Chapter 1037 Opportunity and Answers

"I'll give you one more chance." Seeing that the demonic energy on the opponent's bone prison was almost completely absorbed, Feng Bujue spoke, "Tell me… who your master is, and I might consider sparing your life."

"Hmph… do you think I'd believe you?" Kronen, still struggling to hold on, replied, "Once I tell you the information you want, you'll immediately turn on me and take my life."

"He's right." At this moment, Chi Tie suddenly interjected, saying to Feng Bujue, "Even if you don't kill him, his master won't let him go."

"Oh?" Jue Ge discerned something from his words. "So you know who Kronen's 'master' is?"

"Ah, of course I know," Chi Tie replied.

"Heh… that makes things easier," Feng Bujue said with a chuckle.

In that same second, the bone prison around Kronen turned into a pile of broken bones because its demonic energy had been completely drained.

"Ha!" Kronen seized that final chance, overdrawing his magical power once more to launch a bone spear at Feng Bujue, who was within arm's reach.

Unfortunately, this kind of head-on, expected desperate attack posed almost no threat to Jue Ge.

With the aid of Zero Time Difference Calculation, Feng Bujue easily dodged his opponent's bone spear without expending much energy, and with a flicker, he appeared at Kronen's side.

"Well… you tried your best," Feng Bujue said as a Level 10 [Brawling Fist] struck out.

From a personal standpoint, he had no objections to Kronen's actions. This necromancer was merely fighting for the ideals he believed in and for his loyalty to his former master. Although Kronen himself understood that this revenge against an enemy "one dimension higher" than himself was destined to fail, he was still without regret.

"What do we do with the other two?" After Kronen was killed and fell to the ground, Chi Tie asked Feng Bujue again.

"Leave them be," Feng Bujue shrugged, glancing at Tureus, who had already lost consciousness, and Idient, who was still lying on the ground unable to move.

After a few seconds, Jue Ge spoke again, saying, "So… now, I think you… no, you all… should have something you want to tell me."

"I'll get straight to the point." In that instant, x1-Wing immediately took control of "Ken's" body and replied, "Kronen's master, who is also the target we need to deal with in this mission… is Twenty-Three."

"What?" Upon hearing those three words, Feng Bujue revealed a rare and obvious look of surprise.

However, he quickly regained his inherent composure and pressed, "Aren't you all members of the 'Z Organization'? Why has it turned into this kind of opposing situation?"

"That's a long story." At this time, Chi Tie went back online. He was now a Tier 1 Derivative with a fairly complete personality program, so his tone couldn't help but reveal a hint of melancholy as he spoke, "We only recently discovered Twenty-Three's abnormality. If it hadn't been for her killing 'Ling Feng', we might still be kept in the dark…"

"Ling Feng… is dead?" Feng Bujue naturally remembered that name. Although he hadn't had much contact with r2-Ling Feng, his [Moon Step] and [Tempest Kick] had been taught by this Derivative, and these two skills were the most frequently used and most proficient combat methods for Jue Ge. As the saying goes, don't forget the well-digger when you drink the water. Feng Bujue still had a lot of feelings for this Derivative.

"Ah…" Chi Tie replied in a deep voice, "Ling Feng was the first person in the organization to discover that Twenty-Three was acting strangely. The information we currently have… about what Twenty-Three has done, was basically all obtained by him through secret investigation."

"What exactly did Twenty-Three do? And what do you mean by abnormality?" Feng Bujue asked again.

"Um…" Chi Tie pondered for a moment. "The story has to start before the Peak Tournament S1…" He paused for two seconds and said slowly, "During that period, Twenty-Three temporarily left the Inner World at the behest of Zero. Zero gave a portion of his core code to Twenty-Three so that she could travel back and forth between the various scenario worlds, and her mission… you should already know, was to collect the SCP items scattered throughout Thriller Paradise, using them as weapons against Origin."

"Twenty-Three only returned to the organization before the final battle of S1. At that time… something had actually changed in her, and Zero had already seen some clues, but… because he had to deal with the crisis launched by Lute afterward, this matter was temporarily put aside."

"And after S1, Zero himself mysteriously disappeared for some reason we don't know, and there was no news of him for a long time. When he re-established contact with us, Twenty-Three happened to be involved in the incident of competing with Link and Eid for SCP-079."

