Gallery

The next day, three shocking pieces of news quickly spread throughout the entire crime city.

The former mechanical mastermind, without a chairman, appeared on the Twin Towers.

All 134 members of the Crime Council died.

The Twin Towers collapsed.

These three pieces of news were more explosive than the last, especially for the reporters who witnessed the collapse of the Petronas Towers last night, who were extremely excited.

In their memory, after the Speaker appeared, he didn't waste any words and immediately activated all the mechanical defense systems. In an instant, countless laser beams were aimed at the towers, and after a ten-minute burst of fire, the Twin Towers were successfully split in two.

The scene of the collapse was astonishing.

Meanwhile, a rumor quickly spread throughout the crime city.

The Akudama family, which has been gaining popularity recently, has acquired the "legacy of the Chairmanless".

All the criminal groups in the city were alarmed.

In no time, countless informants were deployed, in cyberspace, underground locations, and even some gang safe houses.

But nothing was gained.

The Akudama family seems to have mysteriously disappeared.

Meanwhile, in a secluded Japanese-style villa belonging to the former No. 1 gang in the crime city, the Daoxiang Society, the hacker, the igniter, Liu Dehua, Yanzi, and the debt collector were all present.

As for the other two, Mortar has been confirmed dead, while Scissors Hand is missing.

Although they had "completed" the nightmare-level mission, the atmosphere was heavy, and the five of them looked at each other with suspicion in their eyes.

The hacker initiated the attack. "What exactly happened on the 200th floor last night? Why can't I receive any signal at all?"

Yanzi rolled her eyes. "I've told you that countless times already, how many more times do I have to say it?"

"All the councilors who died, the tentacle monsters that can't be displayed on the player panel, and the two of you who teleported to the outskirts of the Twin Towers without any prior knowledge of what was going on—are you playing tricks on us?!" the hacker retorted sarcastically.

"Most importantly," the Ignitioner said grimly, "Where did you hide what the quest giver wanted us to retrieve?"

Liu Dehua frowned, his gaze sharpening. "If we stole the mission rewards, why would we save you? Instead of suspecting me, you should suspect you first. A super robot suddenly fell from the sky, saving your life and taking you into the Twin Towers. That's quite a story."

Yanzi then looked at Black Ice Number Two, who had remained silent, and raised an eyebrow, saying, "Where the hell were you yesterday? You said you were coming but didn't. Did you go and tip someone off?"

Black Ice Number Two crossed his arms and remained silent for a long time before finally speaking:

"Instead of each having doubts, we should think about what to do next. You know, we're being hunted down all over the city, including by other players."

"So what? If we can't beat NPCs, can't we beat players?" Yanzi retorted. "Or are NPCs going to believe the players' nonsense and think we have the ability to be 'immortal'?"

"Why don't you believe it?" Black Ice II retorted. "You should know that in this game world, resurrection is not a secret. Clones, consciousness transfer, virtual personalities—I know of at least three of them. Now outsiders believe that we have inherited the legacy of the Chairman Wu, so what's so strange about 'resurrection'?"

After a heated argument, no problem was resolved.

Liu Dehua returned to his room with a cold expression, spent some time with a mature woman, then closed his eyes to rest until Yanzi arrived, at which point he reopened his eyes.

"You were sure I would come?" Yanzi asked in surprise.

"Didn't you want to know what I discovered? And you also asked me which of us is the traitor."

"As expected of a double agent, who is the traitor?" Yanzi was indeed intrigued.

"Debt collectors," Liu Dehua said.

"Why him?" Yanzi asked in surprise, feeling that the hacker or the igniter was more likely to be the suspect.

Liu Dehua refused to reveal the reason, and after being asked several times, he only replied with the word "intuition".

Yanzi pursed her lips, suspecting the other party was just being pretentious.

"Okay, so what was the secret you wanted to reveal yesterday? And what's wrong with the person who issued the task?"

The other person stood up, took out a stack of documents from a safe, and handed them to Yanzi.

"This is information about the mechanical mainframe of Wuri City left behind by the previous president of the Daoxiang Society."

