Ivy nodded. "They can’t fully control both Pearl and Keith at the sa ti anymore. Not in their current state."
Her lips curled faintly. "That’s why their stories matched... but not completely."
Martha frowned. "What do you an?"
Ivy looked at her, her gaze piercing.
"They weren’t speaking naturally," she said. "It was like... soone was forcing them to recall a mory that had been implanted into them."
A heavy silence followed. Taking a deep breath, Ivy straightened slightly. "At this point, we only have two choices."
Martha stiffened.
"Either we kill Pearl and Keith..." Ivy said calmly, "Or we eliminate Ferrero and Jeff’s consciousness from within them."
Martha’s face paled.
She looked at Ivy carefully now, noticing the dark circles under her eyes, the faint tremble in her fingers, and the exhaustion she had been hiding all this ti.
Ivy had been carrying too much. The rising flood caused by overpopulation... The threat of the superior beings... Her sister’s suffering...
Everything had piled onto her shoulders. It felt as though she were standing on the edge of collapse.
Just then, the door opened. Silas stepped in.
The mont Ivy saw him, her expression softened, though her smile was weak and tired.
Without hesitation, Silas walked up to her and gently pulled her into his arms.
"I’m not listening to anything else," he said firmly. "You need to sleep."
Ivy let out a faint chuckle, her voice fragile.
"How can I sleep right now?" she murmured. "If I close my eyes..."
Silas cut her off, his tone steady. "Trust ."
She fell silent. "You’ve already solved the hardest part," he continued. "Leave the rest to ."
Ivy hesitated before whispering. "What about the population problem...?"
Silas smiled lightly. "I’ve already found a solution for that too."
There was a quiet confidence in his voice. "You can rest now."
For a mont, Ivy simply looked at him. Then, slowly, she nodded. Her eyelids grew heavy, and within seconds, she slipped into a deep sleep.
Martha, who had been watching silently, finally spoke. "...Are you sure about this?"
Silas carefully brought Ivy to the apartnt, adjusting the blanket over her before turning toward Martha.
"Of course not," he said with a soft chuckle. "If I hadn’t said that... she wouldn’t have slept at all."
Martha blinked.
"I’ll figure it out now," he added.
She stared at him for a mont before giving a small, approving nod. "Good luck," she said, raising her thumb slightly.
By early morning, Silas had found his answer.
Once he did, he imdiately began making arrangents around Pearl’s and Keith’s house.
anwhile, Ferrero and Jeff had already sensed sothing was wrong. They knew they had been partially exposed.
Still, they held onto hope.
’She won’t act imdiately...’ they thought. ’And even if she does... she won’t find a solution so quickly.’
But they had underestimated one thing. Silas’s temporal storage.
After spending a massive amount of accumulated points, Silas had accessed a solution, one that could directly target the foreign consciousness inside Pearl and Keith.
Since those entities existed as consciousness rather than physical forms, normal attacks were useless.
Unless they were struck in their energy form... nothing would work.
Silas had realized sothing crucial.
"The energy in vegetables..." he muttered, recalling the clues. "People unknowingly pass their emotions into what they grow... resentnt... negativity..."
He had got to know this from Ivy.
By infusing vegetables with concentrated negative energy, resentnt sharpened into a weapon; he created sothing subtle yet deadly.
When Pearl and Keith consud those vegetables, the effect appeared harmless on the surface.
At most, it would cause minor physical discomfort, sothing like food poisoning.
But internally...it was a different story. The negative energy bypassed the body and struck directly at the embedded consciousness.
Just as Silas had predicted, the mont the energy took effect, Ferrero’s and Jeff’s consciousnesses recoiled violently within Pearl and Keith.
They tried to seize control. They tried to override the situation. But sothing stopped them.
A barrier. An unseen, unbreakable confinent. And then they realized...
"It’s... blocking us..."
"It’s that damned storage...!"
It was none other than Ivy’s temporal storage.
Once Ivy and Silas realized that both of them possessed temporal storage, they had quietly co to an agreent. Without hesitation, they granted each other access.
That single decision... changed everything.
At this very mont, Silas was using Ivy’s temporal storage, weaving its invisible threads with extre precision.
Within Keith’s body, Jeff’s consciousness struggled. Within Pearl’s body... Ferrero’s fragnted will trembled.
Both of them panicked.
They pushed, pulled, and lashed out desperately, trying to reconnect with their original selves, trying to regain control, but it was useless.
No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t feel anything beyond the suffocating barrier that had sealed them in.
It was like screaming into a void that swallowed all sound.
Ferrero clenched his fists, his expression darkening as he looked toward Jeff.
"We need another vessel," he muttered coldly. "Take over another human... enter the base again."
Jeff gave a weak, bitter smile.
"If it were that simple..." he replied, his voice hollow. "I would have left this body long ago and taken Marco instead."
His gaze hardened as realization dawned upon him.
"That temporal storage..." he continued slowly, "it’s not just blocking us... it’s tracing us."
A chill ran through both of them.
Jeff exhaled sharply, his jaw tightening.
"I have no choice but to leave my consciousness here."
Even controlling Keith’s body from afar had now beco impossible.
Grinding his teeth, he muttered. "Ivy... she’s far too smart."
Ferrero narrowed his eyes, a dangerous glint flashing within them.
"If we ever want to stand at the top of this world..." he said coldly, "then Ivy must be dealt with."
Jeff gave a faint nod.
anwhile, in the quiet living room, Silas stood still, watching Pearl and Keith.
Both of them had fallen asleep, their breathing slow and uneven, their faces pale under the dim lighting.
Silas didn’t touch them. He simply waited. Ti passed.
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