From Gotham to Night City, my infamy is known to all.

This is unbelievable... How did the enemy do that!

"You are--"

She wanted to ask more questions, buy some time, or negotiate, but a red warning bar appeared right in the center of her retina—[Warning! Unauthorized access!]

The red triangle icon keeps flashing, with a large, bold red exclamation mark in the middle, which gives people a sense of foreboding just by looking at it.

Meanwhile, military technology's personal ICE, scientifically known as Intrusion Countermeasure Electronic Element Automatic Deployment (Deleted) fin-shaped ...

The green warning bar appears above the red warning bar.

[The system detected a hacker attack and initiated automatic defense...defense...failed.]

Before I could even finish sending the message, my personal ICE account went offline.

Now she can see two red warning signs...

The hacking progress bar is still growing rapidly.

In the past, veterans jokingly referred to this as the "30 seconds of life and death," meaning that they had to find the hacker within 30 seconds and interrupt their intrusion in order to ensure their own safety.

But today, the progress bar is moving at an absurdly fast speed; it feels like it will fill up in less than five seconds.

"Holy crap! What's going on?! Did you even take any defensive measures?!"

Having served in military technology for over a decade, this was the first time the security specialist had ever seen a military-grade ICE system compromised so quickly.

"hacker!!"

She raised her voice, calling out her last hope.

But the elite hacker trained in military technology was even more terrified than she was.

"Impossible! This is impossible! Everyone's ICE has been breached in an instant! The enemy is uploading the puppet, synapse melting, prosthetic overheating, electromagnetic short circuit, repeating, repeating commands? What is this... No no no no!"

"Ah ah ah ah ah--!"

A piercing scream accompanied by a burst of lightning and sparks.

In an instant, the stench of burnt protein filled the crew compartment of the Lizard Tank.

The implant placed in the prefrontal cortex by the cyber hacker became a death sentence, causing the attack from the puppet to erupt in the most vulnerable part of the brain.

The poor hacker died at lightning speed, leaving the combatants to continue to suffer the intense nerve pain caused by synaptic melting.

That pain was far more intense than being torn to pieces.

After a round of attacks by the puppets, only the security officer and the tough law enforcement officers survived in the crew cabin.

But this was by no means lucky, because the second round followed immediately.

The security specialist finally figured out what the "repeat command" that terrified the hackers was—it was actually quite simple: just repeat the attack puppet from before.

Before the endless agony could subside, new tortures were already upon them.

She was unable to stand and was curled up in the chair, convulsing uncontrollably.

The distorted wails continued for a long time.

Accessory hearts, biomonitoring devices, and blood circulation pumps—these assistive implants can no longer detect the body's condition. According to the emergency response plan prepared in advance using military technology—

They release all built-in drugs and stimulants in an attempt to maintain the user's vital signs, with the aim of... giving her a few seconds of lucidity before she dies, preferably to take the enemy down with her.

"Oh, so there are still survivors? You're pretty good. I just got a new toy, why don't you give it a try?"

[Loading the Puppet: Self-Destruction.]

The security specialist's prosthetic eye is nearing the end of its life; he can only vaguely see that he has been hacked again.

In an instant, endless despair and despondency surged into my heart.

Mission failed... My teammates are all dead... Even if I go back alive, I'll be executed by the company... And my body hurts so much... What's the point of such a hopeless life?

She stretched out her arm with difficulty, using all her strength to pull out her sidearm.

So painful…

There's no need to persist anymore...

Let's end it...

boom!

One bullet, heals all pain.

The entire transport convoy was wiped out.

"Pure White: Mission complete! Proceed to settlement!"

"Pure White: I'm the MVP of this battle, with 45 kills and 27 captured robots. Second place goes to V, with 16 kills. Third place goes to Vera's team, who perfectly executed the raid on the power plant. Leo was just coasting along, he didn't do anything!"

"Leo: I paid for it, and I handled the equipment and cleanup. How can I say I didn't do anything!"

V: Stop fooling around, let's clean up the mess!

Leo: Tch...Coming right away.

Leo reached out and touched the scorching hot network signal booster, then put the large device into his storage space.

It was precisely because of this device acting as a mid-range machine that Chunbai was able to launch an extremely high-intensity, rapid attack on the convoy personnel. Following this line of reasoning, Chunbai deserves at least half the credit!

After putting away all the equipment and camouflage, Leo picked up some soil from nearby and casually covered up any traces of the equipment that had been there.

His finishing touches weren't done professionally, but he didn't care.

He jogged down the slope and saw the drone squad fly back, obediently returning to the Manticore armored vehicle along with the combat robots.

"Pure White: Alright, quickly take all the vehicles away and then retreat."

Leo: This is called a triumph!

Leo, in a good mood, exchanged a few words with Chunbai and walked straight towards the heavy-duty cargo airlift vehicle in the center.

This car is the biggest, so it needs to be put in the space first.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered that the car appeared to be locked, with a warning message scrolling across the external display screen: "Company property, do not approach."

"Is my equipment okay? Why can't I open this car door?"

Chunbai explained, "It's locked by the insiders. But it's okay, there are two humanoid robots inside the carriage. I can control them to hack the system from the inside, and it will still open with some time."

"The strongest fortresses are always breached from within, and that's so true."

Leo muttered something and stuffed the entire hovercar into the space.

Then, he used the "repeat command" to take away all three Manticore armored vehicles and one Demon Lizard tank, along with the corpses inside.

Fortunately, his space had been upgraded, and he had emptied out all the clutter before coming, otherwise there really wouldn't have been enough room.

