In this slowed-down world, I watched the scalpel ominously approach my throat inch by inch, and I knew that there was no way out of this.
'Forget getting out unscathed, just surviving this is already considered a miracle!'
Even with accelerating my thoughts to the limits, my physical reaction wouldn't be fast enough to dodge.
[Report: Survival probability in this encounter is…0,0127%.]
I winced as soon as I heard the numbers.
'Yeah, that sounds about right. It's her we are talking about after all.'
My eyes locked onto the assailant.
Brown hair tied neatly into a bun. A dress of matching brown with blue sleeves and orange interior. In her hand, a scalpel shimmered ominously under the artificial light. Her face was obscured behind a holographic barrier, but I didn't need to see it clearly to know her identity.
I had seen her portrait before, both in-game and in reality…And now, in my own assassination.
Genius Society #4, Polka Kakamond.
Polka is what I label a 'Genius Killer', an infamous woman known to have stained her hands red with the blood of her fellow Genius Society members and whoever dared to approach the borders of the Circle of Knowledge.
One of her most notorious kills was the first Genius himself, Zandar One Kuwabara, the creator of Nous the Erudition.
'For some reason, she kinda reminds me of Kiritsugu in some way...'
I immediately shook off these stray thoughts, because this wasn't the time for that.
Right now, survival was all that mattered.
At my command, the unnamed metal flowed over my hands, forming a pair of gauntlets before spreading to the rest of my body. I immediately raised both of my hands and held her wrist.
"Argh!"
I poured every ounce of strength into holding her in place while shifting my neck out of the scalpel's path.
*Fwooosh!*
A massive purple ice crystal came flying towards Polka, only to halt midair, stopped by an invisible force coming out of her, which was visible due to her raising the freed hand in its direction. Herta let out a battle cry and immediately followed up by hammering the gem, trying to pressure Polka into moving away.
'Good, we managed to stop her in time! Now I only need to create a distance between us!'
As I was gathering the 'metal' to form a giant pillar that could send her away…until something happened.
All Great Sage's calculations were disrupted as if by an unknown factor.
In one moment, I was holding her, and Herta was pressuring her as well, but the next, Herta was lying on the floor, my arms down.
And the scalpel…
…was already inside my throat.
'Huh?'
My body grew weak and cold, despite the warmth of the blood flowing down all over my body.
'What happened?'
My hands trembled as nothing but a faint sigh escaped bloody lips.
I tried to reach my throat, but Polka moved first. With surgical precision, she dragged the blade downward, opening my torso from throat to abdomen before kicking me into the wall.
I coughed up blood, and my head was spinning because of the impact.
'This is bad, really bad…' I thought as my eyelids grew heavier by the second. 'If this doesn't work, this might be really the finishing line for me...'
[Report: The nanobots from the unnamed metal have successfully entered your bloodstream.]
My vision blurred as I weakly raised my head.
'But damn it…I didn't expect her to ambush so soon.'
[Notice: H■■□■i E□■□■□ surg□■■—…!]
'Still… if I'd known it would end like this… I wouldn't have waited to tell her that I—'
My thoughts were interrupted by myself, as all the blood that was accumulating in the wrong places was expelled discreetly. And through fading vision, I locked eyes with her.
'I feel like I am going to black out soon, but…I am not going down without a surprise.'
…
Polka Kakamond was observing Welt Royce's body in silence when a noise from behind prompted her to turn around.
In an instant, Polka was surrounded by mirrors with purple frames, each one reflecting the same beautiful image of the Emanator of Erudition holding the wand and pointing at her.
"Fire."
Several beams of concentrated Imaginary energy infused with ice element were shot at her.
Polka reacted instantly by slashing through several beams with her scalpel, while others had mysteriously missed her by a hair. However, the few that connected had blasted her downward through two floors in an explosion of debris and fractured metal.
Fortunately, evacuation protocols had already been triggered, leaving no room for bystander casualties.
Polka rose from the rubble, her arm slightly bruised but perfectly functional. She dusted off her dress and looked upward.
Through the trail of destruction she left behind, she saw Herta staring back at her from above, with eyes devoid of any warmth or jest, only pure and unfiltered fury.
"That was the warning shot." Herta declared, spinning her key-shaped wand in her hand, and stopped exactly in Polka's direction.
"I won't show mercy next time."
…
From the moment of her birth, Herta was destined to be extraordinary.
As a newborn, she could already speak, write, read, and calculate, almost as if she were born with all the knowledge in the universe.
If King Midas of Greek mythology turned anything into gold with just a touch, then Herta was the goddess of wisdom who could turn any research topic into a scientific advancement that could change the whole civilization.
To everyone, Herta becoming a member of the Genius Society was never a matter of 'if', but 'when'.
She grew up on a pedestal, built and isolated by their admiration, worship, reverence, jealousy, and fear.
The isolation itself never truly bothered her. However, it brought to her one of the greatest dangers known to mankind: boredom.
