“That bug is an Emanator too!”
Herta said something Little Herta couldn’t refute.
Herta was an Emanator, but so was the Starcrusher Swarm King.
Although the Aeon of Propagation was dead, due to the unique nature of the Stings on the Path of Propagation, the Starcrusher Swarm King before them possessed the genuine power of an Emanator.
“Then… can you beat it?”
Little Herta asked uncertainly as Herta carried her.
Although the battle wasn’t entirely one-sided, even Little Herta could tell that Herta was clearly at a disadvantage.
“If I had time to prepare, I could take on ten bugs like this without breaking a sweat!”
Carrying Little Herta, Herta narrowly slipped through a gap between several self-destructing Stings.
With a wave of her hand, several floating light cannons appeared.
“Boom, boom, boom—!”
Cannon fire thundered as the Stings plummeted one after another.
Yet even more Stings charged through the barrage behind their companions’ corpses, biting and smashing the floating light cannons aside as they closed in around the two of them.
They blotted out the sky like a plague of locusts.
“Tch—!”
Herta clicked her tongue in irritation and continued fleeing through the swarm with Little Herta in tow.
Emanators of Erudition weren’t good at fighting.
They were much better at arranging fights in advance.
With technological weapons, knowledge, and intellect at her disposal, she believed that most Emanators in the universe couldn’t defeat her if she had time to prepare.
Even if only one of the four mirrors she had sent out were here, she was confident she could eradicate this bug within a minute.
Unfortunately, she had sent all four mirrors out to capture the little brat in her hands.
Right now, she was at her weakest.
But Herta couldn’t be blamed.
Who could have expected an Emanator-level enemy to pop out from inside her own home rather than invade from outside?
“Fifty-six seconds!”
Still being carried as they fled, Little Herta, having accepted that Herta couldn’t defeat the Starcrusher Swarm King in her current state, shouted loudly at her.
“What?”
“It can only sustain itself for fifty-six seconds at most! Once those fifty-six seconds are up, it’ll be unable to maintain its existence and be completely annihilated!”
Before releasing it, Little Herta had deliberately checked the logs Ruan Mei had left behind.
According to Ruan Mei’s calculations, this Starcrusher Swarm King was the same as the one that had fought the Trailblazer.
It could survive for no more than fifty-six seconds after leaving its cultivation chamber.
“You should’ve said that sooner!”
Hearing Little Herta’s words, Herta stopped fleeing through the swarm.
She certainly couldn’t defeat this bug, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t escape.
She could leave at any time using Imaginary teleportation technology.
The only reasons she hadn’t fled were to stall for time, keep the Starcrusher Swarm King from leaving and destroying the space station, and wait for her mirrors to arrive.
The moment she saw the Starcrusher Swarm King, she had already ordered all four mirrors to hurry over immediately.
In that case, why was she still here?!
Imaginary jump teleportation!
Pulling Little Herta into her arms, Herta lightly tapped the ground with her key-shaped Staff.
A field of imaginary energy surged outward, briefly knocking back the swarm of Stings, and the Imaginary jump was completed in an instant!
Teleport—
“Tap—”
‘What?’
At the instant of teleportation, Herta thought she heard something.
The teleportation itself succeeded, but the coordinates where they emerged were…
“Vwoom—!”
Directly in front of the Starcrusher Swarm King, Skaracabaz, which was charging an attack!
‘A disturbance in Imaginary Space caused by imaginary fluctuations?’
‘A one-in-countless-grains-of-the-Ganges coincidence occurred in the microsecond when I finished the calculations and teleported?’
Herta immediately realized what had happened.
A coincidence that should have been virtually impossible had occurred: Imaginary Space had become unstable for a single instant just as she completed her calculations and teleported.
And in that instant, she had teleported herself directly in front of the Starcrusher Swarm King.
It had already gathered a massive spherical field of blue imaginary energy and blasted it toward Herta and Little Herta.
‘This coincidence—it’s no coincidence!’
Faced with the Starcrusher Swarm King’s point-blank attack, Herta only had time to construct a flimsy defensive field.
“Boom—!”
The tremendous impact blasted through the floor in a blue-white explosion accompanied by a deafening roar.
“Waaah! My goggles!”
Accompanied by Little Herta’s surprisingly energetic scream, she and Herta were hurled out of the explosion and crashed heavily to the ground.
Perhaps because she had undergone countless configuration upgrades, Little Herta had only lost her quantum-detection tactical goggles.
Herta, however…
“Cough—”
Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
Although she was still maintaining her human form, her body was covered in wounds, and her face was deathly pale.
“Herta! Herta! Are you all right?!”
Little Herta had no time to care about her shattered goggles.
She scrambled over to Herta, whose injuries were clearly severe.
Before a Sting could attack Herta, Little Herta picked her up and fled in a panic.
“Run… The quantum anchoring has already been disabled…”
Clinging to her last breath, Herta spoke to Little Herta.
At the same time the Starcrusher Swarm King’s attack struck her, she had deliberately focused on protecting Little Herta.
She had also issued an order for the four mirrors to disable the quantum anchoring covering the entire space station.
That way, Little Herta could activate the portable quantum jump bracelet she was wearing.
“I can’t! Without my goggles, it can only teleport one person—ah!” This story is hosted at g.com.
A Sting swooped past and landed a vicious blow on Little Herta’s back.
Her tactical goggles were designed to work in tandem with the quantum jump device, detecting quantum tides and using radar to scan physical space.
Now that the goggles were broken, the quantum jump device could only teleport one person.
Its range was also limited, and she could no longer bring Herta along as she had once done with Asta.
“You… escape on your own.”
Hearing Little Herta’s words, Herta didn’t blame her at all.
She merely told Little Herta to escape alone, then closed her eyes as though she had accepted that she would die here.
“…”
‘It shouldn’t be like this!’
Looking at Herta, who seemed to have accepted death in her arms, and facing the countless Stings—including the Starcrusher Swarm King—Little Herta found herself unable to accept it.
Herta shouldn’t die here.
She was supposed to create the Simulated Universe, help the Trailblazer defeat Irontomb, and embrace her brilliant, magnificent life as a genius…
If only Little Herta had never appeared…
“Hey… If I break, you can fix me, right?”
Little Herta suddenly whispered to Herta in her arms.
She remembered what Herta had said when capturing her before: ‘If you break, I can fix you!’
‘What are you…
trying to do?’
Herta, who had already accepted her fate, opened her eyes with difficulty.
As a genius, she had realized what Little Herta intended to do.
Sure enough, she then felt Little Herta fasten something around her wrist.
It was Little Herta’s portable quantum jump device!
“Bang—!”
At the same time, a Sting seized the opportunity to strike Little Herta hard, knocking her off balance and sending her tumbling to the ground.
Unable to maintain her balance, Little Herta could only hurriedly shield Herta beneath her.
At that very instant, a great number of self-destructing Stings pounced on them, sinking their teeth into Little Herta’s petite body and pinning her down.
“Even though our time together was short, I was really happy!”
“Thank you, Herta.”
As Little Herta finished speaking, the quantum jump began.
The Stings vanished from Herta’s field of vision, as did Little Herta, who remained pinned beneath them.
“Meow~”
Then Herta felt the cold floor.
She saw a black cat and heard a familiar voice.
“Wait for me, little black kitty… Herta?!”
It was Asta…
In the final moment before she lost consciousness from her severe injuries, she saw Asta rushing toward her in alarm.
★ ★ ★
T/N: If you spot mistranslation, do tell me!