, it might take only a word. Perhaps not even that—just a glance.

Before these monsters, they did not even qualify as cannon fodder.

The Mechanical Saw in Himeko's hands sputtered out completely.

The white smoke from its exhaust vent gradually dispersed.

She rested the heavy saw on the floor, her palm slick with cold sweat.

She looked at the white-haired girl sucking on a mint. Her red lips parted, but no sound came out.

The usually elegant, composed navigator of the Astral Express felt a chill run down her spine.

March 7th was still slumped on the floor.

She clutched the camera at her waist with both hands, her nails leaving deep crescent marks in its leather case.

There was not a trace of maternal affection left in her now.

That little girl, as cute as a doll, was ten thousand times more frightening to her than the worst monster in the Fragmentum.

She hunched her shoulders and tried to hide behind Welt.

Arlan scrambled into a corner.

His communicator lay nearby with its screen shattered, but he did not even dare pick it up.

All he could think about was the purple light that had pierced Outer Space.

Su Chen crunched his mint between his teeth.

The blue system screen before his eyes was nearly frozen.

Golden numbers burst across it like a blizzard.

This haul of emotions was even greater than the one from his earlier shot of Purple.

Herta's frenzy. The Astral Express Crew's despair.

These high-quality Shock Points sent the system's progress bar climbing visibly.

He gave a bored yawn.

He rubbed his eyes with a small hand and pushed his sunglasses higher.

His gaze swept over the locals, who stood frozen in place, hardly daring to breathe.

"The space station is so boring."

Su Chen complained in a clear, childish voice.

He turned and kicked a shard of glass with his little leather shoe.

It struck the wall with a sharp clink.

At the sound, the hearts of the Astral Express Crew leaped into their throats.

None of them knew what this unpredictable little monster would do next.

Su Chen looked past Welt to Xingbao behind him.

Xingbao was crouching on the floor with her hands over her head, still posed as though she were taking cover in an air-raid drill.

"Hey, gray hair."

Su Chen raised a hand and pointed at Xingbao.

His finger bobbed in the air.

"I hear you've got a toy called a Stellaron stuffed in your belly?"

Xingbao went rigid.

She slowly raised her head, all color drained from her face.

Even her lips trembled.

A Stellaron was the Cancer of All Worlds, the source of calamity.

Yet this white-haired little girl called it a "toy"?

Su Chen tilted his head.

A mischievous glint crossed his azure eyes.

He grinned, revealing two rows of small white teeth.

"Since there's nothing left to play with in this dump..."

He took one unhurried step forward.

"I'm going to dig that Stellaron out."

Welt abruptly stepped in front of Xingbao, shielding her with his body.

He planted his cane heavily on the floor.

He did not know whether he could stop Su Chen, but he had to try.

Su Chen ignored Welt's movement.

He held out two fingers and mimed kicking a ball.

"Dig it out and kick it around."

He said it so lightly.

But to everyone else, it sounded like a death sentence.

Xingbao's stomach churned. Fear crawled up her spine and onto the back of her head like the scales of some cold-blooded creature.

Just then.

From deep in the corridor behind them came a heavy, muffled thud.

Thud.

It sounded like a heavy, blunt metal object slamming into the alloy floor.

A faint crack followed as the floor tiles split.

It was as though the butt of a spear had smashed through the hard floor.

The impact shuddered beneath their feet.

A woman's voice, cool and commanding, carrying the unmistakable authority of someone accustomed to being obeyed, spread slowly through the empty corridor.

"Gojo, enough of this insolence."