Chapter 249: Cyber

Batmos said flatly, "Is your next line going to be that since humans eat food and defecate, their essence is compost fermenters? That since humans fart, their essence is greenhouse gas emission machines?"

"Congratulations, you've learned to buzz in first."

Li Cheng nodded in praise, feeling quite the gratification of teaching a promising student, while swiftly scanning the surrounding green light beams with his Information Integration Glasses to search for flaws.

"Heh, let's talk about surviving first."

Batmos chuckled indifferently, raised his palm level, and suddenly clenched it tight.

An invisible force radiated outward in all directions from his center.

Smart vending machines, water level monitors, pest detectors, electronic map screens—all electronic devices lit up with green data beams, connecting to each other to form a colossal network covering the sky and earth.

【Skill Name: Cyber Secret Scroll·Fully Qualified Domain Name】

This skill was the Whale Song Guild's exclusive secret art, capable of digitizing an entire area and greatly enhancing the caster's abilities for a certain period.

Batmos could feel the ripples of the water and the flow of the wind, his sensory acuity maximized.

This allowed his reaction speed to keep pace with the movements of transcendentals whose basic attributes far exceeded his own, just as now, when Li Cheng and Gray Rain charged at him from left and right.

【Skill Name: Cyber Secret Scroll·Redefine Virtual Function】

Batmos held his hands in a virtual grip, green light erupting from his palms to outline the shape of an hourglass.

He abruptly rotated the hourglass, modifying the gravity function within this domain, causing gravity, originally pointing downward, to point toward the sky instead.

"Uh-uh?!"

Gray Rain, whose arms had transformed into chainsaws, found her feet slightly suspended, her entire body accelerating from slow to fast as she fell toward the blue sky.

Li Cheng, swift as lightning, hooked one foot around the iron leg of a roadside bench to stabilize his stance, while simultaneously splitting a thread of consciousness via his Multi-threaded Brain Domain Method to think rapidly.

Numerous leaves and fruits drifted toward the sky; upon careful observation, one could discover that these leaves and fruits all came from relatively tall trees.

Low shrubs, fallen leaves on the ground, lake water, soil, and the like remained unaffected.

In other words, the gravity change was limited to the area above the ground surface.

His contemplation did not slow Li Cheng's actions; he activated the Patchwork Doll special effect, merging himself, the park bench, and the concrete foundation beneath the bench into a single entity,

then shot out his grappling hook gun like a lightning bolt, striking Gray Rain who was floating in mid-air.

With the local gravity altered, the steel cable of the grappling hook gun alone could not lift Gray Rain, who weighed over eight hundred kilograms, but hard pulling was unnecessary.

"Come up."

Li Cheng shouted low, and Gray Rain immediately understood, liquefying her body to wrap around the grappling hook's steel cable, swiftly climbing up along the rope until she touched the soil again.

The liquid metal drilled into the soil layer, spreading and extending like plant roots to form a sturdy root system sufficient to anchor Gray Rain's form.

"That was close, almost ascended to heaven."

Gray Rain stuck out her tongue; although as a liquid metal robot she generally couldn't die, if she really flew out of the atmosphere, she might still end up becoming an artificial satellite.

Batmos did not seize this opportunity to attack but instead floated in the air,

where six additional arms grew from the shoulder blade region of his green phantom form composed of layered data, his eight hands weaving some kind of data at a dazzling speed.

This clearly indicated he was charging up some high-power skill, so Li Cheng drew an AK assault rifle and pulled the trigger toward Batmos.

Demon-breaking bullets blessed by the Venerable Monk Gao Seng struck the green phantom, all getting crushed into copper discs without taking effect.

"This is the Cyber Secret Art·TM Lock."

Batmos's voice rang out through speaker equipment hidden in the shrubbery: "In computer terminology, 'TM Lock' refers to a table-level lock in Oracle databases, primarily used to lock a table at the start of a transaction to ensure no other transactions can modify the same table before the current one completes."

"Manifested in the real world, this means blocking damage."

This hacker was evidently extremely confident in his abilities, even having the leisure to explain the skill's principles to Li Cheng; a smile faintly appeared on that blurry human face.

"And what I am doing now is the Cyber Secret Art·Hyperlink, which can directly import prepared elements from a distance."

Accompanying Batmos's words, the green data in his hands gradually took shape, transforming into a massive heavy firearm with a distinctly sci-fi futuristic feel.

