Phainon didn’t immediately reach out to take the offering.
His gaze remained anchored on the glowing parchment resting on the stone table.
Indecipherable golden characters pulsed across its surface, casting a soft, warm halo that reflected in his pale golden pupils.
“This is a ‘Remembrance’ I happened to imprint after the monster was stunned by electricity,” Cyrene said.
She sat perched on the edge of her high-backed chair, hands braced against the velvet seat, legs kicking idly in the empty air.
She tilted her head, a triumphant gleam dancing in her azure eyes.
“When that hulking beast was brought down by the high-voltage grid, I started pondering the judgment mechanics of my ability.” Cyrene extended a slender finger, tapping the air as if tracing an invisible logic tree.
“Since the prerequisite for a Memory Imprint is ‘zero mental resistance,’ wouldn’t a physical, involuntary blackout count as a state of absolute vulnerability?”
She paused, the curve of her smile deepening into something far more cunning.
“So, I tested the theory on our unlucky friend.
And the result…” Cyrene leaned forward.
Her fingertip pressed against the edge of the golden paper, slowly sliding it across the smooth stone toward Phainon.
“It imprinted successfully on the very first try.
Take a look, Phainon.
This ability…
is far more useful than I initially imagined.”
Phainon stared at the pushed page, a flicker of genuine surprise breaking his usual stoicism.
He reached out.
The moment his skin brushed the ethereal parchment, a surge of warmth traveled up his arm.
Without hesitation, he gripped the edges.
With a crisp, echoing tear, the golden page split in half.
No paper fibers drifted into the air; instead, the instant it fractured, the material disintegrated into countless, brilliant motes of golden light.
Like fireflies drawn to a singular flame, the glowing particles swirled upward, diving straight into the center of Phainon’s brow.
He slowly closed his eyes.
The quiet, eternal expanse of the starry hall vanished from his senses.
In its place, a chaotic, deafeningly loud, dark-red nightmare consumed his vision.
It was the monster’s perspective.
At first, there was only a blurry, blood-soaked haze accompanied by the sickening, wet crunch of chewing bone—the raw, primal instinct of a predator feeding.
Then, the world violently shook.
A blinding, searing blue light flooded the red void.
The frantic shouts of the Special Anomaly Bureau’s strike team, the deafening roar of heavy firearms, and the violent, crackling hiss of high-voltage electricity all twisted together into a chaotic sensory overload.
‘Excruciating pain?’ Phainon frowned slightly as he handled the fractured memories.
When those lethal currents—voltage high enough to instantly carbonize an ordinary human—tore through the creature’s flesh, the feedback transmitted to its brain wasn’t agony.
It was…
fullness.
It felt exactly like a starving man who hadn’t eaten in days suddenly being force-fed a decadent banquet.
A bloated, overwhelming sensation of the stomach lining stretching to its absolute limit.
In the memory, the monster convulsed and collapsed under the blinding electric net.
Yet, deep within its primitive consciousness, there was absolutely no fear of death.
There was only panic: ‘I can’t eat anymore.
I really can’t eat anymore.
If I take one more bite, I’m going to explode.’
This absurd, contradictory feedback made Phainon snap his eyes open.
The residual golden light slowly bled out from his irises, restoring their usual calm clarity.
“Well?
How was it?” Cyrene had propped her chin in her hands, watching his face intently.
Seeing him awaken, she blinked innocently.
“Did you discover any interesting little secrets?”
“Indeed.” Phainon exhaled a slow, measured breath.
His fingers unconsciously tapped against the stone table, the rhythmic clack echoing in the vast hall.
“This ability…
it allows us to bypass all external defenses and directly perceive their most fundamental weaknesses through their own eyes.”
“Mm-hmm.” Cyrene nodded enthusiastically, her vibrant hair swaying against her cheeks.
“After all, time is practically stagnant for me in this space.
When I ripped this Remembrance out of it, I took a quick peek, switched to a first-person perspective, and watched the whole thing play out like a VR movie.”
She thought back to the chaotic scene.
The beast had been cornered in the Hongda Chemical Plant, facing an overwhelming, inescapable electric net laid out by the Special Bureau.
The emotional feedback had been hilariously incongruous with the grim reality of the battlefield.
“That behemoth…” Phainon spoke, his analytical mind slicing straight to the core of the issue.
“Its internal structure is essentially a biological capacitor designed to store electrical energy.
It doesn’t fear the current.
On the contrary, it actively repairs its own cellular damage by absorbing those strikes.
However, the sheer volume of the Bureau’s attack exceeded its maximum capacity.
It was forced to shut down its own biological container to prevent the continued, lethal influx of electricity.”
“And shutting down the container means cutting off its own energy source.
That’s why it paralyzed itself and played dead,” Cyrene finished, leaning back against her chair with a theatrical, helpless sigh.
“No wonder the authorities have been banging their heads against the wall for over a month without clearing it out.
They thought they were using overwhelming, thunderous force to suppress the anomaly.
In reality?
They were just spoon-feeding it an all-you-can-eat buffet.
It would be a miracle if they actually managed to kill it with those tactics.”
She shook her head, thoroughly amused by the Special Bureau’s futile efforts.
But a second later, her demeanor shifted.
Cyrene sat up straight, the lazy helplessness vanishing from her azure eyes.
In its place burned the sharp, thrilling excitement of a predator locking onto its prey.
“However, Phainon…” She turned her head, locking eyes with her companion.
A cunning, dangerous smile curled the corners of her lips.
“Isn’t this exactly the opportunity we’ve been waiting for?”
Cyrene reached out, her slender fingers curling into a grasping motion against the empty void.
“The authorities are paralyzed because they can’t see the monster’s hidden cards.
But we are different.
We can rip out their Remembrances, read their memories, and dissect their exact physiological traits.”
“We exploit this massive information gap.
We hunt the anomalies that give the official bureaus nightmares, harvest their Memory Traces, and hoard the resources…” She tilted her head, her smile turning radiant and utterly confident.
“This is exactly what we were meant to do, right?”
Phainon looked at her vibrant, ambitious display.
The faint trace of a smile rippled through his own eyes.
He didn’t offer any unnecessary words, merely giving a solemn, respectful nod.
Beneath the vast, eternal canopy of the starry sky, their gazes met, forging a silent, unbreakable understanding.
“Then, I’ll be leaving the heavy lifting to you from here on out.” Cyrene stood up and stretched her arms high above her head with a lazy groan.
The calculating, queenly aura she had projected just moments ago instantly evaporated, leaving behind the relaxed languor of an ordinary teenage girl.
She turned sideways, winking playfully at the stoic man.
“My dear Deliverer~”
Before he could respond, she clapped her hands together.
“Alright!
Today’s strategic meeting has concluded with flying colors.
I should head back and take a nap.”
Cyrene waved a hand.
Her physical form immediately began to turn translucent.
Brilliant pink light particles fractured from the hem of her skirt, drifting upward and scattering into the dark void like cherry blossoms caught in a sudden spring gale.
“See you,” Phainon replied, his voice a gentle murmur in the quiet hall.
The next moment, Cyrene’s figure dissolved completely into the ether, leaving behind nothing but the empty velvet chair.
Phainon sat alone amidst the towering, magnificent stone pillars.
He lifted his gaze, staring quietly at the eternal, flowing galaxy suspended above them.
A moment later, a soft chuckle escaped his lips.
His own form fractured into countless motes of white-gold light, dissipating silently into the vast, endless data universe.
[Elysian’s Note:
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