CHAPTER 545: CHAPTER 55 TRAPPED

"Someone has invaded?" Aske was stunned for a moment. "You, as an artificial intelligence, have actually been invaded?"

"Artificial intelligence is not a god," sighed Raphael. "Besides, there is no firewall in this world that cannot be breached."

"The priests outside have also noticed something strange, and they are tracking the source of the invading IP. Meanwhile, my main body is cooperating with them in the search. Let’s take advantage of this moment and get our work done."

"Mm," Aske naturally had no objections. In fact, if it were not for this artificial intelligence constantly chattering in his ear, he might have completed his mission and gone out already.

The two continued to advance, the stacks of data blocks in the corridor grew denser, hiding numerous encryption programs, all of which were effortlessly penetrated and neutralized by Aske.

"How many more?" Aske asked.

"I’m not sure, I’m increasing the scan range," Raphael shook his head. Obviously, with the incident of someone invading, it had lost any interest in banter.

The two moved forward until they reached the end of the corridor where the path was blocked. Aske looked at Raphael with an inquiring gaze.

"This stack’s handle has already been cleaned up. Let me update it," Raphael clapped his hands, and immediately behind them, the corridor filled up with numerous new data blocks.

Aske: .........

It was like laboring over an exam only to have the teacher swoop in and present another stack of papers...

They continued cleaning up encrypted fragments on the ODS layer, while in the real world, the Church Court’s monitoring room was in complete chaos.

"How could someone possibly invade!" The priests were all incredulous. The Church Court, as the core of the world’s Technology Camp, was actually being subjected to a hacker attack?

"The invading IP has been locked!" one priest quickly reported, "The other party has modified the request header fields. Raphael is decoding it!"

"The botnet network is tracing back! Protocol sweeps are almost done!"

"The connection has not been cut off, they are still injecting malicious programs. It’s only a matter of time before we lock them down!"

Amidst the intense and urgent tapping of keyboards, Nora walked quickly to the Valian Bishop and asked anxiously:

"What do we do? Should we get Aske out first?"

"Let’s get him out first!" Valian was equally decisive. If this guy were trapped in the virtual world and unable to come out, causing those few R4s on the team to go rogue, the hands of Giotto Bell would directly pierce through midnight.

But this network attack happened neither too early nor too late; it had commenced right after Aske entered the virtual world, which gave him a very ominous premonition.

As this premonition rose in his heart, he saw several alarms flash across the screen, almost causing Valian’s eyes to bulge out.

The connection is interrupted.

Contact with Aske inside the virtual world... has vanished.

————————

"I have one piece of good news and one piece of bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"

As they were clearing the encrypted program data blocks, the artificial intelligence Miss suddenly said.

"With your kind of ambiguous phrasing, they’re usually both bad news," Aske put away his longsword. "Let’s hear the bad news first."

"The bad news," Raphael replied, "is that the invader has injected false data and cleared the object pointing to our location. We’ve lost contact with the real world."

"You mean I can’t go back?" Aske was incredibly calm. After all, it wasn’t his first time being unable to return from another world.

"Well, not exactly. You can choose to commit suicide, and by extinguishing your consciousness, you’ll return to your physical body in reality," Raphael said seriously. "Of course, the consequence is that your self-awareness will be severely damaged."

"What’s the good news?" Aske neither confirmed nor denied, and asked again.

"The good news is that the invaders have activated and reinforced the encryption fragments, and they’ve started attacking the source data, forcing the main body to mobilize a large amount of resources to scan this place," sighed Raphael. "So we won’t be trapped here for too long."

"Either we hold our ground here, wait for the encryption fragments to delete most of the source data and the main body will then be able to locate us easily; or we eliminate these encryption fragments first, and then wait for the main body to locate us."

"Please explain the difference between the two in language I can fully understand," Aske said.

"The former is safer, while the latter is more efficient," replied Raphael.

"The latter," Aske immediately decided.

As the two continued on, they saw a dashing swordsman emerge from behind the data blocks ahead.

"Who’s this?" Aske looked closely. "Square Sword Saint Meyer?"

The guy carrying the longsword turned out to be Meyer, whom he had previously dealt with in the Bavarian Duchy.

"Lord Aske, that’s not Meyer," Raphael reminded him. "That’s just a piece of data about Meyer."

"The invaders injected illegal programs, stealing a large amount of data about the Physical Department Transcendents from my database, and using it to mimic and enhance the encryption fragments."

"To put it simply, the encryption fragments you need to clear have all turned into these Physical Department Transcendents. Although the virtual characters here cannot simulate the Transcendents’ extraordinary abilities, their swordsmanship skills and combat awareness are identical to the originals, so please be cautious."

"You’re such a lousy AI," Aske commented. "Some random outside hacker can just steal your data and trap us inside your own body. Delete yourself! It’s embarrassing."

"I don’t have a choice either," said Raphael with a sense of grievance. "It’s always harder to guard against thieves than to be one. Besides, the other party must have had advanced access to the Church Court’s internal network to know my logical processes so well—no fortress can withstand sabotage from within."

"Shut up." Aske didn’t want to hear her excuses, and charged forward with his longsword raised.

Meyer also charged forward, dragging his longsword. As they neared each other, both swung their longswords at the opponent.

With the clash of metal, there was a loud snap, and Meyer’s longsword broke...

In the moment of weapon collision, Aske once again activated his Conceptual Weapon ability, transforming the longsword in his hands into a giant axe.

The larger volume and weight instantly shattered Meyer’s longsword.

Indeed, even in this virtual world, the physical laws that larger mass and greater kinetic energy prevailed still existed—though how it worked was a mystery.

Seeing Aske’s thoughtful expression, the AI Miss’s eyes lit up, and she immediately said, "Actually, the principle behind this is quite simple..."

"I told you to shut up!" Aske charged forward, delivering a Mountain Crashing Strike directly to an unarmed Meyer, killing him on the spot.

"So this counts as getting rid of an encryption fragment, right?" Aske watched as Meyer’s body disintegrated, turning into countless zeros and ones before scattering into the air, and asked Raphael.

"Yes," Raphael smiled. "Even when facing Transcendents of the same rank from the Physical Department, you can still resolve your opponents within seconds. As expected of Aske, I really did choose the right person."

Aske: ......

I was wondering why Valian would come to me out of the blue, turns out you were the one pulling the strings!