In cyberspace, Leo witnessed the computational power of the entire H8 Megabuilding forming a chaotic vortex—an ever-changing black hole, a black sun scorching the digital domain!
This paradoxical sensation defied intuition, yet in cyberspace, it was entirely logical!
The Soulkiller!
A legendary weapon perfected as early as the 2020s, originally designed by the netrunner Alt Cunningham as a program to recognize and store human emotions and consciousness.
Through a series of operations by Arasaka, it had evolved into a terrifying weapon against netrunners in cyberspace—
It is said that once targeted by the Soulkiller, a netrunner's consciousness would be eternally trapped in cyberspace!
The instant this overpowered program appeared, Leo felt himself engulfed in it. The data stream became wildly unstable, and the temperature rapidly rose!
This signified a sharp surge in the electrical current within the cables, which would soon cause them to overheat and ultimately burn Leo's neural connections!
If he tried to unplug at that moment, the chaotic current would result in a surge upon disconnection, enough to fry a person's brain.
Leo was utterly unable to discern the source or mechanism of the chaos, let alone attempt any correction or control. His connection to the outside world was completely severed by the situation.
A breakdown in cyberspace!
Chaos pervaded every inch of the digital realm. The data stream lacked any semblance of logic, resembling not a program but...
[Heart of Evolution: Complex psychological activity from cyberspace events has been neutralized.]
...human emotions!
Leo suddenly grasped the true meaning of the chaos.
The Soulkiller was learning!
Through the Inagaki-Prague transformation, electrical signals were converted into biological signals, enabling human perception of data. But the Soulkiller worked in reverse, fully recording the brain's electrical signals in cyberspace and constructing an AI nearly identical to the target's psyche!
When targeted by the Soulkiller, netrunners panicked, amplifying their brain activity and accelerating the program's ability to map and record their consciousness.
It was like a fingerprint scanner: the more contact, the harder the press, the faster and more efficient the recording process became!
Once targeted, the victim's only fate was to be trapped in cyberspace until their body succumbed to death.
This process would stimulate all a person's thoughts and emotions, which would then be entirely recorded onto a chip.
In other words, the moment of physical death marked the end of the recording.
Bang!
As Leo realized this, something massive seemed to crash into the noise floor of cyberspace. The black sun's temperature abruptly dropped—
Oddly enough, aside from being trapped, the sense of imminent danger seemed to dissipate.
The reason appeared to be...
The Soulkiller was still incomplete. In the vortex, it extended arms, kneading Leo's consciousness and the surrounding digital debris.
A normal netrunner would have been terrified by now, but Leo remained exceptionally calm. This seemed to disrupt the Soulkiller's operations.
Indeed, Leo's minimal emotional fluctuations resulted in insufficient sensitivity for the Soulkiller's learning process.
"Is this what it's like to be overpowered?"
A tiny octopus crawled around on Leo, and Leo noticed the Soulkiller collecting more data from the octopus than from him.
At this rate, Arasaka might conclude that Leo was an infant under two months old.
"What are you doing?"
[Octopus: It feels powerful. Huh, it's not as hot as before.]
The octopus stopped trembling as well.
The Soulkiller's efficiency dropped further, focusing more on surrounding useless data. The temperature around Leo began to fall.
When Leo waved his hand, the Soulkiller showed minor reactions, and the temperature slightly rose again.
Leo confirmed his suspicion: the Soulkiller was merely an AI model without self-awareness. Its training process depended entirely on the actions of its target, filtering and integrating these actions to form the so-called digital personality.
Because Leo's emotional fluctuations were minimal, the Soulkiller struggled to identify him effectively, resulting in...
Underperforming! The model lacked sufficient training data.
As for the heat, it didn't seem to be a function of the Soulkiller itself. Instead, it was akin to a "firestarter" program designed to overload devices, ultimately frying the netrunner's brain.
The Soulkiller likely originated from Arasaka adding offensive modules to Alt's original program.
After all, Alt's AI design was nearly unbeatable in target identification and preventing netrunners from disconnecting. Once locked on, Arasaka could launch unrestricted network attacks, leaving the netrunner helpless—
From this perspective, once the Soulkiller locked onto a target, the target had no choice but to either disconnect and face brain death, starve to death, or die from a network attack if Arasaka didn't want their digital consciousness.
Unless the targeted netrunner was operating from some supercorporation's server, which would result in a colossal battle.
Currently, however, network surveillance was a step ahead, significantly weakening Arasaka's attack power.
And because Leo was essentially "hacking with cheats," the Soulkiller had barely recorded any data from him. Even its attacks appeared weak and untargeted, causing minimal harm.
The tiny octopus pointed at the black hole.
Leo's expression turned odd. "You want to touch that thing?"
The octopus timidly nodded:
[Octopus: It feels powerful but not directed at me.]
Indeed, how could an AI have emotions? To ensure the target's recording was complete, the Soulkiller excelled at distinguishing AI from humans.
Thinking this through, the Soulkiller was indeed an unsolvable terror for most netrunners.
But for Leo?
Wait!
Leo's face suddenly darkened. It was still dangerous for him!
He knew he wasn't in danger, but if Jackie and V—
Especially V. If she panicked and disconnected, she'd really die!
This realization immediately triggered the Soulkiller. Leo felt his head heat up!
Calming his emotions, Leo allocated computing power to the tiny octopus. The octopus instantly transformed into a large one, with Leo now riding it!
Now he was the support while the octopus took the lead.
"Octopus, let's go!"
The octopus didn't react.
After a moment, it pointed at itself with a tentacle:
[Octopus: Am I the octopus?]
"If not you, then who?"
[Octopus: Alright! Can I get a ritual? The last one in the real world didn't feel like much.]
Cyber Leo stroked Cyber Octopus, and the data streams were restructured with their interaction, reflecting electrical current changes.
[Octopus: (=ˇωˇ=)]
This time, it seemed satisfied.
Bang!
The noise floor of cyberspace completely fractured!
Heat dissipated instantly, and the Soulkiller shifted its primary learning focus to the signal source that had burst in!
[Bryce: Hang in there, Burger King! We're about to take down Arasaka!]
Without hesitation, Leo sent a message before the communication breach was consumed by the Soulkiller's chaos:
[Leo: I'm barely holding on! Tell everyone I'm okay!]