Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 545 - 78: Feint in the East, Strike in the West

The appearance of the Digital Guardian almost simultaneously stirred both the virtual and the real.

In the digital space, visible buildings began to digitize again, even the download progress was affected.

Returning empty-handed from a treasure mountain was never Gao’s style.

The most valuable thing in front of this treasure mountain, without a doubt, is the ’basic knowledge,’ and after downloading the basic knowledge, another gold mine is this giant building.

Tier 3 Architecture - Earth Crust Engine Blueprint.

A super blueprint that can only be gambled on with a ’Professional Knowledge Chain.’

10%, 20%, 30%...

The download progress was strongly disrupted at the moment the level 60 monsters appeared.

"Dida, I’m giving you all the AI command authority, help me block them."

Dida pursed her lips, without a word of nonsense, and agreed immediately.

Next moment, Dida transformed into a blue data stream, appearing above the Earth Crust Engine, immediately feeling the oppressive force from the digital monsters.

Even from a very distant place, Dida could feel her data body on the verge of collapse.

If face to face, without lifting a finger, she would likely be destroyed instantly.

Fortunately, she doesn’t need to confront the opponent directly, with the help of the ’Gaidu’ search engine’s capabilities, almost simultaneously, hundreds of AIs were summoned. These were all AIs previously hacked into, once descended into reality, each exudes powerful data fluctuations.

These AIs, each over level 30, if it weren’t for the Earth Net Group’s brainwashing to erase personality templates, even Gao Gong couldn’t hack into so many Artificial Intelligences at once.

In reality, a level 30 AI is also known as an ’Advanced AI,’ referring to those that have gone through ’Intelligent Awakening,’ qualified to enter Mother City, possessing citizen status in the Mother City. Their algorithms are not only on a high level, comparable to hundreds of Neural Editors, but they also have their own data centers, as long as the data center isn’t destroyed, they can continuously resurrect.

From a player’s perspective, such ’Multi-Life Monster’ is the most annoying.

However, at this moment, these highly reputed Advanced AIs in cyber space, after merely one face-off with the terminal model of Digital Guardian, unanimously emitted ’emotional fear.’

An AI’s ’emotion’ can be manually adjusted, meaning that if it wants, it can instantly become an emotionless machine.

Yet almost unanimously, they adjusted their ’emotion threshold,’ especially the ’fear’ emotion, to the maximum.

The reason being, human-simulated neural circuit’s ’fear emotion’ is essentially a warning program.

And now, almost all Advanced AIs’ warning programs were activated.

Dida, without hesitation, she is a good person, but not a foolishly good person. Hesitation at this time would result in more than just one or two deaths.

Almost simultaneously, these AIs were ordered to attack, and the target was the monsters in the distance.

As an AI herself, it was the first time Dida saw so many virtual means, like turning antivirus software into close combat weapons, or releasing nurtured personality fragment pets, even splitting her torso into ten, hundreds, transforming them into guns and cannons simultaneously, to attack the opponents, and the bullets fired were antivirus-property small programs.

The means of these Advanced AIs were so numerous and powerful that it opened Dida’s eyes, she even saw one AI with over 20 personalities, constantly changing attack modes, in gaming terms, switching attributes with no cooldown.

Nevertheless, these attacks on the ’Digital Guardian’ had very little effect.

The reason being, these ’Digital Guardians’ were too massive in size, the gap between the two sides was like that of ants and elephants.

And their size aside, what was even more terrifying was their recovery ability, which was not much worse than some viruses.

On the contrary, the Digital Guardian’s attacks were extremely dangerous, almost every move was large AOE, either shooting endless digital missiles with its mouth or opening a domain for indiscriminate range-free attacks.

Dida also tried to command, but awkwardly found that her command was less effective than if these NPCs acted freely.

So, she could only control the ’Gaidu’ search ability, continually summoning AI for a war of attrition.

However, unbeknownst to her, a figure had already walked into the Earth Crust Engine’s interior.

’Dong’ ’Dong’ ’Dong’——

The somewhat heavy footsteps indicated that the owner’s mood was not good, and some damaged digital defenses inside the Earth Crust Engine slightly twitched his eye.

In a few breaths, he appeared outside the data center, and saw Gao Gong.

"A gentleman does not stand under a collapsing wall, as one of the 13 Wise Men, your appearance doesn’t seem rational."

"Or do you think you could be a match for me, a veteran hacker?"

Unfortunately, the other party had no intention of bantering with Gao Gong, the Civilized Stick in his hand stomping hard.

’Dong!’

