168: Chapter 168 will arrive at any time, without needing a container.

Anthony Bradley flipped to the last page of the core summary, pressed his palm gently against the page, and spoke in a slow, resolute tone:

"The reason is very simple."

"That Level 5 civilization fleet from back then could not possibly have packed up and left their entire scientific system on the surface of the Great Moth Star."

"What those wrecks contained were only the partial equipment the fleet carried while executing specific missions."

"The knowledge the Mothman reverse-engineered from these fragments was merely a piece of the Level 5 civilization's technological system related to those specific devices—a puzzle that was about ninety-nine percent broken."

"They didn't piece together Kepler's laws, they didn't piece together the gravitational constant, and they didn't piece together the periodic table."

"What they did piece together was a technical collection directly targeted at mission-level application scenarios, and that collection happens to be highly relevant to the cross-medium transmission of information and individual consciousness."

Rockefeller III slowly withdrew the hands he had spread flat on the table, clasped his fingers together in front of him again, and his brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

"In other words, the strongest link in the Mothman's technology is information and consciousness transmission."

"All other fields are likely crippled."

"Indeed," Soren said, shrinking the star map on his encrypted tablet and switching to a diagram labeled "Consciousness Transmission Network."

"The most advanced part of the Mothman technological system is the manipulation of information and consciousness."

"They can completely compile an individual consciousness into a stream of information, transmit it, bypass any physical distance limitations, and reach the receiving terminal on the target planet."

"As long as the receiving terminal possesses an adaptable biological vessel, a Mothman individual can instantly span thousands of light-years and arrive at the other end."

He paused for a moment and shifted his gaze from the tablet to Rockefeller III's face.

"This is also the fundamental reason why the Crane Family of Solomon spent three generations—over a hundred years in total—repeatedly researching those container vessels."

"They were waiting for the Mothman to transmit their consciousness over."

"It is a pity, however, that they have been failing all along and have never succeeded, at least according to the experimental data."

"Or perhaps, they were close to succeeding."

"When they accidentally discovered that the bodies of Grey Alien could, at the level of basic physiological parameters, nearly perfectly match the Mothman's consciousness transmission requirements, that body used to serve as the final transfer container..."

"...was none other than Prince Dao Dun, whom you rescued from that hospital bed in the deepest part of the manor's underground base."

"It's just that on the eve of Solomon's impending success, the Crane Family was completely wiped out by the gentlemen present here in the last few hours."

Isabelle DuPont curled her fingers, which had been spread across the table, one by one, crossed them on her lap again, and let out a long sigh.

Jacob Rothschild took off his re-adjusted glasses, placed them next to the folder on the table, and pressed his knuckles against his temples, rubbing them gently.

William relaxed the knuckles he had been pressing against the cap of his flask.

Rockefeller III slightly parted his fingers, which had been clasped in front of him, and looked up at Soren, Elena Chen, and Anthony.

"Your analysis is very solid."

"Every layer of dissection of the Mothman technology stands up to scrutiny."

"On behalf of those present, I thank you for your work over this past period."

"But at this current stage, for The Five Great Families, what is most urgent is not the Mothman's technological classification catalog."

He spread both hands flat on the table again, his tone dropping a few degrees lower than before.

"What is most urgent is whether there are any remaining vessel containers on Earth suitable for the Mothman."

Soren picked up the encrypted tablet from the edge of the conference table, flipped to the final page with the summary column labeled "Conclusion," lifted his gaze from it, looked directly at Rockefeller III, and spoke with a tone more resolute and unambiguous than ever before:

"According to our team's overnight, page-by-page analysis of all the archives in the Crane Family's underground base, the final conclusion is: No."

"The Crane Family never succeeded in creating any container vessel that was perfectly compatible with Mothman consciousness."

"The experimental results for the fourth batch, the fifth batch... all the way to the most recent batch of vessels, are all marked as failures."

"Something that has never succeeded cannot possibly have any remnants left on this planet."

Samuel slowly leaned his back against the chair, closed his eyes, and let out a long breath.

Isabelle gently loosened the strap of her bulletproof cape, which she had been gripping for a long time; the red marks on her knuckles were clearly visible under the cold light.

Jacob placed his glasses, which had been resting next to the folder, back onto the bridge of his nose and wiped the edge of the lens with his thumb.

William finally picked up the flask from the corner of the table, unscrewed the cap, took a small sip, screwed it back on, and whispered:

"This heavy burden in my heart has finally been lifted."

Although there wasn't much change in Rockefeller III's expression, his hands, which had been resting on the edge of the table as steady as a rock, visibly relaxed a bit.

What The Five Great Families feared most was never whether the Mothman would come for revenge,

but whether the Mothman could find a ready-made container vessel right now and descend to Earth to retaliate directly.

Since there were no vessels, at least nothing would suddenly push open the doors to their bedrooms tonight, tomorrow night, or late some night next week.

Anthony Bradley closed the stack of core summaries, placed them back in the center of the table, and looked at the five old aristocrats in front of him who had just let out a half-sigh of relief.

His tone remained as calm and precise as was characteristic of a former CIA Deputy Director of Technology, every word sounding like a final conclusion drawn from a long logical deduction.

"But after finishing the analysis of all the documentation, we discovered a fact even more unsettling than the container vessels."

Rockefeller III's fingers, which had just relaxed, tightened around the edge of the table in that instant.

"Please, go on."

"According to dozens of communication records with the Moth Star preserved in the Crane Family archives, as well as multiple analysis papers on the principles of consciousness transmission technology compiled over different eras, the Mothman's consciousness transmission technology is currently advanced enough."

"In fact, they don't need to wait for a suitable container vessel to finish development at all; they already possess a more direct method: arbitrary forced deployment."

"No specially cultivated vessels are needed, no blank pods reverse-engineered across generations are required; as long as there is any carbon-based organism with a basic nervous system existing in some natural environment on the target planet, they can forcibly inject their individual consciousness into it and complete their arrival."

Anthony braced his hands on the edge of the conference table, looked at the five faces in front of him whose expressions were rapidly changing, and continued:

"According to the records, when the Mothman colonized the Lesser Moth Star, they relied precisely on this method of forced deployment:"

"Projecting individual consciousness one by one onto the native creatures of the Lesser Moth Star, relying on a sufficiently large scale of projection and a sufficiently brutal replacement rate, they forcibly took over that planet."