Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 913: Chapter 19: The Fourth Celestial Calamity from the Testing Grounds

Players weren’t so miserable from the start.

Imagine, if players hadn’t shown the destructive power of the ’4th Celestial Calamity’, how could they be noticed by top-level civilizations and turned into biological cans?

In fact, in the gameplay experience of "Cyber Realm", players had a glorious era, and the time node of this glorious era was after leaving the Cyber Test Field and before encountering the Ascension Civilization.

At this time node, players who had experienced the abnormal intensity of the Cyber Test Field suddenly entered normal interstellar difficulty and realized one thing — damn, I’m actually this awesome!? I was genuinely favored by the game version once??

And the Vervi Star Thief Group became the first wave of victims of the rise of the ’4th Celestial Calamity’.

In the cannon fire of the floating cannon, these star thieves suddenly discovered that their damage was not as high as imagined.

The floating cannon within the starship system is between miniature and small energy cannons, with a damage range of 10,000 to 50,000. This kind of damage, if a player takes a direct hit, indeed, might result in instant kill damage, but already honed to be experienced players, how could they rush forward bluntly? Almost the instant the spaceship forcefully landed, they showcased their unique abilities.

Some players formed permanent teams, advanced corporate knights stood at the front, wielding mechanical transformation shields, advancing step by step under the radiance of energy cannons. The surface of this corporate custom-made shield is wrapped with a special energy membrane, which not only reduces damage but also has a certain probability of reflecting energy beams.

Meanwhile, players obsessed with modification, the modules on their bodies have long revealed dozens of long-range weapons, enhanced heavy machine guns, energy weapons, biochemical grenade launchers, mini drone swarms, while under cannon fire, they counterattacked — their firepower was so strong that the star thieves’ bodies were directly torn apart. The equipment they acquired from the Black Market couldn’t withstand the players’ attacks at all.

"Damn, Tier 2 soldier species are still using Whiteboard weapons, are you guys joking?"

A player whose mechanical transformation rate exceeded 100% couldn’t help but complain.

Seeing these ’interstellar citizens’ far tougher than expected, the officials of the Vervi Star Thief Group also stepped onto the battlefield. These were the true elites of this small star thief group, not only were equipped with top-grade contraband, but most importantly, they were laden with one to two boss templates.

NPCs with boss templates compared to those without, are completely different species.

A single boss template is enough to significantly extend an NPC’s blood volume.

These more than a dozen high-level officials with boss templates were what Vervi considered the real star thief group members. As for the other star thieves, they were all mass-produced goods.

Once these ’star thief bosses’ entered the battlefield, they immediately inflicted considerable damage on the players.

A ’star thief boss’ suddenly lit up with a blue brain, and then within an area of 500*500 meters, blue currents fell overwhelmingly, sweeping the nearby players away.

Another star thief boss activated carbon fusion, its flesh swelling instantly to a hundred meters, transforming into a giant monster with skin peeled from its upper body and black spikes covering its lower body. With four massive arms, each with millstone-sized palms, whether punching or sweeping, it cleared the path in one swipe.

As for the other bosses, they each demonstrated their methods, inflicting damage that the star thief group should have in this local battlefield.

It’s worth mentioning that after these star thief bosses transformed, their levels broke through to Tier 3, and their biological energy surpassed ten million.

"A type of biological superpower modification technology?" Gao Gong hovered outside the planet, silently eating popcorn.

If you consider human genes as strings of code, most carbon-based intelligent species’ gene combinations are like a mountain of code crap.

The frustrating part is, once optimized against this crap, it’s likely to cause bugs. These bugs aren’t virtual video game bugs; once they appear, even advanced life forms would perish.

Thus the updates to ’human code’ span tens of thousands of years, and any slight oversight might waste all previous effort.

Yet, when successful, it often results in the cultivation of a powerful race.

In Gao Gong’s view, the biological transformation technology of this star thief group was a Tier 3 level modification technology, which is likely why the system gave a Tier 3 task.

However, Gao Gong obviously noticed that this modification technology had significant issues; otherwise, out of tens of thousands of star thieves, only a dozen broke through to Tier 3.

Mass production capacity is always the highest standard for measuring a technology.

But speaking of this, if this technology indeed had a particularly high success rate, with all tens of thousands of star thieves breaking through to Tier 3, such a level star thief group wouldn’t be considered a small group, even he could only avoid their edge initially and wait for the biomechanical armor army to form before making a comeback.

