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Chapter 145: Brynhild Shows Her Fangs

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[Boss, should I terminate the event program?]

In Rex's vision, the unknowing "crowd" of testees was still in the private server. If there's something wrong then it's the fact that their Squad Leaders, Drillmasters, and other "adults" that served as their proctors, were all teleported away. The only ones left were the candidates.

"Urgh..." Rex made a groan as he flicked away his right hand, fingers away, whipping the broken and dislocated bones on his hand back into place. "He was strong for an old man."

[Scan shows that his body is made of 40% metal and 60% flesh. He's a complete cyborg but there was a difference between you and him.]

'I know. His transplants were all made to extend his life and not to enhance his body.'

[Boss, in the future, he will try to attack you again.]

'But we can't kill him here. If I do, then the entire Phil-country will face the wrath of Abraxas Family so letting him live is the best thing we could do.'

[At least breaking his limbs should be doable.]

'...'

[I was just joking.]

'Please don't. Your monotone and words just fit in perfectly for some reason, it's scary.'

Rex looked around the room. There wasn't much here to his interest aside for the metal case but he already knows what was inside it. Furthermore, he was in possession of a complete original version so this "copy" wasn't necessary to him.

The fact that he was able to switch which was the original and the copy was simple. With Cortana's ability and a +30% boost from the satellite facility that Thorn provided, Cortana just had to switch its Origin Data-Signature into (1) and (0). It was that simple but without Lily's momentary protection the entire thing wouldn't be possible.

'Thank Lily for me, Cortana. By the way, where's Kanzu's group now?'

[Kanzu's team is already escorting the Asgardians to the secret hideouts. Loni has been delivered to the designated hotel and was spending her time in front of holo-TV watching news and trying to make contact with someone.]

'She's probably trying to contact Goldwyn. With an outage this large, some things are bound to have large problems. You made sure there're no patients in operation in any ORs, yes?'

[Yes sir. I've at least postponed their schedules for an entire hour. That's time enough for Lily and me to hold on and reestablish Echelon Network in its new environment using Chronos' Office.]

This news made Rex beam widely. He glance back at the sleeping old man and looked at the metal case once again.

'Destroy it.'

[Yes sir. Ah, by the way Boss, I've already located that guy in the event. Apparently, he's a member of the next squad we were supposed to attack if this entire thing didn't happen.'

'Ho?'

Rex beamed even wider and laughed. Since they already kicked out the controller of the entire event, Cortana managed to find the real-world info of the last member of Blue Card Legion that was in attendance here in the Conclave, Hijack.

*****

An announcement was abruptly made in the entire Grand Hall and the thirty candidates were selected just like that without any suspense at all.

Even the candidates felt that something was very wrong in the event. The proctors suddenly went limp, collapsed, and then vanished. Then, there's this monstrously strong Neutral Hostile who was like a ghost appearing out of nowhere, when they least expected an enemy to pop up and then like a whirlwind of death will annihilate the squads one by one.

Some, even, as they were logged out, cursed in open fury —these were the unlucky ones who're either shot in the head, fell into a domain of sniper traps in a forest area near a waterfall, or were the ones trampled by a rampaging Hum-Vee who squashed them all like a bug.

That "Neutral Hostile" left the candidates reeling in both shock and awe.

Whoever that guy... he toyed with them like they were cows inside a corral. For geniuses like them, it was an utter humiliation to be destroyed like they were some kids against an adult.

The three rounds given to them went on like wind, passing sightlessly, gone forever and never ever coming back.

Of course, for those who were not selected in the thirty names, this was an even heavier blow.

But... that didn't mean that they're hopeless.

Of the 200+ names, 70% received invitations from the unknowing representatives of World Nobles while the ten names that Rex wanted to recruit are all isolated from the crowd and was given a special kind of invitation —an actual meeting— complete with a royal charter directly from Queen Brynhild.

The ten didn't know who was the sender of that invitation but by the fact that it specified that they have been selected using a different criteria for a special purpose, this excited the ten as they were guided by one of Kanzu's men into a secret hotel where they would temporarily rest before traveling to a designated destination.

For the World Nobles who didn't know that there was a fight that broke out in the penthouse suite Chronos occupied, the event was a success.

Only Queen Brynhild was notified of the extent of the event but instead of panicking, she was only surprised for a moment before acting as if nothing had actually happened.

