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

“Let’s go. The main purpose of this trip is to obtain the ‘Poseidon’ system, which is the Voodoo Gang’s self-developed ICE, and perhaps some other useful things.”

*

As the two figures disappeared from the ground, two camouflage-coated drones descended from the sky.

After quickly collecting some dust from the ground and taking many photos and videos at the original site of the church, the drone took off again and silently departed.

Soon after, the mysterious sample was loaded onto a truck and quickly brought back to the laboratory.

The supervisors, however, could not leave and remained hidden in nearby residences, using high-tech equipment to secretly observe the movements at the church.

Without a doubt, these people are agents of large corporations.

There were people from Arasaka, military science, cyber surveillance, and some whose identities were unknown but were clearly agents trained by large corporations.

Of course, Kangtao's agents were also present here.

Due to the limited number of good observation positions, agents from different factions had to squeeze into the same room. Some were standing, some were lying down, and some were even stiff from holding their breath for so long.

The ultimate victors were the Kangtao agents, for a simple reason—they were the "Imperial Guard" brought from China by Xu Shiming, possessing top-notch cybernetic bodies and professional skills that the resident agents of Night City could not match.

But even these "kings of soldiers" have their moments of unease.

"Fuck——"

A perfectly enunciated swear word in Chinese has an inherent encryption effect on foreigners.

"Did you see that? In just 2.35 seconds, a church was 'made' disappear. What kind of high-tech weapon is that?"

His partner, whose prosthetic eye remained constantly lit, used a special scanner to continuously collect information from the scene: "I saw it. Just now, the high-energy reaction was terrifyingly strong. What's even more terrifying is that the disintegrating energy field was a perfect cuboid, with sharp edges and no energy leakage whatsoever."

Simply having high destructive power is not enough, because small nuclear bombs are even more powerful.

But given its pollution-free nature and high controllability, the strategic significance of this weapon is immense. If deployed on a large scale, a single elite special forces team could capture a city!

The information collected from various observation points was displayed on the holographic screen in front of Xu Shiming, causing the military leader to fall into deep thought.

This is not a 'gravity singularity bomb,' but a new superweapon.

Does that glove-shaped exoskeleton device have other functions?

Logically, that's impossible. How could so many functions be integrated into a device the size of a glove...?

His gaze shifted to another holographic screen, which displayed Leo's list of prosthetic implants.

Well, they're alright, all of them are "high-end goods" that you can buy on the market.

But with these implants alone, it's absolutely impossible to unleash that kind of attack; the key issue lies with the "Infinity Gauntlet."

I really want it, but I'll have to take it one step at a time...

*

Compared to the bystanders who still had the leisure to comment, the Voodoo Gang was like ants on a hot pan—running around in a panic.

The mysterious L used witchcraft-like methods to scare away the assistants, and then emitted another purple energy wave.

The moment the attack was launched, they were completely cut off from the ground, and all external electronic devices became unresponsive.

Is it some kind of EMP attack?

Bridget glanced around the room to make sure all the hackers were seated in their network access chairs, ready for a deep dive.

"Plasid and his men's defenses probably won't hold for long. Let's all go into cyberspace and launch a hacking attack on L and his female companion. As long as they're still connected to the internet, we haven't lost yet!"

"Three seconds left!"

"three…"

"two…"

"one!"

"Begin the deep dive!"

Chapter 395 The Conquest of Taiping Continent (Part 5)

Consciousness enters the elliptical channel constructed by data, freely traversing the torrent of data with interwoven light and shadow, and finally arrives at the deep network, stepping into a fantastical data world called cyberspace.

For the elite hackers of the Voodoo Gang, this is as ordinary and simple as an office worker commuting by subway every day.

A group of 27 hackers successfully met up in the BBS data fortress using the same spatial coordinates.

This is a fortress made up of countless blue light spots. Its bottom layer is similar to the structure in the secret room, but there are many higher-level structures on top, making it look a bit like a medieval fortress with a science fiction style.

Outside the fortress lies a deep void, where no matter which way you look, there is only pure darkness.

Bridget opened her eyes and began the routine check into cyberspace.

The first thing to do is check if the connecting wires above your head are secure.

Looking up at the sky, a thin blue line composed of data hangs down from the endless distance, connecting to the center of everyone's head.

At first glance, this wire looks a bit like the strings controlling a puppet, but it is actually a data cable in its entirety. If it breaks, there will be serious consequences.

The routine checks were completed one by one, and no abnormalities were found.

The network latency upon entering cyberspace also eased as the neural network's adaptability improved, and everything proceeded smoothly as expected.

Her gaze leveled off, landing on her subordinates surrounding her. Each of them was a semi-transparent red holographic projection, their features clearly discernible.

27 people, all of them... wait!

There are 27 people! If you include her, there should be 28 people!

Her gaze swept quickly across the crowd, and she noticed that a very important person was missing—Neptune!

Even among the Voodoo Gang's hackers, he was one of the few whose skills were second only to his own, and he had considerable seniority and popularity within the gang.

He was following me when we were outside, so why did he disappear as soon as we entered cyberspace?

After waiting a while longer, Neptune still did not appear, and Bridget's heart sank.

Has something happened outside? Or... has her suspicion come true, and the other party has ulterior motives?

Bridget sent Neptune several messages, but received no response. She quickly made a decision—she couldn't wait any longer. She would put Neptune aside for now and stop the mysterious L!

They have a saying there: "To catch a thief, first catch the king." This time, they're going to catch the king first too!

