On the communication screen, the mechanical aristocrat Screwllum fell into a prolonged silence following Herta’s declaration of’She is mine.’ His logic core, precise enough to calculate the trajectories of stars, seemed to have encountered data it could not parse for the first time.
“I understand.” In the end, Screwllum merely uttered these four words before unilaterally cutting off the communication.
The atmosphere in the control room froze to an icy point.
Herta slowly withdrew her gaze.
That intense, possessive aggression she had displayed unabashedly toward outsiders transformed into something deeper and more complex the moment she turned toward Lilith.
She reached out, her slender fingers gently tracing Lilith’s cheek before finally coming to rest on the faintly glowing metal collar around her neck.
Her fingertips rubbed against the cold metal as if confirming the integrity of a precious treasure.
“Did you hear that?” Herta’s voice was soft yet carried an undeniable tone of command.
“From now on, stay away from those who are curious about you.
Your ‘interestingness’ can only be displayed for me alone.” ‘What kind of domineering CEO line is this?!’ Lilith screamed internally, but on the outside, she merely turned her head slightly, avoiding the touch with an expression that clearly said ‘You’re annoying.’ “Hah?
You think I want to bother with those boring people?” she replied in her usual arrogant tone.
“Don’t lump me in with you mortals who enjoy socializing.” This display of stubbornness and hidden nervousness clearly pleased Herta.
The curve of her lips deepened as she let out a satisfied hum.
She lifted Lilith from her lap and placed her back on the soft sofa.
“Good.” From that day on, Lilith’s life settled into a kind of meticulously decorated, opulent yet deathly quiet tranquility.
The private lounge Herta had crafted for her was less of a room and more of a gilded birdcage built with astronomically expensive materials.
The walls were flexible light screens capable of simulating any celestial scene in the universe.
With a single thought, she could switch from the splendor of the Crab Nebula to the silent void of a black hole.
The air was perpetually infused with a gas delivered by the climate control system, mingled with the fragrance of some rare calming plant.
She reclined on the velvet sofa, her fingertips gliding over the light screen of her personal terminal.
Displayed on it were the public news feeds from the Space Station’s internal network, which Herta had specifically granted her access to.
Today’s topic was a researcher who had received Herta’s commendation after a lab mistake led to a benign bug in the Simulated Universe; yesterday, it was about Alan flawlessly handling another logistics crisis.
Everything seemed so peaceful, so utterly boring.
Her crimson eyes held not a single ripple of emotion.
Herta had granted her S-level privileges, nearly equivalent to those of a deputy station chief, allowing her to access most non-core data within the Space Station and enter any non-restricted area at will.
But at the same time, the collar around her neck had transformed from a mere accessory into a spatial beacon that constantly emitted a faint blue light.
It no longer had any physical restraining capability, yet it acted like an invisible anchor, firmly locking Lilith’s presence within Herta’s perception range.
No matter where she went, Herta would know her precise coordinates immediately.
This extreme contradiction of doting and control was like a fine, dense net, keeping Lilith on the highest level of alert at all times.
‘This yandere daughter-con is getting more and more outrageous,’ she grumbled internally while lazily turning over.
‘If this continues, will she even listen outside the door when I use the bathroom?’ [Host, please note your analogy.
According to my data analysis, based on the target’s current growth curve of possessiveness toward you, the probability of that is as high as 73.4%.] ‘…Shut up.’ Just as Lilith and the system were engaging in their daily routine of one-sided comedy, an anomaly occurred without warning.
All light in the room warped eerily in the same instant.
The walls simulating the deep-space nebula instantly turned into a pure, all-consuming blackness.
The soft lighting strips on the ceiling, the glow from the news feed on her personal terminal screen, even the faint blue light from the collar around her neck—all vanished without a trace, as if swallowed by a black hole.
The room’s backup power system, which should have activated seamlessly within 0.1 seconds, showed no response.
Absolute darkness and silence instantly enveloped everything.
Only the nearly imperceptible hiss of the air circulation system proved that time was still passing.
‘Here it comes!’ Lilith’s body remained motionless in the darkness, her breathing slowing to an absolute minimum.
She did not scream, call for help, or show the slightest hint of panic.
Because she knew this was not a simple power failure.
This was…
an intrusion.
[Warning!
Detecting unknown data stream intrusion!
Attempting to bypass the Space Station’s main firewall and directly access this area’s independent line!] The system’s voice carried a genuine alert tone for the first time.
[The other party’s technical skill is extremely high!
They are tampering with the physical layer protocol!] ‘I know who it is,’ Lilith replied calmly in her mind.
In this abnormal, suffocating silence, a new light source materialized out of thin air.
Right in the void before her, a line of characters composed of green pixel blocks, full of retro gaming style, slowly typed out one by one, accompanied by crisp 8-bit electronic sound effects: [H]-[e]-[l]-[l]-[o] [t]-[h]-[e]-[r]-[e]-[,] [‘P]-[r]-[o]- -[h]-[e]-[t]-[‘] [M]-[i]-[s]-[s]-[.] It was Silver Wolf.
The genius hacker of the Stellaron Hunters.
Lilith’s heart clenched violently, but her face remained as placid as ever.
She knew this was the Stellaron Hunters’ first test of her, and also the most direct and arrogant one.
The other party had directly hacked everything in her area just to observe her reaction.
If she panicked, then in their eyes, she would merely be an overprotected girl with an undeserved reputation.
If she attempted to counterattack using network technology, that would play right into their hands.
Trying to use hacking skills before Silver Wolf was like showing off one’s meager skills before a master; she would only be toyed with even more.
So, she chose a third path.
In the absolute darkness, Lilith slowly raised her hand.
Instead of touching the provocative line of text, she placed her slender, pale fingers gently into an extremely concealed, cool-to-the-touch groove on the side of the sofa armrest.
That was a physical emergency interface Herta had left behind back then, both to prevent her from running off and to ensure she had a way out if she ever encountered a real emergency.
This interface was not connected to any network.
It linked directly to Herta’s main console through the most fundamental physical wiring.
With her S-level privileges, she could issue a few of the simplest, most brute-force commands through this interface.
Without the slightest hesitation, Lilith invoked the authority Herta had granted her and directly issued a command to this interface—one that was utterly simple yet unbelievably unreasonable: [Command recognition: S-level privilege confirmed.] [Command content: Initiate ‘physical entropy increase’ for the quantum network link of this region (coordinates A-07) from the Space Station’s main server.] [Executing command…] In plain terms, so-called ‘physical entropy increase’ meant—self-destruction.
It caused all network pathways in this region to become utterly chaotic and collapse at the quantum level, creating a temporary, irreversible ‘information black hole’ where no information could enter or leave.
It was a rogue method that inflicted a thousand wounds on the enemy at the cost of eight hundred to oneself.
But against a top-tier hacker like Silver Wolf, who enjoyed strolling casually through others’ domains, there was no more effective method—she simply blew up her own house, leaving the intruder nowhere to land.
All of this took no more than three seconds.
Only then did Lilith lazily lift her head, directing a look of extreme displeasure—as if her nap had been disturbed—toward the still-flickering green text.
She extended her index finger, lightly tapping it in the air toward the line of text, her posture elegant as if shooing away a buzzing fly that had landed on exquisite pastries.
Immediately after, a line of text also composed of pixels, but in a vivid crimson as striking as her own pupils, appeared beneath the green text with an even more arrogant, even more brazen attitude: [What stray digital pet dares to play with fire before me?]