"Mysterious, beautiful, cute, annoying—as long as they're a witch, they're on my kill list. Of course, I won't let those who put me in a bad mood off either."
A green candy was pressed against her vermilion lips as Chun Sanyue let out a soft murmur.
"Oh well, why am I even telling you this? After all, none of you are making it out of here alive."
As soon as she finished speaking, the necks of the Order Court's high-level members were snapped, and they collapsed to the floor in unison.
Inside the dark red conference room, only Yinghuo remained alive.
The entire underground room had completely lost control. Eerie red lights flickered in the darkness, resembling a village waiting for destruction in the middle of a tsunami.
The indicator lights for the calculation frequency were flashing at dozens of times their normal speed, faster and faster, until they broke the threshold between madness and silence, and everything went still in the midst of the chaos.
Facing such an absolute gap in power, Yinghuo felt a sense of powerlessness, knowing that anything she did now would be in vain. It had taken only a few seconds for the enemy to invade and take full control of this underground space. Until the moment the three firewalls were breached simultaneously, Hera had believed it was just an ordinary hacking attempt.
She was no match for this hacker who called herself Chun Sanyue.
Yinghuo calmly looked around at the corpses on the ground and asked impassively, "What do you want?"
Chun Sanyue studied the black-haired girl with interest, the frenzied skulls on the screens gradually coming to a halt.
"Nothing much. I just came here to borrow Sky-Father for a bit of fun. Looking at these guys just makes me feel terrible, so I killed them all."
"Sky-Father?" Yinghuo's brow furrowed.
"Not long ago, I implanted a virus program into the Hera Network. They're self-replicating at a rate of hundreds of billions of times per second. Unless something unexpected happens, those little cuties should already be disguised so well that they're indistinguishable from the ordinary programs of the Hera Network."
"By the way, I'm the top hacker in the world. EVA can't stop me, and maybe the Miserere could stand a chance. So don't bother wasting your effort. Remember to tell her to upgrade herself. This was just a greeting. I'll be back. See ya~"
The skulls on the screen flickered out, the frenzied laughter faded away, and the red light receded like a tide. The room fell into darkness once again. Yinghuo sat at the head of the table, holding her forehead, the girl's final words echoing in her ears. After a moment, she slowly raised her eyes.
...................
Under the steel sky-curtain, dozens of shadows darted through the streets between adjacent buildings.
"Dark Gold Rose is right here!"
"Quick, catch up! As long as we drag them into a combat state, they won't be able to escape!"
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to chase the great Dark Gold Rose. If we miss this, there won't be another chance. We can't let them go no matter what!"
Five people hid in the shadows of a building. Only after confirming that their pursuers had run far away did Xu Xiaoyou emerge.
Nearly half an hour had passed since the end of the league's opening ceremony and the start of the first qualifying round.
【Qualifying Round: Electronic Sheep Pen in progress.】
【Instance Type: Team Competition.】
【Instance Participants: 150,000.】
【Welcome to Skyline City. The 150,000 participants will be divided into 150 groups, with 1,000 people per group, and deployed into Skyline Cities in different war zones for combat.】
【Note 1: This instance mode is a team competition; players must participate as a team. When both opposing parties are in a combat state, either side can activate the Visiting Battle by Overstepping Authority mechanism. The targeted party cannot refuse, and both sides will be pulled into a dedicated 5v5 combat space to battle until a winner is decided.】
【Note 2: At the end of the instance, teams ranked in the top 512 in total score will advance. Scores are awarded based on combat performance. Once a team completes five Visiting Battles by Overstepping Authority, they will be sent out of the instance prematurely, their score locked and settled.】
【Note 3: Leaving the designated competition area is prohibited. Violators will be disqualified.】
"You're certainly popular," Angelina mocked coldly.
"Yuzu, why... why are they all targeting us?" Akabane Tsubaki struggled to catch her breath while Tang Xin patted her back.
Bai Youyou observed the surroundings warily.
Since the start of the match, both large and small guilds had been chasing them like crazy. To avoid being dragged into a "combat state" for a Visiting Battle by Overstepping Authority, they had been running and hiding since the beginning of the qualifiers.
All five of them looked disheveled. Only now could they finally stop to catch their breath and take a good look at this city that felt like it was from the future.
Under the clear blue sky, smooth and aesthetic arc-shaped skyscrapers rose into the air. Players sprinted across the hoverports between the buildings while the shadows of the organizers' airships loomed over them. Virtual screens broadcast the matches in real time.
In various places, the red warning cables restricting passage were removed, and the words 【Access Permitted】 flashed across screens of all sizes. Countless drones buzzed, racing over the land-air vehicle traffic and weaving through the city's intricate transportation network.
Another team of players passed by nearby, seemingly also searching for them.
"If you ask me, we should just turn around and fight them," Angelina said, gripping her lance. "I could take all these guys on by myself."
Xu Xiaoyou shook her head. "Don't forget, the rules state each team can only fight five rounds of Visiting Battle by Overstepping Authority, whether they're the one initiating or being initiated upon. Once a team reaches five rounds, they're immediately sent out of the game. To get a high score, we don't just have to win; we need outstanding combat performance."
"If I had to describe this qualifying round, it feels like a small dessert served before the main course. The focus is on performance and showing off skills, not just victory."
"The tournament is just starting, and millions of eyes are watching the screens. The organizers naturally want us, the participants, to perform impressive maneuvers to hype up the league even further. Here, look."
Xu Xiaoyou gestured with her chin.
The group followed her gaze to a large screen displaying the rankings of all guilds, which were changing every second.
【1. Queen's Arms | 1,000 points】
【2. King's Clan | 987 points】
【3. Heterogeneous Front | 324 points】
【4. Daybreak Elegy...】
Queen's Arms had also participated in this qualifying round and had already won five rounds of Visiting Battle by Overstepping Authority in less than half an hour, taking the lead with a perfect score of 1,000. Not only them, but King's Clan had also won five matches, though there was a slight difference in their scores.
"I think these gaps are caused by combat ratings. To get a higher combat rating, we have to pick on the easy targets and defeat them in the most extravagant way possible."
"Rushing into combat isn't advisable. Every point is crucial for us."
"Is it possible that we're the easy targets right now?" Akabane Tsubaki raised her hand.
Everyone's gaze involuntarily fell on Tang Xin.
In the period before the league started, they had carried Tang Xin through maps to level up, barely getting her to grade 2 just before the opening ceremony and unlocking her full skill tree for the Starry Singer.
"So, how do we make sure the targets we pick are easier than us?"
Xu Xiaoyou fell into thought as she considered the basic rules of Skyline City.
This futuristic city did not belong to any major power in Oasis. It was completely independent of the New Federation's territory, issued its own currency, and possessed a formal military. In its population pyramid, over ninety percent of the citizens were bionics, while humans, who made up less than ten percent, sat at the top of the pyramid, their will supreme.
The highest authority in Skyline City was the leader of Firefly, who held control over Sky-Father. Everything in the city's daily life operated under Sky-Father's will. Sky-Father's eyes were everywhere in the city, and the words, actions, and every single event that occurred were closely monitored by this super AI.
To help humans control the bionics, who far outnumbered them, Sky-Father had once established over a thousand rules in the New Gospel Book to restrict them. The most famous three were as follows:
Never disobey the will of high-tier beings.
Bionics must obey the Three Laws of Robotics.
Love between bionics of the opposite sex is forbidden, and it is strictly prohibited to raise offspring privately.
Rate on N.U.
