"I have to retreat for now!"
Lynn leaped up, transformed into a stream of information, and crossed the border a moment before the Aetheric Surge engulfed the entire Virtual Nest City.
In the dark data void.
He watched the destruction of Hive City with his own eyes. The immense Aetheric Surge was like a gaping maw, devouring it bit by bit from the sky. The towering steel jungle dissolved amid flickering numbers, disappearing in great swaths as though someone had pressed the delete key.
Although it was virtual, watching such an enormous city being rapidly dismantled before his eyes still left him feeling a little melancholy.
"Are you there?"
Lynn's eyes flickered as he stared fixedly at Hive City, on the verge of dissolving.
He watched for the slightest movement or escape of data streams. If Miss Machine Intelligence really was in Hive City, she should be escaping right now too. Otherwise, this Machine God would certainly discover her in the end.
Time continued to pass.
Only the final third of the vast Hive City World remained.
But there was nothing.
It was like a dead city. Not even the slightest movement of data appeared again.
And Lynn could clearly see that as the blood-red Aetheric Surge devoured Hive City, its size and volume of data continued to swell. It seemed to be converting that data into its own mass with extreme efficiency.
A hint of disappointment slowly appeared in Lynn's eyes.
Only the final tenth of the entire Hive City World remained, and he still hadn't noticed any movement of data streams.
That meant...
Miss Machine Intelligence wasn't here.
Still, even if she were here, she would surely slip away in a way ordinary people couldn't detect. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
But it also meant that unless