In Academy City, the Paradise Project begins.

Page 90

It seems necessary to find an opportunity to go on a date with her alone.

“Tenjō Axiong is over there.”

Supporting Misaka 9999, Toshinobu Fubuki pointed to the control panel not far away.

At the control panel, Tenjo Axiong, wearing a wrinkled white lab coat and with sunken eyes, was staring intently at the screen. He didn't notice the others at first.

However, when Fubuki Toshinobu spoke, he finally noticed the people who had appeared out of nowhere.

"You...you guys?! Impossible!!"

Tenjo Ayumu's voice trembled with fear; this was a super monster even more terrifying than Accelerator, the monster that could defeat him.

"You were just at the test site a moment ago, how could you...?!"

But soon, fear was replaced by a twisted, manic triumph.

He slammed the red button on the device in front of him, the alarm went off, and he laughed hysterically: "...Hahahaha! Since you don't want me to have an easy time, then I won't let you have your way! Higashino Yu! Misaka Mikoto! You ruined my plans! You ruined everything I had!"

He pointed to the cylindrical culture chamber next to him, which was connected by countless cables and immersed in nutrient solution.

Inside the cabin, the Last Order closed his eyes tightly.

"The last line of defense! See that? The command tower of Misaka Networks!"

Tenjo Ayumi looked like a madman, his face contorted with ecstasy.

“Just now, I personally injected the final virus program into this little guy’s brain! That meticulously designed anomalous code—a total of 357,081 pieces—has made its home in her brain like the most venomous snake!”

He pointed triumphantly at the red button he had just pressed.

"It's quiet now, right? Because I also set a detonator for it!"

Tenjo Ayumu laughed wildly, knowing he was doomed anyway. Even if these guys didn't find him, he would still be in crisis due to the debt crisis, having lost the chance to continue his plan.

Since that's the case, dragging these cheapskates down with you and making these self-righteous brats regret it for the rest of their lives is a pretty good choice.

"Tonight! At 8 o'clock sharp! This virus will activate! And then... *poof*... it will explode like fireworks! It will spread rapidly along the damned Misaka Network shared by these clones! It will force commands onto every node in the network! It will put all the clones, including the one next to you (he pointed to Misaka 9999), and that command tower over there, into an irreversible state of chaos! Until their brains burn out! Hahahaha!"

He opened his arms wide, as if embracing the inevitable destruction he had created:

"So what if you stopped the experiment? So what if you defeated Accelerator? You forced me to this point! You think you won? Wrong! It was you! You 'saviors' who stormed in! You personally killed the remaining ten thousand clones! Tonight at 20 PM! That will be their collective death day! Hahahaha!"

Maniacal laughter echoed wildly in the cold control room, filled with extreme resentment.

"Ha, what a ridiculous performance."

Higashino had absolutely no liking for this hopeless guy.

No action.

boom--! ! !

Tenjo Ayumu felt an irresistible force slam into his chest! He screamed and flew backward! He quickly crashed into the wall and slowly fell down.

Higashino teleported directly in front of him, looking down at him.

"You scum..."

Higashino Yu's voice was filled with disgust for him. He raised his foot, and the sole of his shoe ruthlessly stomped on Tenjo Ayu's face, slowly grinding it.

"...They're about to die? And they still want to drag the Misaka Sisters down with them?"

Tenjo Ayumi's face was distorted under the shoe, and he whimpered and begged for mercy.

"Ah."

Higashino gave a cold, mocking laugh.

"I was originally planning to kill you outright, but now I feel death is too much of a luxury for you. So just give it to me..."

She raised her hand and pointed to his chest.

"...to become a real maggot, and live among feces!"

An invisible force enveloped Tenjo Axiong's entire body!

"Wait—what are you doing?!"

Before he could continue, Tenjo Ayumu's body convulsed, twisted, and shrank! The human form was rejected and reconstructed! The white coat merged into his body, and his limbs and facial features disappeared... In the blink of an eye, a living person turned into a fat, pale, and constantly wriggling maggot!

In the tiny compound eyes of the maggots, the extreme fear, pain, and despair belonging to Tenjo Ayumi were clearly reflected! His consciousness was completely preserved!

"No... kill me..."

The maggots emitted a faint, mournful cry belonging to Tenjo Ayumi's consciousness.

"die?"

Higashino won't let this guy get away with it.

"If you hadn't done those disgusting and unnecessary things just now, you could be dead by now. Now, enjoy your eternal new life."

He twitched his fingertips slightly, and ripples in the space enveloped the maggots.

The maggots vanished instantly.

In a remote, filthy public toilet stall, a fat maggot falls into the murky sewage, beginning its long, desperate "eternity."

Higashino suppressed his murderous intent and regained his composure. He turned around and looked towards the center of the room.

