The Black Customer Service became even colder than ice, and the hacker chair not only assumed part of the neural load, but also connected to the neural link, functioning like a large network connector to help him rapidly complete the massive data transfer with the server.
This feeling was utterly magical, Mercer even felt like he was turning more and more into a supremely calm computer.
He was well aware that this was not something an average hacker could achieve, it was... a unique talent!
However, he actually didn't like this feeling very much.
But right now, this feeling was a great help to him, not only allowing him to determine his manipulation limits and physical condition but also enabling him to make extremely acute analyses and judgments.
"Got it!"
Lucy's voice came excitedly from beside him, but Mercer just responded emotionlessly with a hum, then commanded:
"Everyone put on the chips, the remaining three also need to be taken along with their case."
Watching the surveillance footage of Lucy and the others linking in the Relic chips, Mercer immediately began the task of connecting their chips, first cracking the original programs then establishing the connection.
The communication link achieved by the Relic chip was very magical, it was like the way Lark did it in the game, allowing Mercer's whole being to be directly presented in a virtual form before Lucy and the others.
Furthermore, it allowed them to establish a separate network channel for communication, far more secure and private than encrypted communication software, without even causing any signal disturbance during the entire process.
"Mercer? Amazing..."
Lucy and the others were startled by Mercer's sudden appearance in cyberspace form—his cyberspace form had changed its look, now wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with a leather jacket over it.
The hood was pulled up, concealing his face, and there was a mysterious layer of shadow over his face, only vaguely displaying a familiar visage.
He looked like an older Mercer, approximately in his twenties.
"Cool, right? Modeled after a game protagonist with the same name, Mercer...
But you need to move out immediately, the first floor hasn't received the news yet, so act quickly, you get on the elevator, and once the doors open, those troubles will be solved."
As Mercer spoke, he smiled at them, then glanced at Dr. Ota's assistant trembling in the corner.
Now, he could even borrow Lucy's prosthetic eye to see things and even feel their feelings, showcasing the wonder of using the Relic chip to establish communication directly at the neural level.
"Please, don't kill me, I, I didn't do anything..."
Before the hapless assistant finished speaking, he just felt his head heat up, and then he screamed in agony, clutching his still smoking head as he died on the ground.
The assistant had witnessed the footage of Lucy and the others wearing the chips, which would alert Arasaka that they might have mastered other ways to use the Relic chip.
Otherwise, there was no logical reason for them to insert the chip into their heads at this time, only a fool would think there wasn't a risk of the chips being remotely activated by Arasaka.
Mercer absolutely didn't want to expose this point.
Because per normal logic, stealing hovercar prostheses, warehouse supplies, and even stripping an agent leader bare, taking the Relic was evidently just for money or for research, or trading.
Thus, it would be difficult for Arasaka to guess that he, with Ultraman's help, had completely removed the variant Soulkiller program within.
The objective of seizing the chip was instead to appreciate the strong plasticity of the Relic chip's hardware itself.
But if Arasaka realized he could erase the Soulkiller, then the level of pursuit of Mercer would definitely be elevated to the highest.
Because the Soulkiller program lurking within the chip possessed an auto-counterattack nature!
Whether AI or human, any attempt to crack or erase it would immediately awaken the Soulkiller within the chip, causing it to run automatically.
And ninety-nine percent of humans in this world absolutely couldn't survive the terrifying and notorious killer virus.
As long as you continued to crack the chip over a network, this virus could instantly kill you throughout the network, and attempting to crack the program offline?
Ha, that would mean reverting to the cyber ancient era of tapping away and coding programs to crack a top-tier program from the age of conscious programming.
And it was still a program encrypted by Arasaka!
Thus, it was entirely an impossible task.
And if you try to crack it from the hardware level?
You would only end up with a destroyed Relic chip.
Cracking the programs on the chip was something only a terrifying AI at the level of Otter Cunningham could accomplish.
Once exposed, Arasaka would absolutely hunt Mercer to death—he certainly didn't want to end up like Bartmos, hiding in a freezer for decades only to upload himself to cyberspace in the end.
Nevertheless... it indirectly highlighted the cold-bloodedness of the new director.
Because once the chip activated, its priority target for elimination wasn't AI but the hacker who inserted the chip.
Only after killing the hacker would it utilize the computational power of the hacker's brain to start attacking the AI, and remotely send all devoured data to Arasaka's servers for storage.
This signified that Ena Tanino never cared about the lives of these small hackers; they were indeed bait Arasaka used to capture AI data, Mercer included.
Perhaps Ena Tanino's original plan was to use the Soulkiller to kill Mercer's consciousness too, then archive and transmit it back, turning him into another pitiful Johnny Silverhand, toyed with and analyzed by Arasaka at will.
Upon thinking of this, Mercer's eyes grew increasingly cold.
And as Lucy and the others glanced at the assistant suddenly collapsing dead with his head in his hands, only Kyoko seemed somewhat reluctant, but no one hesitated, and they immediately proceeded towards the elevator.
When they opened the elevator, what unfolded before their eyes left them all breathless, their bodies instinctively stiffened.
Because now, the only hacker in the base with control over the network was commencing a bloodless and emotionless massacre.