Of course, before this, she was informed that she had to help Kanzu's group evacuate two groups of people, including Amanda, into a safe place Rex had arranged himself.

With Cortana's and Lily's help, and with the entire city downtown area in lockdown from any type and kind of Net-Connections, the two monsters of the software world, Database and Abraxas, won't be able to track down their movements.

......for the time being.

But Cortana controls the connections and unless it was deemed safe, there was no reason as to why she should release her hold of the city's Neuro-Net Connections this early.

Only when the entire event went down to a close did the rest of the World Nobles noticed that there was no connections available.

A commotion erupted.

Grand Torino Hotel was assaulted by complaints.

The employees, managers, and in fact, every staff member, was trembling in fear and agony. Many almost collapsed if not for Queen Brynhild trying to pacify the crowd by saying that this outage was caused by the World Government and that Grand Torino Hotel wasn't to blame. Only then did every employee of the Hotel breathe a sigh of relief.

But while the crowd of World Nobles was content of the explanation, people from the actual "World Government" were displeased by the blame.

But Queen Brynhild, though, attracting unwanted eyes and ears and her every move was watched, still continued acting imperturbably at everything and kept on enjoying her quiet drink without care for the world around her.

Aside from Local Radio-Net spanning 2km or so, nothing else could get across to anywhere in the rest of the world. Even satellite connections were blocked and despite the modern technology and an almost perfect frame of operations, the 22nd century citizens who're too used to the existence of the Neuro-Net became paranoid. For the first time in their lives they felt alone.

Many even began to show signs of anxiety. They couldn't and didn't even this moment in their lives that there would be a day without the Net.

It was a feeling as if they couldn't even breathe as the information available for them at a stretch of a finger suddenly became unavailable.

The [Neuro-Net Connectivity] itself was already a daily necessity of life, like the air they breathe; like a part of their bodies... a life without it was new to their perspective of life. Being rendered null even for just a few minutes made them realize just how fragile their lives really were and how dependent they were to society's current standards of living.

None of them could even imagine life without the existence of at least one of these modern objects.

Queen Brynhild, from her seat, watched the horde of frantic young bloods and even adults lose their minds for being unable to connect to the Net and brows, talk, and check stuffs as they wanted.

It's like a chain smoker suddenly losing the ability to purchase cigarette; the repercussions of such an event greatly impacted their mentality and they became predictable controllable pigs suffering the symptoms of withdrawal. In a way, the message she received from Rex made her shiver. This was part of his plan, he said, and the extent of details included in this scheme was too damn scary even to her who had her own plans to put into motion.

Still, it's as if this wasn't beneficial to her. She did not care about it at all. In fact, she felt happy that this happened. It gave her an opportunity to open the flood gates to her plans.

For her, she was just a speck of dust. The wind will carry her to places it will blow to since she was about to give up the throne after her term is done.

Yet, at the back of her mind, that young man's face appeared like a giant shadow casting a hand over the lands and the lives of the people she had secretly considered as her enemy.

The plan he exposed to her, the ability to execute it to this level of accuracy, and the simplest fact of him having the audacity to actually pull it off... to fight head-on against the Abraxas Family she had wanted to destroy herself if she could, the Queen couldn't help smiling. The sight of her giggling all to herself made the men in her vicinity swallow.

She looked at the red liquid in her glass and with a slow and graceful movement, put her lips into that crystal clear high-quality wine glass to sip.

The red liquid flowed into her throat. She licked the lingering taste of the high-quality wine before closing her eyes to savor the fleeting tang of it.

Rex's message of his plan as well as the chances of it ever succeeding... it made her feel a kind of unique electricity flow into her body, giving her fair complexion a little shade of pink.

Under the lights of the Upper Grand Hall, this only made her more charming in the eye despite her a little boyish short haircut and detached character.

Even girls and women alike are beginning to look at her direction to steal a glance or two.

The Queen didn't mind the eyes. In her mind, the future of Christiana was slowly forming a different picture than the ones her ministers predicted... or even wanted, for that matter.

She'd longed for Christiana to pull itself away from the iron grip of the Abraxas Family. Perhaps... the existence of Rex Kingsley was the key in making it happen and so for that, she was willing to sacrifice even herself if it meant making this reality happen.