Bu Shuzhi had already rushed to the incubation chamber, his fingers flying across the complex operating interface, his face unusually solemn.

"Damn it... the virus program he mentioned really exists!"

Her voice was filled with unprecedented tension, and her expression, which hadn't changed much since meeting Higashino, was brimming with anxiety.

"Deeply embedded in Last Order's brain! Moreover... the test results show that the activation time is locked at exactly 20:00 PM tonight! It is currently in a silent dormant state, but once activated... the program will complete self-compilation within ten minutes, transforming into a mandatory absolute command, which will spread through the Misaka Network... there is no way to stop it!"

Misaka 9999 stood quietly at the front of the cabin, her eyes fixed on the Last Order.

"Network anomaly warning received. Misaka 9999 reporting status." Her voice remained flat.

In early spring, she was also filled with anxiety, not knowing what to do.

"Tonight...?"

Misaka Mikoto bit her lower lip, her fists clenched. She had stopped the experiment, but fallen into an even more deadly trap? Only a few hours remained!

Higashino strode towards the incubation chamber surrounded by the crowd. His sharp gaze swept over Last Order's face and the complex monitoring data.

Chapter 118 The Resonance of the Misaka Network

Higashino Yu stood before the incubation chamber of his final work, the cold nutrient solution reflecting on his serene face. A silver light subtly flowed within the depths of his profound pupils, like a galaxy in the night sky.

"Bujutsu, dispel all physical isolation procedures. I need direct access to Last Order." Higashino's voice left no room for argument. He decided to try using his abilities to infiltrate the Misaka Network.

Without the slightest hesitation, Toshinobu Fubuki's fingers swiftly swept across the complex holographic interface, silently disarming the intricate mechanical locks and barriers. The connection port covering Last Order's head was exposed, cables coiling around her head like silver vines.

“Yu…” Misaka Mikoto’s voice was tense. She didn’t know what Higashino was planning to do, but instinctively worried that he would do something beyond his limits again. It was like that the first time they fought side by side; Higashino didn’t actually need to push himself so hard, but he still forcibly enhanced her abilities to defeat the fantasy beast, which ultimately led to Higashino being hospitalized again.

“Trust me, Mikoto.” Higashino didn’t turn around, his tone calm and firm. He extended his right hand, his fingers gently touching the small forehead of Last Order. The light at his fingertips instantly became bright and pure, carefully penetrating the surface, attempting to touch and analyze the virus program deeply embedded within.

A strange vibration, like millions of brainwave filaments sharing the same frequency being plucked simultaneously, surged from Dongye's fingertips into his brain! His consciousness seemed to be instantly swept away by a huge torrent, and what he saw before him was no longer the cold control room, but a vast and boundless starry sea composed of about ten thousand faint points of light!

Misaka Network! Higashino instantly understood his predicament; he had succeeded. His consciousness, through the core node of Last Order, the command tower, was forcibly pulled into the shared mental world of all the surviving Misaka Sisters.

In this sea of ​​stars composed of over ten thousand faintly resonating consciousnesses, an extremely discordant and filthy black torrent spreads like a venomous snake! It exudes an aura of coldness, death, and destruction—it is the virus program implanted by Tenjo Ayumu! It greedily erodes and assimilates the faint points of light representing the consciousness of the Misaka Sisters in the network, staining them with an ominous gray-black, and it continues to multiply and expand! The virus takes the form of countless twisted, writhing black thorns.

Higashino immediately attempted to activate his ability, manifesting the power of cognitive reconstruction within this mental space constructed purely of brainwave signals. A ghostly blue light shone around his consciousness, attempting to "define" the black thorns as "harmless" and to "eliminate" them. However, the moment the light touched the black thorns, it vanished like a stone thrown into the sea, forcibly swallowed and rejected by the filthy, massive viral will! The thorns, instead of being enraged, danced even more wildly, attempting to entangle and corrupt Higashino Yu's consciousness in reverse!

More importantly, he sensed a powerful "collective will resistance," which did not come from the virus itself, but from the collective subconscious and inherent operating rules of the Misaka Network, an organic thinking entity composed of about ten thousand consciousnesses, resisting his powerful external force's fundamental modification of the entire network's operating logic! The entire network was like a giant parallel computer's core firmware, instinctively rejecting external "rewriting."

“Although it could be eliminated directly… a forceful confrontation would directly impact the entire network structure, harming the sisters who act as its carriers… We can’t do that…” Higashino’s consciousness floated in the sea of ​​stars, its silver light struggling to avoid being completely swallowed by the black thorns and rejected by the network’s own rules. “We must find another way…”

Just then, a sudden change occurred! The countless points of light representing the Misaka Sisters' consciousness, which had been struggling and dimming in the murky torrent, suddenly lit up all at once! It was as if, deep within the network, the invisible organic thinking entity composed of all individual wills had undergone a decisive change! Immediately afterward, one point of light… two points of light… ten… a hundred… a thousand… tens of thousands! Like stars awakened by the warm dawn, more and more points of light voluntarily broke free from their eroded paths and converged towards the location of Higashino's consciousness, like rivers flowing into the sea! They were not attacking, but spontaneously and resolutely merging their faint light into the layer of eerie blue light surrounding Higashino's consciousness, which resisted the black thorns and the repulsion of the network rules!

