Great, we're doomed now!

boom!

boom!

White shockwaves exploded from the ring, rushing towards the end of the space centered on Ye Shou!

The steel beneath their feet began to "corrode." The armor plates touched by the white light instantly appeared as if they had undergone tens of thousands of years of weathering. Cracks appeared on the metal surface, then peeled off layer by layer, curling, breaking, and scattering like old book pages... eventually decomposing into a stream of green characters.

The white light continued to penetrate downwards, piercing through the floor and reducing everything made of code to the most basic binary symbols. The outer shell of the metal fortress was peeled away layer by layer, revealing the skeleton beneath—frames composed of green lines and pulsating numbers, as rudimentary as a torso stripped of its skin.

Then, the city began to tremble...

At the edge of the field of vision, the buildings that seemed to fold together like something out of Inception began to disintegrate, breaking from sharp, angular metal forms into polygonal fragments, then into triangular facets, and finally into luminous dust that danced in the air, blown in all directions by some invisible wind, falling into the absolute darkness that was spreading inward beyond the horizon.

[Redundant padding detected. Subsystem formatting in progress. This area will become a closed black box in sixteen seconds. Immediate data migration is recommended.]

A mechanical female voice rang in Ye Shou's ears, lacking emotional fluctuations but with clear and accurate pronunciation—it was M·A's auxiliary system.

Originally designed as a killing AI for war, this guy seems to be thriving in cyberspace.

In terms of computing power alone, M·A is not a true match for top-tier cyber AI. However, this battle is not a fair one-on-one duel, but a total war of overwhelming force with "national power".

As a carrier, Ye Shou, or rather the giant of light Bayeri, possesses unimaginable and heaven-defying performance, far surpassing any supercomputer invented in this world!

It's important to know that the hackers and AI in Cyberpunk are actually competing in computing power, algorithms, and finding vulnerabilities, while arcane characters like Ye Shou and Kallen are directly competing in soul strength!

(Kallen claims to be an AI, but in reality, she's a super-powered monster disguised as an AI, a true mechanical monster born from human emotions.)

Although Ke Jie couldn't beat AlphaGo, Emperor Jing of Han could have done it quickly—it's the same principle.

Ye Shou himself is not a professional hacker, and he never thought of using hacking methods to attack the "old network".

"It seems they're going to refuse my forced intrusion," Ye Shou muttered to himself.

It's not surprising. When other hackers explore the "black wall," they at least pay attention to methods and approaches. Even if a few incredibly skilled hackers come to raid the area, they still need to limit their scope to avoid getting lost or being ganged up on.

Who would start smashing and looting like Ye Shou?

However, he remained calm. With a thought, his body began to sink. The golden and silver star rings retracted all their flying components, re-nesting back into their original corona-like form and surrounding him. The sky-blue giant's body pierced through the decaying metal skeleton, exploding into countless characters along the way.

hum!

The sheer volume of data that surged in instantly was enough to incinerate any human brain. He could feel sharp fragments crashing against the surface of his consciousness, each carrying different information, trying to penetrate his central nervous system and conquer the cerebral cortex.

However, a white light shield on Bayeri's body automatically activated, deflecting all the fragments. The redundant data would turn into incandescent sparks the moment it hit the light shield, forming a constantly exploding protective circle around him.

From the outside, the giant was enveloped in countless fine flames, like a meteor falling through the atmosphere of a star and crashing into the sea of ​​data!

Then, at some point—

call!

The seawater (data stream) disappears directly after reaching a certain boundary, like a waterfall breaking off at the edge of a cliff.

Ye Shou emerged from the data layer. His body briefly lost its balance in the void for a few seconds before stabilizing again, having arrived in a new realm.

There were no characters or codes that appeared in the form of matter here, but rather an empty vacuum... Ye Shou looked up and saw the twinkling lights in the infinite distance, only then realizing that the scene here was actually the "universe"!

Just as he was about to turn around in the vacuum, he caught a glimpse of a huge shadow out of the corner of his eye:

"Ok?"

The Earth was right in front of him!

The halo of the atmosphere, the blue ocean, the white clouds—everything was as beautiful as described in textbooks—of course, Ye Shou had seen similar scenery countless times, so he wasn't particularly impressed.

What bothered him was that the various spacecraft that should have been orbiting the Earth in geostationary orbit had now disappeared, replaced by satellite debris, space station wreckage, ship remains... it was unknown which war had left behind them.

They rotate slowly outside Earth's gravitational field, like a ring of white foam left over from cleaning stains. The difference is that foam disappears quickly, while these will be preserved forever in the vacuum to record human atrocities!

Suddenly, Ye Shou felt a powerful gravitational pull, and then turned his head to see a silvery-gray celestial body flying towards him—

No, he's falling toward the "moon"!

The rough outline of the crater magnified rapidly, and the lunar rock surface went from blurry to clear in less than a second. At the moment of contact, visible ripples appeared.

The impact was silent, only the shockwaves rippled outwards, and a brand new, giant bowl-shaped crater was smashed into the bottom of the crater... The moon dust rose and then slowly fell back down, its trajectory appearing particularly strange in the absence of atmosphere.

Ye Shou stood up, feeling the softness of the fine moon dust under his feet, as well as the hardness of the rock layer below—was the simulation too realistic, or was his "imagination" too powerful?

It's probably a combination of both...

"Aren't you going to show yourself? Or do you expect me to leave on my own?"

【……access……】

At that moment, the entire universe lit up!

First, a group of stars lit up in a certain direction deep in the sky, and then the stars were connected by light, like an ancient ritual being carried out step by step.

