-60- Erosion Seed

After binding Hewlett tightly with her tentacle-like hair, layer upon layer, Yvette did not kill him on the spot. Instead, she quickly left the highway and flew to a remote suburban wilderness.

Unsure whether Hewlett had made backup arrangements or if lingering too long would bring armed forces from Scale Molt Organisms, she decided she had to change locations before interrogating him.

After loosening the strands of hair blocking his mouth—and cringing at the thought that this fellow might have gotten saliva on her hair—Yvette sighed inwardly, resolving to cut off the excess length later, and then said, "Answer my question."

"I... why should I answer your question? Can you guarantee you won't kill me?" Hewlett asked, his face pale, yet still stiffening his neck in defiance.

"I can guarantee that you won't suffer before you die," Yvette said. "Is that reason enough?"

"Um... is there really no way you can spare my life? I can swear I know nothing at all..." Hewlett flashed a flattering, ingratiating smile.

Yvette remained silent, her puppet-like face devoid of sorrow or joy, but her message was crystal clear: having seen my secrets, you still expect to survive—what kind of pipe dream are you entertaining?

After a moment of thought, she said, "I can give you the chance to leave a final message for your family and friends."

Hewlett's smile froze.

A tiny arc formed at the corner of Yvette's mouth, and in a soft, slightly wicked tone, she said, "I suppose you wouldn't want to leave this world without being able to say a single word to your parents, would you? Your mother is probably still expecting that after work and rest, you might go home to talk to her, share a meal, or receive a 'good night' text from you tonight."

Hewlett stopped talking. The silence was deafening. After a long, agonizingly quiet while, as if finally making a profound decision, he let out a deep sigh and whispered, "Despicable witch... What do you want to know?"

"Everything you know about 'Number Zero' and 'Number One,'" Yvette said.

"This... if it's about that, I don't know all that much," Hewlett shook his head. "I only know that roughly three years ago, an informant from Black Tower Pharmaceuticals leaked information to the company. The report stated that two experimental subjects with extremely high security clearance had escaped from the Abyss Base. Their code names were 'Number Zero' and 'Number One,' and in appearance, they supposedly resembled a silver-haired and a golden-haired... little girl, around eight or nine years old."

With that, Hewlett glanced at Yvette. "Although you look a bit older now, you indeed bear an uncanny resemblance to that silver-haired little girl—you practically look like her grown-up self... Oh, right, according to the company's investigations over the past two years, the past identities of those two subjects were also verified. One was named Yvette Rosivia, and the other was Liana Renee. Before becoming test subjects, they were both orphans from an orphanage funded by the Black Tower."

He paused, then said with a helpless smile, "Now do you understand why I instantly knew you had to be Number Zero? Even if you're using a false identity, changing your first name like that is... well, a bit too lazy."

Yvette immediately fell into deep contemplation.

If Hewlett had no intention of lying before his death, it meant it was now set in stone that "Number Zero" was her original self. However, she was not very familiar with Liana Renee. During her very first dreamscape journey long ago, she hadn't interacted much with the other genetically ill orphans of the Metamorphosis Project; she only knew that such a little girl seemed to have existed.

That she and Liana were Number Zero and Number One with extremely high security clearances was obviously related to the "Immortal Project"...

She asked again, "Why did you say that the methods I used were not human?"

"It's just a hypothesis... Miss Zero, please allow me to address you as such. Do you know of the 'Blight Seed'? Of course, that's a code name circulated internally among Scale Molt Organisms; perhaps Black Tower Pharmaceuticals calls it something else..."

Blight Seed?

Hearing this inexplicable new term, Yvette was slightly startled, and another term immediately surfaced in her mind.

—God Molt!

The God Molt potentially linked to the source of the apocalypse!

"Go on," Yvette remained noncommittal.

"Blight Seed is a code name of unknown origin; we know nothing about it. It might be a living thing, a dead object, a concept, a ruin... But many scholars within the company believe it truly exists, and that behind it lies technological heritage perhaps originating from an alien planet or a prehistoric civilization. The company derived its theoretical support from this source and handed it down to people like us for practical application..."

"Initially, it was all just guesswork, even something of a joke. But later, I heard that similar rumors circulated within Black Tower Pharmaceuticals, and our little academic circle began to genuinely believe it. We believed that the Black Tower and Scale Molt were special, and that our new technologies didn't stem from traditional research and development, but rather from some special acquisition, or even inheritance..."

