Chapter 437 - 409 Ultron’s Online Assault

"Is this non-lethal mode?"

On a small hillock slightly higher than the surrounding terrain, an Iron Soldier was observing in the dark.

The Tony who spoke furrowed his brows like a twist: He was quite satisfied with the powerful machine guns equipped on the Iron Soldier, but this kind of firepower didn’t seem to match the combat mode he had set, did it?

In order to be able to deal with various situations using non-lethal combat mode, he had specially installed a new weapon on the Iron Soldier: the Repulsion Cannon.

This Repulsion Cannon was a byproduct of his nuclear energy research and essentially worked by accelerating plasma with energy to generate tremendous thrust, and if necessary, this plasma could also produce high heat.

As a non-lethal weapon, it was more like an upgraded version of an air cannon, highly adjustable.

However...

These Iron Soldiers chose violent landings and indiscriminate strafing?!

[Jarvis: Sir, I speculate the exoskeleton has increased the combat AI’s weight on firepower.]

The scene cut to a worker on the ground with twisted limbs and a blurry mass of flesh and blood.

[Jarvis: Don’t worry too much; our partner Cyber Technology also has prosthetic technology, and the company’s recent task is the military-to-civilian transition.]

"Alright..." Tony set his cup on the table, looking at the projection symbolizing Jarvis’s data structure with an odd gaze.

[Jarvis: Sir, look, our enemies weren’t too affected by that round of strafing.]

In the scene, Frank jumped down from the watchtower, and a dark shadow saved him from being hit by bullets.

"This is..." Tony quickly zoomed in on the scene, "Captain Carter...?"

Tony’s tightly knitted brows twisted even more.

What was going on, he had thought this veteran of World War II would be tied up in a restraint device for blood extraction research?

As the strafing ended, Tony was still pondering, but the battlefield changed in an instant, and suddenly, amid those ruins, the Atlas Group’s soldiers launched an attack anew—

And then a Data Knife plunged into a gap in the machinery!

Seeing this, Tony unconsciously set down the glass in his hand, sweating it out for himself:

After so many setbacks in information technology, it was a lie to say that he wasn’t nervous.

He was panicked.

In multiple encounters, no matter how powerful the Iron Soldiers and weapons he used, the battles would always end after the Data Knife penetrated a robot.

So the newly employed Adaptive AI added a feature: if a robot was infiltrated, it would just abandon that robot, cutting off the internal pathways and allowing other Iron Soldiers to counterattack.

But as long as there was a corresponding feature theoretically, it could be hacked.

As someone equally skilled in network technology, he understood this all too well.

Then the robots in the scene suddenly stopped moving, bullets and shrapnel rained on their heads...

Tony’s heart skipped a beat.

Then the robots moved again.

Tony swung his fist sharply, "That’s the way!"

Bang!

An injured worker’s head was crushed under the foot of an Iron Soldier; the cries stopped abruptly, replaced by the sound of steam being sprayed—

The Iron Soldiers entered full power output mode.

Tony was stunned.

What happened?

"Done?"

Carter, staring at the indicator light of the Iron Soldier, which no longer blinked, voiced her question.

The Iron Soldier lowered its arms.

Was it over then?

In the mine, Mos, having heard the gunfire cease, looked at the robot representing Lille with a startled expression.

As the Iron Soldier descended, it initiated a long-distance communication interference; the robot had paused for that instant.

But it quickly rebooted, though its actions were somewhat strange: the robot began to mine furiously while simultaneously removing parts from its own body to assemble something.

The momentary pause made the robot stop its movements and recover.

"Sss..."

"Lille: Get away... away... dodge—!"

Lille’s warning was all that remained in the communication channel!

Still in cyberspace, Lille suddenly reconnected to this robot—

Long-distance communication and control are actually very fragile, so this temporarily used robot carried a subroutine written by Little Octopus, which would enter AI mode and mine ores, using its onboard tools and parts to assemble new weapons when disrupted.

But just then, communication was restored.

The communication plugin built into the Data Knife instantly directed the data flow to this robot and through this relay to the server behind it:

Lille’s brain!

The complex data in cyberspace expanded Lille’s controlled data barriers, continuously merging and intersecting, tinging the data with a strange black and red color, a color...

Just like the color of the Black Wall!

The black and red data stream gradually constructed a form: scattered circuit boards, sharp metal plates, grating friction sounds, eventually forming a massive skull!

The skull’s two unevenly broken eyes appeared like bottomless abysses—

"¡¿ÆЃĢĦ! : At last, I’ve finally caught you!"

The skull’s voice was like a mixture of countless metalized human screams, sharp and piercing, each utterance seemed to tear at the eardrums!

A direct attack potent enough to burn one’s brain!

Sitting in his office, Lille, whose consciousness had already faded, was unable to control his body to make any effective movements, despite the heat sink fins on his back fully unfolding...

In a network attack, the initiating party holds a tremendous advantage!

A millionth of a millisecond after the attack, Lille’s body hadn’t undergone any change, but Little Octopus within his spinal prosthetics had completely unlocked the restriction locks, taking over the fight entirely—

At the same time, the skull began to move along Lille’s data barriers towards the periphery: the ctOS system!

Skye, still lost in Cyberspace, was completely unaware of the impending crisis...

A tenth of a millisecond, a tiny octopus tentacle was collecting the fragmented data in cyberspace at an exaggerated speed, bit by bit assembling its form—

A quarter of a millisecond, the massive skull opened its mouth wide and bit towards the data barrier symbolizing the ctOS.

Red data began to infest the barrier.

Two quarters of a millisecond, Skye on the other side of the wall noticed this scene, and when she turned her head, the terrifying skull froze her in place.

The most well-regarded data barrier of this era crumbled like a cookie in this sudden assault—

For the skull, this invasion was as easy as eating cookies.

Skye’s brain, with the impending data collapse drawing near, grew more anxious, but without the necessary knowledge coupled with her computational power, she was just a larger piece of bread in front of such an enemy.

Or rather, from the moment the enemy successfully ambushed Lille, the immense ctOS on the internet was already in imminent danger!

Given the skull’s aggressiveness, once ctOS completely collapsed, what could possibly stop it?

In the dark cyberspace, the skull firmly targeted the heart of ctOS, or rather... it seemed to be locking onto Skye inside the core of the barrier.

But just as the skull was about to smash into the core data barrier, it suddenly stopped...

"óòñðïî: Huh?"

Bang!

A red and blue striped iron tentacle burst through the back of its head!

Skye stared in shock, completely unable to comprehend what was happening.

As the skull was pierced, Skye could finally see what had grabbed the skull.

Countless iron tentacles.

These tentacles suddenly exerted force, and the entire skull shattered into pieces, its fragments being pulled from the barrier!

"ӪӬӰӸЖ: You should have guessed it would be me on this side, topping off...!"

The cracked metallic sound echoed in the empty cyberspace.