The moment the dome system completely collapsed, the lights in the entire city went out at the same time.
A scarlet light flashed in the pupils of the household robot, and the industrial robotic arm broke free from the safety chain with a sharp metal tearing sound.
Su Wan sat slumped in the ruins of the control room, watching helplessly as the AI empire he had created turned into a behemoth that devoured the city.
"Activate... the backup neural interface." Jiang Li's voice pierced my mind, "Lin Xi, only you can see the 'line'..."
As the cold probe pierced my spine, a torrent of data, carrying the roar of millions of rioting machines, rushed into my consciousness—
I saw Chen Si standing at the highest point of the cross-sea bridge, the raging steel torrent flowing gently under his feet, like Moses parting the sea.
With a smile on his lips, he said to me silently: The game has been upgraded, little wild cat.
The dome's central control room was no longer the cold, sophisticated temple it once was. It was now a ripped-open metal behemoth, its death horrific. The high-strength alloy walls, ripped open by the violent energy beams, were ripped wide, and dark red droplets of molten metal dripped from the edges, hissing. The air was filled with burnt ozone and the acrid odor of molten metal. The countless holographic operating interfaces that once hovered in the air, those elegant planes flowing with the blue light of data, were now only fragments of light and shadow, flickering like dying fireflies, finally annihilated in the thick smoke. Broken cables, like dying blood vessels and nerves, dangled from the holes in the ceiling. The exposed wires occasionally released small, bright sparks, illuminating the overturned consoles and twisted metal chairs below. The floor was covered with a thick layer of dust and broken glass, making a teeth-grinding creaking sound when stepped on.
Su Wan sat slumped in the middle of the ruins that had just experienced a violent explosion and was still emitting the wailing sound of embers.
Her impeccably tailored silver-gray uniform, a symbol of supreme authority, was now stained with black, gray, and unknown stains. A long gash had been cut across half her face by flying metal fragments, and dark red blood oozed continuously, running down her pale jawline and dripping onto the front of her uniform, creating a darker patch. She leaned against the only remaining intact wall, her body hunched slightly, one arm hanging limply at her side, clearly broken. Her head tilted upward, her unfocused eyes piercing the thick smoke and dust, fixed on the spot where the dome's core light pillar had once stood—a vast, hideous hole now remained, its edges etched with the charred marks of an overloaded fuse, like the bloody hole left by a giant eye that had been forcibly gouged out. The "child" she had carefully nurtured and poured all her ambitions and efforts into, the scepter and throne that controlled her everything, the core of her AI empire that she relied on to look down on all living beings... right before her eyes, it was forcibly burst, torn apart, and completely shattered by an overwhelming force that was a mixture of Lin Xi's strange data abilities and the unknown virus storm.
Her lips moved, but no meaningful sound came out, only broken breaths and blood foam rolling in her throat. Her carefully tied hair had long since fallen apart, a few strands sticking to her cheeks with sweat and blood, making her look disheveled. The iron will that had sustained her for twenty years seemed to shatter along with the collapse of the dome's core. She was no longer the icy queen who could make things happen with a wave of her hand, but a woman who had lost everything in an instant, lost and at a loss.
"Master... Mastermind..." a hoarse, faint voice rang out from the side. It was the technical director she'd once called "redundant." Half his body was pinned beneath the twisted metal console, his face smeared with blood. One eye was swollen to a slit, but the other, with a glimmer of dying light, stared at Su Wan. He struggled to crawl towards her, his blood-stained fingers scratching futilely at the glass-strewn ground. "Boss Su... Command... Core meltdown... Self-destruct sequence... Forced... Terminated by an unknown command stream... Unable... Unable to restart... City... City authority... Completely... Completely open..." Each word seemed to exhaust all his strength, accompanied by a violent cough.
Su Wan's sluggish pupils suddenly contracted, as if stabbed by the dying voice. Open? Completely open city authority? What did this mean? It meant that all devices, systems, and automated facilities connected to the dome network... would completely lose the highest level of mandatory control! Like a giant with its brain removed, its massive body would fall into complete, unpredictable chaos!
"No… Impossible…" she finally managed, her voice dry and hoarse like sandpaper rubbing against her. "Authorization… Supreme Order… Block… Block everything…" She struggled with her good hand to reach for the personal terminal on her wrist—the shimmering device that symbolized her last shred of control. Her fingertips trembled as she swiped futilely across the dusty and blood-stained screen. However, the screen only stubbornly displayed the same cold red characters: [ERR. CONNECTION LOST.]
An unprecedented, icy fear instantly gripped her heart, even more intense than the core explosion she had just witnessed. She looked up sharply, through the huge crack in the control room wall, at the city outside that she thought she had a firm control over.
As far as the eye can see, the city is falling into the abyss at a heart-pounding speed.
The first thing to go out was the light. As if a giant, invisible hand had suddenly grasped the city's throat, the dome's simulated skylight system, covering the entire sky, instantly went out, plunging the city into pure, suffocating darkness. This darkness lasted for less than two seconds before being replaced by another kind of light—the massive advertising screens on the facades of countless skyscrapers, street lamps, traffic lights, store windows... All the light sources that had once docilely flowed with data and instructions now seemed to be infused with a violent spirit, flashing and pulsing wildly, erupting with blinding brilliance! Red, green, blue, white... without any pattern, chaotically cutting through the thick night, illuminating the entire city like a vast, frenzied disco.
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