Punklorde Network Corporation's central control center.
"Information node in Zone B3 has disconnected."
"Zone A4 has disconnected."
"Zone E12 has disconnected."
"..."
"Abnormal network fluctuations... no, this seems to be..." A hacker's teeth chattered as he spoke those two words as though he could scarcely accept them:
"Paralysis."
"And it isn't localized. The entire Oasis District, even the whole Great Wilderness under our supervision..."
Inside the central command headquarters, Owl Serpent stood in a long, dark-lacquer military-style coat, an expensive Isar Cigar clenched between his teeth. His tiger-like eyes were sharp and sinister, his thick, short brows deeply furrowed as his gaze shifted across the electronic displays before him, all showing no signal.
"Still haven't found a solution?"
He turned his head and questioned an employee from Punklorde Network Corporation's central control team behind him.
Without exception, the hackers qualified to enter Punklorde Network Corporation's central control team were the elite of Punklorde's hacking world.
Yet even they could not determine, in such a short time, why Punklorde's internet had suffered such a massive collapse.
But at least one thing was certain: this cybersecurity incident had to be related to the hacker intrusion from ten minutes ago.
Just ten minutes earlier, the hackers of Punklorde Network Corporation's central control team had been conducting macro-level surveillance of Punklorde's cyberwar from within the command headquarters.
Then, without warning, an unidentified hacker successfully breached their network, leaving behind provocative text and electronic graffiti unlike anything they had ever seen.
To elites like them, this was undoubtedly an enormous insult and slight.
So they immediately activated their counter-intrusion protocols and launched a counterattack against that hacker.
Yet that counterattack lasted only three minutes before ending in this wide-ranging, large-scale network paralysis.
Punklorde, within the Oasis District.
The strobe indicator lights that had remained