[SRO-7]
The flickering afterimages of collapsing code lingered like burn scars on my retinas, fleeting yet stubborn.
The self-destruction had left remnants. The vermin were still alive.
The muffled boom of the Omega-level protocol activating might only have blown apart the main nest. Scattered worker insects and surviving nodes were still clinging to life in the network's shadows, even... trying to reconnect.
Cold calculation swiftly smothered that moment of astonishment. Unexpected, but not unreasonable. A system this vast must have sunk its roots deep in every direction. It could never have been completely eradicated in a single strike.
But they had become active again too quickly. Abnormally quickly. Mentor had only just died, his body barely cold, and they already dared to extend their feelers? Was this a desperate, frenzied counterattack? Or... had they received some new, unified directive?
My fingers slid soundlessly across the touchpad, bringing up deeper monitoring scripts and traffic analysis tools. The screen's cold blue glow illuminated my expressionless face.
I needed to find them. These stragglers. These cells unwilling to rot away with the main nest. Before they became a new threat, I needed to precisely... eliminate them.
The targets needed to be redefined. No longer a "typical" symbol of evil like Liang Zhaohui, but the more deeply concealed "nodes" of SRO-7's surviving network, responsible for reconnecting its remnants or preserving the seeds of its revival.
My gaze pierced the surging torrent of data like an invisible probe. Anomalous encrypted signals, faint pulses on specific frequency bands, extremely brief access requests suddenly appearing on servers that had previously lain dormant...
Found them.
Several shifting IP addresses, trying to disguise themselves as ordinary network noise. Their access patterns, encryption fingerprints, and even the minute, almost erased signature codes in their routing paths all pointed to the same source-the internal network protocol of SRO-7, which should already have been annihilated.
Like startled cockroaches, they scurried through dark crevices, trying to reconnect, download instructions, or... upload data.
Upload what? Data about me? The last information Mentor might have captured before dying?
I had to cut them off. I had to silence them for good.
But how could I pass judgment? These weren't specific people, but virtual addresses, ghosts of code. The rules of the Death Note...
The pen tip hovered above the faintly yellowed page.
The rules... required a name and a face. But who was behind these IP addresses? Programmers lucky enough to have been off duty when headquarters self-destructed? Agents stationed elsewhere, newly awakened from "hibernation"? Or... the administrator of some deeper backup system I had never reached?
I couldn't be certain. Nor did I have time to verify them one by one.
But... were the Death Note's rules really that... rigid?
Gatekeeper's conceptual annihilation, Metis's information overload... those judgments had already gone beyond mere names and faces. They had acted upon a deeper level of "existence."
Then what about these "nodes," whose existence depended on specific network protocols and code?
A mad, almost blasphemous thought flashed through my mind.
I slowly drew a breath and lowered the pen. Instead of a specific person's name, I wrote a description that resembled a string of instructions-
[All active node operators currently conducting illegal data exchanges or receiving instructions through the surviving SRO-7 encryption protocol (signature code: Delta-7-Theta)]
Cause of death: data backlash. Time: immediate. Cause of death: an irremovable malicious logic bomb will be injected into the encrypted data streams they are receiving or transmitting. The instant the packets reach the terminal and are decrypted, the logic bomb will activate, burning out their physical hardware cores (CPU/hard drive) in reverse, causing severe short circuits and small fires. Before death, their operating screens will continuously flash a red warning: [Unauthorized access. Purge executing.] until the hardware is completely destroyed.
I hadn't specified who they were. I had locked onto a "behavior," an "identity," and a unique "protocol signature code."
Did this... comply with the rules?
The instant the pen left the page, an immense, unprecedented sensation of depletion struck me! It was as though some invisible force had been siphoned out of me in an instant, passing through the pen tip and pouring into that abstract description of judgment!
For a moment, I even felt dizzy.
Ryuk abruptly let out a short, sharp gasp from the corner! As though something had stabbed him viciously! His crimson eyes suddenly blazed, fixed on the notebook in my hand. For the first time, something almost like... terror appeared in them!
"You...!" he growled hoarsely, his voice filled with disbelief. "You actually dared... to use it... like this...!"
Before he could finish-
Bzzzz-!!!
On the computer's monitoring display, several points of light representing anomalous data streams erupted into glaring red alerts almost simultaneously! Then their signals cut off abruptly! They vanished completely from the network map!
Almost at the same instant!
In several concealed safe houses scattered across the globe.
The computer screen in front of a technician rapidly typing commands suddenly turned blood-red! The words [Unauthorized access. Purge executing.] flashed wildly! A second later, thick smoke billowed from the computer case, and flames shot up!
Elsewhere, a man wearing headphones to monitor an encrypted channel suddenly heard a piercing shriek and the same electronic warning through his headset! A burst of sparks exploded from the terminal screen in front of him! It set the documents on his desk alight!
A third, a fourth...
The scattered "nodes" trying to reconnect were like victims seized by the throat by the same pair of invisible hands. In the same instant, their hardware overloaded, burned out, and fell silent.
In my room, the red alert lights on the screen went out one after another, like candles being snuffed.
Across the network, those faint traces of noise trying to reconnect vanished completely.
Dead silence.
Only the hum of the computer fan and my slightly quickened breathing remained.
It worked.
The Death Note... had accepted this form of "writing."
The mental toll was immense, but... it worked.
I slowly leaned back in my chair, feeling a faint throbbing in my temples.
Ryuk remained silent in the corner for a very, very long time. He stopped eating his apple and simply watched me with complicated emotions in his crimson eyes. Shock and wariness churned within them, along with a trace of... exceedingly rare awe at the breaking of some taboo.
"...Madman..." he finally rasped, his voice dry. "You really are... a complete and utter... madman..."
He paused, then added something in an unusually low voice.
"You've disturbed... more than just those insects..."
"You've disturbed..."
"...deepest within the nest..."
"...the true master."
I said nothing. I merely watched quietly as the last ember-like signal disappeared from the screen.
The true master?
Good.
That saved me...
The trouble of finding them one by one.
The pen tip,
was still hungry.
Before you continue