It featured an angular gun body structure, an octagonal muzzle, and rifling flashing with green light.

Inside the Information Integration Glasses, the name of this gun was clearly displayed.

【Fractal Compression Gun】 【Ammo Capacity: 30/30】

Fractal compression, in the field of computing, is an image compression method based on fractals; simply put, it finds a special iterative system for the original image, then uses any image passed through this iterative system multiple times to generate the original image.

It is more suitable for compressing images of natural landscapes (such as mountains, flowers, and trees, which possess repetitive patterns), but due to its compression and decompression speeds being far slower than JPEG, it has not gained widespread use.

Upon seeing the firearm's name, Li Cheng vaguely guessed its purpose, immediately shoved Gray Rain, and fired his bat grappling hook to leave his original position.

Vroom!

Batmos pulled the trigger, and the Fractal Compression Gun violently erupted with green beams.

The park bench hit by the beams instantly shattered, regressing into rectangular wooden planks and iron sheets, falling toward the heavens under the influence of gravity.

Vroom!

The compression gun fired again; the beam grazed past Li Cheng and struck the calm lake surface.

More than half the lake's water instantly boiled, first surging high up, transforming into myriad large water droplets, which were then sliced into smaller droplets, which were sliced again, turning into a hazy water mist.

Under the glow of the setting sun, it presented a brilliant rainbow.

"Damn, I thought the Whale Song Guild was just a bunch of honest, decent coders and programmer apes, rational, peaceful, and unskilled in martial combat?"

Gray Rain couldn't help but complain: "Why so violent?"

"Your viewpoint is outdated; these days, programmer apes also need to learn martial arts."

Batmos chuckled lightly: "Moreover, I am an E/Accist."

The so-called E/Acc, short for Effective Accelerationism, is a niche social trend that has emerged in recent years, originating from Silicon Valley programmers' mockery of the Effective Altruism (E/A) coinage.

It can be roughly summarized as an extreme pursuit of technological development, opposing all societal constraints and restrictions on technology, believing that social problems arising from excessively rapid technological development can be solved by even faster technological development.

Technologies like AI, brain-computer interfaces, Mars exploration, and even artificial wombs and consciousness uploading should be accelerated, accelerated, and accelerated again.

It reeks a bit of anarchism; take a few more steps forward, and you're a tech lunatic.

Batmos fired continuously, forcing Li Cheng and Gray Rain to constantly maneuver and dodge, occasionally relying on medium-sized auto-aiming gravity energy spheres to prevent themselves from falling toward the sky.

The Shattered Form Gun crushed the earth, shattered trees, dried up the sea, turning the once-idyllic park into a lunar wasteland littered with debris.

As the terrain was destroyed, Li Cheng and Huiyu's evasive space shrank further—the soft ground could no longer support Huiyu's own weight.

'Information has been gathered sufficiently.'

Li Cheng observed calmly; his Information Synthesis Glasses clearly displayed that the Shattered Form Gun had only one round left.

Now.

He activated the Mist Concealment Technique, generating thick fog around him that swiftly obscured his surroundings.

Bartmos's eyes streamed with data; he instinctively floated backward, distancing himself from the dense fog.

The fog created by Mist Concealment inherently blocked detection; with his abilities, breaching it would take only two seconds.

Step!

As he retreated, Huiyu leapt out of the fog, plummeting toward the sky under reversed gravity, her Skull Crusher angled upward to smash into Bartmos's skull.

【Alert: Extreme Danger】

【Potential Damage Assessment: Lethal】

A flood of data flashed before Bartmos's eyes; his current form hovered between physical and spectral, yet still susceptible to physical impact—otherwise he wouldn't have needed the TM Lock to block bullets earlier.

All simulations indicated that if this hammer strike landed, death was certain.

Without hesitation, Bartmos pulled the trigger of his Shattered Form Gun.

Data projectiles always traveled faster than a hammer's swing; according to simulations, he should be able to shatter Huiyu and her Skull Crusher before she could strike his head.

At the last instant, Huiyu halted her attack, gripping the hammer in her right hand, clenching four fingers of her left hand while extending only her middle finger, giving Bartmos the universal obscene gesture.

Then she instantly activated the skill named 【Spirit Sneak Attack】.

