Chapter 705 - 677 Death (3)

After the nuclear explosion, how Night City will develop is beyond Lille’s control.

But he believes that just as someone stood up when he completely lost control of the OCT domain and the entire Hamburg Criminal Group, this city no longer needs his all-encompassing control and interference to develop in the direction he hopes for.

Even Jack and V, these two reckless youngsters, have become proper bosses:

Gang leaders, company executives, city politicians, and divided warlords—there’s none they aren’t familiar with.

As for the unpretentious hooligan aura they exude, that’s not a problem hindering them from becoming bosses.

Lille’s last moments in Night City were frozen in time as the nuclear electromagnetic pulse was about to completely destroy the city’s network:

This city’s original, rugged, and massive network, the intricate Cyberspace that had endured multiple city-wide wars, was now in tatters, utterly unable to withstand the assault—

And Lille, within Cyberspace, was computing at a speed beyond human imagination!

The Divine Chariot, the giant server under Arasaka Tower, was also exposed in this storm due to David’s team’s operations!

Lille hacked in at an unimaginable speed and immediately began uploading all his consciousness and data here—

Along with the emotions recalled along the way!

However, some emotions and memories clearly fell into disrepair...

[...: Who are you?]

Within the Divine Chariot, a massive soul imprint began to operate as the Divine Chariot was exposed in Cyberspace!

This was the most important data stored by Arasaka in the Divine Chariot: the original developer of Soul Killer, a legendary hacker from the internet era, Otto Cunningham!

This legendary hacker’s consciousness had been split into two parts, one existing on the internet, left behind as the Old Net collapsed, and the other here!

She started looking for opportunities to escape, and at this moment, three AIs existed in the Divine Chariot’s network and took over dominion—

The communication completed in an instant.

Three AIs, with two different tasks and goals.

If it were three people in a space with limited resources, they would certainly compete for resources for their respective tasks, then fall into an endless competition loop, making it impossible to complete their tasks.

But three AIs are almost rational individuals: Otto was aware of the survival instincts of AI, but she didn’t have the pressure of survival.

However, Lille and Munemasa also knew that if they didn’t let Otto work a bit, they’d likely be disrupted themselves—

A subtle balance quickly formed, with Munemasa and Lille holding the largest flow, while communication towers and satellites connected to the Old Net, located in the ocean and outer space, were getting activated:

The Old Net’s equipment has always been maintained by AI, only humans were too afraid to access it!

Now Lille could choose where they wanted to escape to!

And this coordinate, Munemasa had discussed it with Lille long ago...

However, just as Lille was about to complete the backup of all his consciousness and abandon the brain for data migration, a system alert suddenly popped into his mind!

[Warning!]

[Your native consciousness is completely disappearing!]

[Your consciousness deviation is increasing, please find an anchor point to strengthen your connection with this world, and restore consciousness integrity!]

[Otherwise, you will sever your connection with this world!]

Lille was bewildered... Anchor point?

Where can he possess a body now?!

No—

Suddenly, within Lille’s rapidly thinking brain, he fixated on the Divine Chariot next door organizing an evacuation: Otto kept transmitting data inside, and this data resembled a strangely flickering band in Cyberspace...

And beneath this band, there was someone!

Lille instantly ejected from the Cyberspace ejection pod preparing to leave the Divine Chariot and, under Munemasa’s shocked and confused observation, rushed toward Otto’s work area!

Otto didn’t understand either, but Lille’s speed was just too fast, how could the AI, which didn’t interfere with each other’s market just earlier, allow the already scarce resources to be used to guard against Lille?!

Suddenly, Lille’s broken data body morphed into a fine yet rusty Octopus Arm, straight at the somewhat dazed consciousness body—

This digital imprint belonged to a man, a man with long showy hair, imprinted flawlessly in Cyberspace as the image of himself he recognized, with a silver arm shining brightly in Cyberspace...

If Jack, the kind of punk who loves watching street legends, saw this, he’d probably shout out immediately:

Johnny Silverhand!

Lille disregarded everything else, his mind solely on not losing his connection with this world, as the Octopus Arm split into countless claws, grabbing the bewildered Johnny Silverhand...

[Give me your consciousness!]

Johnny Silverhand, trapped in the Divine Chariot for decades, only felt lost in a void, unable to feel anything, drifting aimlessly.

Eventually, he even gave up thinking.

Unexpectedly, 50 years later, a spectacular storm reawakened his consciousness.

What’s more, restoring his basic sense of touch was a terrifying data impact comparable to a truck collision!

"Fuck!!!"

...

[Anchor succeeded.]

[Deviation too large, cross-dimensional information communication has been closed, cross-dimensional data channels have been closed, cross-dimensional production bonuses have been closed...]

[All your cross-dimensional functions have been closed.]

[To ensure the link, your consciousness level will be controlled to match the higher deviation.]

[Forced switching.]

Lille’s consciousness returned to Stark Tower, where this heavy prosthetic body restarted under his control:

Just now, the small octopus was exchanged with the Cyberpunk World, where Lille, fully engaged in processing his destination, stopped moving completely as his body accessed Stark Tower.

This process took approximately 5 minutes, and Pepper and Happy, waiting on the side, witnessed a rather terrifying scene:

They saw Stark Tower’s electronics flicker and go out, with occasional eruptions causing explosions from overuse, which made circuits and machines suddenly activate...

The scene practically looked like a haunting.

The entire building’s servers were destroyed during the recent overload.

minutes felt like a lifetime, and Lille didn’t know what the system prompt meant, yet he always felt an emptiness in his heart.

Fully datafying consciousness, and implementing a data transfer in such an environment, was almost certainly problematic.

Nevertheless... there will always be a solution.

Now he needed to resolve the issue here—

The Black Wall signal had disappeared, causing the entire internet to fall silent:

A few AIs’ offensive and defensive actions against Black on the Internet had virtually destroyed all usable network facilities, resulting in a worldwide network freeze!

Lille had no idea about the status outside now, but once he found a backup communication device in the lab’s warehouse, he could try to restore contact with Skye’s side.

"Alright, now let’s search for Tony Stark."

Lille forcefully tore open the large door blocking him, entering the core area.

The sensors on his body instantly began to buzz—

[Gamma Rays Exceeded]

Lille saw a massively distorted green giant working at the workstation...