Chapter 99: See, She Even Has to Thank Us
[Leon: First line: Being a Herrscher means you can't keep your driver's license.]
[Leon: Second line: Being a hacker means you can't keep your accounts.]
[Leon: Horizontal scroll: I didn't cry or throw a tantrum.]
Leon casually tapped his screen, sending out a rapid-fire barrage of freshly minted stickers into the chat. Each image was a perfectly captured, high-definition chibi version of Silver Wolf in various stages of a complete mental breakdown. One showed her biting her controller with teary eyes, another had her slamming her head against a keyboard, and the last featured her curled into a ball of pure despair.
To Leon, they were vivid, expressive, and absolutely adorable.
To Silver Wolf, Leon was nothing short of a devil incarnate.
Looking at the digital masterpiece of her suffering, Leon let out a thoroughly entertained chuckle.
Aha, naturally, found the entire spectacle downright hysterical. But it was Fuli who showed the most terrifying level of enthusiasm. The Aeon of Remembrance carefully recorded the exact conceptual moment of Silver Wolf's absolute breakdown, crystallized the sheer humiliation of it, and forged it directly into a brand-new Light Cone.
[Fuli has shared a Light Cone: Before the Tutorial Mission Starts]
[Leon: Before the Tutorial Mission Starts? No, man, is that name even appropriate for this?]
Leon stared at the exquisite, glowing projection Fuli had dropped into the Aeon group chat, momentarily struck speechless. He had to hand it to Fuli—the craftsmanship was genuinely impeccable. The Light Cone shimmered with a brilliant golden hue, radiating the unmistakable aura of a top-tier, five-star artifact.
Who would have ever guessed that the sacred memory sealed inside this majestic golden relic was just a gamer girl crying and throwing a massive tantrum over her banned accounts?
[Elio: Um, allow me to ask... what exactly does 'being a Herrscher means you can't keep your driver's license' mean?]
[Elio: Does it imply that Silver Wolf is prone to traffic accidents when piloting a spaceship?]
Staring at the couplets Leon had posted, the leader of the Stellaron Hunters couldn't hold back his genuine confusion. Elio understood the part about the hacker losing her accounts perfectly well. He was also painfully aware of the recent 'I didn't cry or throw a tantrum' incident that had echoed through their base.
But the Herrscher part? The driver's license? That completely bypassed his script of destiny. Did this mean Silver Wolf was secretly terrible at flying their ship? Elio fell into deep, serious contemplation.
[Silver Wolf: What are you saying?! What kind of nonsense is that?! My spaceship piloting skills are top-notch, okay?!]
[Silver Wolf: Haven't you all ridden with me before?! And in games, my driving is absolutely superb!]
The hacker frantically fired back messages, desperately trying to salvage whatever remained of her dignity.
[Leon: Heh, it's just an old meme.]
Leon grinned at his screen. When the time was right, he absolutely had to get Caelus to cosplay as 'Old Traffic Cop Kevin' and recreate that infamous scene of a certain Herrscher's driver's license getting brutally revoked. He was entirely certain Caelus would be more than happy to play along for the bit.
[Leon: Alright, jokes aside, go play in Pier Point. I've kept all your account data backed up.]
[Leon: You can get it back.]
Well, who told him to be such a kind-hearted, generous soul? Giving the galaxy's greatest hacker a chance to recover her precious game saves was practically an act of charity.
[Silver Wolf: Hmph! At least you did something decent for once!]
On the other end of the screen, Silver Wolf let out a massive, shuddering sigh of relief. Her shoulders slumped. She had been genuinely terrified that even if she breached the system to get her accounts back, she would just find all her data permanently deleted and formatted into the void. If that had been the case, recovering the accounts would have been entirely pointless.
Leon chuckled, leaning back in his chair.
See? She even had to thank him.
Riding the high of a thoroughly good mood, Leon shifted his attention. While communicating across the network with Herta's puppet and Screwllum, he casually dropped a few 'hypothetical' concepts regarding a new expansion for the Simulated Universe: The Swarm Disaster.
In truth, Leon didn't possess any deep, galaxy-brain technical knowledge on the subject. He was simply tossing out the conceptual roadmap he remembered from his past life. Even if he kept his mouth shut, it was only a matter of time before these Geniuses arrived at the exact same conclusions themselves.
"You even know about this?!"
The Herta puppet's mechanical joints whirred as she leaned closer to the screen, her synthetic eyes widening in genuine shock.
The Genius Society members had indeed been tossing around the vague concept of simulating the ancient Swarm Disaster to study the Aeon of Propagation, but it was still in the earliest, messiest stages of brainstorming. They hadn't even finalized the core algorithm yet.
"It's just a small idea," Leon replied, his tone breezy and completely unsurprised by her reaction.
According to his internal timeline, once the Xianzhou Luofu crisis wrapped up, the Geniuses would officially launch The Swarm Disaster expansion. Give it a little more time, and the Gold and Gears DLC would follow. After the Penacony incident, Screwllum's Divergent Universe should be ready for deployment, with the Unknowable Domain waiting in the wings right after.
