Scapegoat in the Tomb

"Administrator, someone has triggered Class Two Safety Regulation."

The Main God message remained remarkably calm, and the audience's reactions were identical.

"What are the specific details?"

A phantom light screen suddenly opened before them, the scene descending from satellite altitude, piercing through the clouds, overlooking the earth, and finally focusing on the depths of a desert hundreds of miles away, before switching to various scenes inside the base—

"Following the rule of discounted prices for items acquired autonomously, a user, after obtaining ownership of Third Tier AI Red Queen in the corresponding Mission World, intentionally damaged some of its components, reducing its overall value. Multiple users then transferred and pooled their resources, ultimately allowing the user to use a redemption card of the same level as proof and pay a final discount of over 1300 points to successfully bring it back to the real world."

"--Let me guess, besides the Red Queen herself, they're probably mostly after the data on the T-Series Virus, right?"

Standing alone high in the sky, gazing down at the dim lights of thousands of homes below, it remained completely silent until this moment. Only its clothes and long hair fluttered in the wind, as if a mighty wind was blowing from all sides, melting into the night.

Even the dim light around him seemed to distort and blur as if it were being burned.

An invisible and intangible point of spiritual energy was projected, stirring up waves of energy that easily "supported" the three-tenths of the momentum beneath its feet, like catkins floating on the tide.

- Walking through the vast emptiness is as easy as walking on flat ground; now it's just an ordinary thing.

After all, the integration and refinement of that bit of "Primordial Spirit" as resources almost instantly pushed the "spirit" among the three flavors of essence, energy, and spirit in the human body, that is, the aspect that is relatively biased towards the mind, to an unprecedented level!

If we follow the natural laws that emerge from the Great Dream, Li Yun should be roughly between the Sixth Tier and Seventh Tier in terms of normal mental strength.

The changes are undeniably significant.

Amidst distracted and multitasking thoughts, a single, vivid idea still posed a question.

"I'm afraid so. After all, you've restricted the exchange of physical goods, and even vaguely raised the exchange price of specific information by one level. It's not incomprehensible that users would try to skirt around this."

"Objectively speaking, it can only be described as—a team with sufficient initiative that happened to encounter a suitable Mission World."

Only the figure remained silent for a moment.

"--If the law doesn't prohibit something, it won't be enforced. They've been trying to skirt the rules in a roundabout way, and somehow they've achieved some success. As far as the rules are concerned, you, the Main God, can't just completely erase it, otherwise you'd be utterly ignoring the principle of 'vague equivalence' in the Main God Game."

"Those people definitely need to be taught a lesson, but for now they've only triggered the 'regulations,' not actually violated them."

"We can turn a blind eye to the data issue for now—but the functions of AI like Red Queen in the network cannot be too great, otherwise a single company will soon dominate, which is not in line with the planned strategy."

"Clear."

"Connection test, data read, and permission verification all passed. An internal decision logic loop appears to contain some non-standard threads. Compilation is normal."

The reports, one after another, were relayed to the control room and reflected on Doctor Hansen's glasses.

After a brief scan, it was confirmed that there seemed to be no definite problem with the "intelligent brain" in front of them.

Even after a malfunction or an abnormal situation, though some genuine hesitation remained, the thought of those truly important figures awaiting the "result" came to mind.

This "big shot" who had the authority to make decisions at the scene, and who might also be the first "scapegoat" after something went wrong, finally gritted his teeth and made that decision.

"Ensure the safety valve program runs first! Key is 5SGC42P8, minimum privileges, formal access!"

"Understood, Doctor. Now—connect!"

The assistant quickly entered the verification key and pressed Enter.

But with that seemingly insignificant gesture of his hand, everything around him seemed to freeze for a moment.

In an instant, everyone saw a red holographic projection of a little girl suddenly pop up in a camera above the large "test target" in the very center of the experimental area—a space heavily protected by isolation and disinfection measures, resembling a source of infection—accompanied by an extremely piercing scream.

"What have you all done! Something's coming—"

This "artificial intelligence," which had remained hidden within the physical hardware and made no further moves, and was supposedly modeled after human consciousness, acted like a completely out-of-control madman at this moment!

But it is obvious that "she" was not speaking without reason.

But there was no chance to finish speaking.

The next instant, as the projection of the little girl abruptly stopped and went out, all the screens in the control room, including the main screen, auxiliary monitoring screens, and even the personal connection terminals of the technicians, were instantly covered by a "scrolling" bright white!

