Chapter 216 - 198: ctOS Maintenance Shutdown Today

The wind howled!

Lille felt as if the wind was slashing his cheeks like blades. Despite his immense anxiety, he kept his mouth tightly shut and stared at the Osborne building—

How fast was this?

Even after activating Si Anweisitan, the instant he ejected, Lille still felt as if he was on a roller coaster!

He quickly reached and even surpassed the Vulture in altitude!

Fortunately, the upward momentum didn’t last too long under the force of gravity, and he soon began to slow down—

Four octopus arms sprung out, touching the wall before his body landed!

Bang!

Dust and gravel flew as the octopus arms clutched the wall, and he quickly climbed up the surface!

The flexibility of the octopus arms was so exaggerated; each arm was only as long as a normal human arm when retracted but could extend up to almost 168 cm.

Equipped with 127 micro-motors and a mechanical structure far more flexible than traditional ones, they were controlled directly by the brain through a brain-machine interface—

This was also why Dr. Otto had designed an AI to control the octopus arms, and even the AI just for controlling those arms had the capability to, in turn, invade human minds!

Under such direct control, Lille felt his brain burning!

For ordinary people, this exaggerated speed was astonishing, but to Otto, it was nothing short of a miracle!

How could the human brain withstand such an impact?

Crack!

The Vulture, gripping Norman, flew beneath Lille, then shot straight up. Lille seized the moment, leaping off the wall and pouncing toward the Vulture!

The octopus caught the Vulture!

The flight speed suddenly slowed down, and the Vulture looked down at the claws grasped by the climbing Lille, tilting his head.

Lille wouldn’t make eye contact, his Data Knife stabbing fiercely into the gaps of the blade wings!

Zzzt—!

Electricity surged, and the Vulture suddenly flipped in agony. The dramatic change in speed prevented Lille’s blood from flowing normally into his brain, briefly losing his senses...

Bang!

A loud noise brought Lille back to consciousness—

Below him was still the very top of the Osborne building!

Servers, antennas, cables were all cut by something sharp and scattered around!

And Lille’s octopus arms still firmly clung to the Vulture, even seizing the unconscious Norman Osborn!

"Aaaahhhhhh!"

Pain made Adrian scream, and his missile bay opened instantly!

The octopus arms danced rapidly as if conscious, immediately adjusting their posture, avoiding the missile bay, and changing position!

Missiles rained down on the Osborne Group like rain, and violent explosions echoed through the district!

People saw the top floor of the Osborne building being bombed!

Lille, regaining consciousness, plunged into the Vulture’s Prosthetic System...

He recognized the familiar neural anomaly; he had hacked into many cyber-psychotics before, recording their physiological states when abnormalities appeared.

Now, he was certain that Adrian was in a state of cyber-psychosis.

The current momentarily burned out his hyper-excited neurons, cutting off control of the equipment, and even... caused unconsciousness.

Burn the nerves, then inject appropriate adrenaline, Painkiller, and other Pharmaceuticals.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that in this world, only Lille, an experienced Hacker and prosthetics doctor, could potentially stop Adrian’s violent state under these conditions, and ensure his madness was terminated as safely as possible.

However, now they were 200 meters above the top of the Osborne building.

Aerodynamic lift disappeared as the turbines and jet engines stopped spinning, and they were about to crash to the ground.

So the next thing—Lille had to restart the Vulture Battle Suit.

With his own nerves, replacing Adrian, using the few remaining circuits, he had to complete an emergency landing.

Temporary modeling, temporary adjustment, temporary neural connection, and the octopus arms on his body also taxing Lille’s brain computational power—

His brain cells truly began to burn and die, with Lizard Potion from the auxiliary heart pumping faster!

Whoosh!

The vector jet device hidden in the wings activated, the biomimetic wings locked, and the vertical fall path turned into a glide—

Adrian, in a daze, came to his senses...

All the voices in his head were gone.

He opened his eyes and saw the scene he desired most in his life—

A breeze brushed his cheeks, sunlight bathed him, and like a bird, he glided lightly across the sky.

Whoosh!

Octopus arms acted as a decelerator and landing gear, and the three of them landed on top of the Osborne Group building!

Click, click, click, click, click...

The concrete was smashed inch by inch, and the octopus arms gradually deformed and collapsed under the pressure, surges of exaggerated electric currents shot into Lille’s brain—

But they still landed safely.

Thud.

"Ah..."

Lille’s nosebleed flowed like a stream of blood, his head buzzed, and his vision was a blur of darkness.

Rescuing is always much harder than just killing.

The view from the top of the Osborne Building was indeed beautiful. Lille looked into the distance, feeling a sense of relaxation as if things were over, and sat down on the ground with a thud.

He tossed Norman aside, took off the octopus arms, and sat on the ground, feeling a lonely sense of no one to share the victory with.

Picking up the Data Knife—despite enduring a high-intensity battle, the knife didn’t have a single scratch. It truly was worthy of Marvel material science.

The thing was indeed useful, someone would definitely like it, Lille pocketed the knife.

That’s when he saw Adrian clearly looking up, staring straight at the sun.

The old guy was actually awake.

"...Did I kill someone?"

"Almost," Lille kicked the Norman on the ground, "Of course, I don’t know what happened before you arrived."

"I... I bombed my own house."

"Your family wasn’t inside, were they?"

"No, just me, and those... agents and soldiers, right, there was also a young man, Osborne wanted to experiment on that young man."

"Did you stop him?"

"Yes."

"Then Osborne got on your feet."

"...Yes, is he dead?"

Lille glanced at the Norman on the ground—pale face, eyes rolled back, not dead, but whether there would be lasting damage was another question.

"Not dead."

"Good..." Adrian looked at the sun, his weak face suddenly showing a smile:

"When I was very little, we were very poor, economic crisis, my damn father lost his job, drank at home, had fits of drunken rage, my mother raised me alone.

After we got beaten, she’d always sneak me out to fly kites, she said it was a gift from my old man when he was young.

She always laughed in front of me, but she would cry when we got back.

She said, when they were young, he promised to take her on a plane, to fly wherever they wanted like a bird—to Rome, Milan, Paris...

But why does life always seem to go in the wrong direction?"

"Not this time."

"Yeah, not this time, what’s your name?"

"Lille."

"Thank you, Lille."

After saying this, Adrian fell into a deep sleep.

Alright, now both men were rescued.

Lille glanced at the other Norman—

Experiencing weightlessness and hypergravity in a short time, combined with extremely tense nerves, can cause all sorts of problems in the human body.

For example, what he had just gone through: rapid ascent to high altitude, blood not pumping into the brain, leading to unconsciousness.

That’s why pilots need to wear Anti-G Suits.

Adrian’s original design wasn’t that exaggerated, but damned if Norman hadn’t installed his turbo acceleration device.

Double the stimulation was still hugely damaging for a man over fifty like Norman, and it could even trigger a brain hemorrhage or other issues.

Norman’s symptoms looked like something similar had happened.

"...Pity I only brought one Painkiller."

Lille counted the time and used the last emergency pharmaceutical on Adrian.

As for the Norman on the ground, he probably won’t die, but how much brain function can be saved...

It’s up to you now, Osborne.

An emergency call was made, but the roads were jammed.

The ctOS is down for maintenance today.