"Is that all it takes?"
"That's enough. Even if you smash this puppet into even smaller pieces, it won't make any difference. These puppets reacted much faster than I expected."
"Once they realized they couldn't gain any advantage from me, they decisively abandoned their comrade."
A trace of disdain flickered across Mobius's face. "What can I say... truly a bunch of riff-raff."
"So, the operation failed?" Kevin halted his movements.
"Should we move to the next stronghold? I remember there's another puppet not far from here..."
"No need. I didn't say I failed." A small green crystal appeared in Mobius's hand. "The Herrscher of Domination acted quickly, but... I was even faster than they could have imagined."
"Oh? You anticipated this situation?"
"Not exactly." Mobius shook her head, her expression softening a little. "The reason my intrusion was so fast... was actually due to an unexpected variable."
"That child, Lynelle, once invaded the Herrscher of Domination's thousand-puppet network before she self-destructed."
"Since she didn't lose the battle of authorities at that time, she essentially occupied a personal ID within that network…"
"Strictly speaking, she's now a member of the Thousand Herrschers. And because Lynelle didn't die completely, the Herrscher of Domination can't remove her from the list."
"So, the moment my power accessed the network, it smoothly infiltrated through the port Lynelle left behind... saving me quite a bit of time."
"...Looks like you're rather proud of that."
"I never said I was satisfied with her performance. The current situation... barely counts as redeeming a few points. Hmm, as a reward for those points, I'll let her have a little rest time each day."
"Uh..." For a moment, Kevin wasn't sure what to say. "Don't work that child too hard... just teaching her a lesson is enough."
"Hmph, that depends on her performance." Mobius gave a light snort and then directly marked several locations on the map.
"Let's go. I've just obtained all the real identity information and addresses of the remaining puppets of the Herrscher of Domination. Their numbers are a bit lower than I imagined. It seems Lynelle's explosion back then really dealt a heavy blow to them."
"However, if there are only a little over a hundred puppets... we don't need to trouble Schicksal over there. You take me along, move quickly, and we'll handle 'de-realing' them all offline ourselves."
--+--
Just as Mobius was doxxing the Herrscher of Domination at an incredible speed, over at the Herta Space Station, Lynelle, who had returned via the Space Anchors, was already "stuck" to Herta.
Well, what could she do? Since Little March had already decreed that Lynelle was bound to mess up, Lynelle simply stopped struggling.
She was, after all, Snake's daughter. Snake surely wouldn't have the heart to punish her too severely.
At worst, she'd just be "eaten" by Snake and locked in the basement for a few days.
The only concern was that Lynelle had heard snakes in nature had particularly long mating sessions. But that wasn't a big deal. She could just activate a character card for herself in advance.
With the Abundance's blessing, even if her stamina couldn't keep up, her body's recovery speed surely would.
As for why she came running to Herta... it was a sort of superstition.
Just like pulling for a Saber at King Arthur's grave, by sticking close to Herta, maybe she could luck into another Herta character card.
Of course, it didn't matter if she didn't get one. Little Herta would work too. Lynelle just wanted to use Herta's puppet technology to seize partial control over the Domination Core.
"So you're saying... you, my one and only assistant from the Genius Society, came to me for help based on superstition?"
Looking at Lynelle hanging off her like a sloth, rubbing against her here and there, Herta's voice was full of resignation.
"Can't you have a little faith in science? Honestly, begging that being in your head would probably be more useful than clinging to me."
"But Herta, you use magic yourself... Besides, I'd love to go cuddle with Kiana-chan, but she's been getting busier lately." Lynelle sighed.
"I don't understand all the details, but it seems the closer we get to the Herrscher of Finality's descent node, the longer her sleep periods become."
"She used to be able to watch my livestreams in real-time, but now she mostly only wakes up at key moments..."
"What's so bad about that? In this universe, any powerful Emanator carries a certain degree of fate within them... Hmm, that might be a bit hard to grasp, but you just need to know that the existence within you has a sort of 'once proven, always proven' buff."
"After all, according to your account, that mysterious Cocoon is a unique existence across countless parallel worlds. So when your little Kiana obtained the Cocoon's authority... Well, I shouldn't say more. You get my drift."
Herta made a zipping motion over her lips. "With Screwllum and the others not here, I don't want to face that being alone."
"Fine... let's change the subject." Lynelle squirmed in Herta's arms for a bit before finally finding a comfortable position.
"What do you think of my plan to seize the Herrscher of Domination's core?"
"What can I think? I can't speak for other things, but at least regarding Little Herta, I'm very confident."
"If you nest that system into the Thousand Herrscher core and combine it with your authority, you'll most likely be able to directly overwrite their thousand-puppet network—of course, that's assuming you can master a portion of the Domination Core."
"Actually, compared to that, I'm more interested in something else..."
Herta ruffled Lynelle's little head and asked, "You told me before you thought the Herrscher of Domination's intelligence was abnormally high... Why did you come to that conclusion?"
"Because the name fits. They are a 'motley crew.' Failure is their label, but not their entirety. Simply put, their failure has no profound reason; it's purely because they're lousy."
Lynelle spread her hands.
"So, among these puppets, while some clever ones might indeed emerge, they absolutely shouldn't be like the ones I faced—patient, decisive, cautious, yet bold at critical moments."
"If they had that kind of resolve, they wouldn't be a motley crew in the first place."
"You're right. That's the crux of the issue." Herta raised a finger, guiding her along.
