"No matter who he actually is, our biggest issue right now is still dealing with that Eater."
As the number of surrounding hackers dwindled further, those remaining finally realized the seriousness of the situation. They either immediately logged out or retreated far beyond the Eater's attack range, choosing to watch silently from afar.
Curiosity and vigilance were basic essentials for anyone to become a hacker.
If the Eater wasn't so incredibly dangerous, those hackers would've started reverse-engineering its internal programming long ago, instead of standing silently on the sidelines like this.
Under such circumstances, Chen Ze and Renamon, who remained stubbornly within the Eater's attack radius, naturally became their focus.
"I don't particularly enjoy this feeling of being the 'center of attention.'"
Muttering indistinctly under his breath, Chen Ze knew exactly why those hackers were staring at him.
Never mind that Renamon had originally been the Eater's opponent.
Just his earlier indiscriminate attacks against everyone, forcing them offline, had been enough for these hackers to place him firmly on their list of "dangerous lunatics."
But Chen Ze didn't really mind this. He just felt uncomfortable with becoming everyone's focus.
—[The Hacker's Survival Code]
—[Rule 1]: Never expose yourself to the public eye. Moving unseen is the true essence of a hacker.
His only consolation was that although he had broken the first rule of his code, he hadn't violated the second.
A true hacker never had just one identity or persona.
Even if these hackers had complaints, they could never discover his true identity.
After all, his current "Matrix"-inspired disguise was far too misleading. No ordinary hacker would ever imagine he was actually an outsider who'd infiltrated EDEN from traditional networks.
And even if someone saw through this facade, Chen Ze still wasn't worried about them pinpointing him.
Because beneath this "Matrix" disguise lay his form as Agumon (Variant)—a genuine Digimon.
"You brought this on yourself."
Renamon glanced at Chen Ze briefly, offering no further comment.
For an ordinary hacker, performing several jumps to hide their trail was already considered cautious.
But someone like Chen Ze, who not only logged in via multiple jumps but also added a second layer of disguise to his Digital Avatar… Renamon had never seen another hacker do this.
This didn't just mean greater resource consumption—it also indicated Chen Ze's absolute confidence in his hacking abilities.
...
Elsewhere, as the number of hackers sharply decreased, the Eater seemed to sense its prey dwindling and instinctively began to hunt.
Its first victim was a hacker watching from the sidelines, unable to dodge in time.
Whoosh!
The nautilus-like Eater abruptly opened its tentacles wide and spat out a massive, magma-filled fireball from its mouth.
—Magma Blast!
This was Meramon's ultimate technique, now adopted by the Eater after assimilating Meramon's data.
"Ahhh!"
Caught completely off guard, the hacker didn't even have time to command his Digimon to defend before being directly struck by this scorching magma.
Under the corrosive heat of molten lava, the digital floor began showing a corrupted, pixelated state.
At first glance, it looked like it had been invaded by some sort of virus, its original structure irreparably damaged.
Crack… Crack…
More importantly, as the hacker's data fragmented, the previously immobile Eater lunged forward, eager to consume these fragments before they vanished.
"[DIAMOND STORM]!"
At that critical moment, countless razor-sharp leaves materialized from thin air, slicing apart the Eater's reaching tentacles.
Simultaneously, Chen Ze, who'd remained at the rear, coordinated perfectly with Renamon's attack, unleashing a chaotic torrent of data directly at the Eater through the EDEN network.
From afar, it looked as if a massive flood of data had broken through space itself, violently crashing into the immobilized Eater.
BOOM!
One had to admit, visually manifesting hacker attacks like this made for a truly spectacular virtual display.
Under Chen Ze's manipulation, the massive, disorderly flood of data quickly infiltrated the Eater's core programming, attempting to disrupt its internal logic with a deluge of corrupted information.
BANG!
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Renamon attacked again without hesitation, cloaking herself with her favorite fox magic as she rushed toward the Eater.
—Kohenkyo!
This time it was more than a mere illusion or cloning trick.
Renamon, pushing Kohenkyo to its limits, directly rewrote part of the Digital Space's data, creating a huge pit beneath the Eater's position out of thin air.
Then, Renamon leaped upward, releasing her youkai energy wrapped around her claws, manifesting razor-sharp blades that sliced forward like a distant kamaitachi.
"You're really turning into a fox spirit now…"
Seeing this, Chen Ze habitually made a quip, before immediately joining Renamon's offensive.
Because Chen Ze seemed to have discovered a weakness in the Eater. If his guess was right, the battle ahead might be far easier than expected.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thinking this, Chen Ze decisively ignored any risk of server overload, repeatedly slamming wave after wave of data floods into the Eater, preventing it from reconstructing itself into any more useful or aggressive forms.
Coupled with Renamon's relentless direct attacks, the Eater—previously fearsome and unstoppable—was temporarily suppressed, unable to retaliate at all.
...
"That hacker—just who the hell is he?"
The few remaining onlookers shared the same thought simultaneously as they witnessed this scene.
But before they could dwell on it any further, the Eater, which had been clearly disadvantaged just a moment ago, suddenly erupted with an orange-yellow glow.
Under the influence of this glow, the very data streams Chen Ze had been using to attack suddenly became organized and structured, as if they'd always been composed of tightly woven logic.
Crack… crack…
—EATER (SPECIES FORM)… DIGIVOLUTION INITIATED…
Within this orange-yellow "Digivolution"-like radiance, the Eater's nautilus-shaped form began to change dramatically.
Centered around its original cold, singular eye, enormous volumes of data reorganized, reconstructed, then rapidly expanded and multiplied its tentacles in both number and length, growing uncontrollably like some endlessly extending octopus.
In mere moments, more and longer tentacles twisted the Eater's original form, coiling grotesquely into a rough semblance of a humanoid figure.
—EATER (HUMAN FORM)!
This was a new form born from the Eater's assimilation and reconstruction of all data it had absorbed, including Meramon's and even human mental data.
It was definitive proof the Eater had transcended its original limitations, evolving beyond the "Species" stage into something even more monstrous.
---
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