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The single aberration controlling and dominating this layer emerged without warning. Over several meters long and composed primarily of corrupted data and data-corrupting crystals, this entity—a high-level virus—burst from the caves, tearing through data crystals and shattering them with its furious steps.
It mostly resembled a giant black-and-red spider forged from those colored crystals, yet it was also covered in numerous other insectoid forms. It possessed scythes, claws, scorpion tails, and countless eyes scattered across its aberrant body.
"I-It's coming!"
Zero Two panicked as she watched the grotesque, gigantic aberration approach, suddenly realizing this would not be a simple fight.
It would become another long, drawn-out battle!
"Zero One!"
"Can we really do this?!"
The Zero Three twins were panicking too, while Zero One kept her eyes closed—even as the monstrosity loomed right in front of them.
"SHYAAAAGGH!"
The monstrous virus roared furiously, swinging its massive scythes toward the sisters.
At that moment, Zero One's eyes snapped open.
FLASH!
A radiant golden light erupted from their combined auras, clashing against the scythes.
An explosive shockwave of golden light engulfed both blades, reducing them to fragments and then ashes.
BOOOM! BOOOM!
The two scythes disintegrated as the monstrosity groaned in agony and immediately recoiled, staring at Zero One in utter horror and disbelief.
She recalled the faint memories of Raven she had now gained—of the last human, of the girl she had been modeled after, of the girl her Mother had cared for and perhaps loved…
Her aura only grew stronger as her Digital Soul overflowed with golden and white anti-corruption data.
It was a powerful Anti-Virus Aura!
"Did you think you could do this to Mother? That you could toy with her memories?! That you could create this giant nest and control her?! That you could corrupt her data like this?!"
Then Zero One roared in fury, her eyebrows furrowed in rage. Her sisters felt her anger as their auras merged into a towering giantess made of golden light.
"SHYAAAARRGGHH!"
The virus hesitated at first, intimidated, but it did not flee. It charged toward the giantess of golden light—the Anti-Virus Zero One had created.
CLASH!
The Virus Monstrosity was forced back as the giantess's two slender hands pierced through its crystalline body, leaving gaping holes behind.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
"GRYYAAASSSHHH!"
The monstrosity roared and opened its jaws, unleashing a downpour of muddy, black, miasma-like corrupted data in an attempt to destroy the giantess.
SPLAAASH!
Yet the giantess's golden fists cut straight through the miasma, turning it into harmless particles of light.
As the monster stood shocked, the Anti-Virus surged forward, slamming a kick into the giant arachnid's face and flattening its head.
BAAAM!
At the same moment, her fists rained down, tearing apart more and more of the Virus's body piece by piece. The monster was rapidly reduced to shreds.
"GRRHHH!"
The Virus roared in retaliation and suddenly summoned thousands of smaller versions of itself from its fragments. They swarmed the giantess, covering her entire form.
"HAAAAH!"
FLASH!
But the giantess refused to yield. With a powerful roar, she unleashed a shockwave of light that eradicated the entire swarm in an instant.
"GRRRGHH?!"
The virus panicked and began retreating, clearly considering escape. It had never imagined a mere antivirus born from an invading pocket of data could possess such overwhelming power.
"Don't worry—your end will be swift."
Fueled by all her resentment and frustration, Zero One advanced with her sisters inside the giantess of golden digital aura.
She seized the fleeing beast and pulverized it with a beam of light that erupted from the giantess's chest.
BOOOM!
As the Virus disintegrated into cleansed data, the beam continued onward, destroying everything else as the giantess sent shockwaves rippling through the layer.
The waves of light spread rapidly across the entire layer, dissolving the crystallized corrupted data at an astonishing pace.
FLUOSH!
Until finally, the fourth layer was almost completely cleansed—except for one small area.
The giantess vanished, leaving the android sisters staring in awe at their surroundings.
"W-We beat it fairly quickly?! I thought it was going to take forever…" Zero Two said.
