Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 951 - 758: The Program of Cyber Warfare

Chapter 951: Chapter 758: The Program of Cyber Warfare

This is not the first time Xu Yang has gone under the knife, but Cui Junyou still felt nervous and apprehensive.

Xu Yang’s arrival changed his life and transformed the face of society. To say he owes Xu Yang a great debt is no exaggeration.

Before, he was just a useless old man, constantly wailing and hitting walls, watching the world slowly lose its light. Yet in his old age, he finally saw the flames of hope starting to burn.

Xu Yang held up the ideals of millions high, making them shine upon humanity.

The last thing he wanted was to disappoint Xu Yang.

Ever since his wife and daughter were taken to Shangjing, Cui Junyou had been troubled by family affairs and hadn’t been working for a long time. Today, after many years, he was about to wield the scalpel once again.

"Time for anesthesia." Cui Junyou prepared the potent anesthetic.

He had to completely shut down Xu Yang’s Digital Mind, plunging him into a deep sleep, or else the brain processor couldn’t be replaced.

"Wait a moment..." Xu Yang still had many preparations to make.

He set up auto-defense programs, activated a series of contingency plans, slowly opened all the network defense protocols, and maxed out the Helis Sea System’s protective and self-checking capabilities.

Once he was asleep, Nestor Corporation’s network defense would be as precarious as a pile of eggs.

"What’s happening?" Rinne sensed these actions and sent a message to Xu Yang from Jialong Slope.

"The enemy may launch an attack while I’m undergoing surgery. Be sure to be ready to defend," Xu Yang quickly replied.

"That could be troublesome," Rinne raised her alert level as well, "We don’t have many people to defend Helis Sea, and aside from me, they don’t have real combat experience."

"It has to be this way. I will come back as soon as I can," Xu Yang said.

"...Understood." Rinne prepared for the defense.

Something awful might happen. Xu Yang thought silently. An attack was likely to erupt after he powered down. But he also had to install the "Flying God-7"...

Bring it on, then.

Afterward, Xu Yang set the Ebony Ring aside and accepted the injection offered by Cui Junyou. Drowsiness overwhelmed him, and his muscles and nerves calmed down completely, marking the first time in years that he had completely shut down.

Once the anesthetic took effect, Cui Junyou also turned off Xu Yang’s power, terminating his implant’s power supply system.

Xiao Xu was right; even being offline for ten minutes was troublesome. Cui Junyou thought to himself. Enemies were everywhere—those wanting to infiltrate and sabotage the grand cause were all vermin, bound to make their move at such a time.

Thinking this, he hastened the surgical procedure to upgrade Xu Yang’s brain processor.

Picking up the "Flying God 7," Cui Junyou, as a first-rate veteran specialist, knew its value.

This tiny processor could transform a person’s vast thoughts into equivalent levels of optoelectronic signals. Each person’s brain is extremely complex, and only special brain processors can truly turn a human brain into an advanced computer.

The Flying God 7th Generation was the best of the best; once Xu Yang was fitted with it, dealing with other hackers would be no issue.

Cui Junyou mustered the courage to operate on this precious young man’s head, opening Xu Yang’s skull.

He swiped the scalpel, cut, replaced parts, and removed the original Flying God 5.

Suddenly, he felt powerless, which was very dangerous.

— He nicked a blood vessel!

Cui Junyou swiftly lifted the surgical knife.

One millimeter closer and there would have been severe bleeding.

He took a deep breath, overwhelmed with regret. The surgery used to be so simple!

In the past, he could replace brain processors with his eyes closed. So many surgeries, so many times cracking skulls open—just this one time, this time...

Looking at the nearly decimated bloodied organs before him, Cui Junyou realized that this was going to be his last surgery in his lifetime.

The future should be left to the likes of young people such as Nidelaide; he truly couldn’t go on.

Cui Junyou clenched his teeth.

Surviving with the last, and proudest skill of this old man!

With this in mind, he devoted himself to replacing Xu Yang’s processor.

The surgery continued.

Dividing, filling, repairing, replacing.

He found his hands no longer shook, and his thoughts were not wandering.

This was his farewell performance.

...

Not long after Xu Yang went offline, anonymous hackers and professional network attackers immediately began to infiltrate Nestor Corporation, Jialong Slope, and Hot Tree Continent.

All three locations faced large-scale cyberattacks.

Rinne, submerged in Helis Sea, also received a flood of alerts instantly—every network node was under attack!

Such attacks are extremely difficult to defend against. In just a few seconds, they deployed a massive network array of attack, flooding Helis Sea with a barrage of high-threat malicious traffic and viruses.

One had to be as adept at defense as Mr. Web Monitor. Rinne hastily followed the prepared plans, rapidly reinforcing the Helis Sea System.

As the current strongest cyber defense project, it could muster all its strength to fend off the attackers, ensuring that Nestor Corporation would not fall easily.

Even so, the impact was significant.

All Nestor Corporation’s websites were forced to shut down immediately, otherwise, every online user risked information leakage.

