Chapter 174: Sparkle: There Are Doxxing Weapons Too?
Firefly had been kidnapped, and Stelle was practically vibrating with panic, pacing in frantic circles.
"Don't panic, guys! I still have my Memory Spirit jellyfish..." March 7th declared, puffing out her chest.
Splat. Splat.
Instead of floating gracefully, the translucent, pink-and-blue jellyfish materialized and immediately face-planted onto the floor, their tentacles wriggling pathetically against the tiles.
"Why do my jellyfish look like they've all been lobotomized?!" March shrieked, poking one of the squirming blobs with the tip of her bow.
[Because they're drunk ♭]
Long Night Moon's voice echoed in their minds, carrying a distinct blend of amusement and utter helplessness.
The ambient concentration of the Memory Zone was simply too dense here. Without proper time to adapt to the heavy atmospheric pressure of raw memories, March's delicate summons were essentially intoxicated, completely incapacitated by the overwhelming sensory overload.
"This is still the Family's territory," Rekka said, shaking his head as he observed the drunken jellyfish. "If we act rashly and start blowing things up, it's bound to cause massive diplomatic problems."
Sparkle narrowed her magenta eyes, leaning in close. "...Rekka, hold on a second."
"What's wrong?"
"Are you thinking of using that move again?"
"Which one do you mean?" he asked, feigning innocence.
"You know exactly which one... disguising yourself as some terrifyingly awesome cosmic entity, and then pulling a massive feint to slip away."
"Even if you say that..." Rekka scratched the back of his head, a wry grin tugging at his lips.
'The feint move is actually incredibly useful, isn't it?'he thought.'Make them think my main force is here, while I've already dispatched a covert detachment elsewhere.'
"Besides," he added aloud, "if I always use the exact same trick, wouldn't that make me seem completely unstrategic?"
After all, today's daily Path shift had landed him squarely in the world of the Erudition. He was currently operating as Strategist Rekka.
"If the completion rate of Lady Sparkle's grand commission is dragged down by such a boring, repetitive tactic, how could I ever show my face in the Tavern again?!" Sparkle clenched her fists, striking a dramatic pose of absolute indignation.
Ignoring the Masked Fool's theatrics, Rekka turned his attention back to the pacing Trailblazer. "Stelle, describe the kidnapper's appearance to me."
He asked the question purely as a symbolic gesture. Before Stelle could even form a complete sentence, Rekka's Erudition-enhanced mind began rapidly dumping a terrifyingly precise dossier of classified information.
"Dahlia Constance," Rekka rattled off smoothly. "I'm not entirely sure if that's her real birth name, but she is a rogue Memokeeper who betrayed the Garden of Recollection. She's an Incinerator who subsequently betrayed the Path of Destruction. Right now, she is desperately trying to track down the Stellaron Hunters to obtain a prophecy from the Finality, hoping to rewrite her own impending bad ending. She was previously known as the adopted daughter of Duke Inferno, Ifrit, but that entire familial bond was a complete fabrication—she literally implanted false memories into the minds of everyone in the Ever-Flame Mansion to secure her position."
He recited the highly classified intelligence with the casual tone of someone reading a grocery list.
"...Impressive. Truly impressive," Sparkle muttered, her jaw dropping slightly.
"You haven't even met this woman face-to-face, you didn't even know her name five seconds ago, yet you can just instantly doxx her entire life story?!" Stelle stared at him in sheer disbelief.
"Awesome. Just awesome," Sparkle added, blinking rapidly as she processed the sheer absurdity of his cheat.
"Are you walking the Path of Finality today?" the Masked Fool asked, tilting her head.
"No," Rekka corrected calmly. "Today, I am Remembrance."
"...Do you just have some sort of built-in special ability for this?" Stelle asked, still reeling.
"I can conditionally doxx certain targets," Rekka explained, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Though, to be perfectly honest, it is currently uncertain what specific parameters I need to meet to trigger the information dump. It might require a physical meeting, or perhaps just enough contextual speculation to form a solid connection."
"So... let me get this straight." Stelle rubbed her temples, struggling to digest the massive influx of lore. "You're saying that this woman, Dahlia, is targeting Firefly right now because she thinks the Stellaron Hunters have the means to help her escape her destined bad ending?"
"Highly likely," Rekka confirmed. He reached out, pressing a firm, reassuring hand onto Stelle's tense shoulder. "Now, listen to me. Keep quiet for a second. I have an idea."
Stelle snapped her mouth shut, immediately falling silent and waiting for his instructions.
