Seagull

A faint sound of metal scraping rang out. The two metal doors of the enormous room, spanning several hundred square meters, slowly slid open. Manohar snapped out of his memories and tilted his head toward the doorway, only to find no one there.

"Seema, what's going on?" Manohar asked.

The artificial intelligence named Seema had been purchased at a high price from a Hong Alliance partner three years ago. Its data support came from a trillion-trillion-operation supercomputer made with single-layer graphene carbon-based chips.

Other than the Hong Alliance and the Commercial Alliance, both of which possessed complete quantum technology, this computing system was already among the best in the world.

Seema's voice sounded at just the right moment. "Sir, everything is normal."

Manohar frowned. Without hesitation, he released the two maids in his arms. Without explaining anything, he immediately rose from the recliner.

Rather than heading straight for the door, he turned and quickly walked to a wall cabinet. Opening it revealed a black full-body exoskeleton, along with a large quantity of individual weapons and ammunition.

Artificial intelligence and a large security team could protect Manohar in most circumstances, but if something unexpected happened, he would have to rely on himself. Every place he frequented contained a set of individual combat equipment, enough for one final fight.

Whoever had managed to blind the surveillance systems, security personnel, and the artificial intelligence coordinating the entire building might possess technological capabilities beyond imagination—enough to crush him with ease.

Even so, he would not sit still and wait to die.

The streamlined black exoskeleton armor split apart. Manohar quickly equipped himself, and light lit up inside the visor. Its built-in support system activated, scanning the surrounding environment and providing data.

"Beep, beep. Biological lifeform detected."

"Surface temperature: 300K. Visible-light transmittance approaching 1. Switching to infrared imaging mode."

Using the armor's infrared imaging, Manohar finally saw the transparent creature. It was a seagull, crouching outside the opened metal doors and quietly watching Manohar in his black armor.

Twenty meters away, the seagull's bright-red beak moved slightly in the infrared image. A human male voice emerged from it, speaking standard English. "Hello. I hope to discuss a business deal with you."

Without hesitation, Manohar grabbed a black Electromagnetic Rifle from behind him, aimed it at the seagull, and pulled the trigger. With the help of the intelligent support system, he barely needed to aim to hit the little seagull in the head.

The Steel Nail bullets, each weighing only a few grams, were accelerated through multiple coils in the long barrel. Their muzzle velocity exceeded eight hundred meters per second.

Without gunpowder propulsion, they produced only faint whistling sounds as they tore through the air. Within seconds, dozens of bullets struck the seagull.

After emptying the rifle in one burst, Manohar had expected the seagull to become a pile of mangled flesh. Yet in the infrared image, the little bird still stood there completely unharmed, its wings raised as though it were still greeting him.

Every Steel Nail bullet had hit its body, yet every one had passed straight through. There was not even a scratch on it, and no blood could be seen on the bullets embedded in the ground behind it.

The seagull spoke again. "I hope we can make a fair trade. Although you cannot harm me, since you chose to attack me, as an equal exchange, I will borrow your body."

Manohar recovered from his brief shock and made his choice in an instant. He tried to extend his armored hand behind him.

The exoskeleton gave him greater speed and stronger defenses. There were also large amounts of explosives here. If he detonated them all, he refused to believe he could not blow this strange creature to death.

"Human neural reaction speed is 0.1 seconds. By the time I take control of your armor, the electrical signals from your brain will not yet have traveled through your nervous system to your hand. At such close range, ordinary biological lifeforms would die before they even had time to react."

A line of white text appeared inside Manohar's visor. All his intentions were crushed within 0.1 seconds. The exoskeleton that had been protecting him was now under the seagull's control, becoming a cage that imprisoned him instead.

To prevent intrusion, his armor had been disconnected from all networks. Yet just as the seagull finished speaking, a thin black thread shot out from its chest.

That thin thread crossed the twenty-meter distance between them in 0.1 seconds, connected to the armor, and seized control of it instantly.

This seagull, separated from Li Heng's body, possessed most of his body's characteristics. Though limited by signal delay across thousands of kilometers and energy supply issues, leaving it almost powerless against a regular army, it still possessed crushing strength against an ordinary person wearing a publicly sold second-generation mech.

The seagull revealed its true form, returning from its nearly transparent state to an ordinary white seagull. A black thread connected its chest to the exoskeleton.

The two sixteen-year-old maids watched in terror, their large eyes wide. They sat trembling on the recliner, clutching each other and tightly covering their mouths to stop themselves from screaming.