"And you, Miss Zero," Hewlett said. "You and Number One, as escaped test subjects, hold a security clearance in the Black Tower that is simply too high. It must be tied to an important and powerful new technology, and perhaps even to that illusory 'Blight Seed.' The company's exceptional attention toward you stems precisely from this desire to obtain the Black Tower's secrets from you."

"As for myself, instead of reporting directly to the company, I chose to come after you in secret. Aside from wanting to monopolize the credit, I actually had a selfish motive. I hoped to get an answer from you—an answer that would let me die without any lingering regrets..."

"Miss Zero, before I die, can you tell me—does the 'Blight Seed,' or a technological source similar to the 'Blight Seed,' truly exist?"

...

After giving Hewlett an affirmative answer, Yvette saw an indescribable complexity wash over his face. Finally, he exhaled a turbid breath with an air of release, as if putting an end to a lifelong pursuit on his path of seeking knowledge.

After waiting for him to tearfully send separate voice messages and good-nights to his father, mother, wife, and child, Yvette ended his life and used earth magic to fashion a simple little box.

She would later mail this small urn to his wife through anonymous channels, fulfilling one of his dying requests.

Standing upon a large boulder in the suburban wilderness, Yvette's gaze drifted toward the distant center of Aghasa City. The veil of night could not cloak this metropolis of neon; blazing holographic advertisements pierced straight into the clouds, as if boasting of the city's prosperity to the entire universe.

She thought of the seeker's look Hewlett had worn earlier, guessing that he had left one final sentence unsaid: *Was the origin civilization truly created by their own hands?*

*Is the origin civilization merely a child standing on the shoulders of giants, yet still glowing with self-satisfaction over its own height?*

*What a difficult question to answer. Fortunately, I am merely a transmigrator; whether it is true or not will never shake the pride within my heart...*

Yvette thought to herself, then immediately associated this with the remaining six corporations: the Black Tide Corporation, Vine Spirit Corporation, Gravity Group, Ash Scar Chemicals, Firmament Technology, and Rift Sky Group.

The Black Tower had the "God Molt," and Scale Molt had the "Blight Seed." This was perhaps the core factor that led these two super-corporations to choose pharmaceutical and biological businesses.

What about the other six super-corporations?

Were their technologies also tied to something similar?

Or were they a mixed bag, featuring both normal and abnormal elements?

Regardless, tonight's harvest had already been quite substantial: she had resolved the werewolf assassin problem and cleared up the mystery surrounding her original identity...

Thinking of this, Yvette suddenly recalled something, and a tinge of regret washed over her.

Earlier, she had borrowed Hewlett's magitech terminal to use hacking methods and erase many traces of her digital footprint. While this couldn't entirely prevent Scale Molt Organisms from noticing her, it would buy her a considerable amount of time.

And then...

She had forgotten to extort money from Hewlett.

She had originally intended to extort him—if not a hundred million, pulling twenty or thirty million for some spending money should have been a breeze. But when Hewlett was calling his family to say good night, the atmosphere had been a bit too emotional, and she hadn't had the heart to do it. Later, during his execution, her mood was rather solemn, and she simply forgot all about it.

Fortunately, though, there was loot to be harvested: a military terminal with a 100k rune-point cache, a semi-liquid biomorphic symbiotic armor, and some biological prosthetic implants fused with flesh.

Among them, the biological prosthetics could be written off; they were practically part of the body and locked by genetics, rendering them useless even if transplanted.

Active rune sets weren't entirely impossible to recycle, but collecting blood to refine them was both too evil and too troublesome.

The biomorphic symbiotic armor was usable, but Hewlett had worn it daily, soaking it in his personal stench, and the fully sealed armor upon activation would interfere with her use of tentacles... She planned to sell it on the black market, where it would likely fetch at least two to three million.

Only the magitech terminal with its 100k rune-point cache could be used directly. At the very least, it was superior to her 64k civilian-grade model, being a military-spec item whose black-market price had surged past 80k due to markups...

Tallying her gains, Yvette figured it was time to head back to rendezvous with Miss Irene and collect the bounty for the werewolf assassin.

Tonight's consumption of aberrant mana had reached nearly 1,000 points—truly an exorbitant amount. She would have to devour the aberrant entities of an entire district to replenish it. Fortunately, the returns were decent: intelligence, equipment, and a bounty.

With that, she opened her messaging interface and replied to Miss Irene. First, she reported that she was safe, then asked Irene to send Tennyson to wait outside the police station to make collecting the bounty more convenient.

Then, inadvertently, a long-ignored little red dot caught her attention.

She switched over and saw a private message from the Fire Watcher. After more than half a month of silence, the Civilization Continuation Society had finally replied.