Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 945 - 180: Incarnation of Nightmare

Chapter 945: Chapter 180: Incarnation of Nightmare

This was something that Iron Heart Dharma King only realized later.

Broadcasting is not something with unlimited range. And if no one is there to receive it, the information broadcasted cannot be immediately known by all members of the Six Dragons Sect.

At this time, it’s necessary for Six Dragons Sect members to relay the message.

But relaying broadcasts at this moment is bound to attract the attention of nearby Protectors, revealing the location of their base.

Apart from broadcasting in certain segments, they are also using what remains of Earth’s internet, embedding the message into images, videos, and audio—what is the most basic form of encryption for Inner Martial Artists. Highly ordered information was quietly encoded into what should have been uniform background noise, something Inner Martial Artists could easily detect. AI specifically designed to crack such steganography is also quite common.

But in reality, this wasn’t meant to deceive Inner Martial Artists.

This was to deceive the ordinary people.

They embedded text into audio, video, and other files, expecting these "interesting things" to be spread by ordinary people, and then captured by the crawlers of Six Dragons Sect comrades.

Indeed, because "all unique encryption and verification methods" had already been exposed.

So, the response measure the Six Dragons Sect could take was to spread the "exposed" information in this nearly plaintext manner.

Crawlers collecting entry-level steganography information would bring back some meaningless information every day.

Youths who unintentionally mastered this entry-level method and used it as a "message in a bottle" might hope to find companions with it. Some Inner Martial Artists in cultivation might occasionally use this method to release venting words. There are also Heroes embedding Magnetic Chains, hoping newcomers to the Jianghu can gain some help here.

Of course, most of the time, what the crawler returns are information encoded through one-way algorithms like hash algorithms, difficult to decipher.

When similar information is sealed into different media using similar steganography and then massively spread online, the probability of being captured by a crawler becomes much higher.

Moreover, most of the work can be completed by online AI, making it difficult to expose offline members.

But it is precisely because of this reason that Earth’s network experienced short-term fluctuations in information flow.

The amplitude of this fluctuation was small, but King Aqini keenly sensed the suspicious aura within.

Over the long years, he had written too many tools, built too many backdoors, and spread too much Gu Poison. At this level, the combat power of Inner Martial Artists is linked to the accumulation over the years.

Crawlers and AI quickly completed their work. King Aqini even forgot why he originally wrote them, for which strong enemy, to destroy which organization? But he did not forget these tools themselves and occasionally optimized and upgraded them. These crawlers, AI, bugs, tools had long become extensions of King Aqini’s will, his avatars in the network world.

King Aqini indeed found it difficult to accurately lock the direction of the information flow. This was akin to finding a particular drop of ink in the ocean. The information had already spread.

However, he could use "Trace Source" and "Query Record" to speculate on the Six Dragons Sect bases that first relayed the broadcast.

He could also infer the possible scale of Six Dragons Sect on Earth through that momentary fluctuation.

The data reported by Feheart barely reached the lower limit of his estimate.

If Feheart’s report had been far below his estimate’s lower limit, this adjutant would have died on the spot.

Iron Heart Dharma King once again brushed past death.

And with the turning of King Aqini’s will, Earth’s Protector Army forces were also mobilized.

Iron Heart Dharma King will be remotely commanding Earth’s Mobile Cavalry under King Aqini’s surveillance to capture the Six Dragons Sect’s martial power.

....................................

The Chrysanthemum Stone is in emergency descent at this moment.

They merely heard through communication that "something major might have happened to the Nautilus, and all past communication methods are unreliable." Yang Mengying urgently modified the Chrysanthemum Stone’s system, revoking all administrator account privileges.

But this could not calm the anxious hearts. Inside the Chrysanthemum Stone, Six Dragons Sect members were heatedly discussing. No one knew what had happened.

During the last fixed communication, the Chrysanthemum Stone released a small cable-connected vessel intended to float to the surface as a base station. At that moment, a micro-torpedo flew in from afar, hitting the connection line and damaging the communication equipment entirely.

The attacker did not show himself, directly leaving.

This had already scared the core members of the Six Dragons Sect half to death. They shouted, "This must be the Martial God! The Martial God must have set his eyes on us." They were in constant fear.

Yang Mengying stopped such behavior, organized manpower for repairs, and continued to avoid the Protectors’ vessel routes.

Then, when they received messages again, they only heard a broadcast from a shore-based base.

The Holy Lord issued a command, saying all communication and verification methods were unreliable.

This left Yang Mengying herself stunned.

Perhaps her frantic system updates and attempts to stabilize the situation were only to reassure herself.

—So, what exactly happened...

—What is this...

Suddenly, the submarine’s monitoring system sounded an alarm. In the bridge, an operator shouted in terror, "Something is approaching..."

Yang Mengying said, "Why panic? Immediately use torpedoes to organize defense... Prepare to evade!"

"It’s moving fast... no time..."

Before the operator could finish, the Chrysanthemum Stone was hit by a massive shock.

The sharp alarm sounded directly.

"Vessel damaged, the damage is midship..."

Yang Mengying pressed a button, and a set of onboard armed plug-in modules automatically slid into the slots on her shoulders and arms. She charged out, still shouting, "Everyone immediately disconnect from the system!"

Fortunately, due to the recent collision, various user privileges needed resetting, so most had returned to manual control. The cockpit occupants weren’t all instantly dead.

Yang Mengying raced through water towards the corridor. She crossed a door and saw that familiar yet massive mechanical body amid the waterfall-like intrusion of seawater.

"Holy... Holy Lord?"

Yang Mengying’s voice, like a terrified murmur in a nightmare, was a mix of disbelief and shock.

Only the unique, unfamiliar head of that enemy individual turned and looked over.

"Mengying," the terrifying creature said, "Grandpa Xiang is here to kill you."