64: First adShot

A wave of dizziness spun the world around, as if her soul had been tossed into a high-speed centrifuge.

When V's consciousness finally struggled free from the nauseating sensation of being forcibly churned and rolled, she found herself standing in an eerie space that defied description.

There was no color here, only a deathly, dim blackness that seemed to absorb all light against a crimson background.

In the distance, twisted, indescribable shadows occasionally writhed, only to quickly vanish into the deeper darkness.

The air—if the concept of "air" even existed here—was thick with a suffocating pressure, as if the entire space were a living, malicious entity.

Whispers, now distant, now near, rang directly within the depths of her consciousness. They were not any known language, but a cacophony of madness, pain, greed, and pure destructive desire, trying to worm their way into every crevice of her mind and dismantle her sanity.

The Johnny Silverhand data that the Voodoo Boys had forcibly inserted as a beacon and bait was like a solitary lamp lit in a boundless, thick night here—bright, yet making the surrounding environment seem all the more despairingly dark.

V felt a chill spread from the core of her consciousness. It wasn't a physical cold, but the most primal fear of a living being facing a completely unknown and utterly uncontrolled environment.

She forcibly suppressed a scream that had no throat to escape from and cursed over the encrypted channel, frantic and with a hint of an imperceptible sob: "Lin Yi! You son of a bitch... if you don't get here, I'm really going to kick the bucket! Alt? Is this fucking Alt Cunningham?! Holy shit!"

Whether it was the Johnny Silverhand data imprint, standing out like a campfire in the night, or V's desperate cry that caused some kind of disturbance, it was unclear.

Right there in the impenetrable darkness before her, a speck of bright red suddenly flared to life. Instantly, the whispers in her ears receded like a tide, as if they had encountered a natural predator.

The red was initially just a blurry mark, but it quickly expanded and elongated, outlining a vague female silhouette.

It drifted silently toward V. Its speed seemed slow, but in reality, it was startlingly fast. Within a few breaths, the outline became clear and rapidly expanded and grew at a speed that defied the laws of physics, until it became a towering, colossal female figure composed of countless flowing, burning, crimson data clusters.

V felt as small as a speck of dust. Under the "gaze" cast by that massive existence, her consciousness was imprisoned by an invisible force, unable to move even a fraction of an inch.

The giant, crimson female data entity lowered its head slightly. Two scarlet beams of light, like searchlights, swept over V. A cold, vast, and emotionless stream of consciousness instantly pierced through V's defenses, scanning her thoroughly inside and out.

"Johnny? No..." A voice rang directly in the depths of V's consciousness, carrying a hint of doubt, which then transformed into a confirmed, almost greedy longing. "You obtained his imprint?"

V realized instantly: this was Alt Cunningham! The legendary super AI, Johnny Silverhand's former lover and a legendary netrunner, now a terrifying existence beyond the Blackwall!

The next moment, before V could react, the dim space around her twisted and shifted. She found herself forcibly brought to the inner side of the Blackwall—before that suffocating, gargantuan net composed of black and red.

Through the wall that constantly bulged and settled, she could vaguely see the other side: the fanatical and awestruck data avatars of Brigitte and those Voodoo Boys netrunners.

"Alt Cunningham! You have finally answered our summons!" Brigitte's voice came through the Blackwall, trembling and filled with the excitement and devotion of a pilgrim seeing a deity.

However, the very moment Brigitte's words faded, a pure white figure, like lightning tearing through the darkness, or like a phantom that had been lurking there all along, appeared without warning beside V.

It was Lin Yi, who had arrived at full speed via tracking programs!

His data avatar was solid and stable, completely out of place with the chaotic madness of this space.

He didn't even glance at the terrifying Alt, his gaze locked directly onto V, whose consciousness was frozen with fear.

"Go!" Without any unnecessary communication, Lin Yi's mental command was concise and powerful. His pre-prepared extraction program was instantly activated. A powerful, gentle force enveloped V's consciousness, as if shoving her into a specially made escape pod, forcibly severing all control the Voodoo Boys had over her, and shoved her violently back along the path she came, toward the anchor point in the real world!

At the same time, a pre-set message was instantly sent to Jackie's communicator in the real world: [You can start the extraction!]

Data Fortress, real side.

The screen of the communicator on Jackie's wrist lit up. That short message was like the firing of a starting pistol.

He cracked a vicious smile, and the Sandevistan, which had been in standby mode, instantly overloaded!

"Hum—" The flow of time seemed to become viscous.

Jackie's massive figure turned into a blurry afterimage. He gently set down the Nekomata in his hand, replacing it with the menacing ajax assault rifle.

Two Voodoo Boys guards at the chapel entrance, who had just realized something was wrong, didn't even have time to raise their weapons before a blood-gushing bullet hole appeared in their foreheads, and they collapsed to the ground without a sound.

Jackie, like a human tank, burst through the ajar door and charged into the interior of the chapel. He ignored the sporadic bullets that seemed ridiculously slow to him; the ajax spat out deadly tongues of fire, precisely taking down every enemy that appeared in his line of sight.

His cyber-eye clearly captured the digital markers V had left behind—markers only they could recognize—guiding him like a sharp sword directly into the core area of the Data Fortress.

Cyberspace, before the Blackwall.

The very next second after V's consciousness was sent away, Lin Yi's gaze, calm to the point of cruelty, turned to Brigitte and her group, who were still immersed in the joy of the "divine descent."

"Cleanup time." He whispered to himself, like a pronouncement of judgment.

Activate!

