My cyberpsychosis is a task prompt

Chapter 257: Playing with Him
[Serum: You've lured the real target out. Play along, John. I need some time.]

The serum left a single sentence in the voice message and then disappeared.

"What are you looking at, buddy?"

The boy hitting the sandbag suddenly appeared in front of John, his eyes wide, almost touching John's face.

"Hold!"

John was so frightened that he took two steps back.

He didn't see how the other person crossed the scene.

The boy named Kenichi Sora raised his hands, a triumphant smile on his face.

His hands were wrapped in boxing bandages, clearly showing his Asian features. He wore a vest, his forehead was sweaty, and his skin was completely clean, without a single ventilator or sign of prosthetic implants.

"Wow, bro, your code is a bit weird. This is the first time I've seen this kind of cheating. Did you modify the headband? How did you manage to fool the hardware detection?"

Sora squatted down on the tatami mat.

He tilted his head, frowned in thought, and a clear, bright yellow light flashed in his eyes.

John felt a heat rising from the back of his head; the virtual headband was overloaded due to the data probes from two roaming AIs.

He interrupted the other person.

"I admit I cheated, but you're a cheater too. Look at this number of matches and your win rate, you're not exactly a saint either!"

"Oh, quite honest, and you even talk back!"

Kong Jian laughed loudly, licking his teeth, and pointed at John.

"I never cheat when I play games. Come on, bring your trash motion chips and let's have a go. I'll show you something. Don't be too sad when I beat you into submission and kick you out of the server."

He jumped up from the spot and delivered a beautiful spinning kick.

[Imbalance assessment, force assessment, critical hits, obstacle collisions...]

Seven or eight attack notifications popped up in front of John, and he stumbled backward, crashing into the wall before barely coming to a stop.

But when he looked at his health bar...

It didn't drop much at all.

Kong didn't modify the stats, and even reduced his own damage. Even though the rules allowed for the addition of some prosthetics, he didn't make any modifications. This is the most difficult physical training route in the game.

"Come on, let's play for a bit. It's been a while since I've caught a mouse!"

Kong jumped around in place, looking very excited.

John rushed toward him, but the figure vanished again. Then he felt a heavy object clamp around his neck, and as he tried to maintain his balance, his joints were struck.

Click, bang.

John's vision flipped as his joints slammed into the floor at a dangerous angle—his neck, spine, and ankles all flashed warning signs of injury.

"Fuck, damn it...you definitely cheated!"

"Wow, watch your mouth, buddy. This is action breakdown and prediction, pure talent. You can try again, use whatever moves you have."

Step back to make room for John.

[Mission target update]

[Delayed until serum preparation was complete. (Not achieved)]

[Deals damage to air units. (Optional)]

Defeat Kenichi Sora. (Optional)

"Fuck, go to hell."

John saw the mission notification and cursed under his breath.

He even recalled his first visit to Haven Corporation, when he fought against Aiden's sliced ​​projections in the combat simulator.

The pressure from the skill and experience, as well as the gap in on-the-spot reaction, is immense.

John would have a similar feeling if he went to a bar to beat up some thugs.

It was a battle that could be won without cybernetic implants; the two sides had a clear level difference in combat skills and completely different perspectives.

"Okay, looks like I really have to cheat."

John activated the black light.

The entire arena was momentarily distorted; the tatami floor transformed into a complex data grid, and the figure on the opposite side, Kenichi Sora, began to flicker, transforming from a little boy into a massive, indescribable black hole of data.

next second.

The entire scene was restored. Kong squinted.

"Hiss~ Bro, why do I smell a familiar scent on you...? What exactly are you...?"

John did not respond, but instead launched the attack first.

His Yggdrasil broke through the game's limitations, and the combat program, empowered by the black light, began to integrate the actions of each chip.

Kong saw through the surprise attack and raised his hand to parry, but was hit in the ribs by a sudden change in the move.

"Oh ho!?"

But it did not back down and responded in kind.

"This isn't like the chip's operation. It's not just backplane processing; is it some kind of fusion program? How did you bring it into the game? Hey bro, can I pay you for this algorithm?"

"Don't you look down on cheaters?"

"I'll use these algorithms to upgrade the NPCs in the game, increase the difficulty for the challengers, and refresh the leaderboard. Seriously, how much money would you want to release the source code?"

They had already exchanged words five or six times while they were talking.

Both sides have high-level accounts.

The virtual sweat created an exaggerated vibration effect in the air.

The speed at which both sides countered each other's moves was getting faster and faster, and the reaction speed was approaching the limit of the headband's capacity. Even a delay of less than 0.5ms was insufficient.

Kong let John go once again.

Both sides retreated to the edge to catch their breath.

His eyes were shining, not from the flashing of data from his prosthetic eyes, but from a genuine reflection of human excitement manifesting in his natural irises.

John was even stunned.

The “humanity” that Kong displayed was even more abundant than that of most people he had met in Eden.

He suppressed his wild thoughts and endured the intense side effects coming from his body—he was only able to fight back against the air thanks to the black light, which activated the algorithm in his spine and disrupted and merged the numerous chips in the headband.

These chips don't belong to us, and with the space pressure so high, the computational load is almost unbearable.

"I need to disconnect for a while, Serum, you have to help me cut off the deep dive, or I'm going to die!"

John called out over the communications channel.

[Serum: Now? You're almost there. If Sora realizes it's a trap, you're doomed.]

"If I don't disconnect, I'll fucking die on the deep-sea chair, it'll only take a few seconds!"

[Serum: I warned you, prepare to disconnect. You only have a 15-second window. I'll definitely be exposed afterwards. Whether it runs empty or not depends on your luck.]

[Reconnecting...]

Before John lost consciousness, an idea suddenly flashed through his mind, and before the scene collapsed, he pointed at the boy in front of him with a complicated expression and shouted.

"You son of a bitch, just you wait! I'll be back in a minute and deal with you!"

Kong was clearly stunned for a second.

That was a very real reaction, no different from that of a human.

[Connection failed, attempting to reconnect...]

[Countdown: 15s (Cancel)]

sizzle-

The error message tore the screen apart like lightning.

John felt his consciousness rising from the deep sea, and an unbearable soreness shot through the back of his head and the sockets around his eyes.

Ignoring all that, he grabbed the special inhibitor he had prepared beforehand, even before the burning sensation in his body could rise.

The consequence of cheating with black light is physical overload!
"Ugh, oh, damn it—"

John craned his neck, feeling no relief, but rather the pain of being pulled from boiling water and thrown into ice water forcibly cooled down.

The negative status has been cleared.

The charred chip was carelessly tossed into the decomposition tank, where it emitted a wisp of white smoke as it was corroded by the chemicals.

John could return to Cyber ​​Age now, but a new mission prompt suddenly popped up in front of him.

[A headband with a special inhibitor attached. (Optional)]

Bringing a chip into the game?
(End of this chapter)