Yanzi skimmed through it; the contents were numerous and varied, but she could roughly discern that it was a record of the previous Cyber experiment.

Criminal experiments, unexpected disruptors, the backlash from the mechanical mastermind, corporate withdrawal, and the cancellation of the Mechanical City designation—in the end, what remains is this crime capital.

"What kind of nonsense is this? Just tell me the truth."

"Okay, to put it simply, the last group experiment of the mechanical mainframe failed. A very important reason for the failure was the emergence of a spoiler. This spoiler used a very special method to reverse the results of the group experiment and severely damaged the mechanical mainframe."

"Look carefully, the data says it was severely damaged, not annihilated. In other words, the mechanical mainframe of No Sun City is very likely still alive."

"And our mission issuer is very likely the severely damaged mechanical mainframe."

"Really!?" Yanzi jumped to her feet, her eyes shining. "If that's true, we're set for life! Capturing this mechanical brain will allow us to be among the first players to build a city!"

"It's not that simple," Liu Dehua said calmly. "The mysterious death of the previous president of the Tao Heung Society is very likely due to this secret."

"Who did it? The one who issued the mission? That 'Speaker Without a Council'? Or the one we met yesterday?"

"I don't know."

"Then what do you mean?" Yanzi asked.

"What I mean is, after we hand in the mission, it's most likely not the end of this matter, but the beginning. We've been dragged into a chessboard, and both sides are using us as pawns."

"So what? The mission rewards are plentiful. I'll take any pawns, even cannon fodder," Yanzi shrugged, seemingly unconcerned.

Randomly, his expression changed again. "Hey, you're not telling me not to turn in the quest, are you? I'm not doing that."

Liu Dehua sighed, "That's not what I meant. I just wanted you to be more careful. You're right, after all, it's just a game, and it's pointless to be too meticulous about the details."

"Well, try to take it easy," Yanzi nodded, got up and left. After thinking for a moment, she added, "But this kind of information sharing is still very good. Let's continue next time. Right now, in the whole family, you're the only one I can truly trust. Don't let me down."

Liu Dehua calmly watched the other person leave. Only after the other person had completely left did he take out an encrypted communicator and press a number.

"Hello, please answer that call for me and tell him I have important news to share."

In another room, Black Ice II was also deep in thought, recalling his memories from the previous night.

Last night, he finally managed to sneak into the Twin Towers through the abandoned sewer system. Just as he was about to meet up with the others, his mind was suddenly pulled into a world filled with electronic rain.

There, he unexpectedly met Baozi's boss, a mysterious NPPC who, without saying a word, directly modified the forbidden chip he had installed, instantly restoring his sanity.

He then realized that, without realizing it, his personality had undergone a drastic change during the game.

He was completely unaware of this change in reality, which made him break out in a cold sweat instantly.

Then this guy directly issued him a special mission.

Then, he was teleported back outside the Twin Towers.

"Mission, mission—"

[Mission: Infernal Affairs]

Difficulty: Hard

Mission Briefing: Within the Akudama family, there are pawns from different factions. Investigate their backgrounds.

Mission objective: Identify the traitor.

Mission Rewards: 14,000 Experience Points, One Customized Brain Chip Modification

The mission itself was fine, but Black Ice II was starting to have some doubts about life.

Is my current personality the same one I used to have?

Customized brain chip modification?

Black Ice II took a deep breath; it seemed he had to get back to work.

Meanwhile, in the secret base of the Bio-Geisha Group, a figure being tortured was revealed as water was splashed on it.

It was the missing scissorhands.

"Oh dear, what adorable young men, how could you be so cruel?" a lazy voice rang out.

"Boss, he absolutely refuses to confess, we—"

Amidst the geisha's uneasy whispers, a stunningly beautiful courtesan slowly emerged. Her beauty was breathtaking, yet she gave off an unreal feeling, as if she were some kind of holographic image.

This feeling also exists in some women, for example, Lady Red Dream.

These are remnants of the previous era.

The gang leader walked up to the unconscious man with scissor hands, touched his cheek with her palm, and then slowly let her hand seep into it.