"This is...?" Dongye was surprised to feel that as these faint consciousnesses merged in, the resistance that was "rejected" by the entire network rules was rapidly weakening! An unprecedented, warm and firm sense of trust and support resonated deep in his consciousness.

"Network access rate has skyrocketed! Over 90%... 95%... 99%! All contactable Misaka individuals are actively connecting to the core! How could this be... What are they actively responding to?!" In reality, Fubuki Toshinobu stared at the wildly fluctuating data on the monitoring screen, exclaiming in shock. She glanced sharply at a palm-sized data storage core that she had temporarily connected to the control panel—the prototype of the "personality program" she had been debugging, preparing to try and imbue the sisters with richer emotions! Just moments ago, when Higashino's consciousness entered the network, causing a strong disturbance to the entire network's rules due to the external intrusion, Fubuki Toshinobu, clinging to her last hope, forcibly injected this immature "emotional program" into the Misaka Network! Her intention was perhaps to awaken some supportive emotions in the individuals, but she never expected the effect to be so intense and widespread, directly touching the collective consciousness of the entire Misaka Network!

Within the Misaka Network. “Understanding…Request…Help…” “Target…Survival…Protect…Command Tower…” “Provide…Computing Power…Support…” “Thank you…Friend (Onee-sama's spouse)…” “Resist…Contamination…” “For…Everyone…” Countless, almost inaudible, fragmented thoughts, like warm drizzle, accompanied each merging point of light, flooded into Higashino's senses. This was an emotional fluctuation, newly activated by an emotional program, both naive and exceptionally clear: the desire to survive! The determination to protect the Command Tower and his sisters! And, a deep sense of gratitude towards the “Friend” fighting for them before him!

This power, formed by the convergence of the wills of over ten thousand newly ignited emotional sparks, instantly shattered the Misaka Network's collective resistance to Higashino's abilities! The network's overall will actively accepted him, regarding his power as part of the network!

Boom—!!! The silver light surrounding Higashino's consciousness, upon merging with the tens of thousands of starlight, erupted with an unprecedentedly intense brilliance! It was no longer a solitary resistance, but the entire Misaka Network choosing him, perfectly resonating the power of their nascent emotions and prayers with his ability to "reconstruct reality"! The entire starry sea seemed to respond to this combined force! Those wildly dancing black thorns, attempting to devour everything, before this vast brilliance fused with nascent emotional will and cognitive reconstruction, were like filthy ice under the blazing sun, emitting a piercing scream like billions of data points being instantly wiped out, rapidly melting and disintegrating! The cold runes were utterly shattered, the murky blackness receding as if purified, ultimately turning into nothingness dust, dissipating into the now pure starry sea. Those 357,081 deadly virus codes were completely erased before the cognitive reconstruction actively amplified by the collective emotional will of the Misaka Network! In the sea of ​​stars, only pure starlight and Higashino's consciousness, shining like a star, remained.

Inside the reality control room, on the enormous holographic screen in front of Fubuki Toshinobu, the red area representing the virus program, resembling a malignant tumor, shrank rapidly and faded without resistance, as if erased by an eraser, until it finally disappeared completely! A huge green message flashed on the screen: "Virus removal complete (100%)!"

"It...it worked?! It's really gone?!" Hatsuharu, who was assisting Fubuki Toshinobu, looked surprised and delighted. The fact that her sisters were able to receive and understand the emotional program so quickly was also due to her technical support.

Mikoto's tense body suddenly relaxed. Looking at the words "Cleanup Complete" on the screen, and then at the Last Order in the incubation chamber, whose slightly furrowed brows seemed to have relaxed and whose breathing had become steady and peaceful, she was overwhelmed with joy and lingering fear, leaving her speechless for a moment.

Misaka 9999, who had been standing quietly at the front of the pod, opened her eyes and gazed at Last Order inside the cultivation chamber. She had also entered the Misaka Network and contributed her efforts. A few seconds later, she slowly turned her head, her gaze landing precisely on Higashino, and said in a flat yet exceptionally clear tone: "Virus confirmed cleared. Command Tower vital signs stable. All Misaka Network individuals report normal. All Misaka individuals... thank... sister... brother-in-law. Emotional record updated, saved successfully. Misaka 9999 submits final status report." She uttered the title "brother-in-law" without any hesitation, clearly reflecting a collective understanding within the entire network.