"I planted a micro-tracker on Firefly earlier. It's a custom model, specifically calibrated to function perfectly within the fluctuating environment of the Memory Zone..."
Seeing the immediate, judgmental stares from both Stelle and March, Rekka rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me like I'm some kind of creep. It is just a basic tactical contingency plan."
"Why in the world did you secretly put a tracker on Firefly?!" March demanded, crossing her arms.
"Don't you and Stelle also carry the emergency trackers I built to prevent you from getting lost in the Dreamscape?" Rekka countered smoothly.
"Well, yeah, but..." Stelle frowned, her brow furrowing. "You didn't actually tell Firefly about hers, did you?"
"Of course not. If I told her, what if she got rebellious and deliberately removed it?"
"You—" Stelle's golden eyes widened to the size of saucers. Her mouth opened and closed several times like a stranded fish before she finally managed to squeeze out a response. "...You really thought that through thoroughly, didn't you?"
"So, can this creepy little gadget actually pinpoint Firefly's exact current position?" March asked, leaning over to look at his wrist.
"Like I just said, it is specifically engineered to bypass the spatial distortions of the Memory Zone. So, yes, of course it can."
The blessing of Erudition was truly a terrifyingly practical asset.
'One can only say it's worthy of being the most universally valuable Path,' Rekka mused silently. The esoteric technology and magical constructs of other Paths often suffered catastrophic failures or severe limitations when severed from their specific conceptual energy. Erudition technology, however, was rooted in fundamental logic and universal mechanics, remaining widely applicable and highly adaptable regardless of the surrounding environment.
"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Stelle practically shouted, gripping her bat tightly. "Hurry up and locate her!"
Rekka tapped the holographic projection blooming from his device. "Let me see... Hmm, the signal is still moving. The speed isn't slow, either. The trajectory is heading towards..."
He paused, his eyes tracking the glowing red dot. He already knew exactly where they were going.
"Let's go," Rekka commanded, his tone dropping into a deadly serious register. "We are going to catch ourselves a kidnapper."
"Let's go, let's go!" Stelle roared, her chaotic energy flaring to life. "Daring to kidnap Firefly right under our noses? She has officially invited death upon herself!"
They handled deeper into the Dreamscape version of The Reverie Hotel. The scenery here was deeply unsettling, warped by the heavy concentration of memoria.
First and foremost, the entire architectural layout was inverted. The most glaringly obvious detail was the signage—every single glowing font and gilded letter on the walls was perfectly mirrored, forcing the brain to work overtime just to read a simple directional plaque.
"Is this... is this really still a dream?" March 7th asked, her voice tight with worry as she stared at a chandelier protruding from the floor.
"It should be. The environment looked exactly like this weird, upside-down mess when we first breached this sector," Stelle replied, nodding with absolute confidence.
"The memoria concentration in this specific sector is simply too high," Rekka analyzed, keeping his eyes locked on the holographic tracker. "The sheer density is actively crushing the local spatial coordinates and haphazardly piecing them back together. Don't panic. Ignore the visual distortions; we just need to blindly follow the signal."
Stelle was in a foul mood. She continuously weighed the heavy, metal baseball bat in her hands, her golden eyes darting around the inverted hallways with predatory focus.
"Whatever. I don't care if the whole world is right-side up, reversed, or folded into a pretzel. Finding Firefly is the only thing that matters right now," Stelle growled, her knuckles turning white around the grip. "That woman had better pray she doesn't give me an excuse to test my bat on her skull."
Rekka noted her weapon of choice with a hint of relief. The fact that Stelle had only pulled out her trusty baseball bat meant she hadn't developed true, unadulterated killing intent just yet. It was her standard tool for chaotic brawling.
If she had summoned her flaming Preservation greatsword, it would have meant the Trailblazer was truly, apocalyptically furious, ready to reduce the entire hotel to cinders.
Their rapid advance through the mirrored corridors was eerily unopposed. They didn't encounter a single patrolling Bloodhound Family member, nor did they spot any lost Dreamchasers wandering the halls.
The absolute, suffocating silence of the zone only served to amplify the tension. Every footstep echoed like a gunshot. The quiet made March and Stelle increasingly nervous, their shoulders hiking up toward their ears.
Rekka, however, remained entirely unbothered, his expression an unreadable mask of calm calculation.
"Why isn't there even a ghost of a shadow in this place?" March whispered, furiously rubbing the rising goosebumps on her bare arms. "Are you absolutely sure we didn't go the wrong way?"
