Chapter 55 Hacking

"I say... don't you think it's a bit too cold today?"

A lean man with a mohawk shuddered, the fluorescent-pink-dusted hair shaking along with his complaint and shiver.

"As if I'm not fucking freezing!"

On the other side of the mohawk, a burly man leaning against an abandoned sedan thick with dust, his right arm smeared with body paint, let out a cold snort and spat: "You think I want to stand guard out here freezing my ass off? The boss has lost his mind again. There aren't even any negotiations these days, so there's no need for us to make a show of force! But he just had to set up a checkpoint!"

"And he didn't even stop to think where this is. This is Cross Street! This is our turf! Even if some blind fool actually wanted to cause trouble, they wouldn't make it anywhere near us!"

"That's true..."

The mohawk was contemplating whether to shoot himself up with a dose of "adrenaline" to warm himself up, but after weighing his financial situation, he could only regretfully abandon the idea.

He yawned: "We're only two or three hundred meters away from the cold storage as it is, what's the point of setting up a checkpoint? The boss really just comes up with whatever crosses his mind."

"Speaking of which, do you think it's because the boss went to 'Rampant Blood's' turf for a meeting last time and saw how arrogant their guys were, so he got triggered and that's why—uh-ah!"

Hearing that sound, the burly man, who was about to look for some excitement on [Valhalla] by browsing an R-rated livestream, was startled. He hurriedly closed the interface and looked at the mohawk, only to find the latter completely unharmed.

"Fuck, what the hell are you yelling for out of nowhere!"

"Accidentally froze my arm, my bad, my bad."

The mohawk raised his left hand and gave a dry laugh.

The joint connection of this second-hand prosthetic limb he bought from a street doc had some issues. In this near-freezing temperature, one of the components had just frozen stiff, causing his entire arm to suddenly go limp, which made him gasp out instinctively.

"I told you ages ago to stop throwing your money at that shitty streamer. You're never going to make it to the top of the leaderboard anyway. Wouldn't it be better to use that spare cash to buy yourself a decent prosthetic? If your gear was even slightly better, you wouldn't have nearly gotten your head blown off by the owner when we held up that convenience store last time."

The mohawk's reply was smooth and unbothered: "You don't understand true love."

The burly man was rendered speechless for a moment: "Whatever, do as you please. Damn it, this weather really is freezing. I'll stay on watch here, you hurry up and go get some booze or grilled maggots or something—"

"—Ugh!"

"What is it again?"

The burly man, who had already opened [Valhalla], said impatiently. This time he couldn't even be bothered to lift his head, casually saying: "Don't pull that crap again, even if your legs broke this time you still better drag them back with whatever—"

The next instant, a hand violently clamped over his mouth, and a blade pierced straight through from the back of his throat. A twist and a turn instantly extinguished the burly man's life.

Almost at the same time, the mohawk staggered and collapsed to the ground, only the hilt of a scalpel protruding from his neck as he instinctively reached up to cup the wound, trying to stem the gushing blood.

"Pretty smooth."

Song Shi pulled out the monomolecular blade, stepped out from the shadows, and nodded slightly.

The stretch of road leading into the Cross District could be described as smooth sailing. Although there was no shortage of natural checkpoints set up by "local residents," overall there was still zero difficulty in terms of stealth.

These two in front of him were already the most legitimate sentries he had encountered, but their vigilance was still lamentable. Slipping up in the dark and taking them out at close quarters was nothing more than a two-blade job.

However, despite running the risk of "alerting the grass to startle the snake," Song Shi's goal naturally wasn't just disposing of two sentries.

"Well, let me see..."

Song Shi sat cross-legged, put away the monomolecular blade, and instead pulled out a data tablet—none other than the "Mint T5" network terminal he had bought from Amicaba not long ago.

The essence of this device was a tool and platform equipped with computing resources, highly integrated, and capable of housing numerous software packages. It could be understood as a portable computer specialized in "network technology."

This was essential equipment for any qualified network information worker.

Otherwise, relying solely on the meager computing power of the personal neural chip in one's brain to roam the net would generally end quite poorly—the most common outcome being fried brains.

Of course, cyberhackers who chose to install various "implants" to constantly make up for this flaw were not included in this category.

"Sure enough, all three autonomous sentry machine-gun towers are hooked up to the local area network."

Song Shi first mounted the auxiliary supercomputer, then pulled a data cable from the side of the network terminal and plugged it into the mohawk's neural port, using it as a stepping stone to jump into the LAN built by the "Cross Tiger Gang" in the Cross District.

On the interface, individual portrait icons lit up, all belonging to members of the Tiger Gang currently located in the Cross District—thirty-eight people in total.

The most prominent avatar among them was none other than the leader of the Cross Tiger Gang, Grove.

But Song Shi only glanced at it before turning his attention to the three autonomous sentry machine-gun towers on the other side, all of which were located within the cold storage factory.

This was his real target.

These three "autonomous sentry machine-gun towers" produced by [Santha Industries] were equipped with smart fire-control systems and mounted a pair of large-caliber 12mm machine guns, with a theoretical maximum rate of fire of one thousand rounds per minute.

Although the model looked a bit dated, it could easily reduce a person's counter from "living beings" to "diced sections."

"—Smart fire control?"

Then, looking at the display window, Song Shi nodded repeatedly: "Good, good, good. As long as it aims straight, that's fine."

He opened the compilation interface, his fingers dancing across it as he uploaded the pre-compiled "ice-breaker program" and "raiding program," which began to stream rapidly through the LAN in silence.

Although charging straight through and plowing all the way from the front entrance was more in line with Song Shi's combat aesthetics, considering the stark disparity in strength between the two sides this time, Song Shi regretfully chose another route—

Those two programs—the "ice-breaker program" and the "raiding program"—were specialized programs targeted at position defense facilities, and also part of the reward from cooperating with those hackers in his past life.

In the past, such programs were usually activated with a single click through an integrated hacking software gifted by the other party, which they smuggly called an "idiot-proof integration pack."

Still, it wasn't a major issue now. Song Shi's network skills were indeed somewhat lacking, but simply copying a source code for compilation and uploading the program to the LAN was still within his capabilities.

Moreover, considering risk factors, Song Shi didn't choose the absolute newest ones from his memories, but deliberately sought out programs born five years later relative to this current timeline.

"—Even with just a five-year gap, the technology gap brought by iteration is quite something."

When the progress bar hit one hundred percent.

The ICE (firewall) was eroded and cracked, the control permissions of the sentry machine-gun towers subtly shifted, mechanical components began preheating, and the smart fire-control system fully deployed...

Song Shi stood up and looked toward the massive cold storage factory in the distance.

Amidst the sudden, rapid roar that shattered the quiet night veil—

He put away the network terminal, secured the white-armor powered bracer, and strolled leisurely toward the distance.