Chapter 755: Chapter 279: Crypto Punk
Just as the Great Curved Saber was hovering over the sea, a group of ’Old Hunters’ were eagerly embracing their transformations.
In outer space of the same planet, beyond two satellites and within the Asteroid Belt, a massive Space Fortress was moving rapidly.
Although this fortress wasn’t moving at ’light-speed’, it still utilized ’Subspace Technology’. Boulders the size of mountains or even small as basketballs inexplicably disappeared wherever it passed.
More frightening is that this Mechanical Fortress, comparable to the Mechanical City, not only boasts enormous size, but also carries various models of Tier 3 Weapons — magnetic rail cannons, laser cannons, various gun turrets, and space torpedoes, celestial body deployment weapons, small combat spaceships, etc. The numbers, in the tens of thousands, even surpassed the firepower of some gigantic space stations of a Tier 3 Civilization. The weapons of Interstellar Pirates are like mere fire pokers in comparison.
This ’Mechanical Fortress’ charged into the defensive range of the Mechanical Split Star with an unyielding and aggressive momentum.
The next moment, not only did the radiation layer of Mechanical Split Star erupt with a plethora of Mechanical Octopuses, but Cybertron also showed signs of deploying Interstellar Spaceships.
"Haha, hahaha, clear the way for the old man, I’m here to take a bride!"
On the Mechanical Fortress, various mechanical parts split and combined, forming a Mechanical Giant over a thousand meters tall. With both hands reaching out, the next moment, a pulse wave sweeping hundreds of kilometers across was unleashed, leaving a rain of mechanical octopuses in its wake.
Meanwhile, on the various Armed Space Stations around the planet, all the turrets turned, and energy light pillars shot densely like rain toward the Mechanical Giant.
"Mere near-orbit weapon strikes can’t hinder this old man!"
On the Mechanical Fortress, various engines began to operate, one defensive platform after another rose slowly, then a terrifying energy tide engulfed everything.
"What monster!?" exclaimed a mid-level military contractor, astonished as their energy weapons appeared to have no effect at all on the adversary in the holographic projection.
"It’s my joyous day, so I won’t hold it against you, otherwise with my temper, these little toys would have been dismantled long ago."
The mechanical elder abruptly turned his head, looking at one of the ’Armed Space Stations’, and under a terrifying aura, all the screens on the space station shattered.
And on the last energy monitoring screen that exploded, the displayed ’Energy Level’ was 3 Billion!
A Tier 3 Civilization Architecture’s mechanical energy usually hardly reaches a billion.
And yet, the opponent’s casual strike amounted to 3 Billion.
An ordinary Space Fortress can’t achieve this.
This can only suggest one thing, the opponent’s ’fortress’ is equipped with even higher-level weaponry, such as — Tier 4 Civilization Architecture.
"Why is the Mother City not responding?"
Muttered the owner of an Armed Space Station.
"Reporting to the master, it might be because of this image."
Accompanied by the voice of an Artificial Intelligence, an archaic ’Xie’ character appeared in a blurry picture, seemingly the base of the Space Fortress.
"Xie Family, the high-orbit Xie Family!?"
As the Cloud Nobility among Cloud Nobility, the Xie Family are not the wastrels of Cloud City but genuine Planet Nobility. It’s rumored that they are in charge of star zone defense for the Mother City.
"This is a true space monster!"
"Why is it returning to the planet?"
"What did it just say, it said it’s here to get married?"
"Does it have a Reproductive System installed?"
The operators of armed space stations, satellite phones almost going crazy, questions like why did the opposing force appear at this time, with what purpose, whether it would affect the balance of power on this planet, were all unknown.
However, they failed to notice, ten mechanical giants each a hundred meters tall infiltrated the planetary passage following the ’Elder Xie’.
In space, the distance has become a terrifying number, without a monitoring system, it’s barely different from being blind.
These ten Mechanical Giants were Cybertronians, specifically the professional enforcers among them, dealing with specific ’planetary threats’.
In their terms, they were there to catch insects.
Their level had exceeded level 60, which was the upper limit of a Level 2 Civilization, reaching 65, 63, 67.
Tier 2 is the upper limit for species on this planet, but it’s not their limit.
At this point, in the internal channel of these ten giants, they were also discussing the same matter.
"Old Man Xie is at it again."
"He’s been acting up for days, it’s a common side effect for those forcibly transformed into Mechanical Life by external forces."
"Forcibly, what external forces?"
"Not sure, supposedly some civilizations outside this star zone. As you know, our Cyber Test Field is also called a Civilization Dump. If you don’t provide some benefits, those people might just complain about you to the Civilization Council."
"So, the Xie Family is actually representing Alien Civilizations?"