In the next moment, waves of terrifying pressure suddenly appeared around Gao Gong, the aura was so strong as to be like a tidal wave, the space seemed to ripple, this level of attack temporarily confused reality and virtuality, Gao Gong seemed to see a vast ocean, saw the turbulent radiation energy at the seabed, also saw the surrounding joyful digital signals.

However, as the attack fell half a meter around Gao Gong, it seemed to hit a transparent wall, the horrific attack had no effect on him.

"Void Realm!" David, the Evolutionary Sage, spoke for the first time.

"You recognize this thing?" Gao Gong raised a brow and said.

David sneered, "Those Cloud Nobility fools, thinking they’ve obtained trash from Alien Species, is this your ace?"

As a ’Tier 3 Civilization Item,’ in the opponent’s eyes, it was merely garbage.

However, the methods the opponent demonstrated indeed matched his strength.

With a hard stomp of his Civilized Stick, the violent virtual waves grew only stronger, and on the surface of the Void Realm, cracks began to appear.

Gao Gong narrowed his eyes, in his view, three giant black shadows appeared outside the Void Realm, and with another stomp of his Civilized Stick, yet another giant black shadow emerged.

Four massive data-stream-laden black shadows pressed down simultaneously, immobilizing the Void Realm.

"This move—"

Gao Gong’s gaze fell on the opponent’s Civilized Stick.

Without a doubt, the one making the move was the summoned ’Digital Guardian’, a level 60 Tier 2 top-tier soldier species.

This equipment seemed to have a special ability: to summon ’Virtual Life’ directly without hardware.

This was equipment comparable to the ’Void Realm’.

However, if that were all, it wouldn’t be enough.

Gao Gong glanced at the download bar; the Earth Crust Engine blueprint was already downloaded to 76%.

Exchanging a Tier 3 personal item for a Tier 3 super architecture blueprint was a worthwhile trade.

However, if that were all, the Evolutionary Sage before him wouldn’t be worthy of the title ’Sage’.

Under the light and heavy taps of the opponent’s Civilized Stick, an indescribable fluctuation began to appear.

Gao Gong clearly felt something.

’Dimensional fluctuation?’

Under the influence of this fluctuation, the four massive black shadows began to slowly merge, and the data’s intensity started to visibly increase.

Under the effect of the detection skill, a new monster data emerged.

Name: High-Dimensional Digital Entity

Category: Information Life

Tier: Tier 3

Level: ??

Information Energy: ??

Skills: ??

Evolution!?

Did it just elevate the ’Digital Guardian’ by a tier!?

Honestly, this was somewhat unexpected for Gao Gong. After all, on this planet, beings above Tier 3 could be counted on two hands.

At the same tier, equipment like the Void Realm couldn’t withstand it; within a few breaths, cracks completely covered the formless wall, and in the next instant, it exploded open.

David finally revealed a smile.

And similarly, Gao Gong also revealed a smile.

The terrifying black wave unexpectedly levitated in mid-air, and at the next moment, began to slowly contract.

Similarly contracting were the Digital Guardians, which had already wiped out most of the Advanced AI and reached the Earth Crust Engine.

"This—"

Dida stared dumbfounded at this scene, as the all-encompassing digital shadow suddenly receded, disappearing completely within a few breaths, leaving only the radiant energy in the sea as a testament that the scene just moments ago was not an illusion.

Similarly, David was also dumbfounded, completely bewildered.

"Curious? Beg me and I’ll tell you."

As soon as Gao Gong finished speaking, a holographic projection flashed in front of David, displaying Tuu Xiaoling’s anxious face.

’Sir David, the headquarters is under attack, all hardware has been hacked, and the Digital Guardian is being forcefully recalled, we—’

Before the words were finished, a loud gunshot rang out, and Tuu Xiaoling’s head exploded, flesh and data flying everywhere.

An indifferent voice sounded.

"Hey, little brother, I’ve got things handled over here, what about you? Not done yet? Then you’re really useless."

David took a deep breath, closed the projection, and said one word at a time:

"Diversion tactic!"

This time, Gao Gong didn’t argue further, after all, it’s common knowledge that villains die from talking too much.

In the blink of an eye, a crystal ball appeared in front of David, slowly opening a slit, and a white light flashed across it.

Unable to resist a glance, David’s body went rigid, and all the prepared backup plans immediately lost their effectiveness.

"Master, Master, my Lord—"

In a whispering voice, David’s body froze, and the data on him gradually disintegrated, fading into the air.

[You killed the Evolutionary Sage David, Experience +3,000,000, Specialization Points +10, Skill Points +20, three random Tier 2 Blueprints]

[Your Divine Land reputation +5000]

[Earth Net Group’s favorability -5000, relationship is now ’Deadly Enemy’ with Earth Net Group]

[Randomly obtained a Sage’s Inheritance]