"My big-data baby!"
The 'Head-Blaster' let out a miserable scream.
He had paid such a huge price to raise this Tier-Three baby, only for the boss on the other side to blow it up before he could even show it off a few times.
"This is--"
The Fortress Pro old man froze.
Neon veins pulsed between the cities, while millions of holographic ads floated in the damp air. Liquid light flowed across the surfaces of the skyscrapers, and what shone through the windowpanes was not lamplight, but constantly refreshing data waterfalls—stock codes, livestream footage, wanted posters—casting shifting, colorful shadows across the reinforced glass.
Beneath their feet stretched an electronic grid. Below it, countless fluorescent particles floated and flickered, like frozen stars, or billions of lines of invisible code breathing in unison.
"Does cyberspace look familiar? Does it awaken some ancient memory in you?"
The 'Head-Blaster' showed off proudly.
"You created this virtual space?"
"I dumped all my faction points into it, including the profits from a mechanical city. If I don't make a huge haul this time, I'll fight you to the death!" the 'Head-Blaster' said through clenched teeth.
The Fortress Pro old man ignored him completely and suddenly pointed toward a building piercing the electronic clouds.
"I can faintly sense something calling to me from there."
The direction he pointed in was none other than Arasaka Tower.
To commemorate the 'Eleven Arhats of Arasaka Tower,' the hacker idols of that era, the 'Head-Blaster' had built another Arasaka Tower in his cyberspace. He had even generated an Arasaka old man.
The Arasaka Tower of that era had been the largest personality-data storage center on the Planet of Mechanical Rupture.
"What did you find, old man?"
Unfortunately, the Fortress Pro old man did not answer. Instead, he strode toward Arasaka Tower.