Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 415 - 52: Matryoshka_2

"It’s time to play the next frequency band," Ling Xiao repeated expressionlessly.

"Hiss... this persona, sis just loves it!" Lilith said with a laugh as she pressed the play button.

The 333.3MHz frequency band sounds like sporadic panting outside... but now, through Lilith’s Bluetooth headphones, there are additional "weird" faint noises.

Although Jiang Yu has never been married or had a boyfriend, as the saying goes, "If you’ve never eaten pork, you’ve still seen pigs run"... In just a few seconds, Jiang Yu had already figured out what was happening in the audio, and her cheeks, already slightly flushed, turned red all the way to the ears.

"Interesting, interesting..." Lilith clapped her hands slightly, "This is making my heart race a little... Ling Xiao, do you know what the source of this panting is doing at this moment?"

"Breeding." Ling Xiao said with a steady face.

"That word is used to describe animals... when it comes to humans, it should be..."

"Humans are animals too." Ling Xiao interrupted her, "I think we should be cautious, if this specter is capable of breeding, what we’re facing next could be multiple foes."

"In this situation, I can’t decide whether to praise you for your clear thinking, or comment on your emotional dullness," Lilith whispered. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"I have no emotions," Ling Xiao replied, "If the specter is breeding, it might be our good chance to attack it."

"But unfortunately, these frequencies we’ve found on the radio are probably just recordings." Lilith shrugged.

"No, all the sounds we hear, whether whispering or laughter, are happening right now," Ling Xiao said seriously.

"What did you say?" Lilith dropped her teasing expression, "Really?"

Ling Xiao nodded.

"Did you sense it with your ability?" Lilith asked again.

Ling Xiao hesitated for half a second, then nodded.

This time, Jiang Yu finally barely caught up to their thoughts and asked urgently, "Does that mean there is more than one specter attacking Factory 105... one crying, one laughing, one talking about revenge, and another... doing that thing?"

"No, it should be the same one," Ling Xiao said.

"You sensed that the inner worlds are multilayered, right?" Lilith asked Ling Xiao with a serious face.

"Yes."

"Damn, a Matryoshka doll-like inner world!" Lilith suddenly cursed, "Our luck is really damn great!"

"What is... a Matryoshka doll?" Jiang Yu weakly asked.

"There are many recorded inner world events, and the most complex, troublesome type is the ’Matryoshka-like’ inner world. It’s like Russian dolls, one within another... The worst part is, you don’t know which layer you’re in... When you cross the ’passage,’ it’s hard to tell if you’re moving outward or deeper in," Lilith explained.

"Ah..." Jiang Yu’s small mouth opened slightly in astonishment.

"The more crucial issue is, the specter that created the inner world usually has some ’special’ abilities in their world... or to put it bluntly, ’privileges,’" Lilith sighed. "From what Ling Xiao detected, I can preliminarily judge that one of this specter’s abilities is to leave a projection in each layer of the inner world."

"Projection... you mean a shadow?" Jiang Yu asked nervously.

"It’s more fitting to call it a replica rather than a shadow," Lilith pointed to the equipment not far away, "These things are projections of the outer world too. Do you see them as shadows?"

"So doesn’t that mean that the more layers there are in the inner world... the more replicas this specter has?"

"Theoretically, that’s correct, and Ling Xiao is right... If one of these replicas is ’mating,’ besides the replicas, we might also face numerous offspring," Lilith clicked her tongue and continued, "I originally thought it was a three-on-one brawl... turns out, we are the unlucky ones being ganged up on."

"But... these projections are attached to the inner world, right?" Jiang Yu suddenly spoke, "If we can destroy the inner world, these projections would disappear, right?"

"That’s a brilliant thought, and not wrong, but unfortunately, we can’t do it," Lilith said helplessly, spreading her hands. "With our capabilities, it would take a lot of effort just to flatten this factory building. Do you think destroying an entire inner world is possible?"

"This..."

"Currently, within the Federation, there’s not less than a hundred but at least eighty recorded inner worlds, and the general approach is to lock them down... Do you guess why the Federation doesn’t destroy these inner worlds? Do they not want to?" Lilith quipped.

"Those inner worlds... how did the Federation handle them previously?"

"How? They sent hunters in to deal with the specters, and that was it," Lilith continued. "An inner world without a controlling specter won’t cause trouble unless some fool foolishly charges in... Only very unstable inner worlds will be entirely destroyed by the Federation. The rest... either become experimental areas for the Dubhe Tower or have the surrounding areas sealed off and marked ’XX Restricted Zone,’ with their files stored in a database, allowing the respective countermeasure teams to disband and enjoy vacations."

"So our goal is to eliminate that specter..."

Jiang Yu got cut off mid-sentence by Lilith: "Matryoshka-like inner worlds are the most troublesome... First, no one knows how many layers the doll has; second, the more layers there are, the larger the total space is, making it trickier to clean out the hidden specters inside... Third, cleaning takes a large number of hunters, and these hunters could easily get lost inside... Over time, these lost hunters could even become destabilizing factors... turning into a threat."

"Turning into specter carcasses?" Jiang Yu couldn’t help but ask.

"Turning into a carcass would be preferable... the fear is that the hunters’ mental collapse and merge with the inner world, in which case, the only way to eliminate the threat is to completely destroy the inner world," Lilith said.

"How do you destroy it?"

"With a seriously large number of nuclear weapons... Exactly how many, I’m unsure. I just remember over thirty years ago, to destroy one inner world, the Federation emptied two out of the three nuclear warhead warehouses... and it seemed not enough as they had to urgently transfer more from various locations," Lilith stated. "Though this information might not be entirely accurate, just know that erasing an inner world physically is very difficult."

While the two women were engrossed in their conversation, Ling Xiao, who had been squatting in thought nearby, suddenly spoke up: "Lilith, can you play each frequency band in order? I think I might be able to pinpoint which layer we’re in."

Upon hearing Ling Xiao, Lilith’s eyes lit up: "Damn! Why didn’t I think of that earlier!"

"Think of what?" Honest Jiang Yu continued to play the role of the supportive act.

"We can use the clarity of the sound to determine which frequency band comes from the layer we’re in!" Lilith said excitedly.