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

Herta's puppet charged over.

The hem of her purple-and-white dress tore as she sprinted. It caught on the sharp corner of a metal console, ripping away a large piece of fabric.

The delicate hat on her head had vanished long ago.

Her mechanical joints whined with the harsh grind of gears pushed past their limits.

Tap-tap-tap!

Her little leather shoes struck the alloy floor at a startling pace.

She ignored the instruments still smoking around her and the acrid 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 reaching for the last piece of driftwood, she clawed desperately at Su Chen's shoulders.

Only 0.1 millimeters remained.

Thud.

A dull impact rang out.

Herta's hands struck an invisible wall.

The force of her charge had nowhere to go. It rebounded straight into the puppet.

Crack.

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

An oil-stained golden gear sprang from the seam and rolled far across the floor.

Blue sparks poured from the severed wiring in the joint.

Herta did not even glance at her ruined left hand.

She threw her entire body forward.

Like a sticker slapped onto 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 warning.

"It's not quantum!"

Herta shouted.

The voice module in her neck crackled with severe static from the overload.

Her voice scraped through the dead-silent corridor, making everyone's eardrums ache.

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

Her nails scraped against the Limitless barrier with a teeth-grating screech, but she could not raise even a ripple.

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

The red light in Herta's eyes flashed frantically—a sign that her core processing power had been driven 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 in both hands, tangling her once-smooth brown hair into a bird's nest.

"It makes no logical sense! This violates every known law!"

Su Chen stood where he was, his chin tilted up slightly.

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

He frowned in distaste.

This little puppet was far too noisy.

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

"What kind of energy system is this?!"

Herta jerked her head up, her remaining hand gripping desperately at 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 was almost screaming now.

"Name your price!"

She panted rapidly, her mechanical chest heaving.

"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 immediately!"

Welt stood a few steps away.

His Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.

He swallowed, his throat dry.

That was Herta of the Genius Society.

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

Yet she was kneeling on the floor like a madwoman causing a scene 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 pursed his lips.

He reached 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 so loud."

Su Chen spat out the words.

His voice dripped with impatience.

He extended one slender, fair-skinned finger and gave Herta's squashed face a light flick through the Limitless barrier.

Thump.

A faint repulsive spatial force burst out.

Herta's puppet toppled backward.

It rolled twice across the alloy floor and stopped only when it struck an abandoned hibernation pod.

The corridor fell silent again.

Only the hibernation pod creaked as it rocked from the impact.

Welt raised a hand and removed the black-framed glasses from his nose.

A white haze coated the lenses, all from the cold sweat evaporating off his forehead.

He rubbed the lenses hard with his suit sleeve.

His fingers shook badly.

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

Fear.

A fear deeper and more complete than what he had felt facing the Doomsday Beast poured into Welt's lungs like ice water.

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

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

She brushed Herta aside without even caring to look twice.

Welt drew a deep breath.

A dull ache filled his chest.

So this was the Imaginary Divine Court.

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

One finger had erased an Antimatter Legion fleet.

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

What about the six above her?

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

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—or even a glance.

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

The Mechanical Saw in Himeko's hands finally fell silent.

The white smoke from its exhaust vent gradually dispersed.

She planted the heavy saw on the floor, her palms slick with cold sweat.

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

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

March 7th was still slumped on the floor.

She clutched the camera at her waist, her nails digging deep crescent-shaped marks into its leather case.

She could not muster an ounce of motherly affection now.

That adorable little girl who looked like a doll was, in her eyes, ten thousand times more terrifying 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 beside him with its screen shattered. He did not even dare pick it up.

His mind was filled with the purple light that had pierced Outer Space moments ago.

Su Chen crunched his mint between his teeth.

The blue system screen before his eyes was nearly frozen.

Golden numbers poured across it like a blizzard.

This harvest of emotions was even greater than that earlier blast 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 up.

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

"This space station is so boring."

Su Chen complained in his clear child's voice.

He turned and kicked a shard of glass across the metal floor with his little leather shoe.

The glass struck the wall with a sharp crack.

At that 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's gaze passed over Welt and settled on Xingbao behind him.

Xingbao crouched on the floor with both hands over her head, still huddled as if she were in an air-raid drill.

"Hey, gray hair."

Su Chen raised a hand and pointed at Xingbao.

His finger tapped the air.

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

Xingbao went rigid.

She slowly lifted her head, every trace of color draining 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 strode forward and put himself between Su Chen and Xingbao.

He drove his cane hard into the floor.

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

Su Chen ignored Welt.

He held up two fingers and mimed kicking a ball.

"Dig it out and kick it around."

The words came lightly.

But to everyone who heard them, they sounded like a death sentence.

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

Just then.

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

Thud.

It sounded like a heavy metal weapon slamming into the alloy floor.

A faint crack followed as the floor tiles fractured.

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

The impact shuddered beneath their feet.

Then a cool, commanding woman's voice, laden with the unquestionable authority of someone in power, spread through the empty corridor.

"Gojo, that's enough."