Galaxy's Only Triple-S: Five Lords Can't Hold Her novel Chapter 269

Chapter 269 Riddle

Chapter 269 Riddle

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Margaret stared at the buried points of light, wondering how many millennia they had slept beneath the ground. If the Central Brain truly were Vex or that distant, all-powerful main system, the timeline made no sense. She had been in this world for barely a year, give or take.

Unless…

An utterly absurd notion began to crystallize in her mind.

Unless, when Vex sent her here, it had traversed not only space but also time. It had arrived first, plummeting into the primordial past of this universe, burying itself deep beneath endless layers of rock. There, in sunless darkness, it had endured an inconceivably vast span of ages.

It had waited. Waited to be unearthed. Waited for the Empire to rise. Waited as the interstellar computational network spread, meticulously shaping every rule, every matching protocol, even the very structure of society into its current form.

All of it to pave the way for the moment of her arrival.

To grant her an absolutely secure, utterly privileged beginning.

“Primo, what’s your progress?” Margaret silently asked within her mind.

“No good… I’m stuck.” Primo’s voice turned anxious. “It opened the periphery, but there’s a wall at the core. I can’t get past it.”

“A wall? A firewall?”

Primo explained quickly, “Not a firewall. It’s a logic lock. Non-aggressive. Just… blocks the way. It requires a password.”

“Crack it.”

“I can’t.” Primo sounded almost sulky. “It’s not a normal code lock. It… it gave me a riddle.”

“A riddle?” Margaret’s brow furrowed slightly. “Read it to me.”

Primo cleared his nonexistent throat and translated the message. “Without beginning or end, all who enter never return. I hide before cause, and you stand beyond the end. Host, what in the world does that mean?”

Margaret fell silent.

Without beginning or end, all who enter never return. I hide before cause, and you stand beyond the end.

Each word was simple enough on its own, but strung together, they reeked of cryptic nonsense.

Time? Space? Some specific coordinate?

Beside her, Sion was still talking. He moved to the console, tapped a few keys, and pulled up a set of data streams. “Look at its energy consumption curve. It’s unnaturally flat. No matter how much computational load we feed it, the core fluctuation remains a dead-straight line. It’s as if it isn’t even trying.”

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Chapter 269 Riddle

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He turned to face Margaret. “Your Grace, in your opinion… is it working, or is it merely sleeping?”

Her gaze remained fixed on that unwavering line, without offering a reply.

The riddle still occupied her thoughts.

I hide before cause, and you stand beyond the end.

I’m someone who should have died in a mission world, yet here I stand. Does that count as standing beyond the end?

Before cause… Is that the entity that sent me here, arriving at the very dawn of this universe?

The disorienting sense of tangled timelines throbbed behind her temples.

“Host, maybe we should just try a few random passwords?” Primo suggested. “Like your birthday? Or ‘Open Sesame?”

“Be quiet,” Margaret snapped back mentally.

This was the Central Brain. Inputting random guesses could trigger any number of unknown defense protocols.

A short distance away, Cheiron’s gray eyes never left Margaret.

He’d sensed her unusual demeanor from the moment they entered-her uncharacteristic silence, her intense focus on the central column.

“Are you cold?” Cheiron moved closer, his voice soft.

The server room temperature was indeed low, and Margaret, not dressed heavily, had already begun to look a little pale.

“No.” She shook her head briefly.

Pulling her hands from her coat pockets, she stepped toward the central column.

“Your Grace, I wouldn’t get too close,” Sion cautioned from behind. “The outer shell carries a static field. The shock is… unpleasant.”

Margaret still walked right up to the column.

The low-frequency hum grew clearer, more resonant,

“Primo, is it still waiting for the password?” she asked.

“The input field for the riddle is still active. Host, did you figure it out?”

“No.” Her reply was blunt.

Patience for such cryptic games had never been her strong suit.

If the password couldn’t be solved, then another approach was needed.

Margaret raised her hand and reached toward the column’s metallic surface.

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