This skill had been given to Li Cheng by the Crimson Rider as repayment for saving his life, via a Skill Learning Device, and Li Cheng had passed it on to Huiyu to learn.

Now activated, Huiyu's metallic form instantly vanished into the void.

The Shattered Form Gun's data beam pierced the air and slammed into the ground far away.

Damned.

Bartmos's heart sank—she had chosen precisely the moment his Shattered Form Gun was reloading to launch her surprise attack; clearly, she possessed some detection skill capable of seeing the gun's remaining ammo count.

He swiftly retreated, activating a defensive skill to guard against any imminent strike.

The next second, Huiyu materialized from the void—not swinging her hammer, but still holding up her middle finger, her finger embedded deep into Bartmos's chest.

【Spirit Sneak Attack】 allows entry into an alternate dimension to build up power; if the user emerges in contact with an object, they become instantly lodged within it.

Ordinary users of this ability might worry about getting stuck in walls, the ground, or vehicles.

But Huiyu, as a liquid-metal robot, had no such concerns—even if she became lodged in reinforced concrete, she could effortlessly chew through rebar and eat her way out.

Without needing to cry out to Li Cheng: 'Brother Bu, I'm Stark.'

'Bye.'

Huiyu grinned, and under the effect of the 【Familiar Swap】 skill, she swapped positions with Li Cheng.

Now it was Li Cheng's left hand buried in Bartmos's chest; he retracted his fist slightly, then punched forward, combining it with Condensed Qi Internal Explosion, utterly obliterating Bartmos's upper body.

Boom!

Green fragments scattered and dissolved into ash midair.

As Bartmos's spectral form vanished, the smart vending machines, water level sensors, pest monitors, and other devices in Chengnan Park finally ceased emitting data streams.

The park's gravity returned to normal.

'Phew.'

Huiyu, firmly planted on the ground, exhaled deeply and scratched her head. 'Why's this so hard? Flying, gravity shifts, explosion guns—'

'This was just a Level 21 member of the Whale Song Guild—not even their strongest rival.'

'Normal. After all, they're elite members of a major guild.'

Li Cheng landed lightly on the ground; major guilds held their greatest advantage over lone players through their systematic structure—their provided power systems were complete and comprehensive, effectively compensating for individual weaknesses.

He retracted his hand and adjusted his glasses. 'What we just shattered was only Bartmos's data projection—he's still hiding somewhere else in the city.'

Earlier, Bartmos had mentioned something called Cyber Secret Art: Hyperlink, which allows direct import of pre-prepared elements from afar.

His true body is probably hiding in some internet cafe or corporate server room.

'Huh?' Huiyu tilted her head. 'So what now?'

Li Cheng fell silent for a moment, observing the fading green light in the air; he activated his glasses' tracking feature to trace the light's path. 'Follow it. Box him in.'

————

In a private booth of an internet cafe several miles away, Bartmos removed his VR headset, his expression dark and unsettled.

In reality, he was a round-faced young man wearing a red plaid shirt, his hair messy as a bird's nest.

The Whale Song Guild was founded by a group of programmers; Bartmos was no exception.

Before becoming a player, he had been a coder; even after becoming a player, he still kept the habit of wearing plaid shirts.

'Ugh...'

Bartmos rubbed his messy hair. He had planned to pick the softest fruit first—eliminate this Level 16, guildless newbie, use data manipulation to control him, turn him into a puppet and enforcer against other players.

He never expected to fail to cleanly eliminate him; instead, he'd lost his external avatar to Master Pi Fu, and his erosion level had climbed to 250/1000—as if silently mocking him.

'Failed to steal a chicken, lost a handful of rice—seven hundred credits deducted, lighter gone, account suspended for a month.'

The backlash from his avatar's collapse sent his thoughts spiraling; he smacked his forehead hard to force himself to calm down.

'Forget it. What's done is done. Regret is meaningless. Right now, I need to relocate and replenish my depleted spiritual energy with items.'

Bartmos muttered softly, stood from his gaming chair, and packed his keyboard, mouse, and VR headset into his backpack. 'Hmm... the landfill in Chengdong seems to be erupting in battle too—GOC's Gouchen versus the Evil Tech Alliance's Frankenstein.'

He opened the door and stepped out, paid the internet cafe attendant, and began walking toward the next internet cafe. Before he'd gone far, he saw a paper crane slowly floating through the air.

(End of Chapter)