"The signal hasn't dropped. The target is directly ahead," Rekka stated softly, raising a hand to halt their advance.
Just down the hall, a faint, sickly dark purple light pulsed through the narrow crack of slightly ajar double doors. The muffled, indistinct sound of a one-sided conversation drifted out from the room beyond.
Without a single word of warning, Stelle tightened her grip on her bat, her muscles coiling like a spring as she prepared to violently kick the doors off their hinges.
Before she could launch herself forward, Rekka's hand shot out, seizing the back of her jacket collar in an iron grip and yanking her back into the shadows.
"What are you doing?!" Stelle hissed, thrashing against his hold. "Let go of me! I'm going in there to save Firefly! What the hell are we waiting for?! If we wait any longer, it might be too late!"
"Are you an idiot?" Rekka lowered his voice to a harsh, barely audible whisper, glaring at her with intense irritation. "That woman is a rogue Memokeeper. If you charge in there like a rabid dog, what do you think will happen? She could instantly scramble Firefly's brain or wipe her memories before your bat even connects. We have to use strategy."
Stelle stopped thrashing, her jaw locking in frustration. "Fine. What's the strategy, then?"
Rekka turned his gaze to the pink-haired archer. "March, let the other 'you' take the wheel for a moment. I have a plan."
He gave a subtle wave, signaling for Long Night Moon to surface.
Inside the dimly lit room, Dahlia Constance paced slowly around her captive. Her voice was a silken, hypnotic purr, weaving a web of gentle persuasion and subtle psychic manipulation. Through carefully constructed questions and false familiarity, she was steadily extracting a terrifying amount of highly classified information directly from Firefly's lips.
Suddenly, the air behind the Memokeeper rippled. A translucent, ethereal jellyfish materialized in absolute silence, drifting directly toward her blind spot.
Before its stinging tentacles could make contact, a sudden, violent burst of dark blue flames erupted from Constance's silhouette, instantly incinerating the stealthy summon.
Constance sighed, her purple eyes narrowing as she brushed a stray cinder from her elegant dress. "How terribly troublesome. It seems our private chat has been interrupted. We must leave quickly, my dear."
CRASH!
The heavy double doors splintered inward as Stelle kicked them open.
"You aren't going anywhere, witch!" Stelle roared, leveling the tip of her metal baseball bat directly at Constance's face.
"Firefly! Get away from her, quickly! She is not your companion!"
Firefly froze in place. A deep, painful flash of confusion crossed her delicate features, her brow furrowing as conflicting realities warred within her mind.
The artificially implanted memories whispered sweet reassurances, insisting that this elegant woman beside her—the one with flowing black hair, piercing purple eyes, and a stylish wide-brimmed hat—was a deeply trusted, lifelong companion.
Yet, cutting through that psychic fog was Stelle's voice. The raw, desperate tone of the person Firefly genuinely cherished and wanted to protect was urgently screaming her name, shattering the illusion's hold.
"Stelle...?" Firefly murmured, taking a hesitant, stumbling step away from the Memokeeper.
"Don't you dare move—" Constance snapped, raising a hand wreathed in blue fire.
Clatter.
Before the flames could launch, the floor beneath Firefly erupted with motion. Several massive, glowing jellyfish—courtesy of Long Night Moon's precise timing—lashed out with their thick tentacles. They wrapped securely around Firefly's waist, violently yanking her backward and completely out of Constance's striking range. The summons immediately clustered together, forming an impenetrable, gelatinous protective barrier around the dazed girl.
Stepping through the ruined doorway, Long Night Moon's eyes glowed with cold authority. She gently tapped the heel of her boot against the floorboards.
CRACK!
Jagged, frigid ice spikes violently erupted from the ground beneath Constance, instantly encasing the Memokeeper's lower half in a block of absolute zero frost.
However, the victory was fleeting. A split second later, a massive, roaring shockwave of dark blue, incinerating flames washed over the ice, melting the glacial prison into harmless steam.
"A valiant effort," Constance purred, her form already beginning to dissolve into a swirl of burning memoria and violet shadows. "Until we meet again, everyone. Do take care."
Her escape speed was utterly terrifying. Before Stelle could even swing her bat or Rekka could deploy a countermeasure, the rogue Memokeeper vanished entirely, denying them any chance to drag her into a proper, prolonged combat encounter.
As the residual blue flames flickered and died out against the mirrored walls, Firefly slumped against the protective barrier of jellyfish. She rubbed her temples, her eyes still clouded and dazed, completely struggling to process the chaotic blur of events that had just transpired.
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