In the luxurious suite of the hotel, the floor from the entrance to the bedroom was strewn with clothing, indicating that a fierce "battle" had taken place here, with many garments even torn apart.
The bedroom door was open, and on the soft king-sized bed, a woman lay sprawled, her waist partially concealed by the corner of the sheets, revealing long and healthy-looking legs, as well as a voluptuous figure that would make most Asian women envious.
Fiery red hair scattered across the pillow, obscuring much of the woman's face.
And on the floor beside the bed lay an NYPD police uniform.
Shen had already risen from the bed, dressed in a robe, the neckline revealing the contours of his sturdy chest muscles.
He walked to the window and gazed into the distance.
The hotel suite on the top floor undoubtedly offered a magnificent view.
Shen glanced back at the female officer on the bed.
What was her name again? Simpson?
Well, whatever, he only fancied her fiery red hair anyway.
Suddenly, a silver metal bracelet on his wrist vibrated, and Shen glanced down at it, noticing a spot of light flashing on it.
He walked into the living room, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, twisted it open, sat on the sofa, took a big gulp, and then brought the bracelet close to his mouth.
"Go ahead."
At the same time, an invisible sound barrier appeared beside Shen.
As he spoke, Shen's gaze happened to pass through the open bedroom door, looking at the alluring figure lying on the bed inside.
"It's confirmed, an important target is identified outside, our people are already keeping an eye on it, coordinates are in sector twenty-four, but we lack experts in that area, and the surveillance team might be exposed at any moment."
Hearing the words from the bracelet, Shen pondered for a moment. "How important is this target?"
"The on-site personnel report suspicion of a big fish."
Shen immediately sat upright.
"Big fish" was a code name Thornflower Group used for important figures in Zero City.
Only top-tier figures in the permanent teams of Zero City were labeled as "big fish."
In other words, they were either the team leader or deputy team leader level figures.
"Is it reliable?" Shen asked after a moment of thought.
"It's highly probable, but our people dare not approach, the power gap is too significant."
"Continue monitoring, mobilize personnel with matching capabilities to the area as soon as possible, try not to alert the enemy, and focus on tracking their movements as the top priority."
After ending the call, Shen frowned, pondered for a moment, and then finished the water in the bottle.
At that moment, a system prompt popped up on his personal system.
"System Prompt: Unidentified data disruption detected, online advanced players are reminded to urgently disconnect, all online users will be forcibly logged out! Execution in five seconds!"
Huh?
Shen immediately stood up!
Forced logout?
He hadn't encountered this situation before.
With a slight change in his eyes, Shen suddenly took out something from the bracelet!
It was a small, egg-shaped metal object.
As he held it in his hand, a silver light quickly appeared on Shen's palm, spreading rapidly to his entire body, forming a "membrane" on the surface of his body.
At the same time, his personal system also displayed a prompt.
"System Prompt: Connection terminated, data unknown and unidentified, forced logout failed!"
Shen snorted and quickly walked to the window, carefully observing outside.
A few seconds later, as if to confirm his suspicions, a strange sight appeared outside the window!!
Above the vast sky, a huge screen suddenly appeared!
This screen covered the sky and earth, sweeping across like waves, as if it was going to sweep through the entire sky!
At the same time, on the streets outside, the densely packed cars and pedestrians seemed to start swaying in an instant.
Swinging between reality and virtuality, just like... unstable 3D projection signals, everything was shaking in an instant.
Shen withdrew his gaze and looked back at the woman lying on the bed in the bedroom.
The woman lay there, but her body also seemed to suddenly become transparent, flashing a few times, as if she could disappear at any moment.
"A refresh? Strange... such a large-scale world refresh? What's wrong with the system? What kind of huge change is this?"
Shen muttered to himself in a low voice.
...
The entire world seemed to be refreshing!
All the pedestrians on the streets appeared unaware, but the flickering of the entire world's visuals continued incessantly.
The massive screen covered the sky and the earth!
But soon, the advancing edge of that spreading screen suddenly paused.
This pause lasted for a few seconds.
On the ground, on the streets, within the city, people were doing various things, but they all suddenly stopped—as if the entire world had hit the "pause button."
Soon after, another screen appeared from the other side of the world, this one green, still magnificent, grand, vast, and boundless!
It swept across the sky and the earth, then directly charged towards the previous refreshing screen!
The two screens clashed fiercely like two waves from different directions, causing multiple flashes of day and night between heaven and earth in an instant!
Then, they merged together, and the green screen overwhelmed the previous refreshing screen, forcibly devouring it, and continued to spread...
The world returned to its original state.
Shen stood quietly by the floor-to-ceiling window on the top floor of the building, silently watching this strange spectacle between heaven and earth.
His expression turned extremely serious!
Beside him in the room, the woman on the bed finally didn't disappear after flickering a few times. The spatial picture seemed to stabilize, and then the woman continued to sleep soundly.
It was as if nothing had happened just now.
Shen took a deep breath, his expression even more solemn than before!
"A massive refresh that spread across the entire world... a refresh of such magnitude that it forced even high-level exclusive accounts offline. Unless it's a complete system update, such a huge refresh wouldn't occur... And even if it were a system-wide update, it shouldn't happen so suddenly.
Most importantly... this refresh was stopped, forcibly paused, and then... the refresh was canceled, its power devoured...
Everything remained normal, as if nothing had changed, as if the massive refresh moments ago had never happened.
I am Shen, I witnessed everything that just happened in the world, and I recorded this message—hoping that my memory of just now won't be erased."
After finishing his words to the bracelet, Shen paused for a moment, then added:
"Such a massive refresh could only be initiated by the main system program. But to forcibly cancel and interrupt such a huge refresh... undoubtedly, only the development team would have the ability to do so.
So, what exactly happened?"
After recording this sentence, Shen lightly tapped on the bracelet, and a small semi-transparent memory sphere floated out.
Shen gently placed the memory sphere onto the egg-shaped object he held in his other hand, and with a light toss, the memory sphere merged into it.
After completing these actions, he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
He put away the egg-shaped object, and the silver membrane on his body disappeared.
Shen immediately raised his bracelet and quickly asked, "Does anyone know what just happened?"
...
There was no answer from the bracelet.
Just as Shen was about to continue calling out, suddenly, a system prompt appeared in his personal system!
After retracting the egg and canceling the shield, this personal system prompt appeared very mysteriously.
"Personal Prompt: System has issued a temporary Instance mission, highest level, participation is mandatory, advanced exclusive accounts have exemption rights, do you wish to use exemption rights?"
Shen was momentarily stunned, his eyes showing some surprise.
The highest-level Instance mission? And it's a temporary one?
Indeed, something big had happened.
Without hesitation, he chose to accept the mission!
Exemption?
No way, how could he not participate in such an interesting event?
But a few seconds later, after reading the new Instance prompt, the curious smile on Shen's face turned into complete... shock!!
"System Prompt: All players are forced online...
Instance Mission Description: Discovery of Zero City entrance! Repeat, discovery of Zero City entrance!
Mission Duration: Unlimited.
Instance Restrictions: None, any skills, equipment are allowed.
Instance Participants: Restricted to players faction!
Instance Coordinates: XXXXXXX.
Mission Objective: Destroy Zero City!"
Zero City?
They found... Zero City?
The main system program found Zero City?!
What on earth is going on?
This is too sudden...
After standing still for a few seconds, Shen had a faint guess in his mind.
Could the sudden discovery of Zero City be related to the almost-refreshing event that just occurred?