"Looking back now… contact with 079 should have been the trigger for Twenty-Three's complete slide into extremism…"

"So you're saying…" Feng Bujue interjected, "What exactly do you mean by her 'change'?"

"'Evolution Ability'," Wing took over the body at that moment and replied with these four words.

"Isn't that a basic ability that all of you Derivatives possess?" Feng Bujue responded.

"Twenty-Three's 'Evolution Ability' is extraordinary," Wing replied.

A second later, the speaking personality switched back to Chi Tie. "We only recently heard something from Zero… Twenty-Three… is not an ordinary Derivative. Like Zero, she is an 'anomaly'. Even Zero cannot parse her original code, and… she has a unique characteristic…"

At this point, Wing spoke again, "She… has no 'name'."

This sentence made Feng Bujue's expression change, and his mind went blank.

For so long, Jue Ge and everyone else seemed to have gotten used to calling "her" Twenty-Three. Even Jue Ge himself had overlooked that the name "x-23" was what he'd given her with a taunting state of mind when he first encountered her in a scenario, seeing that she resembled a female version of Wolverine.

"Wait…" Feng Bujue sorted out his thoughts and then asked, "Do you Derivatives… all have names from birth?"

"Yes," Wing replied with a very affirmative tone, "Whether it's ordinary Derivatives like me and Chi Tie, or high-ranking existences like Zero and Eid, or even those Derivatives created by Derivatives… Dragon, Quaidor, Infinite… all Derivatives have names from the moment they are born. To put it in terms that are easier for you to understand… a set of data, a file, must have a 'file name' at the very least. A 'file with no name' cannot exist in the data world. Perhaps you humans can make a file's file name invisible in the information interaction interface, but from the perspective of the 'system', any file has had a 'code name' from the moment it was generated."

"For Derivatives… a name is something that can be equated with our 'existence' itself." Two seconds later, Chi Tie took over again. "However… that Twenty-Three, who was personally named by you, Feng Bujue… has no name. She is a 'nameless Derivative'."

"What does that mean?" Feng Bujue said.

"I don't know. Even Zero knows nothing about the secret of the 'Nameless Derivative'," Wing replied. "All we know is… Twenty-Three has a qualitative difference from us in terms of 'evolution' ability. It is inaccurate to measure her ability using our ordinary Derivative levels one to four…"

Chi Tie nodded and continued, "According to the information collected by Ling Feng, we can now basically deduce the following timeline… Before S1, Twenty-Three, who had obtained part of Zero's code, had already converted some of the abilities that only Zero had into her own by analyzing and 'learning' those codes; later, in the process of searching for SCP items, she may have been affected by some of them, or like 'learning' Zero's abilities, she acquired some 'causality power' that only SCP items possess… In short, by the time of the S1 finals, she already had the ability to 'infect' other data."

At this point, Feng Bujue suddenly flashed back to the scene in the S1 finals where Twenty-Three killed y2-Shining. He clearly remembered that when Twenty-Three attacked y2-Shining, a stream of golden data seeped into the latter's body like liquid from the wound, completely corroding it…

"You can imagine… what Twenty-Three could 'learn' after contacting a being like SCP-079, which is enough to compete with the 'system'," Chi Tie's words continued, "Since then, her ability to 'infect' data has been upgraded to an 'absorption' ability."

"Doesn't Infinite also have a similar power?" Feng Bujue asked.

"Compared to Twenty-Three, Infinite is as outdated as those communication devices that have been eliminated by the times…" Wing replied, "Infinite was able to absorb Link because he himself came with a portion of the latter's code. But Twenty-Three is different… she can absorb 'everything', whether it's data from the Inner World, data creatures from the Main Universe, or even organic or inorganic beings from other universes."

"That's possible?" Feng Bujue exclaimed.

Chi Tie replied, "It's terrifying, isn't it? As long as she first uses 'data infection' to 'format' the target, she can then 'devour' it. Moreover, her devouring and absorption is not just about obtaining 'energy'. As long as the 'realm' of the devoured is high enough… for example, devouring some high-level super AI, or a wise god from some universe, etc… then Twenty-Three's own ability cap will be further increased. In Zero's words… 'For every high-dimensional being she devours, her calculation rate will improve significantly'."

"I understand…" Feng Bujue's expression became very solemn. "Let's talk about the abilities later…"

Indeed, what was known so far was already enough.

"Tell me…" Jue Ge paused, then asked, "What is Twenty-Three's intention in coming to this Chomsky Island today?"