Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 810: Chapter 334: Two Number 0s

As the most top-tier hacker on this planet, Paradise Bird has already broken through the virtual level, reaching the information level. Unleashing her full force, very few can withstand her on this planet. In the virtual space, a raging inferno quickly ignited, and within the flames, a hundred, a thousand fire phoenixes soared out, scattering countless lines of source code flame.

’This crazy woman!’ Xiuyue cursed under her breath but didn’t dare provoke the now unleashed Paradise Bird, only shielding Leo.

Leo said with a pale face, ”How is this comrade so powerful? I feel like with her ability, there’s no need for transformation at all.”

Xiuyue’s heart stirred, was the reason the old man failed to transform back then because of this unexpected event?

”Do you know who is chasing you?”

”Avalanche, it must be people from Avalanche. They’ve gone mad, wanting to assimilate everyone!”

Watching many comrades being directly transformed into ’Encrypted Killers,’ Leo was overcome with sorrow.

Xiuyue wanted to say something when suddenly a cold glint flashed in her eyes, and her hand reached into the data layer, grabbing an attack coming from the data layer.

However, the humanoid figure across had a peculiar smile.

Next, countless encrypted codes spurted out from the figure’s wrist, covering Xiuyue’s wrist and spreading upwards.

’Cyberpunk transformation?!’

Xiuyue’s body quickly distorted, her back flesh suddenly split open, and a new Xiuyue emerged from within. The remaining human skin wrapped itself around the opponent, forming a skin pocket whose mouth kept opening and closing.

’Personality transformation in progress, injecting humanity 1%, 2%, 3%...100%’

In the next instant, the encrypted killer’s face disappeared, replaced by a Xiuyue riddled with cracks.

The cracked Xiuyue grabbed Xiuyue’s arm with one hand, forming a blade with her fingers, and slashed down hard, severing an arm which was then stuffed into her belly.

”Encrypted data is hard to seal, you better hurry.”

Only by fighting poison with poison, using encryption against encryption, can the ’Assassin Ability’ of the encrypted killer be prevented.

Having lost an arm, Xiuyue didn’t even frown, her shoulder immediately extruded a silvery white data liquid, and like kneading clay, it quickly molded into a new arm.

Leo, beside her, was stupefied.

”Give me the coordinates for the transformation ceremony!” Xiuyue’s expression rarely turned so serious.

”There are no coordinates,” Leo said, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo on his wired-up head, ”only this guiding mark.”

”An old-style map code, that’ll do,” Xiuyue said, inserting her hand directly into the tattoo. Instantly, various programming languages appeared on his skin and were rapidly overwritten by the latest hacker codes.

”Be ready to leave at any time.”

Leo hesitated for a moment, then said, ”Shouldn’t we help her?”

The flames conjured by Paradise Bird had already begun causing large-scale collapses in the data layer of Database 0, while her opponent was a figure exuding snow-white speckles. The figure’s face was hazy and somewhat hideous, but the ’Golden Hourglass’ in its eye socket was particularly prominent. Each time the hourglass emptied and then rotated 180 degrees, a large amount of information flame turned into snow-white speckles.

Xiuyue glanced over, expressionless, and said, ”If you have the ability, you can go.”

Leo swallowed hard, suddenly recognizing the figure, and exclaimed:

”That’s Zero from the Avalanche Organization. This organization has always wanted to unify the Punk Clan, but I didn’t expect him to target us using the transformation ceremony as a cover.”

”Let’s go.”

Xiuyue grabbed this mentor’s ’Memory,’ and their flesh immediately melted away. This wasn’t a hyperlink protocol but rather a special kind of data decomposition, leaving only a puddle of something resembling silver moon on the ground.

The remaining cracked Xiuyue looked at the distant battle scene, muttering to herself.

”At least a 100-year memory data rollback, surely it met some special triggering condition. Is it the old man’s electronic ashes? Why do I always feel it’s not that simple?”

Not knowing what came to her mind, Xiuyue’s face suddenly changed, she marched off quickly, and as he walked, the human skin kept tearing open, encrypted data flowed out, and soon the silhouette of the encrypted killer emerged once more, only the ’Xiuyue’ face looked like fine cloth, tightly sewn onto the opponent’s features.

...

Meanwhile, Ahong was hiding nervously in the Black Bar. At the first moment he was attacked by the encrypted killer, he opened this Ancient Database and hid inside it.

This Ancient Database could not only serve as a virtual node but also as a means of hiding oneself, as it uses all ancient code, namely binary code, the changes of 0 and 1, differing completely from today’s sense-based code, neural programming. To crack it requires a brute force attack; otherwise, unlocking the coordinates is very difficult.