"The situation is more complex, social transformation is a high-difficulty task, often people vanish in the process, so it’s necessary to learn from civilizations that have successfully transformed, and gather some Civilization Transformation Data, gradually establishing business exchanges."
"Diplomatic envoy?"
"What envoy, I think Trade Representative seems more reliable."
"I see."
"Alright, stop chit-chatting, you didn’t forget that we came here for a mission, did you?"
"To find that lost ’Great Curved Saber’, right?"
"This is easy to find, we have a locator, a starship is that big, it can’t hide anywhere."
"Rather than worrying about this, it’s more intriguing to know who this Old Man Xie is planning on marrying."
"It’s already a Mechanical Life, and it can still get married?"
"Why not? I’ve heard that some Mechanical Civilizations not only can marry and have children but also evolve by marrying a wife."
"That’s amazing, which civilization is it? Can we Cybertronians join the family?"
A group of Cybertronians, seemingly on a mission but actually gossiping, leisurely entered the radiation layer.
...
Outside the real world.
Within a fragment of the Virtual Realm.
A group found what they were seeking.
Place of Illusion
An image-generating world.
This is an encrypted data node known only to a few top hackers, where all data, signals, sounds, and smells are transformed into ’images’, various images.
Some images themselves are ’viruses’, wandering here, trying to infect others.
The further in you go, the higher the probability of becoming ’imaged’ yourself.
And once ’imaged’, there’s no way out.
The ’Personality Simulator’ was born here.
Exactly how it was born, it can’t remember, but vaguely knows that a few hackers entered this place, did a task, then were polluted by images, and the remnants of hacker code merged to form it.
It escaped from here with great effort.
But this time, the hackers who entered aren’t as unfortunate as those before.
In fact, hackers ranked in the top 20, even hunted by Super Corporations, are hard to kill.
Their data avatars, uploaded consciousness, hidden codes, and forbidden virtual modifications exceed even executives.
Moreover, this time one of those entering is an ’Information Life’ who has been promoted for some time.
Becoming an ’Information Life’ has a great advantage, which is that in the ’lower information layer’, no matter how complex the changes, they can pierce through at a glance.
So, after dealing with image monsters, driving away a few possible other hackers’ avatars left here, and a large-scale image folding, Paradise Bird and the crew obtained what they wanted through strength.
"Is this it?"
Paradise Bird looked at the object in hand, an old-fashioned player.
At this moment, the hackers’ body surfaces were covered in multicolored snowflake spots.
It’s somewhat similar to ’Avalanche’, but more colorful, this is a ’code illusion’, a possession software temporarily created by the hackers to adapt to this place.
"There seems to be a line of text below," Scorpion said.
Paradise Bird turned the player over, and sure enough, there was a line of text on the base—
Donglun Special Zone Third Street, 320 House, Gifted by the Punk Clan.
"Lent City seems to have been the financial center of the ancient Northern Alliance, and Donglun Special Zone is a street district within it."
"What is the Punk Clan?"
"It’s said to be an ancient assassin virus."
"Interesting, now hackers are searching for ancient viruses, are they going retro?" a hacker commented sarcastically.
Paradise Bird opened the player, inserted the ’Avalanche’ tape, and pressed play.
Instead of the dangerous avalanche or memory-erasing images, rows of ancient letters appeared, seemingly the manifesto of some kind of underground organization—
We ▇▇ are committed to building an anonymous system. We defend our privacy through encryption, anonymous email forwarding systems, digital signatures, and electronic money.
Encryption Technology allows the necessary loss of control desired by beehive culture to maintain flexibility and agility in the ever-deepening evolution of entanglement.
In the Civilization Era, we create these little worlds with greater bandwidth, making them more interactive and deeply embodied. We have evolved from static small images to dynamic ’Virtual Cities’.
To become a god—you must relinquish your throne of dominion over all and make way for the masses at the bottom.
"It looks a bit familiar."
"Virtual City, encryption nodes, Cyber Hackers, isn’t it familiar? Could our industry have started developing in the Civilization Era?"
Paradise Bird removed the ’negatives’, and this time, the surface of the ’negatives’ was no longer garbled, but a line of text—Encrypted Punk 331.4131 File
"Anyway, we’ve found clues for the second phase, let’s keep investigating."
"Donglun Special Zone Third Street, 320 House, check its corresponding ’location’ now."
...
Meanwhile, in a data processing center of a Super Corporation, a virtual figure slowly appeared.
Gao Yuanyuan glanced around and walked directly towards the wall, and as soon as she approached the wall, a door opened.
Gao Yuanyuan pushed open the door and entered, not into a corridor, but into someone’s brain.