Under Rinne’s warning, all drones within Nestor Corporation’s territory were compelled to ground immediately, urgently recalled to various sites, and put under the watch of the nearest armed personnel, as any loss of control could result in unpredictable harm.

What’s worse are the Synthetic Humans; all within the territory must pause their ongoing projects and lay down their weapons to avoid turning on each other following a cyber intrusion.

Digital garbage rapidly spread through cables and signals, infecting smart vehicles, advertising screens, and personal terminals alike.

The Nestor Corporation’s network security and defense department promptly went online.

They have control over Helis Sea but are not experts, as the technology is difficult to learn, and a "Digital Mind" is a basic requirement. Over the years, Nestor Corporation has only collected and assembled 8 Digital Minds, equipping merely 8 staff members, unlike the Western Seaboard Treaty Organization, which can produce Digital Minds at will and distribute them to their attackers.

These 8 Nestor Corporation’s cybersecurity personnel serve as secondary defenders, working desperately to shield critical units such as power, transportation, and civil communications infrastructures.

For these inadequately trained individuals, this assault was... too brutal. One of them was obliterated by the massive attackers as soon as he went online, rapidly cutting off contact with the others, declaring his own brain death.

Rinne identified most of the attackers.

Many came from companies that had previously failed in their attacks on Nestor Corporation, such as Protecra Network Security, GoldShield, Symantec, Star Ring Network, Digital Ark Corporation, and new companies that specialize in Helis Sea operations like SecureNet Planning, etc.

They were here for revenge, to avenge those hackers killed by Cyber Specter and to rebuild their reputations.

Originally based in the Western Hemisphere and serving the Western Seaboard Treaty Organization, these corporations weren’t afraid of retaliation or sanctions from Nestor Corporation.

Now, taking advantage of Xu Yang’s disconnection, they launched a vicious information attack.

Some neutral hackers also began attempting to challenge the famed defenses of Nestor Corporation’s Helis Sea.

Originally, many hackers attacked Nestor Corporation only to be devoured by Cyber Specter.

Now, with Cyber Specter landing en masse on Hot Tree Continent, other professional information enterprises started their attacks on Nestor Corporation; they were determined to strive for what their predecessors could not achieve.

Illusion Pain Flyers, Dark Night Lone Walkers, Black Hat Legion, Encryption Heroes... A mess of hacking groups attacked at this moment.

Rinne strenuously worked, responding to the intrusion detection system, swiftly intercepting and devouring all kinds of hackers and professional hackers.

If Cyber Specter is like a beast, a winged, constantly moving large predator of infinite size, then Rinne’s avatar in the cyberspace looks more like a pure white, slender monster, almost a blend of fox and she-wolf, crushing careless intruders everywhere.

Mr. Web Monitor’s surgery was top secret, but they - whether corporations or individual organizations - seemed to predict or steal the news somehow, launching an incredibly uniform ultra-large-scale invasion!

Rinne was extremely surprised. She had no idea how the enemy had learned this information.

Taking advantage of such timing, truly despicable.

Over the years, Rinne had also faced sporadic attacks, but they were either repelled or eliminated by her.

Now, the attacks were overwhelming, exceeding the capacity of Helis Sea, allowing even those small-time hackers who’d normally have no chance to sneak in and look for opportunities, increasing Rinne’s load.

She desperately realized that it was impossible for her alone to intercept these attackers.

Nestor Corporation’s valuable technical documents, customer data, and critical information were all in grave danger.

Rinne had no choice but to forcibly destroy some of the compromised sites, completely abandoning all information records in those regions, so as to prevent them from falling into the attackers’ hands.

Still, many people suffered losses amid the chaos, casting a shadow over their happy lives.

It was at this moment that Rinne received new messages through the reliable channel left by Xu Yang.

"Open part of the outer defense to us! Nestor’s Web Monitor! We are from the Formless System!"

"Hackers?"

"Yes, where there are damned corporate dogs, there we’ll be! We’re going to beat them till they flee!"

Since they were communicating through the special channel left by Xu Yang, it meant Xu Yang trusted them.

Rinne agreed to let the hackers confront the enemy.

Once given permission to join the battle, they acted swiftly.

The hackers from the Formless System were hidden all over the world; they hadn’t had much of a chance to show their skills during Nestor Corporation’s first attack, but now they all logged in.

From every corner of the world, all hackers willing to defend Nestor Corporation were determined to launch their counterattack.

From metropolitan areas like Lundinium, the West Coast, and Jialong Slope, to smaller cities with average fame like Marseille, Ooka City, and Chiba City, to hundreds of unknown places, from the East to the West...

The ubiquitous swarm of hackers swiftly powered up and went online, determined to give the corporate forces a good fight!

All the hackers in the world were drawn into this maelstrom!

"Chase off the corporate dogs!"

"We want to fight... not kneel!"

"Like last time!"

"They attack Nestor Corporation, we hack their home base!"

"Kick off the plan!"

"We can’t let Nestor Corporation fall!"

"Nestor Corporation is our greatest hope!"

"If we don’t fight today, we’ll lose the chance forever! If we don’t win today, we’ll be defeated, forever losing to them!"