A blurry data figure at his side lunged rapidly toward the Voodoo Boys and the others. It didn't take them out one by one; it spread out directly.

It was all thanks to the daemon V had previously implanted from the Voodoo Boys' terminal, which provided precise coordinates for this current killing machine, allowing for a thorough "cleanup and purge."

"Ah—!"

"No! What is this?!"

"My data... is collapsing!"

Brigitte and her core netrunners had been fanatical about meeting the "deity" just a second ago; the next second, their data avatars stiffened violently, like puppets controlled by invisible threads, their limbs contorted in unnatural ways.

Ear-piercing screams, a mixture of breaking data streams and the sound of consciousness being forcibly torn apart, erupted from every one of their "human" nodes.

Their images began to flicker and shatter, like video files infected by a virus, rapidly heading toward collapse and annihilation.

The daemon sub-routine took them out in an instant, along with all the Voodoo Boys members marked by the previous addressing algorithm. However, those who didn't touch the network level—the pure thugs—would have to be dealt with by Jackie and V themselves.

Everything happened too fast.

The massive AI named Alt, with that burning, crimson data body, seemed to pause slightly.

Her vast, emotionless "gaze" shifted from the collapsing Voodoo Boys to Lin Yi, who had just let the "Johnny imprint" slip away.

The prey had been let go, and the sacrificial servants had been instantly wiped out.

No questions, no communication.

"Hand over Johnny's personality imprint."

The cold words surged forth, accompanied by a substantive attack!

Countless black "cables" composed of the most malicious code and data viruses, appearing as if they had a life of their own, burst forth from Alt's massive body. Like countless greedy vipers, they instantly spanned the space, coiling and piercing toward Lin Yi's data avatar!

The core intent was simple and direct—to burn his consciousness, strip his data, and seize what she wanted!

Lin Yi felt a chill in his heart; this AI's logic of action was indeed direct and violent.

Seeing the data attack, which contained destructive energy, right before his eyes, he dared not be the least bit arrogant.

"Bai Ze, run at full power!"

Hum—

With Lin Yi's data avatar as the center, a layer of pure white halo, seemingly composed of countless flowing data, instantly expanded, forming an absolute defensive field.

Those countless black malicious program "cables" slammed into the white halo, emitting a teeth-grinding, ear-piercing noise similar to metal scraping, mixed with the sound of data collapsing.

Attacks and defenses collided thousands of times within a hundredth of a second!

Black and white data fragments scattered like an explosion.

Alt's attacks were violent yet precise, containing the malice and madness accumulated in the depths of the Old Net over decades; while Lin Yi's defense and counterattacks were precise and elegant, like a top-tier mathematician, instantly deconstructing and neutralizing every impact.

Within a mere dozen seconds, the speed of the offensive and defensive exchange between the two had surpassed the realm of what ordinary human consciousness could comprehend.

On Alt's massive, crimson data body, dozens of "holes" of various sizes had been torn open by "Bai Ze's" fierce counterattacks, from which deeper, ominous, dark-red data streams flowed.

However, Lin Yi's heart sank.

His data avatar remained stable under "Bai Ze's" protection, without even a ripple.

But he could clearly feel what an immense load his physical body was bearing in the real world!

His entire body's cyberware seemed to be emitting a wail of overload; the cooling system had reached its limit, and a burning pain, as if he were being set on fire from the inside out, was becoming increasingly clear.

More troublesome was that as a pure data lifeform, Alt's damaged parts were rapidly drawing from the surrounding dim space, pulling in those wandering, weak Rogue AIs or ownerless data clusters, and like devouring a supplement, she was quickly repairing her own damage.

With her gaining ground while he lost it, Lin Yi knew he couldn't afford to drag this out!

Real world, Data Fortress core.

V's consciousness was violently yanked back into her body. The intense dizziness and the discomfort of consciousness returning made her dry-heave.

Almost instinctively, she sat up abruptly from the coolant, splashing water everywhere.

Before she had time to see her surroundings, a pungent stench of scorched protein mixed with overloaded circuit boards drilled into her nostrils.

She looked around and saw that those Voodoo Boys netrunners who had been surrounding the diving equipment were now all slumped on the ground, their bodies twitching irregularly, wisps of blue smoke rising from their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears. Clearly, their consciousnesses had been instantly "burned out" by Lin Yi in Cyberspace.

"Chica! Don't space out! We gotta go!" Jackie's rough roar came from the tunnel entrance. The ajax in his hands was still emitting wisps of smoke, and at his feet lay the corpses of a few Voodoo Boys thugs who had just arrived.

V jolted, instantly awake.

She saw the relic chip was still connected to the separation device; that was the key link in Lin Yi's plan!

She operated quickly and precisely, removing the chip and carefully placing it into the previous container, sealing it tight—this time, there was no falling from a height, no accidental damage.

"Got it! Let's go!" V grabbed the container and rushed toward Jackie.

Jackie didn't say another word; he grabbed her arm, and the two broke out like a whirlwind along the pre-planned evacuation route.

The sporadic resistance along the way was quickly dismantled by Jackie's violent firepower and V's precise shots.

They rushed out of the chapel and jumped into the vehicle that had already been started. The tires shrieked against the ground, and the car, like an arrow shot from a bow, merged into the chaotic streets of Pacifica, speeding toward the West Wind Apartments stronghold.

Inside the car, V held the intact container holding the relic tightly, gasping for breath. She couldn't help but look toward the temporary stronghold of the West Wind Apartments, her eyes filled with worry.

"Lin Yi... you better be okay..."