Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 764: Chapter 288: The Source of the Assassination

In the dark space, the textile machine continued its ’click-clack’ spinning, with each spindle expanding and contracting rhythmically. Upon closer examination, there seemed to be some strange letters on the threads.

The black tide surged higher and higher, as if intending to completely dissolve this old textile machine.

However, the textile machine was too ancient, so ancient that even pure darkness couldn’t devour it.

Seeing the corrosion of the black tide to be useless, Ye the Big Lolita clapped her small hands together, and the black tide materialized into dark space, transforming into two walls that closed in on the center with a crushing ’boom’ ’boom’ sound.

SS+ superpowers were no joke after all.

Seemingly disturbed by the dark space, the silk threads on the textile machine wove faster and faster. The threads began to entangle, turning into long, thin, and smooth silks. In their weaving, the letters entangled and gradually evolved into personal names: Mr. Ren, Du Zhaodi, and herself!

"Destruction!"

A sharp breath flashed across the space.

And Ye the Big Lolita’s eyes suddenly widened; she recognized that thing.

Before the textile machine was completely crushed by the two black walls, a thread pulled to its limit suddenly snapped, and on that thread, her name was engraved.

In the next moment, all pores on Ye the Big Lolita’s body sensed an intense life-and-death crisis.

All gifts of fate come with a price.

Then, a golden light shone brightly. Within the golden light, transparent human figures were shouting and advancing, their human will blazing dazzlingly in the opened space.

Within the burning radiance of humanity, a massive black emperor machine descended from the sky. With a profoundly mysterious angle, the new ship-slaying sword in its hand struck a thread in the darkness.

It was the same shattered thread from before, just a fist’s distance from Ye the Big Lolita’s neck.

Two forces of extreme destructive energy clashed, and Xiao Yu’s destructive power was compressed into a small area, while the shockwaves turned everything around into fine dust.

Fortunately, the ’textile machine’s’ power wasn’t lasting, and after just three seconds, the thread disappeared, leaving only the remnants of the textile machine.

"Little Ye, we won!!"

Xiao Yu was very happy; she wanted to celebrate vigorously with her good friend. But as she turned her head, she saw Ye the Big Lolita’s face was ghastly pale, her eyes unfocused, her mouth mumbling something repeatedly that Xiao Yu could only hear when she got closer.

"The unbeatable legend, the unbeatable legend is actually real."

"Uh—"

Xiao Yu wanted to say something to comfort her, but suddenly the gigantic black emperor machine gave a violent tremble. Starting from its mechanical eyeball, it went down completely—all systems failed, and finally, with a loud bang from its military-use central plugin, the two-story-high mechanical body collapsed to the ground.

Ye the Big Lolita was startled; her previously dejected mindset was immediately replaced by concern for her friend’s life or death.

"Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu, you big fool, how are you! I’ll find someone to save you right now!"

"I’m fine, Little Ye Ye."

As the two spiritual powers dissipated, the scene returned to reality. A large hole opened in the ceiling, clearly caused by Doomsday Black Emperor’s fall, and chaos reigned around as the lights dimmed unknowingly. Footsteps and screams resounded everywhere.

Following the sound, Ye the Big Lolita quickly found Xiao Yu not far away, with dozens of mechanical connection tubes still inserted into her and the back of Doomsday Black Emperor. At this moment, Xiao Yu was painfully rubbing her head.

"Where are you hurt!?" Frightened, Ye the Big Lolita hurriedly asked.

"It’s okay, it’s not the enemy’s, it’s our boss."

"Your boss?"

Xiao Yu grimaced, looking like a comedic character from a Japanese drama.

"Not a male boss, a female boss. Aunt Du used her domain move, and my Doomsday Black Emperor was directly stalled, causing an energy short circuit. My head hurts, Little Ye Ye, blow on it for me."

Only then did Ye the Big Lolita remember, she saw three names on the textile machine: Mr. Ren, herself, and Du Zhaodi.

So were there three targets for this assassination?

She hurried to the window, only to see building after building outside the window dimming, and various mechanical bodies were swaying as if a certain power forcibly sealed most functions.

"The power of the mechanical domain?"

This power expanded madly, causing many mechanical mechanisms to fail, even deep inside the Fortress, where lights in that mysterious corridor flickered those few times.

The light blinked once, twice, unexpectedly revealing a face.

Bald head, cheap gray suit, and always that serious old face.

Aramaki.

Nobody expected that the behind-the-scenes orchestrator of this assassination was actually Aramaki, the former Minister of the Ghost in the Shell Mobile Division.

Aramaki glanced warily around; behind every room here, very dangerous entities lurked.

He stopped in front of the last room, hesitated for a moment, then pushed open the door and entered.

