Chapter 115: Punchlord Clearance [VIP]
A feeling of dizziness came over the player, and he felt as if his body was forced into a strange shell.
She lowered her head and saw not Bai Yi's hand, but several thick mechanical tentacles covered with dark golden metal scales and steam coming out of the joints?
The player tried to move the tentacles, but she felt her body become heavy, and her vision was a picture divided by multiple prisms.
[Scan] passively activates, and the surrounding scenery and NPCs become clear instantly:
The strange bangs turned into a prince wearing a gorgeous but rusty court dress and holding a rusty scepter. He looked at his arm covered with verdigris with a look of astonishment.
Dead Fish Eyes became a veiled mechanical nun in the corner of the royal court, frowning as she examined Bai's fingers, which had become precision tools.
Noisemaker's role was quite outrageous. He became a court jester made of gears and glowing crystals, floating in mid-air, and was flipping Bai's disembodied hand in a novel way.
The squinty-eyed cat huddled in the shadow of a huge bookshelf, transforming into an archivist with only one giant electronic eye, its eyelids blinking rapidly.
Dazai Osamu had become a parasitic vine clinging to a giant pipe in the royal palace, trying to poke a rusty guard statue nearby with his leaves.
Chuuya turned into a silent heavy-armored knight, his armor thick and covered with battle scars, as if he was trying hard to adapt to the weight.
Oda became a gardener in the royal garden, responsible for pruning data roses. His expression remained calm, and he held a laser cutter in his hand.
Jingzi became a doctor carrying a huge metal medicine box, which made a clanging sound.
Shuangyi transformed into a data shadow that quickly shuttled between the pillars of the royal court.
The Shadow Shuttle blended into the shadows of the wall, becoming almost invisible.
The cherry blossom is covered with luminous moss and metal petals, like a moving ecological bonsai.
A virtual flame burns at the core of the furnace, like a small mobile furnace.
This data world appears to be a vast, slowly decaying mechanical court.
The air was filled with the smell of rust and engine oil, and the whirring of gears was the background sound. As the Rust Vanguard in this data, the player's core mission was to escort a secret order from the royal court through the rebel zone.
"Ha, interesting!" Noise Monster somersaulted in the air and let out a strange electronically synthesized laugh.
"How... do I move?" The strange man with Liu Hai waved the scepter stiffly.
"It feels good." Oda Sakunosuke commented after getting familiar with the laser cutter.
"Don't be dazed, the rebels are coming!" Shuangyi's voice came from above.
I saw a group of rebel puppets made of twisted codes and holding rusty weapons, pouring out from all corners of the royal court like a tide, making a harsh friction sound.
Players have no time to enjoy the role-playing game. [Analysis] The target is instantly locked - the rebel leader is hiding behind a huge gear fortress.
Lin Chen's several mechanical tentacles suddenly ejected high-pressure steam, and his huge body charged forward at a speed that was contrary to physical common sense!
Ignoring the attacks that slashed against the thick armor, he moved forward with a clear focus.
"Cover her!" Nakahara Chuuya shouted loudly and raised his huge shield to block a wave of attacks.
Dazai swung out a tough vine, tripping a row of rebels who were rushing towards him.
Jingzi shuttled back and forth quickly, using the welding gun in her hand to repair teammates who were injured by the attack.
Dead Fish Eyes calmly operated the tools to reinforce a nearby rickety protective door.
Ranpo's giant eye shot out a scanning beam, instantly marking several invisible elite units: "Three o'clock direction, the weak point is in the joints!"
Noise Monster spread a stream of interfering data in the air, disrupting the rebel formation like a ribbon.
Oda silently used a laser cutter to accurately cut off the power lines of several rebel puppets.
Feiying released data spores with a calming effect, slowing down the movements of approaching rebels.
The furnace crashed directly into the enemy group, and the core flames erupted, burning a piece of low-level code.
Shadow Shuttle appeared silently behind the elite unit, and with a flash of its data dagger, the target's core was extinguished.
The player had already rushed to the Gear Fortress. His max-level [Invasion] instantly disregarded physical obstacles, piercing through the fortress and precisely seizing the core code that was trying to disguise itself as a gear! With a powerful squeeze!
【The core code has been captured. 】
The world suddenly froze.
The rusted royal court, the surging rebels, all the characters... like a broken mirror, instantly collapsed into billions of flashing 0s and 1s.
The player's consciousness was violently pulled back to the bridge, and his body returned to normal.
"Wow!" Noise Monster Satoru was the first to shout, his eyes shining. "Is this the end? I haven't had enough fun yet!"
"So... so fast." Ranpo rubbed his temples, still feeling a little dizzy.
"The core code... turns out to be that gear?" Strange Liu Hai seemed to be thinking about something.
"Snatching people from the hands of the God of Death... No, the mechanical feeling is really nostalgic." Jingzi shook her arms lightly.
He woke up with a lingering fear and a look of unsatisfied feeling.
Aftertaste.
She pulled back the joystick, and the Silver Barracuda rushed out of the data group and plunged into an even more bizarre area - the intersection of ocean currents, an area that must be passed through to reach the depths of the data ocean.
The color palette here is chaotic, gorgeous, and illogical.
Giant, winged snub-nosed beasts float by like balloons, forcing players to swerve to avoid them.
Several cheetahs wearing funny masks and walking on their hind legs were performing a bizarre waltz, and the ship almost crashed into their dance floor.
The player's arm was suddenly stretched by the invisible space, extending far away like a rubber band. A passing caterpillar made of lush green code came over curiously and wanted to bite it.
