201 Signals

A short while later, Zoey was still trying to process what had just taken place.

She had been wounded and trapped, out of options with no way out, but just then the strange brunette had appeared. Zoey had been just as shocked as the noble had been when the woman stabbed him. She had never imagined that Cornelius would be betrayed by one of his own subordinates, but she had seen it happen right in front of her.

Unfortunately, the woman was quickly retaliated against by Cornelius, but not before she managed to kick the dagger even deeper into the noble's stomach. It was remarkable that she had even managed to wound the Rank 7 noble, but she had suffered a direct hit from him as a result.

Of course, while this was all taking place, Zoey had not been idle. She had been trying everything in her power to regain access to her magic power, but her inner world remained stubbornly closed to her. She couldn't even sense Viridi's presence, and her interface was non-responsive as well, leaving her with nothing but some useless items in her space ring. Her only remaining hope was that she could somehow get the Dark Star's defense routine to activate before it was too late!

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But she never expected that Max, a little boy, would come to her rescue in that crucial moment. When he had burst through the wall, she did not know the circumstances that had led Max to her location, and had initially been concerned for his life. As strong as he was, he was only a boy, and Cornelius would not spare him because of that. She had tried to call out and warn him, but the events that followed left her speechless.

Max had suddenly surrounded himself with some kind of magic aura that Zoey had never seen or heard of before. Not only that, as Zoey saw in the initial exchange between him and Cornelius, Max was incredibly strong! Cornelius's crystal had been shattered with ease, and then the noble had been punched so hard that Zoey's vision swam from the concussive force released by Max's punch!

Just as soon as Max had hit Cornelius, the array that was holding Zoey snapped and dispersed, and in the next instant Zoey's inner world finally opened up, allowing her access to her magic again!

The first thing she did was to heal her own injuries so she could move, then she got up, seeing as well the brunette that had stabbed Cornelius was up as well. Zoey could sense that this woman meant her and Max no harm. She had come here for vengeance against the noble, and she would not leave till her task was done.

Once Zoey realized this, she quickly went to Max and stopped him from killing Cornelius. Zoey's reasoning for this was twofold.

First, she did not want Max to be the one to kill the noble. He was still young and currently motivated by anger, and Zoey didn't want him to kill anyone like that. It could easily turn into a slippery slope from which there was little chance of return.

Her second reason was the brunette. Despite her blank expression and dead eyes, Zoey could sense the woman had a deep animosity for the noble. She was being driven by vengeance, and Zoey knew there was only one way to appease her; Cornelius's death. One could scarcely imagine the horrors that she had suffered while Cornelius had his claws in her.

So she had pulled Max away and given the brunette her unspoken request.

At least she had killed him quickly. If Cornelius had been alive for what the brunette had done to his corpse, his pain would have been a number of times worse. Even Zoey found it hard to look at. She had seen lab dissections before, but what the brunette did to Cornelius's body put even those professional jobs to shame.

It was safe to say that there was little chance of Cornelius ever being in one piece again.

Once Zoey had seen enough, she turned her attention back to Max. The boy had grabbed onto her and buried his head in her clothing, refusing to let go of her. She smiled sadly and patted his back to comfort him. Only a boy, yet he must have had a hard time while she was in that Mind Prison.

That's right! What had happened to everyone else?! Zoey suddenly remembered that she had an entire crew to worry about! They had presumably all been pulled onto the flying city like Max and her, and gods only knew what had been happening while she was occupied!

In a flash she pulled up her interface and started looking at her Eve menu to try and contact everyone else. She quickly realized that the interference from the city was choking the signal! Only Max's Eve was showing up as connected!

Working with speed, she began to modify her interface's signal output to compensate for the absurd levels of electromagnetic interference present. It wasn't long before she had completed the modifications, using the interference as a booster for the signal instead of trying to send transmissions through the mess.

She first tested it on Max's Eve, verifying that the device would accept the new signal and duplicate it back using the new configuration. It worked perfectly, and Zoey quickly sent it out, setting it to the biggest radius she could to help find her people on the city.

The signal she was using was like a bubble, expanding out until it encountered another Eve. At that point it would duplicate the signal, prompting the Eve to repeat the process while the original signal continued outwards. The Eve would then form a direct relay back to the interface to complete the process. This way, Zoey had to ping only once to locate her missing people and connect their Eves back to her.

The signal also conveniently acted as a cartographer, roughly scanning everything it passed through and converting the data into telemetry that Zoey's interface could extrapolate to form a map of the city. Knowing where she was in relation to everyone else would be important.

Zoey watched her display like a hawk as the signal went out, until finally there was a response as the signal encountered its first Eve.

Zoey had found someone!