Chapter 717 --717

Chapter 717: Chapter-717

Heena turned to see a glowing, perfectly spherical drone hovering at her shoulder. It projected a small, hard-light hologram of a golden lion cub, which was currently bouncing on its invisible paws with absolute, unrestrained excitement.

"Welcome back to the Nexus, Host!" the System cheered, its digital interface exploding with virtual confetti. "Initiating soul-sync! Vital signs are perfect! Spiritual integrity is at one hundred percent! Oh my god, you have no idea how stressful that extraction was from my end!"

"You literally just sat in a carriage and watched me drink poison," Heena said dryly, stretching her arms above her head and rolling her shoulders. The absolute lightness of her true spiritual body felt incredible after months of being trapped in Seera’s failing, sickly vessel.

"Yes, but the administrative paperwork I had to file while you were dying was astronomical!" the System defended itself, floating around her head. "Do you know how many authorization forms it takes to log an intentional, localized suicide inside a Class-A divine domain? The Bureau’s algorithms almost flagged us for timeline contamination!"

Heena ignored the complaining drone and began walking down the massive white corridor, her bare feet making absolutely no sound against the smooth floor.

"Did you secure the anomaly?" she asked, her tone shifting back to absolute business.

"Yes, Host!" The golden lion hologram vanished, replaced by a floating, translucent blue screen displaying a spinning, contained image of the glowing red orb she had extracted from the Empress. "The ’Regressor Core’ is safely contained in the Bureau’s quarantine vault. And let me tell you, the upper management is absolutely losing their minds over it."

"Why?" Heena asked, mildly curious.

"Because this specific anomaly has a Class-X parasitic rating," the System explained, pulling up a dizzying array of data charts. "It wasn’t just resetting time; it was actively consuming the karmic luck of the entire Great Dynasty to fuel its regressions. If you hadn’t ripped it out of her when you did, that entire universe would have collapsed into a dead dimension within the next three resets."

The blue screen flashed, and suddenly, a massive, golden text box materialized in the air in front of them, accompanied by a booming, angelic chime that echoed through the terminal.

[ MISSION EVALUATION COMPLETE ]

[ Target: The False Empress ]

[ Status: Eliminated ]

[ Timeline Divergence: 100% Corrected ]

[ Host Performance Rating: SSS+ ]

"SSS-Plus!" the System shrieked, practically vibrating in mid-air. "Host! Do you know how rare that is?! We got the maximum point payout! We got the ’Ruthless Efficiency’ bonus, the ’Psychological Dominance’ multiplier, and the ’Flawless Board Clear’ achievement! I’m going to get a software upgrade! I can finally buy the premium voice pack!"

"Don’t spend it all on useless cosmetics," Heena muttered, though a faint, satisfied smirk touched her lips. She swiped her hand through the holographic screen, dismissing the evaluation. "Transfer my share of the points to my account. I want to buy a week of downtime in the simulation suites. A beach setting. No politics, no swords, and absolutely no poison."

As she walked toward the designated relaxation sectors, Heena’s eyes caught a massive, towering crystal display in the center of the plaza. It was the Observation Deck—a place where Hosts could look back at the timelines they had just left.

Heena’s footsteps slowed. She stopped in front of the smooth crystal glass.

"Host?" the System asked, noticing her pause.

"Show me," Heena ordered softly.

Before the System could even pull up the projection on the observation glass, a sharp, mocking voice echoed through the pristine white plaza, completely shattering the quiet.

"Oh my, is that our so-called Heena?"

Heena didn’t flinch. She slowly turned away from the crystal display.

Approaching her was a group of five Transmigrators—two men and three women. They were dressed in impeccably tailored, high-tier Bureau uniforms, their auras radiating the smug, obnoxious superiority of senior workers who only took easy, glamorous assignments.

Heena looked them up and down, a look of profound, exaggerated realization washing over her face. "Ah. And here I was wondering why the air in this sector suddenly smelled like absolute garbage."

The lead woman—a tall, striking figure with a sneer painted on her glossy red lips—halted. Her eyes flashed with venom. "Oh my, look at our Black Lotus. You used to ride so high above everyone else, and now look at you... crawling around in the grinding dirt."

The woman’s gaze shifted downward, landing on Heena’s System with a look of absolute, unconcealed disgust. The golden lion cub hologram instinctively shrank back, hiding behind Heena’s leg. Hovering beside the rival woman was a massive, sleek platinum serpent—a premium, high-tier administrative AI that pulsed with intimidating processing power.

"Who would have thought that our pristine Black Lotus would sink so low someday?" the woman clicked her tongue, shaking her head mockingly. "Stuck with a bargain-bin AI, scraping the bottom of the barrel."

The golden lion cub whimpered in Heena’s mind, completely intimidated by the sheer presence of the rival systems. It didn’t dare retort; a lower-level system could easily be digitally suppressed by higher-ranking AI.

Heena, however, just tilted her head. Her dark eyes were completely empty of warmth as she looked at the rival woman.

"And here I thought you would have finally faded into non-existence by now," Heena said, her voice smooth and dripping with acidic boredom. "Or at least put yourself on a diet from all the trash you constantly spew. But it looks like you’re somehow still alive. Fascinating how roaches always survive."

The woman’s face instantly flushed crimson with fury, her perfectly manicured hands clenching into tight fists at her sides.

Before she could snap back, the man standing beside her stepped forward. He looked at Heena with a mixture of feigned pity and arrogant disdain.

"Why are you so damn stubborn, Heena?" the man sighed, adjusting the pristine cuffs of his uniform. "Jumping from this broken world to that collapsed timeline. Grinding through these apocalyptic, bugged-out messes. You are just doing useless, suicidal work that absolutely no one in the Bureau wants."

Heena looked at him. A slow, chilling smile—the exact same terrifying, predatory smirk that had made a tyrant Empress wet herself in terror just hours ago—spread across her face. The temperature in the white corridor seemed to plummet.

"Useless?" Heena echoed softly, her voice dropping to a lethal, velvet whisper that made the man instinctively take a half-step back. "At least I actually complete the worlds, you arrogant coward."

She took a single, deliberate step forward, the sheer, crushing weight of her spiritual aura flaring up. Even in the Nexus, the residual bloodlust of a Vanguard warlord clung to her.

"I dive into the meat grinders," Heena sneered, her dark eyes pinning him in place. "I clear the boards and butcher the Class-X anomalies that a pathetic fuck like you wouldn’t even dare look at, let alone enter. So unless you want me to start treating you like the trash I just cleaned up, I suggest you take your little platinum pets and get out of my way."

The lead woman looked at Heena with absolute disgust, though a flicker of genuine apprehension crossed her eyes at the sheer intensity of Heena’s killing intent.

"Always so stubborn," the woman sneered, trying to regain her fragile upper hand. "That is exactly why you are stuck down here today. If you hadn’t been this incredibly stubborn, you might have been standing where we are."