Watching the trembling figure before her, Elysia pondered. Until now, she had believed all Dimensional Rifts originated from a single source—a massive "infection hub." Whether it was her current world or other realms plagued by these rifts, they were all merely bystanders clustered around this infectious source.
The disease-like spread from this hub, affecting these bystanders, gave rise to the phenomenon known as Dimensional Rifts.
But now it seemed that wasn't the case. How had the Big Blue Man's world managed this? The Birth-type Dimensional Rift in the Manor Lord's Territory was undeniable—how could someone launch a one-way attack across worlds through such a rift?
Coincidentally, Herta had just finished analyzing the data on the Dimensional Rift above the Manor Lord's Territory. The conclusion was that it didn't point in the same direction as the Submarine Dimensional Rift in Sakura Prefecture.
This meant that all the Dimensional Rifts that had occurred in this world until now could either be natural formations or artificially created by other worlds.
Was this even plausible? Why would one world launch an assault on another?
Upon closer reflection, this seemed entirely plausible. If a world, ravaged by the relentless onslaught of Dimensional Rifts, gradually mastered the relevant knowledge and technology, it might indeed launch attacks on other worlds.
Perhaps driven by greed, when one faction wields weapons while others are defenseless, plundering becomes a cost-free endeavor.
Or perhaps driven by survival—could the Big Blue Man's world be on the brink of destruction? Desperate to find a new home, they might resort to conquest.
In fact, consider Elysia's Main World. If "she" hadn't appeared, the world's trajectory would likely have followed one of two paths.
As research into Dimensional Rifts deepened and this "disease" grew more severe, before the final catastrophe struck and their death knell tolled, they could either strive to revive their dying world, like Elysia and the Scholar had done in the Little Glutton World,
or, like Lingsha in the Beast-Eared Girl World, refuse to yield even as human civilization crumbled, determined not to let their world die completely and become a new source of infection, clinging to survival as a protective bulwark for other worlds.
The above describes the first option. The alternative, of course, was invasion.
Since their world was destined for destruction, the only path forward was to abandon their home and seek out a new one.
Upon learning this, Elysia felt a pang of regret. If she had known, she wouldn't have sealed the Dimensional Rift within the Manor Lord's territory. Now that the Big Blue Man claimed to have a way back, couldn't she follow him and see what that world was like? Maybe even snatch some Dimensional Rift technology while she was there.
But it was clearly too late.
What Elysia didn't realize was that her forceful closure of the Dimensional Rift had terrified the opposing world half to death.
It was like this: creating a nuclear weapon was relatively simple, but building a shield capable of blocking it was far more challenging. The higher technology climbed, the more apparent this disparity became—shields were always harder to build than weapons.
In any case, after realizing that the Dimensional Rift she was studying might not originate from the Main World but from another dimension entirely, Herta of Great Britain experienced a sudden breakthrough. The repeated failures of her experiments stemmed from a fundamental flaw in her research approach.
Having finally cracked the code, Herta made minor adjustments to her equipment and ran a few simple tests. Staring at the life-sized, floating mirror before her, she murmured to herself, "It worked."
She no longer needed to create Dimensional Rifts. Simply stepping through the mirror would directly transport her to the other side of the Submarine Dimensional Rift and the African Dimensional Rift from the 1850s.
Herta waved over one of her puppets. Thanks to the mirror's traversal method and the recent upgrades she had made to her puppets, they could now maintain their connection to the Herta Network even across worlds.
Without hesitation, the puppet walked into the mirror and vanished from Herta's sight.
The perspective shifted. As the origin of the "Evil God" phenomenon, Little Herta had expected to find a desolate world, ravaged by pollution and teeming with monsters. Instead, she found something entirely different.
Little Herta floated in mid-air, gazing up at an endless expanse of mechanical structures that formed a colossal bowl, seemingly encasing the entire world. Beneath her stretched a colorless sea.
In reality, seawater is colorless. Its characteristic blue hue is a result of sunlight interacting with Earth's atmosphere. But in this world, shrouded by colossal mechanical structures that blotted out the sun, the ocean displayed its true, unadulterated color—a dull, lifeless gray.
The moment Little Herta entered this world, she detected a surge of electrical signals. Following their source, she swiftly arrived at a sprawling metropolis.
A steel forest pierced the clouds, its towering structures crisscrossed by aerial highways. Sleek, levitating vehicles glided through designated air corridors in orderly patterns, their dense formations of headlights forming rivers of silver that flowed endlessly like a celestial river.
This place resembled a futuristic metropolis straight out of science fiction, a testament to advanced technology. By accessing the city's network, Little Herta learned its name:
Everglory—The Last City
However, the city's inhabitants swiftly detected the uninvited guest. Within three minutes, a fleet of heavily armed police vehicles converged around Little Herta, forming a tight perimeter.
Without any communication, the police vehicles launched their attack—not with physical weapons, but with information warfare.
The intruders had discovered that Little Herta was an artificial machine remotely controlled via a network, and they attempted to hack into the network to sever her connection.
But this was futile. The Herta Network was fundamentally a Thought Network, akin to sending a hacker to infiltrate a Gestalt Consciousness—a fool's errand.
Nevertheless, after the initial skirmish, Herta could discern that this world's technological and information technology capabilities were remarkably advanced.
In the Main World, Herta Herself sighed. "Ah... I'm not particularly skilled in information technology."
Of course, just as she had once claimed to be unskilled in biology when compared to Ruan Mei, her current self-deprecating remark was relative to Screwllum's expertise.
Only twenty minutes later, Herta temporarily upgraded a new Little Herta Puppet and dispatched it to the target world.
Within five seconds, this new Little Herta had completely seized control of all networks in that world.