Takayama Shintaro's face showed a nearly insane determination; he spun around abruptly, facing the entire bridge command.
His hoarse voice, filled with an unquestionable authority, exploded in the command room: "My orders! white whale Battle Group, all units, immediately enter maximum combat readiness! Target — Night City!"
This command, it was as if a mad switch had been flipped.
The entire command system instantly ignited, and the eyes of commanders at all levels gleamed with the same mad light.
They almost roared as they repeated the orders: "All naval guns, immediately adjust firing arcs, lock onto Night City's core area!"
"Missile silos all open, coordinates locked!"
"Air wing! All aircraft launch! Arm the highest yield munitions! Repeat, highest yield munitions!"
Takayama took a deep breath, the madness in his eyes reaching its peak, almost screaming as he gave the final command: "Load that 'special warhead'! Immediately onto the lead aircraft! Authorization for use!
Since they dared to humiliate Young Master Kei, to humiliate Lord Saburo, then let them... along with this damnable city, burn together in Arasaka's wrath!"
The command echoed like a death knell in every corner of the entire battle group.
This was no longer a commander's personal madness, but the collective frenzy of the entire Arasaka military machine.
On the flight deck of the white whale, ground crew, as if injected with a mad serum, worked at a near-self-destructive pace to arm the aircraft.
There was no fear of nuclear bombs in their eyes, only a pathological fanaticism.
When the tactical nuclear warhead, marked with a radiation warning symbol and the Arasaka family crest, was carefully loaded onto the specially modified attack aircraft, the surrounding ground crew even showed expressions of near-piety.
"For Lord Saburo!" someone shouted first, and the cry immediately spread across the deck.
In the command center, operations staff frantically calculated strike parameters; their faces showed no hesitation, only a martyr-like resolve.
Communication channels were filled with the hoarse confirmations of ship commanders, each voice carrying the same mad undertone.
The roar of engines, like the bellow of beasts, tore through the stillness of the sea.
One after another, fighter jets, like cursed arrows, catapulted into the sky from the aircraft carrier's deck.
They quickly formed a massive attack formation in the night sky, each fighter laden with the will to destroy.
All the fleet's turrets rotated in unison, their cold muzzles pointed neatly at the brightly lit city in the distance.
At this moment, the entire Arasaka fleet transformed into one giant suicide attack weapon.
From the highest commander to the lowest soldier, everyone was immersed in a collective "gyokusai" fervor.
This madness transcended reason, obliterated fear, leaving only one common thought — to cleanse that inviolable honor in their hearts in the most extreme way.
However, the Arasaka fleet's all-out mad actions did not escape an omnipresent pair of "eyes."
At this moment, in the temporary workshop in Night City's Wasteland Town, Osiris was focused on the final stage of data verification for the large-scale design of the dimensional teleporter.
On the temporarily erected main console, a blue holographic design slowly rotated, and countless data streams poured down like a waterfall.
Just as the verification process reached a critical juncture, the servo-skull hovering nearby suddenly emitted a sharp alarm hum.
Almost simultaneously, two virtual images flashed synchronously in the data space — Spider Murphy's iconic red hair and the meticulous image of the administrator, Arasaka Kei, materialized almost at the same time.
"Lord Archmagos." Arasaka Kei's voice remained his usual steady tone, but his speech rate noticeably quickened, "Detected abnormal large-scale deployment of the Arasaka white whale Battle Group.
All shipborne weapon systems have completed launch preparations, and the aerial attack formation has launched, approaching Night City at combat speed. Attack intent is clear, threat level assessment: highest."
Spider Murphy's supplement followed closely, with the cold confirmation characteristic of a netrunner: "They are using strategic-level weapons. My monitoring nodes show that the last tactical nuclear warhead has completed its loading procedure, and the target parameters most likely point to the workshop area or the civic center. Takayama Shintaro has issued a 'gyokusai' attack order."
Osiris' data verification movements abruptly ceased.
His massive metal body slowly turned to the main control screen, his crimson optical lenses precisely locking onto the real-time battlefield situation map.
The light points representing the Arasaka fleet and the air formation were rapidly approaching, and the specially marked nuclear warhead signal was particularly glaring.
Inside his processing core, data streams surged wildly at an unprecedented speed, conducting multi-threaded threat assessments and tactical simulations.
Initially, a purely tactical analysis quickly unfolded within Osiris' processing core — enemy force composition, attack path planning, estimated arrival time, friendly defense resource allocation plans... these data operated like gears in a precision instrument, fitting together perfectly.
However, as the analysis deepened, an unprecedented emotion began to spread through his logical circuits.
This was not the vigilance in the face of a threat, nor the calmness in assessing enemy and friendly forces, but a deeper emotion — a strong dissatisfaction at being offended, being disturbed.
His experimental field, this "social laboratory" that had just established preliminary order and was producing valuable data, this research sample that had cost him a large amount of computing power and resources, and even required cross-dimensional technology to call the Skitarii Corps... now, a group of ignorant fools dared to attempt to completely destroy it in the most brutal way?
All for those ridiculous "dignities"? For that decaying old concept of "the subject dies when the master is humiliated"?
Did they not understand that interfering with an Adeptus Mechanicus Exploration Archmagos' research process was an unforgivable act, more so than any form of blasphemy?
This dissatisfaction was cold and pure, devoid of human emotional agitation, yet more oppressive than any hysterical outburst.
It stemmed from a deep concern that a precious research environment might be destroyed, and from an absolute intolerance for the potential ruin of valuable data that was about to be produced.
Osiris' crimson optical lenses slightly adjusted their focus, changing for the first time due to non-research-related emotions, firmly locking onto the light point representing Arasaka's final madness.
He was finally enraged.
This anger did not stem from a loss of personal emotional control, but from a profound dissatisfaction with important research about to be savagely interrupted.
At this moment, when critical data was about to be produced, any act that interfered with the experimental process was a blasphemy against the pursuit of knowledge itself.
And the blasphemers would face Osiris' most intense retribution.