Honestly, one had to admire the sheer, terrifying execution power of the Genius Society. Building pocket dimensions and simulating cosmic history was basically child's play to them.
"I truly did not expect you to possess such visionary talent in this field..." Screwllum's elegant, mechanical voice hummed with a mix of surprise and deep, calculating interest.
But of course, the one who found this revelation the most captivating was naturally Ruan Mei.
"If you already had this concept in mind... why didn't you tell me first?"
Ruan Mei's voice drifted through the connection, smooth and seemingly devoid of emotion. Yet, when she learned from Herta and Screwllum that this brilliant structural concept originated from Leon, a very subtle, uncharacteristic ripple formed in the calm lake of her heart.
"Oh, it just suddenly came to mind," Leon chuckled softly. "You're keeping the remnants of Tayzzyronth, The Propagation, just to investigate its mysteries, aren't you?"
He had originally just wanted to dump some extra workload onto Herta and Screwllum for his own amusement, momentarily forgetting that Ruan Mei was a core developer of the Simulated Universe. The Swarm Disaster project was supposed to be her brainchild. After all, when it came to the biological sciences and the study of Aeonic lifeforms, she was the undisputed authority among the four Geniuses.
In Ruan Mei's view, since Leon had this brilliant idea regarding her specific field of study, he absolutely should have come to her first.
Leon clearly perceived the slight shift in her tone. He understood exactly what that subtle possessiveness meant. And clearly, she had no intention of hiding it from him.
"Alright, don't be angry. It's my fault."
The digital call ended, and the scene shifted to reality. Leon stepped up behind Ruan Mei, wrapping his arms gently around her waist. He leaned in close, his breath brushing against her ear as he spoke in a low, soothing whisper.
He was, admittedly, feeling quite proud of himself.
When they first met, Ruan Mei's emotional feedback had been practically non-existent. While she wasn't entirely a machine, she always carried an impenetrable, clinical calmness. Everything was just an experiment to her. But now? Now she possessed a distinct touch of human warmth, her perfectly still heart showing actual ripples of emotion—and all because of him.
"Fine."
Ruan Mei turned her face slightly toward him. A very faint, stunning smile hid within the soft cadence of her voice, though her tone carried an edge that left absolutely no room for negotiation.
"Then I want to... punish you."
What followed proved that Ruan Mei truly lived up to her legendary status as the ultimate Break Effect support.
The atmosphere in the room shifted, growing thick and intoxicating. The resonance of Overtone seemed to hum in the air, setting a steady, rhythmic pace. The sweet, dizzying scent of Floral Incense wrapped around them, clouding the senses. The soft, frictionless slide of Water-Washed Silk brushed against heated skin, and the overwhelming, breathless bloom of Thanatoplum Rebloom pushed everything past the breaking point.
With her flawless, methodical assistance—wiping the metaphorical zither, stroking the silken sleeves, playing with delicate hairpins until they fell away, and half-removing the gauze scarves to let them pool on the floor—Leon found his 'Break damage' significantly amplified the moment he entered the field.
The two lost themselves in the sensory haze, wandering through a private world of colorful silk, green smoke, and breathless whispers before the bronze mirror.
Meanwhile, on the frozen world of Jarilo-VI.
Over in Belobog, after several grueling days of effort, the Trailblazers' desperate struggle against the biting frost and the Supreme Guardian was finally nearing its climax.
And at this exact moment, Leon quietly stepped out of the void, arriving on the scene completely unnoticed.
Instantly, the Aeon group chat flared to life. Aha and Fuli were practically vibrating with cosmic excitement.
[Aha: Anyone want to join me in laughing at that massive blockhead Qlipoth later?! Ahahahaha!]
[Fuli: The camera is perfectly in place. I will capture the exact moment they obtain the power of Preservation. It will surely be a memory worth preserving for eternity.]
[Aha: Aha is already fully prepared to mock Qlipoth! Look at what you've 'Preserved', you giant rock! This is going to be just like mocking Nanook before!]
[Aha: @Nanook, you have company now! Are you happy?! Are you excited?!]
[Nanook:...]
[Nous: Boring little tricks...]
[Aha: @Leon, Lord Group Leader, should Aha help out later and drop a little Elation blessing on those two little Trailblazers?]
[Aha: I feel like Nous and Fuli could also drop a blessing on them together! What do you think of Aha's brilliant idea?!]
[Leon: Better not. I've already arranged the fun myself; don't go gilding the lily.]
[Aha: Wuwuwu, Aha is being shunned! Aha has lost all face... this is truly fun!]
Standing atop the snowy cliffs overlooking the Everwinter Monument, Leon casually summoned a weapon into his grip. The air around him instantly warped from the sheer, terrifying heat.
He had already prepared the Judgement of Shamash.
Compared to laughing at the cosmic civil engineering bro, Qlipoth, Leon was infinitely more interested in seeing Old Yang's reaction. When Welt Yang saw the blazing, apocalyptic greatsword of Kevin Kaslana suddenly manifest on a random ice planet in another universe... the sheer, unadulterated PTSD on the older man's face was going to be absolutely priceless.
Hehehe.
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