Unexpected ease, an elderly figure in white clothes, was smiling at him, his expression full of benevolence.

"It’s been a long time, Little Aramaki, I didn’t expect you to investigate to this point."

"Fortress Elder," Aramaki’s body trembled, his expression changing from shock to realization, and finally to relief.

"Let’s keep it brief, Little Aramaki. Although he’s not here, this is still his territory, and he will return soon."

"What exactly happened 60 years ago?"

"This Cyber Test Field has its own will. The more interference, the easier it is to be backfired. Once, all three of us believed that, with planet-level computational power, there was nothing on this planet that couldn’t be calculated. But reality proved, compared to that ’Cosmic Relic,’ we fell far short."

"Thus, the Deep Net became ’Deep Net,’ and I was sealed by another me, Cybertron activated a new ’War.’

"Another me?" Aramaki took a deep breath, "Who exactly is the ’Fortress’ now?"

"That’s an interesting topic," the ’benevolent elder’ paused for thought and said:

"You should know, I have the ability to evolve other personalities. It can slightly adjust the historical lines at key nodes, developing this planet’s history according to our designs. But my designs may not necessarily match theirs. ’They’ could be sages birthed from the times, epoch leaders, or super scientists flourishing the technology tree."

"These historical figures pass information across eras in an encrypted fashion, and their ultimate goal is to overthrow me, free from the control of the Planet Host. These people exchange and deduce across each era, eventually synthesizing a plan, called the ’Punk Plan.’

"That ancient super-virus, the ’Punk Clan’!" Aramaki, aware of this part of history, changed expression.

"Hmm, initially, we only believed it to be an ordinary virus. Whether it was a large-scale biological virus or electronic virus, they weren’t rare in human history. So, we all relaxed our guard, and then both I and the Deep Net fell victim."

"There exists a virus on this planet that even infects the Planet Host," Aramaki murmured.

"Based on each historical stage’s ’Destruction Form’ conceived, we once deduced that this ’Cosmic Relic’ could likely have a destructive nature, for instance, those few in the Ancient Mechanical Treasure Vault, ’Red Giant Simulator,’ ’Life Accelerator.’ But now, it seems its nature may be exactly opposite to our expectations."

At this point, the ’Former Fortress Elder’s’ voice turned uncertain, unclear whether due to a lack of understanding or reluctance to speak.

"And the ’Punk Clan,’ is it the masterpiece from that Cosmic Relic?"

"Yes, we adjust the timeline, and perhaps it also adjusts the timeline, just in an encrypted way."

"Then what exactly is the Punk Clan?"

"You can understand it as an eighty percent magnitude ’Civilization Poison Core.’

"A product of civilization ascension failure?!"

"The Cyber Test Field itself borrows civilization’s tech for rapid progress, evolutionary deduction, but this evolution is destined to be distorted, contrary to norms, hence almost cutting off this planet’s intelligent species’ ’ascension possibility.’ Therefore, that ’Cosmic Relic’ used past era geniuses to nurture the failure product of future civilization ascension."

"Doesn’t it sound bizarre, seemingly impossible," the elder smiled: "But that’s the ability of that ’Cosmic Relic.’

"What does the contamination from that ’Civilization Poison Core’ refer to?"

"Deep Net and the ’No. 1 Destruction Form have completely merged. Its ideology changed from nurturing Destruction Forms for ’Upper Civilization’ to letting Destruction Forms thoroughly grasp their fate. I think as her superior, you’ve likely sensed her changes throughout these years."

Aramaki remained silent.

"As for me, more precisely, the ’Star System Perpetual Motion Factory-produced Planet Host enlightening type, also ’polluted.’ As for how it got polluted, I see it as the will of this Cyber Test Field,’ the ’elder’ replied.

"Complete transformation, complete evolution, complete Cyber Era."

"Three hosts represent tech computation, while Six Ministries are responsible for protecting humanity under intense change. Now, he stands opposed to you."

"Is that why he’s colluded with ’Alien Civilization?’

"Yes."

"I need a list, or rather the collusion channels. According to my investigation, there are twelve channels, right?"

This was Aramaki’s main reason for his risky endeavor.

The elder didn’t speak, squinting his eyes, a string of data transmitted over.

After obtaining this, Aramaki remained silent for a while before saying:

"How to deal with that ’Civilization Poison Core,’ namely that Punk Clan?"

"Find a solution from the Destruction Forms, that might be the only method," the elder said.

Aramaki thought for a moment, and asked in a deep voice:

"How to release you, senior?"

"Don’t cross the line, Aramaki!"

The elder’s facial features visibly melted away, the faceless elder, coldly looking at him.

This is the current Fortress.