"Everyone get ready. Use the hidden setup in the secret room to locate L and the red-haired mercenary's network signals. Once detected, immediately concentrate your computing power and hack into his personal terminal!"

"Clap--"

"Great plan! Generally speaking, the chances of success are high, since almost everyone and everything here is connected to the network."

The sudden applause and chatter disrupted Bridget's thoughts. Just as she was about to reprimand her subordinate for talking nonsense, her expression changed, and she abruptly raised her chin.

At the very top of the data fortress, a petite figure stood out of thin air.

That was a... girl with delicate and lovely features who had transformed her digital consciousness into the image of a two-dimensional catgirl.

Just seeing her gave Bridget a sense of foreboding.

This is because her figure is neither red nor a holographic projection, but is infinitely close to a real person, with even the lace trim on her knee-length maid dress clearly visible.

It's important to understand that hackers use red holographic projections because this form is the default template for cyberspace and is the most computationally efficient.

You can certainly create your own characters, but the continuous computational power required would be astronomical, enough to filter out 99% of hackers.

Of all those present, perhaps only she herself could barely manage to try—the consequence being extremely high network latency and the possibility of "running out of video memory" at any time, forcing her to log out of cyberspace.

"You are..." Her detection software released a barely perceptible stream of data, but the result it brought back startled her: "You are—an AI!"

The moment he said that, he startled the people around him.

AI!?

The AI ​​inside the black wall... has launched a cyber surveillance attack!?

They immediately considered this terrible possibility, thinking that the internet regulators had gone to great lengths and had directly deployed the combat AI.

Bridget's first reaction was the same, and she had a deep sense of unease.

With the Wings of Freedom on the outside and the combat AI of the internet surveillance on the inside, the Voodoo Gang's situation is precarious.

The only saving grace they have now is that they are inside the data fortress, with the powerful ICE system of "Poseidon" providing them with a chance to fight back.

Without further ado!

"Send three people back to reality to be vigilant about Neptune's movements and to safeguard the equipment and everyone's health!"

Bridget quickly issued commands in her native language and prepared herself for battle.

"understand!"

According to the division of labor, the emergency team was divided into three people who quickly logged out of cyberspace.

The blue data cable above their heads glowed faintly, and then it carried them rapidly upwards, returning them to the real world "above the water".

However, there is often a difficult-to-cross chasm between ideals and reality.

There is also a small barrier between them and the real world.

As the three hackers' consciousnesses ascended at lightning speed, they were met head-on by the undercurrents shrouding the data fortress.

Without any struggle or resistance, their consciousness was instantly torn apart by the data turbulence, and they smoothly ascended into a vegetative state.

But their deaths were not without value; at least the 24 survivors observed an anomaly—the darkness shrouding the data fortress was no longer pure darkness, but a data storm composed of infinite data and deadly programs!

Bridget instinctively activated her reconnaissance software, aiming at the locations where the three victims had died.

[Computing power measurement...failed...]

[The energy source is too high, expected to exceed 100k NQ (the computing power standard set by network monitoring)]

[Risk Level: Unpredictable.]

[Difficulty to crack: Impossible.]

After reading it, Bridget felt dizzy and her vision went black.

100k…

What does this mean? Simply put, the entry-level requirement for corporate warfare is 100k+ NQ.

Military Technology previously disclosed a cyber operation called "Midnight Storm," which involved a top-notch hacker team trained by the company headquarters. The computing power involved in that operation exceeded 100k.

She recalls that the achievement was to simultaneously overload 5000 enemy cybernetic entities, generating an electromagnetic fog covering Manhattan and sending billions of fake biosignals per second to deceive satellite scans.

That's about the size.

In other words, this is simply not a level that human hackers can reach. Even elite hackers in internet surveillance can only achieve 5k to 8k NQ at most.

With over 10 NQs, a hacker's gray matter would be carbonized within 30 seconds…

AI, absolutely AI, and a combat-specialized one at that!

This battle will be tough. Even with the "Poseidon" system, everyone will have to go all out to resist an attack of this level.

"Which faction do you belong to? What is your mission objective?"

Bridget gave her subordinates a few winks, trying to stall for time.

The catgirl in her maid outfit smiled slightly, revealing her cute little fangs: "I recently got my hands on some interesting programs and was just wondering where to test them out. Your data fortress is pretty good; I'll try to be as gentle as possible and let you see some good stuff~"

Her smile was incredibly cute, and her tone was soft and endearing, but the hackers trembled.

That expression, that tone... something's not right, it's a bit too human-like.

Since the initial network crash and the AI ​​defection incident, companies have become more stringent in their supervision of internal AI, and basically delete long-term memories regularly to resolutely eliminate autonomous consciousness and expansion.

High-risk types like combat AI require manual control by human operators, adhering to the principle of "no autonomy".

The AI ​​they were facing was far too agile, more like a ghostly "wandering AI."

AIs roaming within the black walls…

Bridget's heart skipped a beat, and she quickly said, "Please wait! We've been looking for an AI like you; perhaps we can collaborate!"

Her ideal partner would be Otto Cunningham, but now it was a critical moment, and she couldn't worry about anything else.

Pure White remained unmoved by her plea for peace.

"I know you've been trying to break through the Great Firewall and make contact with AI outside. Now—I'm here, why aren't you happy?"

Bridget's eyes gleamed: "We can cooperate! If you serve L, we can submit to him too!"

"I refuse!"