Chapter 261 - 242 AI Upgrade

The so-called dragons refer to those extremely dangerous rogue AIs, and Dragon Hunters are the collective term for network hackers from the old web era who specialized in dealing with rogue AIs.

The image of this Dragon Hunter is that of a warrior with a headband, his muscular lines clearly visible, hardly showing any protective measures.

But if one were to speak of protection... it would be the layers of hard muscles themselves.

As for weapons, one would guess they’ll naturally appear from his holster when needed.

Lille’s cyber image was shattered along with the disappearance of Little Octopus. The Black Wall’s attacks didn’t just manifest in cyberspace, they also crushed the hardware hosting the target of the attack.

This left Lille somewhat out of breath.

A nearly crippled cyber image stood opposite a battle-hardened one.

"You are..."

"A cyber monitor agent, specialized in handling AI—currently on vacation, I only deal with AIs within the wall; that thing that attacked you—how does it feel?"

"That was AI? Arasaka’s AI?"

"Yes, don’t they teach the terrifying tales of Arasaka among rookie hackers anymore? Have you not heard of Soul Killer?"

"Soul Killer, Shell Illusion Gun, Phantom Killer, Mind Hacker... There are so many rumors online, if I believed each one, I might as well work at a factory."

"Haha, indeed, but you haven’t answered yet, what did it feel like to be attacked by that thing?"

He seemed quite interested, and unlike the hunters Lille imagined, who were long battling AI, he was very talkative.

In Lille’s limited memory, these AI hunters were supposed to be more silent due to the permanent irreparable neural damage caused by long battles with AI.

Lille thought for a moment: "I can tell you, but in return, you must tell me what you did to me, what are you doing?"

"These two pieces of information are not equivalent, I can only tell you that when Arasaka was preparing to attack you, I intercepted their data stream, saving your life to a certain extent."

Not a word about the Black Wall.

So Lille said, "It was terrifying, I felt like I was losing myself. If the support had been any later, I guess I would have been done for."

"Hmm... The disoriented type? That is indeed dangerous. Maybe a second later, that AI’s similarity to you would have surged, and then you’d be black..."

The Black Wall would have taken Lille down with it.

The Dragon Hunter clasped his mouth shut, "Forget it, I better not talk. Blais will contact you about the payment, I’m leaving.

But I’m glad you’re not AI, lest I’d have to work overtime.

Lastly, the annoyed Arasaka faction sent some people, not the best batch, but not bad either. Hurry back.

They definitely won’t expect you to still be alive."

After speaking, his cyber image disintegrated, and the blue data streams fell onto the space beside him, turning into uncontrolled, pure cyber data streams.

At this moment in England, an old man disconnected, and a robot brought him pure True Water.

The man, trembling in his hands and feet, took the water and struggled to eat...

A mechanical voice rang out, "Detected an increase in your neural damage, do you want to proceed with tube feeding?"

"Bugger off!" the man’s slurred voice rose, repeating the word, "Bugger off..."

After drinking water, he lay back in his chair, staring at the room’s lights, chewing over the battle with Arasaka in his mind...

It would have been better to work overtime.

...

"Ha!!"

Lille felt he was lying in scalding water!

Jack and V kept pouring more water into the cooling tank, hot coolant spilling over onto the floor...

Seeing Lille open his eyes and suck in a great gulp of water like a drowning man, V quickly lifted him out:

"Damn it—you finally woke up, we thought you were going to be cooked!"

Lille wanted to wipe his face, but found he couldn’t move his hand.

The spine prosthetics were damaged, and crucially, the Si Anweisitan chip burned out; without its driver, it couldn’t function properly.

Had it been earlier, Lille would have been set for a paralyzed life again, but not now.

The technology reserve was already sufficient.

"Can’t be cooked, I’ve checked the cooling liquid’s technical standards—low boiling point, looks scary, that’s all. The job’s done, time to pull out."

Lille was lifted by V from the cooling tank and placed on a chair: "What’s wrong with you?"

"Spine prosthetics bricked, need to repair. Arasaka might send someone over..."

[Blais: Burger King, you’re still alive?]

[Lille: Are you hoping I’m dead?]

