Chapter 712: Screening

At the entrance to the basement, two gang members, wearing simple mechs, opened their visors and were eating lunch.

Their mechs, though called simple, actually possessed the combat power of a Ninth-Rank, but in a place like the Advancement Alliance, they were merely weapons for gang brawls, vastly inferior to Mo Long’s police equipment.

The two tattooed gang members, gnawing on their cracker-like lunch, said, “The boss is truly brilliant and wise; I never thought he would have planned our current path decades ago.”

The other chimed in, “Otherwise, why would he be the boss? We used to be bullied by those Patrol Officers, but it’s different now. The Food King has arrived, and we’re blessed now.”

“You think the Food King will really fulfill his promises to us? What we’re doing now is a life-threatening business; we’ve never done anything this big before,” the person on the left voiced his concerns.

“We’ve already done it, so why worry about that? Didn’t you enjoy yourself last night? That Young Miss from the school, that Young Master who used money to slap your face before, and his fiancée, and that person who always came to sell drinks at the bar—could you normally touch them? We’ve already taken the benefits, and now our boss calls the shots in this street. Let’s enjoy it first,” the other replied, sounding very straightforward.

The worried one paused, then laughed heartily: “You’re right, we’ve already done it. They say the boss’s boss, and even higher-up figures, have been planning this for a long time. We just need to follow along. In the future, in the Advancement Alliance, we’ll be superior. Isn’t this better than being a thug in a bar?”

The two continued to chat, and beside them lay several men and women, covered in wounds and unconscious.

Mo Long lowered his breathing.

He was checking if they had alarm devices on them, scanning their equipment.

Hmm… they had alarm devices, constantly connected to another terminal.

He decided to try to crack it.

Lines of code immediately appeared before his eyes. Using his neural System’s internal connection, he could manipulate these codes with his consciousness instead of his hands.

His equipment had pre-stored attack scripts and firewalls. In fact, he could use these scripts to infiltrate the opponent’s equipment.

In reality, most infiltrations are accomplished by scripts. Few people can truly program on the spot to break through an opponent’s firewall; they all write scripts in advance and then launch an attack.

However, the difference lies in that those who truly understand and have the capability can improve their scripts anytime, anywhere, because they know the principles and methods of the scripts, they know their goals, and they understand how to adjust them to better achieve their objectives.

Whereas some people only know how to operate in a傻瓜式 (foolish) manner, unable to do anything except click start, and cannot even understand what the returned code means.

This is similar to Dao Arts.

Dao Arts are all the same; they are pre-programmed and created, ready to be released, but the same Dao Art in different hands has different power.

The Little Celestial Master’s Lightning Dao Art is stronger than Li Qi’s, and this is because he understands it more deeply.

It was the same now. Although there were ready-made scripts, Mo Long still modified some code, secretly cracking the opponent’s firewall and setting their alarm to continuously output a ‘normal’ command.

“Hmm… it returns once every three seconds. Disconnection or manual calls will trigger it. I must be careful not to damage their mechs, or it will cause a hardware power cut, which cannot be solved by infiltration,” Mo Long estimated, while cautiously lurking on the rooftop.

However, luckily, these two were eating, and their head visors were open.

Clearly, these gang members were very relaxed, and their discipline was poor; they didn’t have the habit of strict self-discipline.

They had no sense of crisis whatsoever.

But then again, even gangsters grew up in the peaceful times of the Advancement Alliance; how could they have a battlefield sense of crisis?

These things could only be obtained through trials of blood and fire.

This gave Mo Long an opportunity.

Silently, two soundless lasers pierced through their eyes, searing their nerves and spinal cords.

This was precisely aimed, entering through the eyes, piercing the optic nerves, then searing the spinal cord, causing instant death without any sound. The death of the spinal cord also preserved the brainstem, which kept them alive but paralyzed, unable to make any sound.

Life sign detection was still active; from the System’s perspective, they ‘were not dead,’ so it would not trigger the hardware power-off alarm mechanism.

Mo Long instantly dropped to the ground, grabbing the opponent’s alarm device. Two wires immediately extended from his mech, plugging into the alarm device, then tearing out the original circuit.

This way, the two alarm devices could neither physically power off and alarm nor be software-identified and alarm, completely preventing any possibility of an alarm.

Then, Mo Long reached out and twisted their brainstems, physically ending their lives.

The alarms, already taken over by hardware and software, remained silent. Mo Long carefully dragged the bodies away, opened the mech, and threw them into the pile of bodies that had covered the basement door when he came out.

Then, facing the unconscious men and women, he could tell at a glance from the needle marks and wounds on their exposed bodies that they had been forcibly injected with psychotropic drugs, which was why they were now in an uncontrollable coma, occasionally twitching.

Those two gang members had clearly done all these premeditated things after the order collapsed last night.

Mo Long acutely analyzed one thing from this: these gang members knew about this matter; they knew something would happen last night, so they were already prepared to act.

“They won’t wake up for a while; let Li Qi take care of them,” Mo Long thought, then opened the door and quickly moved these men and women to the entrance of the shelter, then sent a message to Li Qi.

He was also worried that these people would cause trouble for Li Qi, but they had no clothes, and naturally no equipment. Li Qi was armed inside, so subduing these people should not be a problem.

Li Qi’s message quickly came back; he replied, “Received.”

So Mo Long calmly placed the bodies in the well of the shelter and continued his journey.

After that, Mo Long began to move through the city. He walked for a while, hiding in the sewage, activating optical stealth and anti-detection Systems, carefully spending several hours observing what the current order was like.

He found that the city had been completely controlled.

Large numbers of civilians were forced to leave their homes and move into concentration camps.

Occasionally, he could detect fighting, which should be Patrol Officers or residents with certain armed capabilities resisting, but they were quickly eliminated.

