"Hm? Has something happened over there?"
Su, who was crouching at the entrance of Taixu Hospital treating patients, noticed an unusual commotion in the distance.
Tenmon Soji led the First, Third, and Sixth Elite Special Assault Squads onto the battlefield, instantly shattering the balance.
The Taixu Gang had only just managed to push the Ghostfire Syndicate's battle line half a kilometer away, yet within moments, the Special Assault Squads under Tenmon Soji's command pierced through their defenses like a sharp blade and reached the entrance of Taixu Hospital.
Through mental training, Su's eyesight had also far surpassed that of an ordinary person, allowing him to see the man who resembled a god of slaughter.
With a single casual sweep of his hand, he twisted the iron fence blocking his path into a coil.
With the slightest punch, he blasted straight through an entire hastily constructed bunker.
Many ability users could accomplish such things.
What surprised Su most, however, was the overwhelming sense of incongruity surrounding the man.
Moreover, Su's subconscious warned him not to attempt to influence this man with the maxims of Bodhi.
Otherwise, some unpredictable consequence would occur.
Su had heard Occultist Vill-V speak about situations like this before. Trusting his intuition was the wisest course.
"...Could that man also be a psychic-type MANTIS?"
...
Bronya did not simply allow the elite cybernetic bikers to advance unimpeded.
Bzzzt...
The hacking module's execution program entered the local network once again.
Invisible data traveled through the network signal and entered the neural implants of the elite bikers who had undergone mechanical augmentation surgery. The chip ports behind the heads of more than half the elite cybernetic bikers on the battlefield flickered faintly. Feeling discomfort throughout their bodies, their expressions tightened.
At first, they merely felt as though their sophisticated neural transmission systems were suffering from network latency, causing brief spasms and sluggishness. Their bodies responded with a slight delay.
Then something went seriously wrong. The bikers discovered that their companions equipped with neural implants were losing control one after another.
"Genshin! I want to play Genshin!"
"No Genshin... I'm going to die!"
"Download it! Download Genshin as hard as you can!"
Some began moving like marionettes. Vast quantities of useless information were downloaded and poured into their brains, leaving their expressions dull and vacant.
Others became exceptionally excited after the download finished and completely immersed themselves in the program. "Genshin, launch!"
"Oh no! They've been infected with a virus!"
"Quick, activate 361 Security Guard and uninstall it!"
"The Genshin virus is gone, but 361 Security Guard deleted his entire system drive. He's already a vegetable!"
Evidently, the cheap antivirus software they had purchased on the black market was rather hardcore.
Some of those with extensive cybernetic modifications even lost control of their prosthetics, raising enormous blades and hacking at their own commander-in-chief.
One sharp-eyed biker hurriedly grabbed the berserk companion, but the man's strength was overwhelming, making it impossible to restrain him.
The biker, now driven into cyberpsychosis, raised a thirty-pound cybernetic greatsword that only a mechanical arm could wield and pressed a button on its side.
With a deep hum, meter-long tongues of flame erupted from both the edge and spine of the greatsword. The fire curled and surged through the air with a fierce crackle.
"Judgment is hereby passed!"
That slash could sever even a concrete utility pole, let alone a body of flesh and blood.
Seeing that their commander-in-chief was about to be sliced through the waist, the other gang members grew frantic when Tenmon Soji neither dodged nor defended himself.
However, Wanga Wanlong, captain of the Third Special Assault Squad, stopped the others from approaching.
Wanlong remained perfectly calm. "Just watch. The commander-in-chief isn't so easily injured."
Raging flames licked across the blade. Orange-red fire twisted as it crashed against Tenmon Soji's body, then scattered, filling the air with scorching waves of heat.
"Ha!"
His great cloak billowed.
Yet Tenmon Soji intended to do far more than merely withstand the attack.
"A virus? Something like that..." Tenmon Soji lowered his head, then threw it back and roared at the sky, "Can be dispelled through sheer force of spirit!"
"HAH!"
Tenmon Soji unleashed a furious roar toward the heavens.
A concussive blast swept across the battlefield, knocking aside the greatsword slashing toward him.
Everyone staggered involuntarily.
"Damn it! It's a denial-of-service attack!"
"What denial-of-service attack? Don't tell me you've been infected with the Genshin virus too."
"What did Genshin ever do to you?"
"Wait, how did you recover?"
Only then did the bikers realize that everyone who had seemingly succumbed to cyberpsychosis had returned to normal.
"Boss Tenmon is mighty!"
"As expected, Boss Tenmon is the one we can count on!"
"Charge!"
Once again, they raised their cyberpunk weapons and launched a frenzied slaughter against the Taixu Gang.
...
Bzzzt...
Bang!
In the distance, the sound even caused Bronya's headset to explode.
Fortunately, Mad Hatter's products were built to a high standard and did not blow out Bronya's eardrums.
Bronya covered her ears. "What was that...? Trackers, analyze the data immediately."
"Beep, beep—Analysis impossible. Error 103. Unknown code."
Bronya's expression grew troubled. This was the first time she had encountered such a difficult opponent.
Even the Genshin Launcher program given to her by Teacher Vill-V had been broken by the enemy.
It was a DDoS attack with a download size of only a few megabytes that expanded to tens of thousands of yottabytes after being released. Few network servers could remain functional beneath the redundant data generated by Genshin.
"Was that 'Number Zero'?"
Sheer force of spirit obviously could not affect a program. After Tenmon Soji's roar, Bronya's side had immediately suffered an overwhelming attack from vast quantities of data code.
Furthermore, the code was completely different from conventional programming languages. Bronya could not analyze it using Trackers' database at all.
It was a coding system with its own internal logic, one that had never before appeared anywhere in the world.
Fortunately, Bronya had always possessed a hacker's caution. The execution module had only used her headset's network connection.
Had Trackers been connected to the network, it would probably have met with disaster.
"As expected, Bronya believes the outside world is far more challenging. Trackers, let's go!"
"The system's scheduled directory does not contain that function." By the time Trackers finished speaking, Bronya had already vanished from its sight.
"...Priority directive detected: Protect Bronya with full force."
...
The mechanical hounds that had previously erupted with sparks gradually began moving again.
The Taixu Gang's soaring morale immediately plummeted.
Most importantly, every enemy was displaying superhuman strength, while the newly established Taixu Gang naturally had no ability users holding the line.
Anyone who had worked in the underworld for long knew that ability users were the decisive pieces that determined victory or defeat between gangs.
Even a weak ability user could alter the course of a battle, let alone the more than a dozen now revealed by the Ghostfire Syndicate!
How were the ordinary mortals of the Taixu Gang supposed to fight them?
By relying on those firearms?
My lord, the times have changed again!
Look over there. One biker had simply reinforced his body with mechanical augmentations, charged through a hail of submachine-gun fire, and pinned someone to the ground!
And over there, the bullets melted the instant they approached the enemy's ability!
To say nothing of the captains of those elite Special Assault Squads, each of whom was a monster with astonishing combat power.