The opponent’s Tier 3 body transformation technology is immature, but his biomechanical armor technology is mature and simultaneously possesses ten million biological energy and ten million mechanical energy. Even if the opponent’s technology were mature, it couldn’t compare to his mecha fusion technology.

If we are to calculate by equipment level.

The technology of the opponent is probably at the Tier 3—Whiteboard level, while my technology is at the Tier 2: Era-defining level.

Once Era-defining technology breaks through, it far surpasses the opponent’s technical level, and even if it doesn’t break through, it can still crush the opponent.

For biomechanical armor to break through to Tier 3, aside from mass production, the key is whether it can enter Fusion Mode.

Once fused, Gao Gong can probably confirm that the mech’s biochemical energy can soar over 50 million, and breaking through to over a hundred million isn’t impossible.

And such super soldiers, taking on a Tier 3 Civilization Weapon is no problem at all.

Even upon reaching maturity where they touch the Ascension edge of Level 3 civilization, their top soldier species’ strength is no more than this.

And such civilizations, no matter which one, have experienced at least hundreds of thousands, even longer, years of development.

Just as Gao Gong’s thoughts were wandering, the battle situation changed, unexpectedly, not because the dwarf planet’s ground battles reached a conclusion, but because ten star thief ships above simultaneously lost control as if by agreement. They either exploded or broke free from the star thieves’ control. Though the Star Thief Group had nearly a hundred small starships, having ten lose control at once was enough to be a headache.

On one of the crashing star thief ships, Rainy Night with a Knife and No Umbrella silently sheathed his sword, and under his blade, a high-level official of Vervi twitched continuously.

"Brother Umbrella, is it done? The self-destruct program is about to initiate."

Brother Umbrella silently nodded, his figure instantly disappearing from the spot.

Meanwhile, on another crashing starship, Ms. Dida appeared on the periphery of the nuclear reactor, her palm scattered countless energy fungi, and under their influence, the nuclear reactor’s radiance grew brighter and brighter until it exploded.

Apart from the exploding starships, several star thief ships turned on their companions in a surprise attack.

Inside some star thief ships, all the star thieves slaughtered each other, their blood spilling over the control room. In others, the star thieves strictly followed orders, mechanically operating the controls at the floating cannon stations with a clear target, attacking their Star Thief Group peers. These star thieves’ eyes flashed with peculiar data fluctuations.

’They actually didn’t install brain-machine firewalls, these aliens are too arrogant.’

’The firewall inside this broken ship is useless; I’ve already hacked in, watch me remotely control the ship to self-destruct.’

’The attack intensity of these shipborne energy cannons feels weaker than the corporation’s defense system, is this all the aliens have?’

Business spies, cyber hackers, and data life, these professions or bloodlines of players invaded even more smoothly.

These veterans polished in Cyber Space, Hacker Wars, and corporate network battles remarked, is that all? This starship’s network defense system is no better than bare hardware.

Don’t you aliens surf the internet?

Thus soon, another ten starships began to turncoat. After the first ’network intrusion,’ this invasion was even smoother. Many star thieves were controlled before they even reacted.

Each interstellar influence, and even civilization influence, has its long and short fields, and for the Vervi Star Thief Group, accomplishments in body transformation meant their virtual level was a weak point.

The ground personnel were a bit anxious; they weren’t fools, knowing from the start of the battle these were not civilians but mercenaries more elite than them. This prey was likely a trap. However, the Star Thief Group’s internal rules were savage; leaving the battlefield without the leader’s consent would be executed according to family law.

In the distance, the giant insect Emville gleefully vibrated its mouthparts. It never expected these interstellar citizens to fight so fiercely; it thought upon finally awakening again, confronting the still ruthless star thieves, it would have to retreat into hibernation again.

’Just, advanced virtual means, unique radical transformation technology, and biological armor and mecha never seen in this star domain, are these people from that advanced civilization’s experimental planet? But to my knowledge, that planet was closed until the experiment ended, so the experiment is over?’ Emville pondered.

After another high-ranking member of the Star Thief Gang was taken down, a massive explosion echoed between the engine and the main reactor chamber of the main ship of the Star Thief Gang; the leader of the Star Thief Group, Vervi, finally emerged in an unexpected manner, to the suspense of his subordinates.

Vervi’s skin was blue, but now his face was as black as ink.

It’s not that he didn’t want to command, but inside the starship, the flow of time seemed to accelerate a thousandfold in an instant. By the time he gathered his thoughts, the situation had already spiraled into a stalemate.