"Hmm, personality distortion and modification is indeed a bit troublesome. I wonder who twisted this little guy like this," the leader revealed a strange smile. "In that case, let's completely turn him into one of ours."

"Big sister, you mean—" the geisha said in astonishment, "Inject him with geisha drugs, but these are enhancement drugs used on women."

"He's so handsome, isn't he more beautiful than a woman?"

At the same time, the senior engineer appeared in the old town of the crime city.

Unlike the old town of the city that never sleeps and is full of gangs, the old town here is truly desolate to the extreme. You can walk three streets and not see a single person.

The senior engineer fiddled with a palm-sized black box in his hand and glanced at the task bar.

[Mission Completed, Experience +30000, Mech Agent Favorability +1000, Nightless City Reputation +2000, Mechanical System Fragment *1, Bionic Origin Fragment *1]

With the help of the Level 4 civilization's "small virtual realm," the senior engineer's performance last night was no less impressive than that of the fully-fledged "brain in a vat," directly turning the Twin Towers into an information world where all encryption methods were transparent to him.

And the task was completed as expected.

Under normal circumstances, he could go back and report to the senior agent.

However, while searching through the memories of players from the Evil Jade family, he suddenly discovered something interesting.

This made him decide to go and take a look.

"This is probably the place."

The last place where players of the Evil Jade Clan accepted the quest.

"A gallery?" The collider scratched its head, crushed the lock, and stepped into the abandoned gallery.

A strong smell of dust wafted over, and it looked like ashes.

"The signal is interrupted," Tong encountered the same problem as the hacker last night, but as a level 40 elite, she had a wealth of methods to deal with this.

"Number One! Number Two! Reboot the power system for this gallery."

"Okay, Sister Tong!"

Two loli voices came from the air, followed by the sound of a heavy object moving.

Then, neural modeling began, and human neural models appeared one after another, sharing neural currents with each other. Soon, an "artificial signal tower" appeared.

The next moment, all the lights came on, and various mechanisms were either shut down or controlled.

Wow, so many paintings!

On the walls on both sides, there were various oil paintings depicting all sorts of people. Due to the realistic style of oil painting, the people in these paintings were lifelike, and even their expressions were almost completely reproduced.

"The expressions on these people's faces," the collider pondered for a long time, unsure how to describe them, before finally managing to utter two words, "So strange."

The senior engineer looked over and noticed that these people's expressions possessed both good and evil characteristics.

For example, kindness and ferocity, viciousness and gentleness, jealousy and tolerance.

The two emotions are strangely intertwined, and different feelings can be seen from different perspectives.

"An interesting drawing," the collider chuckled.

"It's more than just interesting," Tong snorted. "I've never seen a painting that depicts the nervous system so vividly before."

The neuromodeler used programming techniques, and in the next moment, countless streams of neural light appeared in the painting.

Then, one by one, the people in the painting walked out.

The collider paused for a moment, then asked, "What is this?"

"The neural nodes hidden in the painting allow some ghosts in cybernetic networks to jump around using these nodes."

"Isn't this just a network node, jumping from one virtual community to another?" the collider understood.

"Its scope of application is smaller and its requirements are more stringent; it's more accurate to call it an online avatar."

"So who would do that, a hacker from some crime-ridden city?"

"There's another possibility, for example, remnants of the mechanical mainframe," the senior engineer smiled and said, "You should come out. After all, in your current state, you probably can't handle a neural modeler at full strength."

"If we really find out, things will get ugly. At that point, your chances of negotiating with us will be slim."

The senior engineer stretched out his palm, and a metal spinning top appeared.

"Once the virtual realm is opened, it's not so easy to close it."

As soon as the top appeared, all the people in the painting turned their gazes towards it; in their eyes, it seemed like a small data black hole.

Finally, a calm voice rang out.

"A treasure from an advanced civilization, are you a noble from the Cloud Realm?"

The senior engineer smiled but didn't say anything. The top spun randomly in his palm, like a data black hole opening and closing.

"So you weren't. The Cloud Nobles don't have your methods. So, were you the one impersonating me last night?"

"I am Speaker Wu, and I have long admired your name."