Saburo Arasaka and Laomoto Khan simultaneously arrived at the decision to execute a decapitation operation. All tactics ultimately devolved into a 'base trade' scenario; however, compared to a ninja organization forced to turtle up in a single city, the power Arasaka Corporation could mobilize was far greater.
On the Pacific Ocean, the Arasaka Fleet was already approaching the Americas. Saburo Arasaka's explanation to them was that a riot had broken out in Night City, requiring their support for suppression.
"To dare incite a riot, what foolish fellows. They probably don't know that Night City is guarded by our heroic Arasaka Fleet. Night City hillbillies."
The White Whale supercarrier—Arasaka Corporation's true trump card, and the proof of its status as a super-megacorporation.
The corporation's terrifying assets naturally required corresponding force to protect them. The White Whale supercarrier and Arasaka's military could be considered the strongest on Earth; anything superior would be the freaks at the European Space Agency.
Looking from afar, the Pacific was calm, with only a single aircraft carrier sailing in solitude.
With a black base coat paired with red accents and engines emitting a crimson glow, the White Whale's design looked incredibly sci-fi.
The only abstract element was those three decks. Do supercarriers have super-illegal building codes? What strange brain circuitry would come up with such a three-deck structure?
—But at least it looks cool, isn't that enough? After all, aircraft carriers are currently not a cost-effective choice; Arasaka's supercarrier serves a greater purpose as a deterrent and symbol.
Inside the White Whale, unlike the confidence of the ordinary soldiers, the captain of the White Whale sensed something was amiss. Why would a riot in Night City require the mobilization of a supercarrier?
Furthermore, their journey had been too quiet. One must realize that outside the cities, there is no protection from the Blackwall. Submarines controlled by large numbers of roaming AIs blockade the oceans.
In the past, they would blast their way through. The roaming AIs' submarines were useless against a supercarrier, merely consuming a bit of resources.
But the current situation was that they hadn't encountered a single roaming AI submarine, as if they had all vanished. No matter how one thought about it, this was impossible.
As if sensing his unease, the alarm in the captain's quarters suddenly blared. An abnormal situation had occurred, and an extremely urgent one at that!
"What is happening? Have the rogue AIs launched a joint attack?"
His first reaction was to consider this possibility. The attacks they would normally encounter had all disappeared; it was very likely that the rogue AIs had formed a 'joint formation,' as they possessed that degree of intelligence.
However, he soon realized that the matter seemed far more exaggerated than he had imagined.
"It's not an AI attack, Captain, it's..." The liaison officer on the other end seemed to be struggling for words, and the captain could hear a trace of fear in his voice.
"See for yourself, outside." He hemmed and hawed, ultimately failing to articulate anything specific.
Outside? What outside? The captain couldn't understand at all. If it were indeed AI submarines, he wouldn't be able to see underwater anyway.
The unease in his heart, accompanied by this sense of the unknown, made him increasingly irritable. He strode in two or three steps to the observation deck, and then he saw it—the thing the liaison wanted to say but couldn't bring himself to utter.
Thick, pitch-black clouds filled the sky, rolling and expanding forward like something out of a kaiju movie. The speed was so fast that the naked eye could clearly perceive it.
This couldn't be normal weather; instead, it resembled the influence of some supernatural existence. Judging by this speed, they would be enveloped by the dark clouds in a few minutes!
"WTF! What on earth is that?!"
At this moment, he finally realized why the communication line had that reaction. Faced with a scene that completely defied common sense, he couldn't help but panic.
"What... is this?"
A natural disaster, a calamity that human power could not contend with, yet it spread rapidly as if controlled by some invisible force.
Just a few minutes later, everything around them plunged into darkness. Heavy black clouds blocked out all sunlight, as well as their communications with the outside world.
Subsequently, a massive number of robots began to board the ship, coming in all shapes and sizes. He even saw Cyberskeletons that were still in the experimental stage. The opponent had locked down their cybernetics and weapons!
These were Arasaka Corporation's top-tier cybernetic devices, protected by the highest-level firewalls, yet before them, it was as if they were made of paper—breached in an instant.
"Submit, or death."
Mechanical voices rang out from the mouths of various robots as they aimed their weapons at the captain.
It was actually AIs?! In a flash, various conspiracy theories—Terminator, Human Purge plans, and the like—flashed through the captain's mind.
However, he was very sensible. He threw away the weapon in his hand and performed a French salute.
When did this group of AIs unite, and how did they possess such terrifying technology? He didn't know. He only knew that he had only one choice: surrender.
Occasionally, a few who tried to pull small stunts were directly knocked unconscious and taken away. Trying to deal with fully metallic robots without cybernetics or weapons was obviously an impossible task.
With preparation against the unprepared, plus the generational gap in technology, under the shroud of the pitch-black clouds, the Arasaka Fleet was taken down silently just like that...
Compared to the Arasaka Fleet's encounter, due to the speed of the disconnection, there was no immediate feedback. It would take some time for Saburo Arasaka to receive the news.
The ones most quickly affected were NetWatch. The network across the entire Americas went into complete chaos, not just because of the AI offensive, but most importantly—the Blackwall had betrayed them!
"The Blackwall! The Blackwall has defected to the AIs!"
The entire NetWatch organization fell into chaos, even panic. The original establishment of the Blackwall to block the Old Net relied on the help of this portion of AIs willing to assist humanity.
The situation was now clear. Even these AIs had betrayed them. They modified the Blackwall's data, causing it to lose the ability to isolate the Old Net!
The people at NetWatch soon discovered it wasn't just the Blackwall abandoning them. The roaming AIs, the Old Net AIs, and even the Blackwall AIs—they had all united.
To have these freedom-loving AIs voluntarily unite was as difficult as uniting all of humanity. Theoretically, it was completely impossible!
"How is this possible? Is humanity going to perish?"
Faced with such a powerful AI invasion, even NetWatch was powerless, let alone anyone else. In an instant, almost all cities in the Americas fell.
The only fortunate thing was that they didn't seem to be out for human lives. Otherwise, just disrupting traffic signals would be enough to cause suffering for the city dwellers.
As NetWatch, they decided to risk death and make a bold move: actively contacting the AI collective.
Very quickly, they received an answer, an answer beyond their expectations—
'We come for peace.'
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