To be precise, it was replaced by countless intricate white symbols, like an avalanche crashing down a mountain, instantly covering every part of the screen!

Only by observing the subtle color changes between the characters with the human eye can one discern that these symbols are alive, constantly rising and falling!

"What happened?!"

Hansen asked sharply, taking a step behind his trusted assistant Warren, his hand already pulling the USB key from his pocket!

"I don't know! The system is out of control! We might be under attack--"

Without bothering to explain further, Mr. Warren's fingers were frantically typing on the keyboard, trying to access low-level commands, but to no avail.

His voice now carried the same panic, his hands still frantically flailing across the console. "No! No protection verification triggered, it doesn't seem like the original latent virus! This—this doesn't seem to belong to any known attack patterns in the security protocol?!"

The continuous, piercing alarm sounds were loud and sharp, already shaking everyone to their core!

Ignoring the additional costs the company would have to pay afterward, Hansen suddenly reached out and opened the protective cover on the table after confirming that the protection program had failed to work as expected, and plugged in the USB drive!

Regardless of whether this sudden turn of events was a farce orchestrated by the "Red Queen" herself, he must end this risky situation as soon as possible!

Anyone who cannot protect the company's valuable assets is of no value to the company!

But to everyone's dismay, even with the isolation key verification that should have taken effect immediately, the situation did not improve at all, and the damned emergency overload alarm continued to wail in my ears!

"FU!"

A classic phrase, and sweat gradually seeped from Hansen's forehead.

He didn't even have time to pay attention to the loud questioning from "Mr. Jensen" in the observation room next to him over the communication line. He just suddenly looked at the one or two people whose eyes were fixed on the spot where his assistant was staring in terror. In particular, some of the pointers on the load indicator table on the right side of the main control panel were now swinging wildly to the end of that blood-red area!

"Web traffic—my God, what's going on?!"

Another technician jumped up and screamed, as if he were standing on a street grill, "A data packet flood has appeared! The source—the source should be that thing inside itself, but it seems—"

"Damn it! It's receiving external data streams that we can't recognize! That damn bitch!"

"How did it do that! Where did it get the permissions and access path?!"

He glanced around at everyone with a ferocious expression, but at this moment, no one cared about finding any potential "mole"!

"Immediately! Initiate a full network blackout in this region!"

It was less of a command and more of a plea, Hansen prayed into the communicator in his hand, but all he got in response was static mixed with electrical noise!

"--Backup system has been tested.--Main power grid malfunction, rapidly paralyzed--Our first--is locked down." 6

At that moment, almost everyone's face showed a complex mix of despair and hopelessness, like watching their heavily invested stock futures gracefully wave goodbye to their owner, plummeting into the abyss without looking back—a truly indescribable feeling.

Once he came to his senses, the doctor, who had been roaring madly, had completely lost all his composure.

Several staff members who quickly swiped their cards and rushed into the experimental area through the side door reacted very quickly, reaching out to unplug the main fiber optic interface connected to the back of the "Red Queen".

But when I pulled hard, the connector wouldn't budge. I tried again, and it was the same!

Some of them looked down and took a closer look, their faces instantly turning pale.

"This interface—the interface seems to be stuck!" Separated only by an observation wall, the engineers could only watch as the person inside looked up, their voice trembling slightly, "We can't pull it out at all!"

Without even wearing protective gear, Jason rushed out of one of the doors, pushing aside those blocking his way.

The person rushed over in one stride to personally inspect it.

Sure enough, those thick fiber optic connectors were now almost completely integrated with the outer end of the "Red Queen" satellite, so tightly fitted that the gaps were barely visible, like a single, perfectly formed casting!

He was still unwilling to give up and frantically tried to grab the cable and pull it out, but was quickly stopped by several staff members nearby!

"You can't do this! Stop it now, sir! You'll completely damage it—"

"Network main switch cabinet! Go check the switch cabinet, disconnect it if you can! -- No! Just take it apart!"

Inside the control room, everyone was trembling, but Doctor Hansen stubbornly continued issuing commands, attempting to reverse the situation—

However, the backup power line that was quickly connected soon showed signs of being insufficient. The lights that had been flickering for a few seconds had just stabilized when they began to sway slowly again.

The experimenter slowly raised his head, his gaze passing over the increasingly chaotic crowd around him, the shifty eyes that avoided his direct eye contact, past the flashing emergency red lights, and finally settling on the large expanse of white on the main screen that had also begun to flash—

At that moment, he felt like a powerless Black Mountain, trapped in this underground steel tomb.

It's hard to breathe anymore.