As the sound of someone battering the door grew weaker, Ahong finally breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that by now, the senior sister was likely dealing massive damage outside, but as for the second senior brother, it was hard to say, as he had always been highly opportunistic.

Once the sound disappeared entirely, he was about to open the small door to take a look outside to assess the situation, but an unexpected event occurred.

The small door simply wouldn’t open.

Even the main door wouldn’t open.

”No way, what’s going on now?” Ahong muttered to himself. Since inheriting this Ancient Database, this was the first time such an incident had occurred.

Behind him, a voice full of disappointment resounded, the voice was loud like a great bell, or like thunder.

”How many times have I told you, first flash the ROM on your phone, change the user permissions on your computer, and you still use everything as it comes. This habit will get you killed sooner or later.”

Ahong incredulously turned his head and saw an elderly Shamate sitting in the bar’s backstage with a displeased expression, casually grabbing a bottle of liquor and chugging it down, only to quickly spit it out.

”What trashy foreign liquor, where’s my empire’s old baijiu? That’s the good habit of mine you didn’t learn at all.”

”Old man!?”

Ahong said with a mixture of surprise and joy.

”Hmph, you’re getting more useless by the day, you still only know how to hide when things go wrong. I shouldn’t have gone soft-hearted when you were young, showing you so much ancient otaku anime. Now look, a complete shut-in.”

”You’re not dead, old man?”

”If I wasn’t dead, would I be hanging out with you,” the elderly Shamate complained. ”That damn Deep Net pretends to treat everyone equally, but all the benefits went to those official people. I just wanted a Mother City user account, was it that hard? They really had to kill me for it!”

”Old man, what’s really going on now?” Ahong was completely baffled.

”It’s both complex and not so complex,” the elderly Shamate said. ”To put it simply, this place created a new ’punk transformation ritual’; the anti-civilization power brought me back to life.”

”And the complexity is because this ’punk transformation ritual’ isn’t just in one place, but two.”

”Two places, why?” Ahong was dumbfounded.

”You ask me, who do I ask? I just jumped out of an urn, okay.”

The elderly Shamate took a deep breath. The next moment, the entire bar began undergoing dramatic changes. The bottles in the racks started exploding, the whole bar began morphing, a large amount of binary code overflowed from the floor, being absorbed into his soles.

Then, a layer of encrypted code appeared on the elderly Shamate’s surface.

”Old man, you!”

”I was already reformed, but that damn woman in the Deep Net wouldn’t even give me a chance at Electronic Ascension. I better seize the moment and become a punk killer. Otherwise, when the transformation ritual ends, I’ll be stuffed back into an urn.”

”No, I mean, my bar!”

Watching the Black Bar being entirely absorbed, Ahong was on the verge of tears.

”Raised you with all my shit and piss, what’s the big deal in me taking some of your ancient data? Here, let me give you a layer of disguise too.”

The elderly Shamate slapped the other’s forehead. In the next moment, a layer of encrypted code appeared on his surface.

At first, Ahong was startled, but then realized the encrypted data wasn’t trying to transform him, so he curiously asked, ”Old man, were you really a member of the Punk Clan back in the day?”

The elderly Shamate patted his afro and squinted at him, ”What do you think?”

”How come you never told us about this?” Ahong said, a bit excited.

”Tell you for what? So you guys can move up a few more spots on the wanted list?” The elderly Shamate said, ”Come on, let’s go take a look outside.”

The next moment, the door opened, and the two ’Encrypted Killers’ darted out.

With a layer of encrypted data protecting them, indeed, the other Encrypted Killers didn’t attack them, but the Information Liberation Front members on the scene were nearly wiped out.

The elderly Shamate’s eyes flashed with a hint of seriousness.

”Something’s not right, it looks almost exactly the same as back in the day. Even if they absorbed my Memory Data, it couldn’t be this vivid.”

”But back then, there was no Senior Sister.”

”Your Senior Sister, I still...” The elder was about to comment on his first disciple, then his eyes bulged out, feeling the intensity of the information flames in disbelief, muttering:

”Your Senior Sister actually broke through the last layer, how is that possible? How did she bypass the Planet Host’s information lock?”

Ahong chuckled, satisfied with the old man’s astonishment.

”This is truly the student surpassing the master, old man.”

But soon, the elderly Shamate’s gaze shifted, landing on the Advanced Information flames, where the constantly burning and resurrecting Database 0 was located.

”No, no way,” the elderly Shamate showed an even more incredulous expression.

”It’s the 0 from back then!”

”What do you mean?”

At the same time, Xiuyue, along with Leo, arrived at the Land of Transformation, seeing the golden liquid data flowing and the altar with a golden Human Form gradually taking shape.

The pair of ’Golden Hourglass’ eyes were extraordinarily noticeable.

Database 0.

And it’s the second Database 0!