Only a few minutes had passed—from the metal doors opening and the seagull appearing, to Manohar shooting it, to their master seemingly being controlled by that seagull Monster.

Having spent ten years at the Maid Academy, they had never imagined facing such a problem. All they could do now was hide to one side and make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

The black exoskeleton armor walked toward the maids on the recliner step by step. Its towering body stood over two meters tall, casting a vast shadow beneath the orange-yellow lights.

Trapped inside the mech, Manohar struggled helplessly. Restrained by the armor, he could not even clench his fist. Compared to the exoskeleton's hard steel alloy and strength of over a ton, his human body was simply too fragile.

His voice came out hoarse from inside the armor. "Let them go, and I will cooperate with you. My security team can rival an army. I have business ties with many high-ranking officials and wealthy people. My company's distribution channels cover the entire nation. Only I can control all of this."

A string of white text lit up inside the visor:

"You can do nothing."

Manohar suddenly realized he could no longer feel his limbs. Just a second ago, he had been gulping in air, his heart pounding violently with rage, but now all those sensations had drifted away from him.

He wanted to speak, but no matter what he did, he could not open his mouth.

He felt a fear more terrible than anger, yet he could not even make his body break out in a cold sweat.

Manohar's lips moved, his tongue trembled, and his vocal cords vibrated to produce a voice. It was the same calm, confident tone he always used.

"You fired thirty bullets at me. You truly intended to kill me. People must pay the price for what they do. Now, everything you have will belong to me."

When he reached the recliner, the tall exoskeleton's transparent visor opened. Manohar wore a composed smile as he spoke to the two trembling maids. "Don't worry. Everything is over now."

The two maids said nothing. Their master was clearly not normal. If they showed even the slightest defiance, they might lose their lives immediately. They were their master's private property. No one would care about them.

One of the maids tremblingly lowered the hand covering her mouth. A bright Shuijing rested on her forehead and another on her nose. She gathered her courage and spoke.

"That's right. Everything is fine. We spent a wonderful and pleasant evening with Master today."

Manohar smiled and nodded. He gently placed his hands, covered in black armor, atop the two young maids' heads and said softly,

"Starting today, stay in your rooms. You are not allowed to go out and play. Hurry back."

The two maids nodded as if they had been granted a pardon, then quickly ran out of the room.

Manohar, who had been smiling just moments ago, wore a gloomy expression instead. He could control his head again now, but the rest of his body still felt nothing.

The seagull twisted its body and walked beside the black armor, once more producing a human voice from its beak. "See? I do not kill people casually. In my eyes, human life is precious. Compared with wealthy people who decide life and death like ancient kings, I am more deserving of being called a good person."

Manohar remained silent with a dark expression. He had never felt so powerless in his life.

He had inherited his father's immense fortune at a young age, then founded Manohar Corporation in his own name and built it into the colossal entity it was today.

To the poor, he was a great philanthropist. He could spend freely and enjoy the service of different maids every month. In this city, he controlled the lives of millions like an emperor. With a single thought, he could give someone more wealth than they could spend in a lifetime—or reduce them to nothing in an instant.

The seagull's voice rang out. "You thought that aside from time and life and death, nothing could trouble you anymore. You handed out some benefits to the poor, using such good deeds in your heart to dilute your helplessness before life and death."

"But when all external things are stripped away, when the power and wealth you gained by relying on human society no longer work, you discover that you are no different from the dead Seema."

"You are both merely individuals among ten billion humans, and individuals have always been weak and powerless."

Manohar spoke grimly. "You can read my memories."

Even wrapped in the heavy exoskeleton, he still felt completely naked. Every thought in his heart had been exposed to the sunlight by this seagull.

The seagull said, "No. I can only know what you are thinking."

Separated by a thousand kilometers, the seagull did not possess the perfect cellular-level control of Li Heng's main body. At the moment, it could only read surface thoughts and control the other party's bodily movements.

The seagull leaped from the floor onto the exoskeleton's shoulder and called out, "Seema, show that plan to your master."

Seema's voice responded. "Yes, Mr. Seagull."

Manohar's expression grew even uglier. The artificial intelligence he trusted most was being toyed with at will by the other party, while he could only watch helplessly, unable to move even a finger.

However, the blue light screen before him quickly drew his attention. It was the plan Li Heng had transmitted to Seema.

Manohar looked at the virtual world in the plan, made up of over ten million people, and asked in shock, "What exactly... do you want to do?"