523: Chapter 167: Going Online 523: Chapter 167: Going Online On this day, all the residents of the northern part of the New Continent witnessed that scene.

Clusters of meteors fell from the sky from time to time, causing minor tremors on the land.

But these meteors didn’t come continuously in one group; instead, they appeared in small clusters.

There might be slightly denser clusters for a period, or there could be long intervals in between.

This situation continued for over an hour.

It was one of Xiang Shan’s contingency plans.

Some surveillance satellites were equipped with a special mechanism that randomly generated a small amount of noise in the data.

When multiple different surveillance satellites produced similar noise, and the system recognized it, the judging process tampered by Xiang Shan would interpret this noise as “traces of enemy movement,” triggering the Heavenly Punishment.

Of course, there were disadvantages to this approach.

Xiang Shan himself couldn’t predict when a Heaven Punishment Bullet would come down.

Besides, he hadn’t covered real-time monitoring; he had merely added noise to the system.

Because Xiang Shan had adjusted the sensitivity of the Heavenly Punishment System in this area, going outside at this time could also lead to being bombarded by the Heavenly Punishment.

The three Famed Heroes had no choice but to stay put.

However, this wasn’t completely foolproof.

After all, the process was random.

It was possible for the Heaven Punishment Bullet to randomly strike one’s own head.

Therefore, the three Famed Heroes remained on high alert at all times, staring at the sky.

If there were any signs of space-based weapons being deployed, they would immediately flee for their lives.

However, there were certain advantages to this approach.

The current Heavenly Punishment was indiscriminate, wreaking havoc equally among friends and foes, which greatly affected the Protectors’ march.

The Protectors often relied on numbers for victory, and to counter the Heroes, they would adopt a Dense Formation.

Certainly, the mobility of the Protector Troops was far less than that of the Heroes.

Thus, Xiang Shan simply shouldered a simple pot-shaped antenna hastily made by Mr.

Cain and just walked on.

Some surveillance satellites were now broadcasting small amounts of monitoring information uncontrollably below.

Of course, this was a one-way process.

Xiang Shan could only passively receive information.

Although he could now manually create an antenna capable of uploading data to the satellite network, should he dare upload any data, the Protectors would undoubtedly respond with missiles to bombard him without a second word.

The footage that Xiang Shan could intercept was only a small part of the monitoring data.

But under these circumstances, it was completely sufficient.

This time, the Hero Faction only had three people, with zero vehicles.

Among these three, there was the Burrow Dragon, who intimately knew the locale, the Solo Kill King whose Martial Arts were nearing the First Layer Heavenly Land, and a monster like Xiang Shan.

“Intelligence” and “high mobility” were indeed the essence of triumphing with fewer numbers over the many.

With a small amount of satellite intelligence and higher mobility, a small unit could even pass between two large forces that were very close to each other.

Naturally, the residual EMP waves from the limited number of space-based nuclear bombs also helped them a great deal.

The Solo Kill King, accompanied by Cain, who found it inconvenient to move on the ground, and Xiang Shan, carrying an antenna, managed to slip through the middle of two troops merely hundreds of meters apart without alerting any Protectors.

Afterwards, they repeatedly changed direction in advance to circumvent the Protector’s army.

During this process, Xiang Shan and his companions also drew closer to their destination.

A large settlement.

This sprawling settlement was called “Tundra Town,” slightly larger than Recycling Station Town where Yuki was born, with vast expanses of black metal-based crops, as well as a huge satellite signal tower.

Beyond that, there was nothing particularly distinctive.

This malformed society had emerged only briefly and had been repeatedly scoured by the Dyson Principle, so there was little that could be called “local culture.”

Every place on Earth was similarly dilapidated and impoverished.

For this very reason, most of these villagers wouldn’t have high-quality Prosthetic Eyes—in fact, the precision of most people’s prosthetic eyes was lower than their natural-born eyes.

In an industrial society, clarity wasn’t necessary for everyday living.

The greatest advantages of civilian prosthetic eyes were their cheapness and replaceability, ensuring that no matter what, civilians would at least not go blind.

When the old Town Mayor of Recycling Station Town first saw Xiang Shan’s Prosthetic Eye, he wanted it for himself; it was for this very reason.

Although the old mayor didn’t know the specific parameters of Xiang Shan’s eyes at the time, he could at least tell that those devices were of a very high optical standard, not in the same league as civilian prosthetic eyes.

And this situation also gave Xiang Shan and his companions an opportunity.

The regular optical camouflages of the Heroes were designed to deceive the Protector’s eyes, which had far superior precision than human eyes, and the high satellites above.

Even the temporary, second-tier countermeasures were sufficient to fool those civilian-level prosthetic eyes.

Xiang Shan simply draped over a Camouflage Net and went directly under that signal tower.

This signal tower was a common property of the town, providing free network access to every resident.

The residents only needed to contribute idle computing power and become surveillance probes to enjoy free network service.

Xiang Shan secretly plugged into one of the signal tower’s maintenance interfaces.

He was once again connected to the network.

“This world is incredibly cyber, yet I rarely go online.

It must be Hartman’s fault,” Xiang Shan sighed.

With the many backdoors left behind by Zhu Xinyu, Xiang Shan finally managed to extend his thoughts to areas beyond Hartman’s jurisdiction.

The dark currents of the network, constructed based on non-standard protocols, became an extension of his nerves.

Data uplink and downlink no longer required tiptoeing carefully.

In fact, given enough time, Xiang Shan himself could quietly establish his “base” on Earth’s satellite network.

The Eighth Martial God had done so many years ago.

But none of this was as convenient as what he had just done.

Xiang Shan used aggressive probing attacks, obtaining responses from firewalls and finding backdoors that he could exploit in the most brutal manner.

Under normal circumstances, he would never dare be so reckless.

But Daijiu Tai’a’s attitude had convinced him of one thing—either Hartman was not in the Earth-Moon system or was temporarily off duty.

Otherwise, nobody would dare use Internal Strength to attack and bring down a networked aircraft, while boldly claiming “King Aqini won’t notice for two hours.”

So naturally, Xiang Shan was eager to seize the opportunity to cause a stir.

And he had made several different predictions about the outcome of this stir.

The worst-case scenario was Hartman being alerted and going online immediately, followed by his own confrontation with the Six Dragons Sect in a desperate one-for-one showdown.

But that would already not be a loss.

Heroes disdain to hide their intentions and stances, and Xiang Shan would one day adopt the banner of “Martial God.” The Six Dragons Sect, however, had been cowering in the shadows.

And the Six Dragons Sect’s response moved in a direction that proved very profitable for Xiang Shan.

Had it not been for that mysterious master who had helped erase all traces, it would have taken Xiang Shan at least a few years to achieve the same results.

Moreover, the clue to that Internal Strength Master’s identity was now firmly in Xiang Shan’s grasp.