Doctorates, research papers, etc, had clearly defined limits on how they can keep her mind occupied.
This influenced developing Herta's mindset; for her, the journey of 'whys' and 'hows' outweighs the answer itself. And for that reason, she started researching the Universe.
Then the Aeons.
And ultimately, the people.
Unfortunately for her, out of the three, only the latter were more available, and for that reason, she would valorize those who attracted her attention, and it was a hobby of hers to test them. But to maintain that was another challenge in itself.
The first time Herta felt genuine kinship was upon meeting her peers from the Genius Society. Among them, only a select few had earned her trust to start joint research.
And recently, she met Welt Royce.
In her opinion, he was strange in a good way.
Herta found his ideas quite intriguing, and the papers he submitted for review were solid, impressively so, with few mistakes here and there. And the memories from Puppet #3 had made her raise her eyebrow more than once.
But overall, he was promising and had the qualifications to join the Genius Society; it was all about a change of mindset. Not to mention, he was also a good companion.
She wanted to see how far he would go.
However, everything went down when the Lord of Silence suddenly appeared right after he showed something she, an Emanator of Erudition, was still trying to comprehend.
That single moment elevated him several tiers in her internal evaluation.
When she saw his body torn open, leaning against the wall.
Something twisted in her chest.
A raging fury quickly surged within her that she had never experienced before.
This wasn't about wounded pride; it had already reached deep within a personal territory.
In simple terms, right now, Herta wanted nothing but to beat the shit out of the woman in front of her.
…
Meanwhile, Royce was being carefully carried by multiple Herta puppets toward a conjured mirror leading to HertaPlanet.
Herta tightened the grip on the wand as she looked warily at her opponent.
"Is that how you treat your seniors, little witch?" Polka spoke for the first time since she arrived, but the carefree tone showed that she wasn't taking this seriously, even with an Emanator as an opponent. "I feel a bit sad."
"Do you really expect a warm reception after you invaded my territory and killed someone who is directly under me?" Herta sneered at her. "To me, you seem to have forgotten even the basic courtesy after having your brain rotted with fear and paranoia as a senior member of the Genius Society."
Polka chuckled and crossed her arms.
"Say whatever you want, but it's already too late for you to do anything. That man is already dead." Polka replied as she rested her chin on her free hand. "His death was necessary to protect the peace of the cosmos, if not the entire universe. You should know, right? Anomalies like him will only bring chaos and increase the entropy of the universe, bringing us closer to the Finality's end."
"I don't care." Herta responded coldly as the floor beneath her started freezing. "Whatever the justification you have, it doesn't change that you'll pay for this."
"It seems my words won't change your mind." Polka sighed and shook her head. "Besides, do you really want to confront me here? Surely you know that you aren't ready for it, not to mention that the clash between two geniuses will kill everyone in this space station. Are you sure you want to bear that burden?"
Herta's eyes flickered briefly with hesitation, and she lowered the wand a tiny bit. Despite being a member of the Genius Society and an Emanator of Erudition, she was one of the selected few who kept their moral beliefs in the pursuit of knowledge.
She was capable of making sacrifices, but she was also aware that even if everyone here died in crossfire, the chances of defeating Polka without preparation were very low.
Herta grit her teeth in frustration, but she wasn't going to back down at this point, and Polka just enjoyed seeing her in conflict.
The standoff between the two geniuses raised the tension in the air, when suddenly, the scalpel in Polka's hand started trembling.
She looked at it briefly in confusion as it kept going more intense, before she sensed danger and threw it away.
It let out a loud screech as it contorted itself into a ball. And the moment it hit the metallic floor, spikes emerged in the blink of an eye.
Some were blocked by an invisible barrier, but there were quite some that tore through many of Polka's defenses, piercing her body.
However, against the odds, all of her vital organs were spared from the sudden attack.
Blood spilled through the corners of her mouth, and yet she smiled.
Herta's eyes widened as she could somehow recognize that this was Royce's doing!
'Royce?'
"It seems you've quite hidden cards, little witch." Polka wiped the blood off, breaking free from the spikes, and raised her hands. "Very well, you won this time, junior. I've already fulfilled my goal here anyway, so there is no reason for me to stay longer."
"You aren't going anywhere!" Herta leaped downward, creating a colossal crystal key made out of ice, and shot it at Polka.
*BOOOOM!*
The space station shook as the key buried itself in the ground. Herta landed near the crash site, but her face was filled with frustration and anger.
"Dammit." Herta muttered as the key dissolved into glittering frost. "She escaped…"
"Ufufu~, Farewell, little witch. May we meet next time in better circumstances."
Polka's haughty voice echoed through the destroyed room.
Herta clicked her tongue in response. She knew that pursuing her was pointless, especially when there was something else urgent going on.
So she turned around, conjured a mirror, and returned to her home base.
There was no time to waste.