On the 3D projection at the center of the activated conference table, a wide-angle image of the main control room of the Seventh Assembly Plant appeared before the shareholders. The flesh and blood mixed into a puddle on the floor looked as though it had been run over by a dump truck; it was hard to find even a single intact skull. Yet compared to that gruesome corner, the main console and server units behind it were so clean and orderly that the only signs of disturbance were a few slightly disheveled cables.
A stifling heaviness permeated the air. Several of Parasol Corporation’s upper executives were all thinking about the same question—
Was it possible?
Granted, it had been four against one, but the rapid response squad had ultimately ended up dying together with the intruder. In a battle so fierce that it had left no bones behind, could they really still have had the spare capacity to protect the machine room from being affected?
“Have we found any information on the intruder?”
At last, Swick, the head of Parasol Corporation’s Defense Department, broke the silence. Parimifa immediately replied,
“No. The corpses at the scene were too badly damaged. After DNA identification, we’ve only confirmed the four members of Razor Squad. As for the remaining tissue, while we did extract active material, it was severely altered. It should belong to the ‘full-body replacement’ type. If our DNA archives don’t contain records of the target or their direct relatives, it will be basically impossible to continue the investigation.”
“Then can we confirm he’s dead?” Swick continued. Flesh-and-blood Source abilities were the easiest with which to fake death, but Parimifa shook her head.
“The amount of flesh at the scene checks out, and we found remnants of brain tissue that did not belong to Razor Squad. Of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that the other party transformed temporarily, but we did not receive any alerts indicating they left. If the other party possessed the ability to escape without a trace from a security system that had already been triggered within such a short time, then their intrusion could not have been discovered in the first place.”
“Then here’s another question. This intruder—what was he after?” On another screen, Marcus, the head of the Strategic Planning Department, leaned forward, fingers interlaced on the table, his smile fading.
“The situation at Assembly Plant No. 7 doesn’t fit the behavioral patterns of ordinary intruders, spies, or even commercial saboteurs. For an existence with such terrifying individual combat power, if the goal was destruction, our losses would absolutely not have been limited to a single squad. If the goal was to steal confidential data, we didn’t find any traces of intrusion. And someone capable of bringing out this kind of technology—I don’t think he’d look twice at the files for ordinary four-star cyberware.”
This was a very practical point. Although every major company had its own unique specialties, everyone had a general sense of each other’s technological level. Even if it really had been mutual destruction, to defeat a squad equipped with quasi-five-star gear in a four-on-one battle, the intruder himself had to possess at least one piece of five-star cyberware. The force behind such a person couldn’t possibly care about the assembly-line data for some mere four-star cyberware.
“Or perhaps they came to ‘test’ something?” Veronica, the director of the Product Department, finally extricated herself from the sorrow of losing data from three test units, her tone faint and eerie. “To test the strength of our defenses, to test the quality of our rapid response forces, or… to test the effects of some new weapon or new tactic.”
“Test? You mean… we became targets for someone else’s experimental weapon?”
Marcus’s expression darkened by two shades in an instant, but when he thought about it carefully… it really did seem to be the case.
The earlier infiltration was to test stealth capabilities. The deliberate exposure was to test resistance under pressure. Then the confrontation with the rapid response forces was to test elite combat capabilities. Thinking about it this way, it might not even have been mutual destruction; the intruder may have crushed the rapid response forces, dealt with all traces, and then self-destructed.
As for why Marcus sorted out the logic so quickly… of course it was because Parasol had done the same thing before!
Or rather, basically every company with a weapons R&D department had done the same thing before. After all, with weapons, if you didn’t actually use them, you would never know whether they were good or not. Actual battlefields were prone to leaks, while artificially constructing test sites was too expensive. It was better to find a target of roughly comparable strength and hit them once. In fact, when they did it, they hadn’t even been this “polite.”
However, there was an unspoken rule to this sort of behavior: you couldn’t let anyone catch you by the tail. If you did, then whether it was compensation or punishment, you had to accept it—of course, this only applied under the premise that the two sides were not separated by a gap in level and scale.
“It’s not impossible.” Swick nodded, acknowledging this conjecture. “The objective of this attack was too strong, and the destruction was controlled with too much precision… It doesn’t look like plundering. It really does look more like a meticulously planned ‘performance validation.’”
“Well, this is truly…” The chairman, who had not spoken all this time, let out an ambiguous sigh. His young face carried an authority that did not match his appearance.
“Who do you think it was?”
Upon hearing this question, everyone fell silent for a moment before Swick spoke first.
“The other party chose us, and it probably wasn’t simply because our security strength was the most suitable. After all, factories like this are everywhere throughout the Ge Union. We are neither a small company that can be bullied at will, nor do we reach the threshold of a megacorporation. Using us as a stepping stone or bullying the weak doesn’t quite fit. Choosing Assembly Plant No. 7 was very likely because it was nearby. Considering that, the other party is very likely based locally in Ruiku, with a research institute here, or perhaps even their headquarters in Ruiku City.
“And taking into account the ‘restraint’ the attacker showed at the end, I don’t think this is the style of those megacorporations. With their way of doing things, they would never destroy the experimental subject, much less deliberately limit the impact. In the current situation, the other party likely either does not want to form a mortal enmity with us, or does not want us to investigate with all our strength.
“Looking at it this way, they are either wary of our retaliation, or they don’t want to expose themselves too early. In other words, their strength should be close to ours. Even if they are a bit stronger, it shouldn’t be enough to create a generational gap.”
Listening to Swick’s analysis, Marcus immediately pulled up the distribution of forces in Ruiku City. Before long, he had already found several suspects.
“If Swick’s deduction holds, then the opponents with motive, capability, and this sort of ‘testing’ need should be these groups…”
The atmosphere among Parasol’s upper executives grew increasingly grave. Everyone was immersed in the deduction that “we have been targeted by some powerful yet cautious competitor and used as the test subject for a new type of weapon,” yet no one could possibly have imagined that the culprit behind all of this had really only wanted to steal a few design blueprints.
…
On this night, when the entire upper echelon of Parasol Corporation had no choice but to stay up late, Feng Xue slept unexpectedly well.
That night, John did not go out to stage an accident; that night, Kong Wu did not box; that night, the stand-in had no emergency cases.
And Feng Xue’s original body had just awakened from bed.
“Haaah~~”
Letting out a lazy yawn, Feng Xue picked up a tube of nutrient paste and squeezed it into his mouth. With his current strength, even if he couldn’t afford natural food, he could have as much synthetic S-grade food as he wanted. But as a rabbit who had transmigrated from Zhonghua, asking him to eat those synthetic foods deliberately infused with off-flavors in order to highlight the nobility of natural products—he would rather eat nutrient paste!
As the nutrient paste went down, his blood sugar slowly rose, and Feng Xue’s mind cleared a little. He immediately opened his cheat ability with eager anticipation—
“I still haven’t checked yesterday’s gains!”
There will be a large number of entries in the next chapter. Although it’s free, here’s a reminder in advance.