"Speak, what is the reason you captured them?"
In the basement of Lu Zhaoran's house, the young man was secured to a water pipe by a superpower-suppressing bracelet. Cipher stood to the side, looking at him with indifference.
The young man's face was a mask of despair. He remained silent, as if the scene of all his teammates dying in an instant just moments ago had dealt him a severe psychological blow.
After waiting for a while and seeing that the youth still refused to speak, Cipher began to lose her patience.
"Refuse to talk? I have plenty of ways to make you speak."
Having said that, Cipher leaned down and looked into the young man's eyes.
"Listen to me—look into my eyes."
As she uttered those words, the color of Cipher's pupils deepened quietly.
Upon hearing this command, the youth who had looked like he was at death's door felt compelled to raise his head and look at Cipher.
The moment he saw those eerie, deep purple eyes, he felt an incredibly powerful drowsiness welling up from his brain. He immediately realized this state was likely caused by those eyes.
Thinking of this, he tried to turn his head away, but he discovered to his horror that he could not move his head at all. Thus, he attempted to evade the purple gaze by closing his eyes.
But this was exactly what Cipher wanted.
The youth thought that if he simply closed his eyes and couldn't see, he could escape the influence of those deep purple eyes. But the moment he closed them, he discovered in terror that the purple eyes showed no sign of disappearing; instead, they were deeply imprinted in his mind.
Furthermore, the drowsiness that was barely bearable before became even more overwhelming once he closed his eyes. His consciousness fell into a blur in an instant.
"No! I'm not sleepy! How can a B+ rank Ability User like me want to sleep so easily! Don't be fooled by the body!"
He roared in his heart, struggling to open his eyes. But his body had been unable to move for some unknown reason, and now his eyelids felt as heavy as lead. After a brief struggle, the young man's consciousness fell into deep darkness.
From Cipher's perspective:
When she used the budget, low-spec version of Kafka's Spirit Whisper on the youth, he dithered for a moment before closing his eyes. A second later, he opened them again, but there was no light in them, replaced by a complete void.
"It seems the hypnosis was successful."
Looking at the youth's eyes, Cipher immediately judged that he was in a controlled state.
"As expected, Kafka's Spirit Whisper is quite useful. Even a low-spec version can easily control these people."
As for why Cipher didn't use the full version, she would tell you: because the full version is too expensive. Even though she had plenty of Credits, she had to save where it made sense; there was no need to use a cannon to kill a mosquito.
"Speak. Besides killing your Arasaka Heavy Industries C rank squad, what other reason did you have for capturing them?"
Once the control was successful, Cipher asked the youth this question again.
"Because we discovered the power of two top-tier superpowers, space and time, within that leading girl. We intended to capture, study, and subdue her."
The youth spoke the reason with a dull expression.
"The power of space and time?"
Hearing this, Cipher frowned slightly, finding it somewhat incredible. But after thinking for a moment, it seemed reasonable.
After all, according to what Lu Zhaoran had said, Luo Lin saw scenes of the Spirit Tide from a hundred years ago while unconscious. This meant Luo Lin had lived for at least a hundred years. However, with her appearance and mindset of a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl, she didn't seem like someone over a century old.
Now that the youth mentioned "Time," Cipher's train of thought suddenly became much clearer.
Either Luo Lin had performed time travel, coming directly from a hundred years ago to the present, or Luo Lin's time had been frozen, only to be unsealed a hundred years later for unknown reasons!
Of course, there were more possibilities, but these two were the first that came to Cipher's mind regarding the element of time.
Putting aside her thoughts, Cipher looked at the youth again.
"I understand. Are there any other reasons?"
"There is one more. we learned that Lu Zhaoran accidentally entered a Spirit Tide and could not come to their aid, so we chose to act today."
The youth continued to answer with a blank expression.
"How did you know Lu Zhaoran accidentally entered a Spirit Tide?!"
At this, Cipher's frown deepened.
"Didn't Xiao Ran disappear within the Sop Government? I remember Genesis Tech wanted to control Sop by monopolizing the healthcare in Chaos Capital. Logically, other companies shouldn't know what happened inside the Sop Government, right?"
"Genesis Tech was only one part of it," the youth immediately explained. "People from Cyber Logistics have already entered the nation of Sop, and we, Arasaka Heavy Industries, were transporting arms to Genesis Tech through Cyber Logistics. Therefore, we were aware of the matter regarding Lu Zhaoran."
"So how has this country not been annexed yet..."
Cipher was somewhat speechless. She had thought it was just Genesis Tech, but she didn't expect three companies to have already intervened in this place!
She sighed, then looked at the youth and continued, "Tell me everything you know."
"Alright."
Upon receiving this order, the youth began to pour out everything he knew. From major company intelligence and secrets of the higher-ups, down to the secret of him taking off his holographic equipment after a session at home only to find his whole family watching him.
"Wait, wait... don't say everything out loud, hey!"
Hearing that, Cipher hurriedly told him to only speak of company secrets. Once he had finished telling everything, she nodded with satisfaction, and her expression turned ice-cold again.
"Listen to me—when I finish this sentence, your heart will stop beating."
The moment her voice fell, the youth's empty eyes widened suddenly, and his body convulsed violently. A rattling sound came from his throat, and a few seconds later, the twitching stopped. Then, the youth's head slumped powerlessly, and his body went limp on the ground.
Seeing this, Cipher stepped forward to check his physical condition. A moment later, she had the result. The young man was dead, having died of cardiac arrest.
★ ★ ★
T/N: I don't recall MC acquiring spirit whisper, but oh well