Chapter 683 - 654 "Soul Killer

Houston, Lille’s brand new massive mechanical prosthetic body swept across the sky, but suddenly lost connection—

Once Lille lost the cyber devices on him, no matter how intelligent his brain was, it was hard to maintain high-intensity calculations and data transmission!

The body suddenly lost its agility and fell out of invisibility!

Bam!

Carrying huge kinetic energy, Lille crashed through the glass of Stark Tower, bursting into Tony’s private residence on the top floor, and the enormous noise completely triggered Jarvis’s alarm!

The AI’s cognitive model began adjusting at high speed—just as if a human had been fiercely shocked!

It knew Tony had sent out messages behind its back, but Lille suddenly appeared out of thin air in Stark Tower!

Click—

All blast doors in the building slid down, sealing each area, unmanned drones and combat robots in the complex instantly activated, and the alarm sounded throughout Stark Industry!

Almost simultaneously, it keenly noticed the ctOS network experiencing severe disturbances once again...

[Jarvis: Mr. Agler, initiate the network attack immediately!]

[Dalio: So urgent?]

Seated in the oil refining center, Dalio was taken aback for a moment, then immediately issued the command.

This command reached all corners of the world: Hydra lurking in important government institutions, seemingly terroristic armed organizations, legit publicly traded companies, and research institutions receiving sponsorship from Hydra and Rocksen!

A massive space airship emerged from underwater, satellites orbiting near-Earth turned their directions—

And the already damaged server of Dr. Zola, after receiving the command, a Hydra scientist injected a pharmaceutical into the head of the test subject...

The test subject swelled and deformed with screams: limbs degenerated, head enlarged, ultimately turning into nothing but a massive biological brain!

The biological brain filled the brain-machine conversion device prepared for it, connecting to Dr. Zola’s head...

Current surged in, the monster awakened.

Under Stark Tower, an exhausted Tony Stark sensed the commotion, his eyes brightened—

Have they finally come to rescue him?

...

[Skye: We’re... under attack...!]

[Little Octopus: Big Brother!]

Bang!

Little Octopus quickly took control of Lille’s prosthetic body, confusedly landing in the room...

It could no longer receive Lille’s signal!

In an instant, Lille completely shut down the cross-dimensional information transmission traffic in ctOS and OCT domains—

[Lille: Hold on!]

...

Despite all efforts, when the Arasaka Ninja appeared behind Lille, he still felt somewhat exhausted.

The Arasaka Ninja only had a low presence, but real elite combat strength was not much weaker than the so-called Legends of Night City.

To some extent, with Arasaka’s full support and years of dedicated training in this environment, they might be stronger than most Legends—

Even the so-called "determination," they possessed as well:

The ninja most trusted by Arasaka Saburo, the mightiest among the Arasaka Ninjas, having a fanatical devotion similar to divine faith in him...

This was Takemura Goro.

Arasaka Ninjas didn’t need legendary stories to pass down throughout the world because the name of the Arasaka Group far surpassed all Legends.

The connection between his head and body severed, Lille suddenly lost most of his cyber devices!

His brain was indeed special, capable of handling high-intensity computation, but all active calculation and control were implemented using brain-machine devices.

This was an odd symbiotic relationship: the brain manipulated the body to create devices, devices were inserted into the brain to be controlled by it, and devices in turn overwritten his brain...

It’s complex, but once the machine was removed, without additional servers for computing, without signal transceiving devices connecting to the cyber network...

Lille’s head was just an ordinary brain.

In cyberspace, the Hellhound he originally controlled disconnected completely, and his powerful control presence there crumbled into a thin virtual image—

Soul Killer, that bottomless vortex completely halted Lille’s weak data form.

It also entirely trapped his consciousness.

In cyberspace, a hidden data stream passed through the no-communication zone jointly created by the companies, using Takemura Goro’s equipment as an extension, fully connecting Lille’s consciousness to a network specially prepared for him!

[Arasaka Saburo: Burger King... Lille.]

Arasaka Saburo’s voice echoed in the area sealed by the Soul Killer.

Lille watched as the Soul Killer continued to operate, steadily forming...

The destructive power of the Black Wall to him was absolute, but there was clearly some issue with the data form provided by Arasaka:

If the Black Wall completely locked onto him, he’d be instantly destroyed by powerful directional electromagnetic signals, but evidently, for whatever reasons, the digital soul provided by Arasaka to Network Supervision was quite different from his own characteristics.

This allowed him a chance to survive the Black Wall’s attack...

Ultimately resulting in the present situation.

[Lille: Do you want to recruit me too?]

[Arasaka Saburo: I don’t need to do such things, soon your digital imprint will be completed.]

Arasaka Saburo was talking nonsense, but Lille knew this wasn’t just any nonsense:

When Soul Killer copies a soul imprint, the stronger the target’s feedback, the better and faster the process completes.

Lille calmed his mood, looking at the empty vortex:

[Lille: Even if you copy a new me, this new me will still smash your dog brain, you sneaky bastard.]

[Arasaka Saburo: You should have sensed it, right? Mr. Li.]

[Arasaka Saburo: The Arasaka Group can adjust soul imprint attributes.]

[Lille: Then send it back into a human brain?]

[Arasaka Saburo: Heh, seems you’ve guessed it.]

[Lille: Smashed your conspiracy would upset you, wouldn’t it? Old dog.]

Lille had gathered the final link in the Network Supervision’s prior investigation: what exactly did that Dante do in Night City.

This meant the Dante investigating Hot and the bodyguard Dante later hired by the Ye Group to assist staff around Jefferson’s residence, the guy crushed by Lille running around Night City, was indeed the same person!

The real Dante, after investigating Hot, was trapped by the Soul Killer, and a fake Dante, adjusted by Arasaka, was sent back to his shell—

This shell later became a bodyguard, protecting the Ye Group’s mind control team’s gangsters...

This perhaps was coincidental: perhaps investigating Hot was the Ye Group’s idea, or maybe a commission by Military Technology, or simply because his voluntary actions made the Ye Group think he wouldn’t be an Arasaka agent planted in the Ye Group...

But ultimately, it meant that the Ye Group’s most important, most hidden mind control operation had always been watched by Arasaka Saburo!

And the secret discovered by the Moon agent, the secret of why Hot cooperated with Arasaka, was related to this!

If Soul Killer could not only kill a person’s spirit but also covertly insert an Arasaka-inclined personality back in...

Once Hot became mayor and secretly collaborated with Arasaka, they could soon replace many key positions with these swapped souls!

Night City would become the testing ground for this technology, and in fact, relying on extensive, tailored personal security services for the wealthy, Arasaka could massively expand their already elusive information advantage—

This plan might have been on the project prototype for a while: the commercial service of Soul Killer "Protect Your Soul" had Night City as its foremost deployment point.

This plan was not mentioned at all in the original work, but all the details... aligned:

Arasaka Saburo, was plotting to kill everyone’s soul.

Far away on the aircraft carrier, Arasaka Saburo actually revealed a strange smile:

[Arasaka Saburo: Mr. Li, among all those who resist me, you are the most determined one, also the most foolish, the smartest.]

[Arasaka Saburo: When a new you appears in the world, I will do my utmost to destroy everyone connected to you.]

[Arasaka Saburo: As a... tribute to you, the new you will become a very good subordinate.]