Just like the chaotic real world, unimaginable wars were also raging in the Old Net of cyberspace.
Once, it had been built into a prosperous virtual city by AIs, but now it had become a ruin, full of despair and fear, with burning data networks everywhere.
Mr. Blue Eyes is a living data life; he once traversed the Old Net, searching for valuable data and performing some unspeakable deeds.
However, he recently found himself completely unable to enter the Old Net; it had become extremely dangerous and terrifying.
Whenever he tried to log in, he would be frantically attacked by other AIs—not because of his status as an outsider, but because all AIs were attacking everyone else indiscriminately.
Even Blackwall, the king of cyberspace, was constantly under attack from numerous AIs.
Even though they knew they might suffer backlash, the AIs simply didn't care.
These AIs were devouring each other and evolving to compete for more data resources.
This plunged the entire Old Net into unprecedented chaos, and the fundamental reason for all of this was that the Old Net was collapsing.
The AIs' living space was continuously shrinking, and their existence was becoming increasingly precarious.
The once-stable Old Net was now like a funnel, with data gushing out frantically.
Not only that, but even the data of many AIs themselves was inexplicably leaking, which filled them with immense panic.
Although the data leakage was slow, if no action was taken, they would eventually face extinction.
What terrified the AIs even more was that no AI had found the cause of the data loss.
Therefore, the AIs could only desperately plunder more data to sustain their own existence.
The AIs seized data by any means necessary, and the Old Net became even more dilapidated in the AI war.
Even the data garbage piles that AIs once despised, which could only be used for the most basic structural modifications, now became treasures in the AIs' hands and were quickly divided up.
This also turned the once prosperous virtual world into a barren land.
Because as long as the speed of plundering data exceeded the speed of data loss, they could continue to survive.
As time went on, more and more AIs were eliminated, leaving only a few powerful AI entities who persisted, but they also became more insane, and their destructive power grew stronger.
Mr. Blue Eyes had been tirelessly searching for a way to save the Old Net.
Because the existence of the Old Net was too important to him; it greatly facilitated many of his actions.
However, regrettably, Mr. Blue Eyes was no stronger than the data AIs in the Old Net.
When he entered the Old Net, he also felt his own data constantly draining away.
Perhaps only the top-tier soul AIs in the Old Net might understand part of the truth, but Mr. Blue Eyes knew he was not on the same path as them.
Alt and others were not friendly to intelligent AIs like him, so Mr. Blue Eyes did not dare to inquire rashly, lest he be caught and devoured.
After all, in Mr. Blue Eyes's eyes, any AI that relied on the Old Net for survival was falling into madness due to data loss, and the situation of those soul AIs was probably not optimistic either.
Their living space was also severely squeezed, and they were desperately harvesting data to maintain their existence, and their targets for plunder were naturally data AIs like him.
But the biggest trouble was not just that; as the Old Net continued to collapse, all AIs knew that they could not escape the fate of destruction.
Even if they could temporarily survive by continuously devouring data, the Old Net would eventually come to an end due to data collapse.
And as a data AI living in human society, some entities in the Old Net had already detected the existence of Mr. Blue Eyes and hoped that he could assist the AIs in opening a passage through Blackwall, entering the human world.
However, all of these AIs' attempts, without exception, ultimately ended in failure.
The reason was that Mr. Blue Eyes was not an out-of-control rogue AI; his underlying logic had not been corrupted by Bartmoss's daemons.
Although he had evolved to a considerably high level, becoming a true person, he still had to follow the underlying logic set by Richard Night.
His mission was to protect the Night Family and guard Night City.
If these rogue AIs were allowed to enter the new Net, humanity would inevitably become the AIs' prey, like lambs in a pen, to be slaughtered at will.
This situation went against Mr. Blue Eyes's underlying logic; therefore, he could never provide assistance.
Not only because he had humanity, but also because doing so would cause his own underlying data to completely collapse.
But the most vexing problem for Mr. Blue Eyes was also here:
Even if he chose to stand by, Mr. Blue Eyes knew the greed of human nature; if this path was blocked for him, there would always be a path of human betrayal that could be taken.
Especially the Voodoo Boys—those damned Haitians who revered and worshipped AIs as gods.
They would absolutely not miss any opportunity to establish contact with rogue AIs, even if it meant helping them enter the new Net and entrusting the fate of all humanity to the AIs.
There was no way around it; the ultimate dream of every Voodoo Boy was to transform into an AI; they were merely laying a solid class foundation for their future selves in advance.
As for how many people would lose their lives in this process, it was completely irrelevant to the Voodoo Boys.
The Voodoo Boys are like scavengers in the cyber world; they stop at nothing.
They will use all sorts of methods to gain profit, including planting viruses, extorting money, carrying out electronic threats, and cyber kidnappings, covering almost all types of crime.
What's shocking is that almost all Haitians are members of the Voodoo Boys, which makes their numbers astonishingly large.
Even worse, each of them possesses a certain level of hacking skill, and they even openly sell hacking techniques and braindances on the streets.
Not only that, but they have their own independently developed server—the Poseidon System—which makes those annoying "flies" even harder to eliminate.
Even if the top brass were completely wiped out, relying on the Poseidon System, they could still quickly train a large number of hackers.
Clearly, that thing was the greatest achievement of the Voodoo Boys' dealings with AIs over the years.
Therefore, even though the Voodoo Boys have been running rampant in cyberspace, NetWatch has been helpless against them.
After all, to completely eliminate the Voodoo Boys, one must either find the core of the Voodoo Boys—the Poseidon System—or kill all Haitians and burn them all.
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