Player Reload-Chapter 640 - 556: Software
In the boundless net-space, Gray Rain pulled hard on the Eight Diagrams Demon Cannon, its muzzle firing thick iron chains at high speed, seemingly endless.
The other end of the iron chain, twisted and bent like lightning, shuttled through bubbles representing network devices.
Orbital communication satellites connected global internet nodes, and Li Cheng’s chase with the Phase Change Demon was causing chaos and disaster in the real world comparable to a tsunami.
In the Vatican City, believers from around the world gathered at St. Peter’s Square, devoutly listening to the Shepherd Leader’s broadcast preaching.
"At the holy moment of the Last Supper, our Lord Jesus took the bread with sorrow, gave thanks, broke it, looked at the twelve disciples at the table, and said..."
"The flavor is really rich, folks, I feel that the world’s most fragrant is simmered food, that simmered block, really powerful."
The inexplicable intrusion of the broadcast sound left the believers bewildered as they looked up, only to see an airplane in the distance losing control and slowly descending.
"I can’t show my face, I’m a beauty anchor. Oh, thanks to the number one supporter’s super rocket meow, love you meow, wish the boss everlasting happiness and joy..."
With a face-covered filter special effect, the anchor talked on in the live broadcast, as two shadows moved at a speed undetectable by a 60-frame camera, crossing the screen, and shattering the filter, revealing the anchor’s original face on the picture.
Not only that, the live broadcast screen also spread widely along Earth’s latitude 30°, broadcasting to TV stations in cities like Chengdu, Cairo, New Orleans, with the screen echoing "forever happy happy happy happy" in a ruined image.
Li Cheng, with one hand, grasped the rapidly extending iron chain connected to the Phase Change Demon’s back, shortening the distance to the opponent.
Dragon Breath of the Red Dragon!
A giant dragon imagery appeared overhead, opening its bloody mouth to spew fiery flames, scorching towards the desperately fleeing Phase Change Demon.
The Phase Change Demon’s potato-shaped body automatically split open a gap, narrowly avoiding the Demon Dragon’s fire. Meanwhile, its body smashed through the network barrier, instantly crossing a distance of thousands of miles in the real world, appearing on the largest advertising screen in a bustling urban downtown, coming to a sudden halt.
"Why did it stop? Got tired of running?"
Li Cheng, holding the Disease Unclean Book, spoke calmly, and the surrounding did not seem to be within China, likely somewhere on the West Coast of America.
The Phase Change Demon stayed silent, just quivering its body, causing the large advertisement screens on both sides of the street to simultaneously change, synchronizing to display its and Li Cheng’s images.
Passersby, clueless, stopped in their tracks, puzzled as they looked at the strange images on the continuous billboards. Drivers stuck their heads out of car windows, looking bewildered.
"Haha, if you’re trying to get me to refrain from acting, to make me retreat, then forget it."
Li Cheng scoffed internally; he had assaulted London solo, threatened millions with the Bell Tower; he was no naive saint influenced by altruistic beliefs.
However, the advertisement screen zoomed in, focusing on the self-flipping pages of the Disease Unclean Book in Li Cheng’s hand.
Chapter Eleven: Digestive System/Intestines/Bowel Obstruction.
’Uh-oh.’
As soon as the thought arose, rumbling sounds came from both Li Cheng’s and the Phase Change Demon’s stomachs simultaneously.
In theory, Li Cheng could pay double Spiritual Power to ensure the Disease Unclean Book’s curse only affected the enemy, but unfortunately, having just summoned the Alpha Snake Head, his Spiritual Power was depleted, and he was currently slowly drawing Spiritual Power from the Hidden Backup Energy reserve.
Li Cheng’s expression grew fierce; the ground wasn’t a video camera-less wilderness, and battles erupting here would surely be clearly documented, stored as classic case study materials, and widely circulated on player forums.
He suddenly opened his mask, revealing a completely different face, then from the void, pulled out a plastic tube, pierced the skin, and inserted it into his intestines, shouting, "Isn’t it just a minor bowel obstruction? I, Zhongtian Beiji, do not change my name whether standing or sitting!"
"Puh!"
At a luxury villa atop a mountain in Manila, Philippines, Zhongtian Beiji, watching in real time, spat out a mouthful of red wine, eyes wide in disbelief.
Not me, bro, how am I involved?! Don’t single out one sheep to shear, hey!
The bowel obstruction brought equal discomfort to both players; Li Cheng raised his hand, releasing the Shadow Falcon, and with a thought, summoned hundreds of Forbidden Army War Cars.
At this moment, the two players were still in net-space, appearing only in screen images from the spectators’ perspective. But this did not mean they couldn’t interfere with the real world.
Boom——
The war cars simultaneously roared to life and fired, their bombardment causing overcharge on the advertisement screens on both sides of the street, exploding instantly.
MacBook computers in the café, phones in passersby’s hands, even Bluetooth earphones and smartwatches were all collateral damage and destroyed.
Scorched haze hung in the air, sparks flew, and the scene was a mess; only a few large screens still alight depicted the Phase Change Demon being blasted hundreds of meters away, crashing into an office building,
with half of its oval head stuck into a personal computer at some workstation, the desktop filled with dozens of unfiled documents, PPTs, compressed files, and an even larger number of rogue software icons.