The sky had completely changed. The mothership, outside the world barrier, covered everything, obscuring all background, whether it was the sun or the stars. The sky behind them only showed the mothership’s silhouette, completely blocking the entire dome.

And in the center of the city where he was, a large vessel, about two to three thousand meters long, floated. Although it couldn’t compare to the mothership, it was clearly the opponent’s base in this city.

This large floating vessel was like a beehive, with large numbers of bee-like small single-person aircraft constantly ejecting from it to carry out missions in various places.

In addition to these single-person aircraft, there were many subordinate troops, which were those gang members, who had already taken over a large number of street security areas. They were responsible for monitoring and controlling personnel transfers, using force to compel and escort civilians into concentration camps.

Of course, during this process, extortion, bullying, and humiliation were inevitable, but… no one died.

Truly, no one died. It seemed there was an order from above. They would beat, humiliate, and even cripple, break limbs, or poke out eyes, but they never killed anyone from beginning to end. Perhaps there was some command requiring them not to do so.

However, just this alone made Mo Long clench his teeth repeatedly.

Anger and hatred burned in his chest, making his heart race.

But he still managed to maintain his rationality, not rushing out to his death because of the pounding in his chest.

Those single-person flying boats were all Eighth-Rank and above, and their captains were all Seventh-Rank, which meant that the opponent had firepower equivalent to the Advancement Alliance.

His current equipment would be suicide to go in.

“Beep, beep.” A pop-up appeared in his virtual reality display, warning him that his blood pressure and heart rate had reached critical levels, making him unsuitable for high-intensity combat.

He chose ‘no’ for the ‘Do you need a sedative injection?’ option, and continued to observe the opponent’s situation, moving silently in the sewage ditch, advancing upstream along the canal.

Mo Long watched as these people were sent into concentration camps. There, he saw a life form he had never encountered before, also a humanoid creature, but very different from those in the Advancement Alliance. Rather than humanoid, it was more like half-human, half-insect.

It had a circular mouthpart with sharp teeth, compound eyes like a dragonfly on its head, and four wriggling chelicerae next to its mouthpart, constantly rubbing like a crab’s mouthparts.

But its body was beginning to be somewhat humanoid; it didn’t have much carapace, replaced by a kind of hard skin, more like thick leather than carapace, smooth with a reflective greenish-blue like a fly.

But it was still humanoid, with four limbs, walking upright.

This appearance was really not very pleasant, at least it didn’t conform to Mo Long’s aesthetics, but he found that these half-human, half-insect creatures were typical extraterrestrial life forms.

After spectral analysis and scanning, he found that the skin of these creatures could withstand his lasers, which meant… at least Eighth-Rank defense. He would need to use plasma light blades or kinetic ammunition to break through.

However, the good news was that he could tear the opponent apart with just one kinetic round.

He checked his ammunition reserves; he had three hundred rounds, so even if every shot hit, he could only eliminate three hundred. He also had six miniature missiles on his shoulder, which could double the number if he was lucky enough to encounter a densely populated situation.

As for how many he could kill with the magnetic confinement plasma light blade, there was no telling. Theoretically, he could penetrate back and forth seven times, but that would require him to put himself in danger.

But to reach the Eighth-Rank level with just their bodies… and although the opponents didn’t wear mechs, they had weapons in their hands. Those weapons seemed to fire kinetic ammunition, their specific power unknown, but… he saw other Patrol Officers lying dead on the roadside, pierced through.

In other words, these weapons could at least penetrate Patrol Officer mechs.

“This is a bit difficult. With laser scanning, it’s impossible to sneak in. This level of firewall… its computing power alone can suppress my miniature host, so I can’t get in at all.” After confirming the situation, Mo Long chose to frown, then quietly retreated in the sewage ditch.

However, at this moment, a pile of trash suddenly fell from the sky.

Clang, clang, clang, clang! This pile of trash smashed into the sewage ditch! Water splashed everywhere, revealing a flaw in his perfect concealment!

Mo Long’s heart skipped a beat!

However, thankfully, it seemed no one was looking here, after all, it was just a sewage ditch.

Mo Long dared not move, burying himself in the mud, breathing through his filtration device and emergency air bag, waiting for the water surface to calm down.

After a while, the water surface calmed, and he quietly floated up and began to swim.

As he swam, he inadvertently looked up.

The pile of ‘trash’ that had fallen was all corpses.

What happened?

Upon closer inspection, these bodies were all wearing the same clothes, which meant they came from the concentration camp.

It seemed these people were collected into the concentration camp, then forced to change clothes, and then, it was a mass slaughter.

Mo Long’s breathing became slightly heavier, but he still remained calm.

Cannot be dominated by anger, cannot be dominated by anger. He must act carefully and not lose his life here.

Unconsciously, that feeling of ‘eagerness,’ that desire to display his ambitions and his abilities in war, which he had felt earlier, had greatly diminished.

He had studied well, read many books, and seen many records of war. He thought he knew what war was like.

However, when all this ‘already known’ knowledge reappeared before him, he realized that he didn’t actually know that much.

He forced himself to calm down, not to be impulsive, and to think about more useful things, such as, why? Why a mass slaughter?

These people wore the same uniforms, clearly indicating a mass slaughter. Why collect people first and then kill them? Couldn’t they just kill them outside?

There must be some reason behind it.

He suppressed his nausea and slowly began to examine the bodies.

As he examined them, he found… he knew quite a few of them.

As a Patrol Officer, he had helped many of them with tasks, given them directions, and so on.

In this era, young people didn’t need such help and consultation from Patrol Officers; they would find things themselves, having their own small groups or forums.

In other words, these killed people were all older.

Mo Long immediately realized—

This was a screening.

Screening for young and strong people! (End of Chapter)