Alonna left as soon as Oulos arrived.

The battlefield fell into chaos after Nando's severe injury withdrawal.

The interior of Silver Port requires cleanup.

Outside, a large group is still blocking reinforcements, and news of Kunbu's death has spread out by Oulos.

The crazed Exile retreated quite a bit.

The price of catching a breath is...

All sides in Eden City are moving like vultures.

The situation became more severe.

John stripped an outfit from an Exile's corpse, finding it a bit awkward to do with one arm.

Oulos wasn't the type to lend a hand.

She was indeed busy as hell, taking calls nonstop and handling various tasks on the voice channel.

Smart weapons were scattered everywhere in the room.

John randomly picked one and escorted Oulos back along the way.

The experiences during this time were nothing short of a nightmare.

Now the dream was about to wake, and his mental stress reached the threshold, oddly calming his emotions.

Even losing an arm seemed like a small matter now.

The prosthetic body transplant surgery was very successful, unaffected in action, though the metal spine replacement in his back gave a significant foreign body sensation.

They reached the end of the tunnel.

The ground combat was basically coming to a close.

Surprisingly, the first to arrive weren't ECPD or corporate troops, but Internet Surveillance agents.

Red data streams descended from the sky like a giant web.

Stealth all-weather surveillance drones swept overhead, hovercars marked with internet surveillance signs hovered, continuously broadcasting pompous, surrender-invoking nonsense to the armed individuals.

Vector engines whipped up sand and stones around, onboard equipment projected a massive isolated area on the ground — a black and yellow interlaced rectangular frame, scrolling the words "Do not approach, submit to inspection".

Countless agents stormed in with guns, surrounding the entire container area from different directions.

They all parachuted down.

There was also ground reinforcement on Silver Port's outer blockade line.

As soon as John and Oulos showed up, a circle of spotlight beams swept over them.

[Detection of scanning, hacking in progress...]

[Hack attempt terminated.]

Several bright red dots locked onto their vital points.

Two teams of Internet Surveillance agents approached the pair with guns from the shadows, removing full-body camouflage during the move, exposing combat suits with black underlayers, with cooling devices resembling light strips on their limbs.

The agents were holding fully equipped smart rifles.

They were direct troops under the Internet Surveillance Office.

Oulos furrowed her brows as if sending a message.

John activated his prosthetic eye to scan:

The gunmen at Damascus Camp were also surrounded, besides the elite troops, there were some ECPD agents, and even several security forces from big companies.

Indeed, just as the news said.

Internet Surveillance fueled the derailment incident, taking advantage of the fear of rogue AI among the public and corporations, to expand dramatically, gaining manpower and equipment as well as administrative status.

John noticed Oulos subtly moving her body to block his view.

He got the hint, stepped back half a step into the shadows, looking for an opportunity to break the stalemate.

Oulos spoke to the air:

"Come out, let's talk, or I'll upend the table. Many forces in Eden City are waiting for Internet Surveillance's downfall, perhaps changing the Office Director's name would be a better option?"

Buzz buzz buzz—

A combat-type V6 hovercar roared over.

It hovered to the side in front of them, opened the metal door, inside a sniper had already set up his weapon.

The vehicle docked.

The gunman controlled the scene.

The container area had no gunfire anymore.

The state police finally sauntered out of the darkness.

He seemed to have just finished something, looked over expressionlessly, still remembering to unfasten his shirt cufflinks.

The guy's exposed skin was covered by a deep diving suit.

On both sides of the state police's ears were cooling vents for network access pods, and other auxiliary equipment were high-end or even custom models.

His throat was covered with soft metal.

His voice was slightly cold.

"I thought you were dead."

The state police locked eyes with John.

"Youth really is lucky."

He smiled, seeming very surprised.

The state police facilitated Hugo in releasing Raqi Industry's AI, indirectly killing former colleagues and countless civilians, according to his prediction—John should have died too in the train derailment accident.

Oulos raised her hands, palms open.

John disappeared from everyone's view.

This was his first time using Sianweistan.

He could feel the presence of the metal spine, switching modes would display the prosthetic body's charging status in the lower right of his vision, simply focusing on the distinct foreign body sensation would trigger the switch, then the alloy creation would come alive...

A massive surge flooded John's entire body.

His perception of the surroundings became exponentially sharper, every muscle movement felt like struggling in an air swamp.

His legs were too frail.

The body couldn't keep up with the eyes.

John, in the bullet-time perception, found the only freedom in the one-armed Igdrasir.

This speed difference was relative to himself.

If there were a third-party perspective:

The alloy spine became hot in a short time, faint ripples appeared in the air, there wasn't an obvious light flow, just a grey shadow sweeping past countless gun barrels.

John pounced beside the state police, raised his smart revolver to the guy's head.

Yet the next second a bullet streaked past his shoulder.

It didn't cause harm but startled John greatly.

The scenery lost its colors.

The flow of time was recovering.

The Internet Surveillance agents came well-prepared.

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