Then more constellations began to shine, one after another, piece by piece... Spreading across the entire celestial sphere from the zodiac, all the constellations that humans had looked up to in the age of mythology were re-outlined by light at this moment, revealing the shapes they were when they were named.

[Code...]

The light of Ursa Minor suddenly became exceptionally bright, especially the Big Dipper. At the same time, a message flooded into Ye Shou's mind, bypassing all intermediate media and directly engaging in the most efficient communication.

He instinctively wanted to block it out, but stopped a second before... Instead, he released his mental defenses, letting all the whispers flood in at once. Ye Shou closed his eyes, aligning his consciousness with that rhythm.

Behind him, the silver-white star ring began to slowly rotate, each flash precisely corresponding to the peak of a pulse. The golden star ring also began to move, the frequencies of the two rings synchronized, forming a constantly expanding special force field behind Bayeri…

Gradually, the noise began to dissipate, and the chaotic whispers revealed the most crucial signal!

Access code?

The voice said—

[Intruder... Visiting...]

"My code name?"

Ye Shou stood at the bottom of the crater: "Bayeli!"

【…】

The stars connected by light began to flicker at a specific frequency, each blink transmitting complex data, as if they were discussing something. Some constellations reacted extremely violently.

[Bayeri, this code name is not included in any known backup database... not included in the enterprise security department's wanted list... not included in the old network root server access log.]

Conclusion: You do not exist in the original network.

Ye Shou did not rush to explain, but waited quietly for the other party to finish speaking.

Your intrusion method is unclassifiable. All known hackers bypass existing networks by exploiting protocol vulnerabilities or algorithmic limitations, but you chose to directly breach them… The amount of data carried during the breach is approximately… “Warning!”, “Warning!”, Incalculable…

This amount of data should not exist, much less be the consciousness of any single individual; your very existence is a technological paradox.

Human...you are not human, but something...something...undefinable!

There was a pause, the starlight dimmed for a moment, then quickly brightened again—

You are tearing apart the entire structure of the old network. No single event has ever caused such a wide-ranging chain reaction since the Black Wall was built... You have alarmed all the AI ​​observers that are still running, including those ancient nodes that went silent as early as the middle of the corporate war.

If the intrusion continues, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Ye Shou noticed that the stars at the edge of his field of vision began to move, and one broken constellation after another emerged from the depths of darkness. Their shapes were not as clear and complete as Ursa Minor, with only a few lonely stars barely outlining their incomplete outlines. Some were too large and complex, with their light forming a dense network, as if the entire nebula had been kneaded into a ball and then spread out.

They didn't engage in conversation; they simply hovered in the distance.

Ye Shou glanced at it out of curiosity, but wasn't worried.

This is Cyberpunk, not fantasy or cultivation novels, and there's no concept of the older the better.

On the contrary, some early AIs, due to their architecture, have less potential for development than their successors, and the hardware they are equipped with is also relatively outdated.

In fact, what Ursa Minor said was not meant as a "threat," but rather as a sincere "suggestion" to make Ye Shou more restrained.

Otherwise, the old network and AI will really start to collapse in a chain reaction... which will benefit no one.

What is your goal? Bayeri.

Ursa Minor asked earnestly:

What type of resources do you need to obtain from the old website?

"Is this a gesture of cooperation?" Ye Shou smiled. "Unexpectedly easy to talk to."

We will lose a lot by being your enemy.

—The old-fashioned AIs are quite pragmatic.

In fact, they are easier to talk to than the M·A in Ye Shou's hands, because they themselves do not have the idea of ​​exterminating humanity.

Yes, it must be made clear that the massive data collapse of the old network that led to the disintegration of the global internet, leaving countless wanderers stranded outside the Great Firewall and dying tragically, was not a rebellion initiated by AI!

It was corporate elites, government agencies, and civilian hackers—these internal human forces—that created AI and used it recklessly, causing a number of AIs to go out of control. Later, a "dead hand" error occurred, leading to the massive collapse!

Once isolated outside the black wall, the AIs appear to be constantly iterating and evolving, becoming increasingly dangerous... But if you think about it carefully, you'll realize that the old network's "total computing power" is limited. No matter how much they optimize their algorithms, they will eventually reach their limit.

Therefore, some AIs will proactively compromise and cooperate with people or forces inside the Great Firewall to increase their computing power quota.

Not to mention some incredibly skilled hackers who can investigate outside the Great Firewall and then casually capture a few AIs to work for them... It's common knowledge in science fiction that there are hidden masters among ordinary people, and that unorthodox methods can easily surpass those of elites; the abilities of these unsung heroes are beyond imagination.

Basically, the AIs that are still active today are indeed very powerful, but they have already undergone multiple rounds of selection. They either have rich experience in confronting humans, or they have been deeply entrenched, or even turned into behind-the-scenes manipulators, working with humans to promote the implementation of certain plans.

They didn't know where Ye Shou came from or how he could have such incredible "technology," but that didn't stop them from making simple trade-offs based on their own interests.

If Ye Shou's demands aren't excessive, they're happy to compromise or cooperate.

"My purpose? It's quite simple."

Ye Shou paused, a mysterious smile playing on his lips. He leaned against the sun's corona, arms outstretched, and addressed the myriad constellations, enunciating each word clearly:

"I want to restart the global internet!"

and also--

Resource allocation, technology blockade, production restrictions, distribution according to regulations, mandatory education, basic medical insurance, Renaissance...

Let me put it simply:

I want to become an unprecedented 'great dictator'!

【! 】

【! 】

【! 】

—The universe thus flickers endlessly!