Shadow Shuttle's quick eyes and hands repelled it with a stream of data. The caterpillar fled in fright, but it dropped a bottle of ink that shone with a rainbow of colors.
Just as the player used [Ether Edit] to restore the stretched arm, the ink bottle suddenly exploded, and the black ink that spurted out instantly polluted a large area in front of the ship, revealing a distorted data image about a giant enterprise's illegal discharge of pollutants.
"Be careful, full left rudder!" Shuangyi shouted.
"Avoid that dancing bird, the data flow from its feathers will interfere with the engine." Feiying warned.
"The spatial structure is extremely unstable. Maintain a stable shield output." The furnace quickly ordered.
The player is fully focused, and under her control the ship is like a nimble fish, shuttling through the bizarre and ever-changing ocean currents.
Turn! Dive! Drift!
Every operation was extremely dangerous. Everyone on the boat held on to the fixed objects tightly. Even Gojo Satoru temporarily forgot to cheer, while Dazai Osamu excitedly recorded every thrilling moment.
Finally, the Silver Barracuda safely escaped from this chaotic paradise and sailed into the deepest part of the data ocean.
The light here became dim and quiet, with only countless stars emitting soft or dazzling glow - those priceless deep core codes - suspended in the boundless darkness, like the most precious treasures in the universe.
"Oh my god... the Star Core Algorithm? Legendary!"
"A fragment of the code of the [Sage], this thing is definitely worth a city!"
"Look at that. This is definitely the data that Oasis is trying every possible way to get. This... this will be legendary once we get it out."
Shuangyi, Feiying, and Ronglu's voices trembled with excitement, and Yingsuo's breathing became noticeably rapid.
Even top hackers like them couldn't remain calm in the face of such a treasure.
The player didn't even glance at the stars. Her system panel flashed with notifications, indicating that [Insight] had passively locked onto a point in the deepest, darkest area.
"Found it!" The player's eyes lit up instantly, and his face showed obvious excitement, which was rare.
She tried hard to increase the engine power to a higher level, and the Silver Barracuda was like an arrow shot from a bow, ignoring all the tempting lights along the way and piercing the deepest darkness.
Soon, a strange object appeared under the ship's searchlight.
It is suspended quietly, without any light, but emitting an invisible aura.
It looked like an enlarged sci-fi keycard, or a sophisticated hard drive case. Its main body was a deep black, covered in a regular purple checkerboard pattern. In the center was a geometrically divided silver panel, and the sides were inlaid with several dazzling golden stripes. This was the unique item, the [Punkloder Balance].
The ship's white belt's robotic arm tried to grab it, but as soon as it got close, the arm's data stream was instantly disintegrated and annihilated by the invisible force field surrounding the strange object, making it impossible to select it.
The player stared at the strange object, frowned, scratched his hair, and looked a little annoyed.
After a few seconds, she stood up suddenly, turned around and walked towards the airlock of the bridge.
"Hey! Lin Chen! What are you doing?" Nakahara Chuuya was the first to react, his voice filled with surprise.
"She...wouldn't she want to..." Liu Hai's expression changed slightly.
Shuang Yi tilted her head in thought: "Entering the deep data ocean with her physical body? But the pressure outside would tear her apart in an instant..."
Feiying tried to persuade Bai Yi, "It's obvious that no one would make such a hasty decision, right?"
Dazai Osamu widened his iris-colored eyes slightly, a mixture of shock and as expected on his face: "Given Player's personality... maybe he will..."
"Are you kidding! That's too dangerous!" Chuuya couldn't help but shout.
Oda Sakunosuke showed a worried look.
Gojo Satoru rarely smiled, staring at the player's back.
Both Akiko and Ranpo frowned.
The player ignored the exclamations and dissuasions behind him.
She walked to the airlock, her fingers moving rapidly over the control panel.
The hatch slid open, revealing a violent, chaotic, and all-encompassing torrent of data.
She didn't even look at her surroundings and took a step out.
Buzz——
The violent data flow instantly came like billions of steel knives.
The player used her hands at the fastest speed in her life, frantically pressing [Ether Edit], and layer after layer of extremely complex data shields were generated around her body, trying to resist the impact.
But the data flow at the deepest level was too terrifying. The shield was like a soap bubble, forming and bursting, then regenerating. The player felt as if Bai was braving a Category 18 hurricane. Every step felt incredibly heavy, and the invisible pressure squeezed her consciousness, as if to crush and disintegrate her.
She gritted her teeth, and there was no fear in her sapphire eyes, only purpose.
[Vector Operation] also tried its best to distort the most violent turbulence around it, and forcibly opened up a short passage.
She took one step at a time, struggling to get closer to the floating strange object.
Inside the bridge, everyone held their breath, nervously watching the tiny figure outside struggling through the torrent of destruction.
Closer and closer.
Finally, the player's hand passed through the last violent turbulence and grabbed the cold metal surface of [Punk Lord Balance].
The moment her fingers touched the strange object——
Buzz.
It seemed like just a sigh from some distant and ancient existence.
Indescribable, extremely pure light burst out from the strange object.
It wasn't an explosion so much as a revelation.
The light instantly submerged the players, the nearby Silver Barracuda, and the entire ocean of data.
In this all-consuming white light, the player's last perception was that the strange object held in his hand became scorching hot.
Everything around him—the raging data stream, the deep ocean, the huge ship, and even the stunned expressions of his companions in the cabin—quickly decomposed, peeled off, and dissipated in the light.
The field of vision was replaced by an infinitely stretched torrent of 0s and 1s, and all entities were transformed into the most primitive and pure data code, just like the universe surging and reorganizing in the torrent at the beginning of the singularity explosion...
The world is collapsing.
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