Unfortunately, these foreign software are so weak; if it were domestic rogue software,
like the p2p downloader sticking like adhesive, the never fully removable 2345 family bucket, or the brother-summoning fast-play game box,
Boost Master, 361, Worm Motion Elf, Jinshan Antivirus, Bird Wallpaper, ABC Image King, Speed Compression...
Merely touching these icons, the Phase Change Demon’s head would explode on the spot, three Buddhas would emerge, five Buddhas would ascend to heaven.
Bang!
The Phase Change Demon flew away from the office building, releasing some kind of Invisible Power. All networked vehicles on both sides of the street slammed on their accelerators, crashing with full force towards the advertisement screen showing Li Cheng.
Even the cars parked on floors three, four, and five of the parking lot were forcibly started, their alarms blaring one after another, falling like dumplings, a spectacular sight.
However, such attacks couldn’t even faze the Gray Rain, let alone Li Cheng.
He ignored the crashing vehicles and charged forward, the Mantis Arm Bone Blade cleaving straight at the weakened Phase Change Demon.
Click.
A barely perceptible ticking sound of the clock’s hands echoed, and Li Cheng’s face—more precisely, Zhongtian Beiji’s—changed abruptly.
The Phase Change Demon hadn’t intended to hinder Li Cheng with car collisions; instead, it used the blaring alarms to mask the sound of the clock’s hands.
Invisible Power spread outward from the Phase Change Demon.
Falling leaves instantly paused beside the street, exhaust fumes and smoke froze, and fleeing pedestrians with their spilled coffee were all caught in suspension.
The slanting sunset spread across the city streets, the glass exterior walls of skyscrapers reflecting fragments of golden light.
Having been severely injured by the Alpha Snake Head, the Phase Change Demon trembled exceedingly slowly, its surface continually spewing black mist that resembled blood.
This wasn’t a simple time stop; the time flow in districts several kilometers away remained normal, it was more like... a Time Deceleration Domain.
Slow itself slightly, but slow external things significantly—including the Pifu.
The Phase Change Demon multitasked, slowly pulling out a metal spear directed at Li Cheng’s head,
while extending black smoke towards the computers in the office building.
As an invasion weapon crafted by advanced civilization, the Phase Change Demon’s ability to gather info far surpassed mere mortals.
In the span of a brief exploration in cyberspace, it quickly grasped Earth’s civilization and accurately pinpointed the most vulnerable and neglected node that could serve its invasion. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
Cloudflare Technology Company, headquartered in San Francisco, California, though not as famous as Google or Microsoft, is one of the world’s major DNS providers, defending sites against most cyber attacks, including DDos attacks.
Major global servers and Amazon AWS Cloud Computing Platform, critical internet nodes, have Whale Song Guild personnel stationed long-term,
and Cloudflare happened to be that weak node.
Once conquered, using Cloudflare’s inherent close ties with various sites, it could instantly send Phase Change Demon’s backups worldwide...
As time ticked by, federal agents of the FBI’s Special Incident Department stationed locally in San Francisco, now aware they couldn’t keep the situation under wraps, rushed over, only to be blocked by the Time Deceleration Force Field.
And the seemingly ordinary metal spear was already aimed at Li Cheng’s head.
The latter’s unique six-base genetic structure nervous system allowed Li Cheng’s neural response rate to match that of the Phase Change Demon spellcasters, his eyeballs continually trembling.
If the Phase Change Demon had its own individual consciousness, it might even open up with sympathy and explain—it had always been calculating Pifu’s Spiritual Power consumption,
speculating that Pifu’s own Spiritual Power Value cap wouldn’t exceed 1000 points, allowing for at most three consecutive uses of Light Speed Elbow Strike in a short period.
The summoning of the Mechanical Python undoubtedly consumed most of the Spiritual Power, meaning, apart from Light Speed Elbow Strike, the slowed-down-thinking-and-acting Pifu had no means to retaliate...
Hold on.
The Phase Change Demon’s actions suddenly paused; its perception organs, analysis modules, and logical deduction functions surprisingly couldn’t find any trace of panic in Pifu’s trembling eyeballs.
It must have overlooked something, some crucial element that could turn the tide...
The Phase Change Demon realized, lowering its gaze towards the chain still attached to itself.
Within the Time Deceleration Force Field, the flow of air, propagation of sound, and sway of the chain were all slowed, so much that it hadn’t noticed the chain was swinging left and right with an extremely weak and slow frequency.
And in the higher network space, Gray Rain had already let go of the Eight Diagram Alchemy Demon Cannon.
The Tripod Furnace itself, after a brief delay, flew out along the chain like a tightening metal tape measure, hitting the bubble, traversing rapidly between different bubbles, increasingly fast, ultimately reaching the streets of San Francisco City,
rushing violently into the Time Deceleration Force Field with overwhelming momentum.
’The first law of the killing field, the mysterious will yield to a higher mystery...’
All players on Earth watching the battle scene simultaneously had this phrase appear in their minds.
In the next second, the Alchemy Demon Cannon pierced through the Time Deceleration Force Field unaffected, driving straight into the Phase Change Demon’s body.
Fortunately within the misfortune, the real battlefield was in the virtual cyberspace,
the shockwave from the collision didn’t destroy surrounding buildings but instead violently swept through as an EMP pulse.
The entire San Francisco City, from northwest to southeast over a hundred kilometers, experienced a blackout and paralysis.