Higashino slowly withdrew his finger from Last Order's forehead, the light at his fingertip fading quietly. He opened his eyes, the silver light in his pupils slowly disappearing, a clear weariness appearing on his face, but more so a calm of control and a subtle, almost imperceptible, sense of satisfaction. This satisfaction stemmed not only from success, but also from the newfound emotions and trust conveyed through those online stars. Moreover, his power, through the Misaka Network, had been enhanced once again!

He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the trembling hands of Toshinobu Fubuki and the excited Haruharu, before finally settling on Misaka Mikoto's face, her eyes slightly red as she looked at him with a complicated expression.

"The virus has been cleared." Higashino's voice carried a hint of weariness, yet remained exceptionally clear and strong. "They are safe for now." He paused, his gaze returning to Last Order, who was sleeping soundly in the incubation chamber. "However, things aren't completely over yet." Higashino's tone left no room for argument. "The sisters' future still needs careful planning, and their physical condition isn't something that can be restored immediately once things are over."

Chapter 119 Misaka Sisters' First Kiss Was My Higashino!

The hospital may have a casual name, but the doctor there with the frog-like face is a trustworthy doctor.

Having been a regular at this hospital, Higashino knew the hospital's coordinates very well. Despite having overused his abilities today and having a slight headache, he still used his abilities to appear directly in front of the hospital gate.

Compared to the discomfort caused by that headache, resolving the sisters' follow-up issues as soon as possible is the top priority.

As the group stepped into the corridor filled with the smell of disinfectant, they were greeted by a short, stout doctor with a frog-like face, wearing a white coat—Mingtu Zhuihun.

He had been waiting there for a long time.

Before coming over, Higashino called Dr. Guatai to tell him to prepare in advance.

"Come with me."

The voice of the Soul Chaser was deep and steady, without a single wasted word. His gaze quickly swept over the unconscious Last Order on the stretcher, and Misaka 9999 standing to the side, looking exactly like Misaka Mikoto. He felt a little helpless.

He had learned some of the details through his previous conversation with Higashino, but as an ordinary doctor, he was powerless to do anything about the dark side of Academy City.

The group followed him into a well-equipped, softly lit intensive care unit. The medical staff skillfully placed the patient on the bed and connected it to various sophisticated physiological monitoring instruments. A steady beeping sound filled the room, and the screens displayed stable and healthy indicators.

After personally checking the data, the Underworld Soul Chaser nodded in satisfaction: "The virus residue has been completely eliminated. This child is in good physical condition and will wake up after a period of rest. The important thing is..."

He turned to Misaka 9999.

"Your body hasn't fully recovered yet, and given the impact of this event, you need to stay in the hospital for further detailed treatment and emotional adjustment observation."

Misaka 9999 stood quietly beside the hospital bed, nodding slightly upon hearing this: "Understood. Misaka 9999 will cooperate with the doctor's arrangements. Misaka reports her wishes."

Her tone remained steady, but the nascent emotion in her eyes gave the report a touch of warmth.

Bu Shuzhi was also operating the equipment nearby, backing up and organizing the relevant data. She said to Mingtu Zhuihun, "I will hand over the raw data and monitoring reports of the emotional program to you."

She doesn't delve into the future of the Misaka Sisters, but is more concerned with their current physical and mental health and stability.

"As for the other children you mentioned, bring them in for testing as soon as possible. However, our hospital has limited resources, and even with our best efforts, we cannot accommodate all patients. I'll go out and contact the chairman to see if he can make arrangements."

"Well, please."

After receiving Dongye's response, Mingtu Zhuihun nodded, glanced at everyone with a complicated look, and turned to leave the ward.

Higashino knew that his sisters' physical condition needed to be gradually improved, and that their feelings would need to be nurtured through different experiences before they could truly understand each other.

They are key to the Aleister Project, and dispersing treatment is inevitable.

Higashino also needs them to be scattered all over the world—Aleister's plan could very well become his plan.

Therefore, he was not opposed to contacting the chairman of the Underworld Soul Chaser Association.

However, creating the necessary tools to ensure the safety of each of the younger sisters is giving Higashino a headache. The sheer scale of production, involving tens of thousands of people, will likely drain him dry.

After the patient was settled, the atmosphere in the ward eased up.

Looking at the peacefully sleeping Last Order, Haru breathed a sigh of relief and whispered to Mikoto, "Thank goodness, Misaka-senpai, they all seem to be alright."

Misaka Mikoto also breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at the peaceful little face of Last Order on the hospital bed and Misaka 9999 standing quietly beside her, the tension in her heart finally eased, and a great sense of relief welled up in her heart.

Just then, Misaka 9999's gaze fell once again on Higashino, who was sitting in a chair in the ward with his eyes closed, resting due to the excessive exertion from dealing with the virus.