[Blais: Thank goodness, listen, Arasaka has sent a Ninja squad over, I can trace their location.]

[Blais: The Terrorist Mobile Team is on their way too!]

[Blais: Retreat following my route.]

[Lille: No way, I’m going out through the front door today.]

[Blais: What?]

[Lille: Why aren’t you calling me ’bro’ anymore? I’m pissed.]

[Lille: Cover my retreat and pass me the frequency info of those ninjas, it’s useful to me.]

[Blais: You can’t break through their ICE right now, I won’t confront Arasaka directly.]

[Lille: Don’t worry about it, just do as I said.]

"How are we going to get out now? Do we still need to deal with Arasaka?"

Jack and V asked at the same time.

Yes, they still had to deal with the last of the pursuers...

The ninjas of Arasaka.

It was simply impossible to engage in electronic warfare with them at the moment, and Blais was unwilling to confront them directly—the H8 skyscraper network they had used as a stepping stone had already collapsed.

They could only resort to traditional methods, physically taking them out.

Lille’s prosthetics began to flicker, as they gradually accepted the data sync from the Marvel World—

While in cyberspace, Lille had a premonition that something might go wrong and had backed up the entire software information to another world in advance.

But with this operation, Little Octopus really attained all the data from Si Anweisitan.

[Little Octopus: Big brother! I nearly peed myself just now!!!]

[Lille: I told you it would be okay... Can you reinstall the drivers?]

[Little Octopus: Big brother’s spinal structure is very intricate, and I’m quite comfortable living in it, but without the chip, I can only move with difficulty.]

[Little Octopus: Big brother, actually I found a chip in the database just now that’s perfect for hosting similar drivers, I can rewrite it myself!]

[Lille: You want to rewrite the drivers yourself? Are you sure?]

[Little Octopus: I feel that I’m really suited for neural component drivers, let me give it a try (*•̀ㅂ•́)و]

[Little Octopus: Moreover, I feel... I feel that mom’s spinal prosthetics are also very suitable for me to operate.]

[Lille: Mom? Who are you talking about? V?]

[Little Octopus: Uh-huh.]

[Lille: You call me ’big brother’ and her ’mom’?]

[Little Octopus: I learned it just now from the Cloud Peak database...]

[Lille: What a mess, from now on just call her V, and get ready.]

Lille sat back in his chair, looking towards the person in charge of Cloud Peak beside him.

The ’wooden man’ and Mako were lying next to the chair, both of them had been connected during the deep dive, and were also affected in the recent cyber battle.

Scanning the ’wooden man’, the guy’s brain was mostly brain-dead, and Mako suffered severe neurological trauma—relatively better, but not by much.

"I have a well-mixed pneumatic injector in my box, wake her up."

Jack found the injector Lille mentioned in the box and injected Mako. She opened her eyes in terror!

Before falling completely unconscious, she caught a glimpse of the battle in cyberspace!

She was not a trained hacker. She could not understand everything in cyberspace, and the incomprehensible changes that suddenly appeared before her eyes upon first access almost destroyed her cognitive system!

Mako knelt on the ground, shaking and crawling on the ground in fear like a child who had accidentally wandered into the back mountain and seen an indescribable monster...

She opened her mouth...

"Uh...sdssmI need help...助けてください... I.."

Only intermittent noise and jumbled broken characters came out.

Mako was dominated by fear, looked up with terror in her eyes at Lille, who was leaning against the chair, as if looking at a deity...

Lille suddenly felt contemplative:

This was the world of Cyberpunk; even though Mako was a high-level club manager, without knowledge, without technology, she was just selling her body and managing people who sold their bodies.

Even in seeking help, she would turn to the wrong direction: the one who actually caused her neurological damage wasn’t really Lille, nor was it directed at her.

She was just collateral damage.

But it seemed her understanding was still intact, and Lille’s head, previously hanging low, slowly lifted: "Gather all of your sex dolls and all the sex doll chips in your inventory."

Mako scrambled and rolled over.

[Blais: What the hell are you up to?]

[Lille: Just provide cover when I asked for it.]

Lille lifted his head to look towards V: "Come sit here, I’ll unlock Krensky for you and give you a new plugin to try out."]