Queen Brynhild opened her eyes, the crowd in a fit of suppressed swivet was still there but the way she saw them all already changed.

Even those who address themselves Christiana's Allies looked different now, since, after all, they're only close to them because they wanted to suckup to the Abraxas Family. In her eyes though, they've already degraded into targets. Thus, she gave all their names to Rex.

*****

Four hours later...

"I am.................. [Siva]."

—GASP!!

Chronos opened his eyes and discovered that he was staring at a familiar ceiling.

The echoing voice of that young man rung like the fleeting of a whisper, etching its meaning into his mind, embedding its meaning into his brain... he knew by experience that he, Chronos, had been bested by a young upstart and he was angry.

But before that anger erupted in his head, he also thought at the sinister words he last heard before he lost consciousness.

Siva.

Rex Kingsley addressed himself as a [God] and he also called himself Siva, like his IGN (gamer lingo: In-Game Name). Why was it that it's only now he's finding this very name somewhat meaningful?

Chronos refocused his mind, looking around him.

He was on the bed of his suite. Feeling the details of his surroundings, disorientation assaulted his senses as he sensed for his body. Then, when he tried to touch his face he felt his body ache so he paused, recalling how he lost the fight with Rex.

"Dammit." In the end, his pride couldn't take it so he yelled out. "Abraxas!"

A holo-window appeared above him and the face of his AI was there, looking at him placidly.

"Report." He called.

Abraxas reported everything that had happened in the past four hours; including the fact that he was disconnected to the old man because of a shady work-order issued in every ISP in the city. Also, it was reported a software overload was initiated by the Echelon Network that led to physical servers in the city having a short circuit and had to also be replaced so the "outage" was actually a legit call.

The shady thing is, it all happened at the instant that Rex was in danger and the Quantum Facility Anthony Thornberry had arranged for a certain IP address for one hour went online.

In short, the city was locked down for an hour and nobody knew why it happened except for Abraxas and Database who was the true "reason" this kind of problem occurred.

Furthermore...

[My Source Code's Data-Signature has also been banned from entering any software location in the city of Lausanne. Every communication system, as well as any form of hardware connectivity features that I am in control of, are blocked from accessing any admin rights. Everything was being blocked by the Origin Data-Signature your Office Server's default cardinal rights are in control of.]

—using my own authority to block me?!!

"What the hell?! How did he know your Source Code's Data-Signature?"

[History Logs, sir.]

Chronos almost bit his tongue in surprise at this revelation. As it turns out.... he let the wolf into his own home and gave it food to swallow in his table.

—because I invited him to that conversation just before the assessment events!

——the bastard used me!

This is one of the reasons why the Office Server was an important asset of Chronos. Although it's not indispensable, it was his personal office and it was installed with a privilege that, as long as it was the "key" being used to access any place on earth, as long as it was a property "jointly owned" by the World Government, no Firewall will ever block any of its access rights as well as serving like a private web browser where History Logs can be viewed by someone who gets access to it.

"H-How dare he... HOW DARE HE!!!"

So now that it was in the hands of the last person Chronos wanted it to land on, his rage couldn't be any more evident as it was also tinged with a light color of panic and anxiety.

After all, that "privilege" had a lot of perks and Rex could use them all to his advantage against him or the World Government, given his hate at the fact that he, Chronos Abraxas, had specifically denied Rex Kingsley his revenge by protecting Pegasus.

In a way.... Rex Kingsley just jumped from being a mere commoner in the streets into a full-pledged Noble with "power" equal to that of a High-Ranked World Noble of their circle.

It's a pretty bad news regardless of its label(s).

Chronos felt the blood rising to his head but the AI warned him of its effects to his health and so he stopped. Perhaps it was because he triggered the sensors but the door to his room opened and a Family-owned Doctor entered, telling him about his condition; broken ribs, arms, right hand, and even the crown of his metallic skull had a dent that became the main cause of him fainting. This was a humiliation to his name and the name of Abraxas Family! He found another reason to cry in rage.

"Bring the old bastard up... NOW!!!"

[Connection blocked.]

"NANI?!!"

[Sir, it seems Database is suffering an attack and is currently busy trying to defend itself from it. I am informed that his status is in Yellow Alert.]

"WH-What happened?"

[Reestablishing emergency connection... request granted, displaying video link...]

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