"We clearly don't have time for that. Didn't I tell you, sister?" Zero One replied. "And we also grew stronger, as I said before… Try to remember what I say, please."
"A-Ah! Okay, okay, don't be so tense, Zero One…" Zero Two sighed, looking into the distance. "Huh? This place is… completely clean?"
They realized the surroundings had transformed into something resembling the first layer—pure white, with digital clouds drifting above and a glass-like floor beneath their feet.
"Yeah, the data was cleansed, but it was too damaged, so it must have been restructured…" Zero One sighed. "There's nothing more I can do about it… This is all we could achieve. Let's hope the fifth and final layer is different, even just a little."
"Yeah, then let's go."
"No time to waste."
The Zero Three twins nodded as Zero One agreed.
The four sisters walked through the endless horizon of light and crystalline purity until they reached the hole.
It remained corrupt.
Zero One had deliberately left it uncleaned—it was their only path to the fifth layer.
"We'll cleanse it as we descend. Let's go!"
Zero One enveloped her sisters in her aura and leaped downward, slashing the "wound" with her sword of light at the same time. She cleansed all impurities within the corrupted data, allowing the "wound" to regenerate behind them.
Until, at long last, they reached the final layer—the fifth layer.
The girls landed on a cold, metallic floor that looked rather rusty from years of neglect.
Yet the ceiling, walls, and overall structure felt strangely familiar.
"Huh? We're back here?" Zero Two wondered, standing up. "But this place… isn't it a bit too rusty now?"
"It is…" Zero One nodded. "It looks like we're back in the lab…"
"But why? I thought it would be different again…" said Zero Three A.
"It seems Mother holds the most memories about this laboratory. It was where she was born, after all, and also… where she and Raven met, right?" Zero Three B asked.
"I think so, yeah," Zero One nodded, walking forward. "It's… it looks ancient."
She glanced around, noticing mushrooms and grass sprouting in patches. The metal had corroded, exposing concrete pierced by roots from trees above.
As they moved deeper, searching for the Core of Mother's Digital Mind, the girls spotted something—a humanoid silhouette sitting in the next corridor.
"Is that a person?"
Zero One approached slowly, curious, her sisters close behind.
It was so desolate here that she thought at least she could ask what had happened.
And yet…
"Um, hello?"
When she spoke, there was no response.
When she tapped the shoulder…
CLANK!
The figure collapsed to the ground as Zero One gasped. The skull of a man with brown hair fell to the floor; its lower jawbone broke into pieces.
"I-It's a skeleton?"
Zero One's eyes widened as she recognized the clothes. Her sisters exchanged glances.
The glasses gave it away too…
As Zero One carefully pulled the card from the pocket of his white shirt, she read the name and saw the face.
"Chief Professor… Charles…?"
Her sisters gently patted her shoulders as Zero One placed the card in her dress pocket, gazing at the skeleton with eyes full of sorrow.
She had never known this man, never spoken with him, never even interacted with him for longer than a moment.
And yet, why did she feel so sad?
"Zero One, let's go…"
Zero Two patted her shoulders again, and Zero One nodded slowly, leaving the remains behind.
She wished she could bury him somehow, even though it was only data…
They continued forward as Zero One guided her sisters toward their destiny—Mother's Digital Mind Core.
The corridors were the same; the layout was familiar. As androids, they had already memorized it, so navigation was easy.
The core was exactly where Zero Three and Zero Two had guessed—within the hall where Mother had been created…
Now, however, the entrance was sealed shut, and before the sealed gate stood another corpse—a skeleton too, of someone who had died there.
This skeleton still retained patches of mummified skin and appeared to have died much more recently than the professor, perhaps years later, as it had not yet fully decayed into clean bone.
"T-That's…"
Zero One rushed forward and dropped to her knees.
For some reason, as she gazed at the corpse of this woman with long, silvery-white hair tied in a ponytail, an indescribable wave of sorrow washed over her.
"…"
She looked at the ID card…
"Engineer and Doctor… Karelin Franklin…"
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