"Then tell me... is it possible they originally didn't possess these qualities, but obtained them through some means of... plunder?"
"Plunder? What do you mean..." Lynelle blinked, her expression confused.
"Didn't you mention before that Otto indirectly passed information about the Herrscher of Domination to you? And you were puzzled how he managed to escape from under the noses of Herrschers with such an abnormal authority."
"What if... there's a possibility..." A mysterious smile played on Herta's lips.
"Otto did escape back then, but at the cost of one of his bodies, using a method similar to your 'golden cicada shedding its shell' to get away."
"And that body Otto abandoned... wouldn't self-destruct like yours did."
"You mean..." Lynelle's cherry lips parted slightly. "Otto's body was... recycled by the Herrscher of Domination?"
"Don't forget, they originally planned to use your body that way too." Herta poked Lynelle's cheek.
"And artificially created bodies like Otto's contain various logic modules."
"He might not have had time to destroy these modules when vacating the body, leaving some for the Herrscher of Domination to utilize, which is why their intelligence increased considerably."
"Of course, I'm not telling you this to warn you to be careful of the Herrscher of Domination."
"I want to remind you... if there really is a puppet among them using Otto's body now, then Otto's room for maneuver becomes quite large."
--+--
"The number of Herrschers of Domination is declining at an alarming rate..."
In Sky City at that moment, Otto was holed up in one of his safe houses, closely monitoring the movements of the Herrscher of Domination.
In fact, just as Herta had guessed, when Otto first made contact with the Herrscher of Domination, he had indeed fallen into their trap—after all, the enhanced Domination authority in this era was more than twice as strong as recorded in the Void Archives.
With such flawed intelligence, failure was inevitable.
However, as the saying goes, one succeeds or fails by the same means.
Although the little golden cube led Otto into the Herrscher of Domination's trap, due to its sufficient autonomous consciousness, after Otto's body was controlled, Void Archives quickly activated the Blank Key on its own and forcibly loaded itself, the Star of Eden, and the Herrscher core of the Fourth Divine Key.
In this situation, leveraging Otto's extensive experience using the Blank Key, even though he wasn't a Herrscher himself, he successfully overpowered the puppet, which only had two cores at the time, in the battle of authorities.
The cost... was that he was forced to abandon the Soulium body he was using and temporarily switch to another combat-specialized body.
However, Otto was no pushover. His bodies weren't so easily taken.
Sensing the explosion of the Theater of Domination and the severe injury to the Herrscher of Domination, he quickly sprang into action—first locating the body's position, then "possessing" this originally his own body using a mimicry Fenghuang Down.
With this prototype body under his control, according to Otto's plan, he could gradually erode the Herrscher of Domination's core, eventually accomplishing a seamless "bait-and-switch"—after all, even with the Theater of Domination destroyed, as long as Lynelle and the Corruption authority weren't present, their mopping-up operation against the Herrscher of Domination wouldn't be that fast.
But... what Otto didn't anticipate was that due to Lynelle's death, someone completely outside his plans forcefully returned to the modern civilization—yes, Lynelle's mother, Mobius.
Mobius's appearance completely shattered Otto's plans.
You see, Otto needed considerable time to erode a single core.
His greatest reliance was the Herrscher of Domination's concealment. But with Mobius's doxxing spree, all puppets became open source to her, including Otto's body as well.
Though this couldn't really be blamed on Otto.
While Otto accounted for all possibilities when formulating plans, it was based on his own sufficiently large database.
For an existence like Mobius... unfortunately, all of Otto's data records about the Previous Era came from Void Archives. And Void Archives, for some reason, kept highly classified records regarding the Flame-Chasers.
Coupled with the Corruption virus on Mobius, known only to a few Flame-Chasers, it resulted in Otto completely failing to foresee Lynelle's birth mother suddenly "resurrecting" and emerging from the Elysian Realm.
"Void Archives, do you think I'll still be able to see that body of mine tomorrow?"
"I regret to say, both requests are impossible." The Void Archives replied with utmost "sincerity."
"You might not know what Mobius's personality is like. I think instead of hoping she'll spare your avatar, you'd better start considering whether she'll take the opportunity to settle old scores."
"After all, even setting aside the whole Babylon Labs incident, you did directly cause one of Lynelle's deaths—though only that one time, it's certainly enough reason for Mobius to kill you."
"Tch... Damn my past self..." Otto sighed.
"Must I use up that one opportunity to call on Kevin here? But... if I do, my ultimate plan will directly lack its most stable insurance."
"In the current situation, Seele and the others mostly obey orders but not summons... Could I gather a few more Previous Era cores to add to the Blank Key? But honestly, even then, the possibility of defeating the combined forces of Seele, Kiana, and Lynelle isn't high."
"To be accurate, there is no such possibility." The Void Archives added. "Regrettably, due to a 'little quirk' of my creator, all Divine Keys she crafted have at least one backdoor. Even I am no exception."
"If you don't want to be betrayed by all the Divine Keys on you mid-fight, I suggest you abandon this method."
"...Then there's only one way."
Otto fell silent for a moment, as if reaching a decision.
"Void Archives, leave my body immediately and head to the backup body repository in Kolosten."
"Before you depart, use a Mimicry Fenghuang Down to erase all my memories related to Kolosten from this body."
"If Mobius truly intends to kill me at all costs, then I can only... initiate that plan ahead of schedule."
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! Webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
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If you guys wanna check it out.