After finishing everything, he looked at V, who was looking around, and asked curiously, "What are you looking at?"

V paused for a moment, then stared at the ground: "The hovercar left quite a few tracks on the ground when it landed. Should we cover them up before we leave?"

Leo thought for a moment, then quickly shook his head: "No need. Large companies can easily determine the approximate area of ​​the crash by investigating the time the hovercar's signal disappeared. The only places nearby are here and the more distant eastern wasteland; they'll definitely find this place. But look—"

He pointed around, a broad smile on his face.

"No shots were fired in this area, and there were no signs of fighting. The only information they could gather was that the convoy had stopped here. Based on normal logic, they would assume that the convoy was hijacked and left from here."

V picked up where he left off: "But they couldn't find out where the convoy went. It wasn't in the mountains, it wasn't in the eastern suburbs, and it didn't enter the city. Such a conspicuous floating convoy could only have left the border of Night City."

“That’s right! But…” He paused deliberately, “The Eastern Border Control Station of Night City is in Arasaka’s hands, and the countless surveillance devices along the border were also personally deployed by Arasaka. This airborne convoy wants to leave the border—Arasaka couldn’t possibly not know that!”

"But they really didn't know..."

"Of course Arasaka would say that, but do you think military technology and biotechnology would believe it? Oh, right, and Kang Tao too! Kang Tao definitely wouldn't believe it either!"

"Looks like Arasaka's going to have to take the blame for this. You're really wicked..."

Leo laughed heartily, put his arm around V, and strode up the hillside.

Returning to where they had come from, he released the Colby C240T, and the two drove towards the eastern suburbs.

Chapter 305 Leo: "I blew up the power plant all for Kangtao's own good!"

The road down the mountain was full of bumps and obstacles.

This perfectly illustrates the proverb, "Going up the mountain is easy, but coming down is hard."

"Slow down, no rush... Wait, this is downhill, why are you pressing the accelerator? Press the brake!"

"Ah—stop nagging! I learned to drive when I was thirteen, it's okay!"

V recklessly stepped on the gas, making the blue sedan dance like a tap dance on the rugged mountain road.

Leo looked distressed, gripping the front handrail of the roof tightly with his right hand, barely daring to sit properly.

He is now very grateful for two things:

First, the car isn't worth much. Even if the paint is scratched or the bumper is dented, he won't care.

Second, he didn't have kidney stones, otherwise they would have been thrown out.

The underage, unlicensed driver next to me was really bad at driving. When we were going up the mountain, Vera was leading the way, so it wasn't obvious, but when we were going down the mountain, her true level was exposed.

But she refused to change drivers and insisted on driving.

After finally making it to the foot of the mountain, Leo's buttocks were numb from the jolting.

"How did you get the car like this? Are you alright?"

Vera, who had arrived earlier, looked at their car with a puzzled expression.

The dented front bumper and the scratches all over the body made it look truly appalling.

Even more tragically, those were clearly not traces of a battle, but simply the driver's lapse in concentration...

"It's alright, the mountain road is just a bit difficult to travel."

V is unrighteous, but Leo cannot be unjust, so he added a sentence to make amends for her.

Given the time constraints, he didn't continue chatting and got down to business in the team channel: "Pure White, where is the convoy?"

"We're almost at the abandoned factory. Speed ​​up now, and we can catch up with them at the small outpost not far from there."

"Then what are you waiting for? Let's go!"

Leo waved forward, signaling Vera to lead the way so that she wouldn't drive recklessly again.

On the way, he summarized the mission in one sentence: "Mission accomplished. We don't need to get involved in the follow-up matters; let the big companies fight it out themselves. By the way, V100 million, everyone else 50. This deal is closed!"

He was always very generous to his own troops, and he started transferring money before he even finished speaking.

His friends were used to his generosity and happily accepted the huge sum of money.

When it was Panan's turn, Leo didn't transfer the money. Instead, he sent her an anonymous account: "Panan, rashly depositing a large sum of money into your personal account may attract the attention of those with ulterior motives. I've put your money in this account for you. You can set a new password yourself."

Panan paused for a moment, then hesitated, "Isn't this too much? I don't think I've been of much help..."

"You really did get away with it this time," Leo said, shifting the blame. "But it's okay, just consider it an angel investment. The Immortal Squad is an elite team, and your current cybernetic body and equipment are a bit lacking. Use this money to upgrade them properly."

"Oh…"

Panan accepted his offer with some hesitation.

50...

Six months ago, the Bright family robbed a company transport convoy in an attempt to reclaim their belongings. It was a land-based convoy, far less well-equipped and manpower-intensive than the air convoy attacked today.

Even so, the family paid a heavy price, and what they finally got back was probably only worth about a million dollars.

The main participants in the operation each received a reward of 20,000 yuan…

The same type of commission can have vastly different pay.

With the Blatter family associating with someone like that, they'll at least never lack funds. However… her original plan to leave the family and seek opportunities in Night City is now completely hopeless.

If you've participated in such hostile actions against large companies, and you don't want to be hunted down to death by either side, the only way is to completely tie yourself to one side and keep your mouth shut.

She looked out the window and suddenly realized that the carefree life of being able to go wherever she wanted was probably a distant memory...

Southeast corner of the bad soil in the eastern suburbs.

A small campsite right next to the highway.

Leo and his accomplices hid their vehicle and sneaked in silently, exchanging identities with the stand-in robot inside the tent.

He sent his friends out to make an appearance, then turned around and put the two robots back into his spatial storage.