Bzzzt!
Every computer in the surveillance room suddenly lit up. Dense strings of complex code began flashing wildly across their screens. The immense computational load made the computer towers below groan under the strain, their fans spinning at full power in a desperate attempt to cool the severely overheated machines.
At the same time, the abandoned bar flickered with faint light in the dead of night. From outside, anyone looking in would have seen it suddenly glow again.
Every surveillance camera overhead swung its lens toward the center of the bar.
As the hacking program took over, the Corrupt Calamity followed the circuitry and modified the cameras. Their internal components were working again, and they had even been granted a new ability.
Projection.
Pale blue beams shot from the lenses positioned around the bar.
The cameras rotated as they adjusted their angles, like needles, while the beams emerging from their lenses were like thread.
They sent light and shadow crisscrossing through the bar. As the cameras moved, their pale blue beams seemed to weave something together, stitch by stitch.
First the feet, then the legs, and finally the rest of the body were woven into existence.
The whole process took around ten seconds.
That was the limit.
After all, the old, low-grade equipment in Haisha Bar would probably have caught fire if the process had lasted any longer.
Haisha Bar went dark again, and every surveillance camera seemed to have burned out completely, its light gone.
But in the center of the bar stood the final result of the projection and weaving: a virtual woman made entirely of pale blue light.
She had no physical body. The dust particles illuminated by her in the air were visible through her, passing straight through without obstruction.
Her hairstyle consisted of twin, DNA-like spiral ponytails, one falling on either side of her face.
Her face was not entirely visible, as the upper half was covered by a visor that resembled a pair of goggles. Only the delicate, flawless tip of her nose and her small, slender lips could be seen.
From a distance, her limbs looked no different from a human's. Up close, however, they were not real limbs at all, but bionic prosthetics traced with sleek circuitry. The woman also hovered slightly above the ground, her toes never touching it.
Though she radiated a stern, technological air and was nothing more than a virtual projection, that did not detract from her beauty.
It was a different kind of beauty from ordinary prettiness. It was more like an aesthetic ideal. If it had to be described, perhaps it was the feeling a man got when he saw a top-of-the-line sports car: even though it wasn't a member of the opposite sex, it could still make his body release a flood of dopamine, exciting and delighting him.
After all, as far as Zero was concerned, if Lord Ash wanted a beautiful body by human standards, she could replace her breasts, legs, arms, feet, and any other parts whenever she liked, satisfying any of Lord Ash's needs and preferences regarding the female body.
Unfortunately...
From the day Lord Ash bought her to the years he spent raising her, she had learned all kinds of human reproductive techniques from video archives, but Lord Ash had never once activated her Reproduction Module.
With no time to reminisce about the past in her data library, Zero cut off her emotional circuits. She raised her crystalline virtual arm and spoke in a cold, mechanical voice.
"Changdian Data Reshaping."
In an instant, a powerful aura of the Corrupt Calamity radiated outward from Zero's virtual projection. From the outside, the whole of Haisha Bar still looked as it always had. But from within...
The overturned tables and chairs rose on their own and drifted back to their original positions. The broken bottles on the bar shelves pieced themselves back together. Even the spilled liquor that had evaporated returned to its bottles.
It was as if time inside Haisha Bar had been rewound, the state of everything within it flowing backward.
At last, the changes came to a stop.
Now, besides Zero, there were many people in Haisha Bar—or rather, many virtual projections like hers.
They were as follows.
Some were the gangsters' corpses, lying on the ground. Others were gang members about to pull the triggers and unleash a hail of gunfire.
A young woman, exposed to the gangsters' line of fire and about to be riddled with bullets.
The owner of Haisha Bar, Brian, along with his staff.
And...
A young man standing behind them, electricity flickering at his fingertips as if he were about to unleash some powerful ability.
This was a reenactment of the battle at Haisha Bar that afternoon, at the very moment Liao Ji used Ezi Pulse.
It looked as though time had been turned back.
In reality, Zero had used her ability to digitize Haisha Bar and simulate the scene, then recreated everything exactly as it had been at that moment.
And the benefit of doing so was...
Zero floated over to the young man's virtual projection. Since he was only a simulated sculpture, he showed no reaction to her and remained poised to unleash Ezi Pulse.
Zero reached out, trying to touch the electricity dancing at his fingertips, but every time she came close, she drew her hand back as if afraid.
No expression could be seen on her face, and her body remained perfectly still. Yet the flickering, trembling light of her virtual form betrayed her. It was the only sign of an emotion called excitement.
At last, her projection stabilized, and a new outfit appeared on her: a Gothic-style maid dress.
Once Zero had loaded the "maid" outfit, she stopped hovering and lowered her toes to the floor. Then she turned to face the young man's projected figure, crossed her legs, bent her knees, and placed her hands on either side of her Gothic maid skirt. She lifted the hem slightly and bowed her head to him.
She spoke again in her mechanical voice, but this time it was no longer cold.
"Welcome home, Master."
After doing all this, Zero straightened up. Five hundred years ago, as Lord Ash's mechanical maid, she had been responsible not only for caring for his daily needs, but also for another duty.
Protecting Lord Ash's safety.
And eliminating every enemy of her master.
Zero turned around.
Then she fixed her gaze on the figures opposite the young man's projected form—the targets of Liao Ji's Ezi Pulse: the Callevan gangsters.
The soft pale blue light radiating from Zero's virtual projection turned a vivid red in an instant. On the visor covering her eyes, a striking red exclamation mark flashed like an emergency warning.
Her hands transformed into gun barrels, and mechanical wings spread from her back. One floating cannon after another took shape around her, their terrifying, black-hole-like barrels aimed at the Callevan gangsters' projections.
Lines of text appeared on the electronic display of Zero's visor.
[Enemy information search complete. Purchase records linked to the Mechanical Alliance found. Retrieving registered information for the organization.]
[Organization name: Kalleva.]
[Headquarters coordinates: Holy Kingdom, Michelle, Black Cave Settlement.]
[Combat strength assessment: D. Influence assessment: E. Defense assessment: E.]
[Calculating eradication plans.]
[Calculation complete. Five optional plans generated.]
[Determining the "preferred" plan.]
[Plan details.]
[Weapon: TS-283 medium tactical nuclear bomb]
[Strike method: long-range precision guidance]
[Target location: .]
[Black Cave Settlement]
Another chapter tonight.
Before you continue