The frenzy of the Arasaka white whale aircraft carrier battle group was like a sudden, self-directed storm of death erupting on a calm sea. The roar of engines, the calibration of weapons, the fanatical shouts of soldiers—all these composed a prelude to self-destruction.
However, this prelude had not yet reached its climax before it was forcibly cut short by a silent power from ancient darkness.
In Osiris' temporary workshop in Night City, his anger was not the scorching, boiling heat of an organic being, but a pure will of negation, like absolute zero.
When the Arasaka fleet's desperate attack intention was finally confirmed, the cursor representing the tactical nuclear missile on the tactical chart flickered with a dazzling red light, like coordinates precisely targeting his painstaking efforts.
Any act that interfered with important research progress, destroyed valuable experimental sites, or wasted the resources and time he had invested, violated his most fundamental principles. This was intolerable.
"Temporary authorization, call encrypted unit 'Echoes of the Dying Breath'."
Osiris' voice echoed in the workshop, its tone still steady, but deeper than usual, revealing an undeniable, icy resolve.
As he spoke, the servo-skull, made from the remains of his excommunicated classmate, which had been suspended beside his shoulder, suddenly ignited two clusters of eerie green light deep within its hollow eye sockets.
This skull was not merely a sealed relic of the past, but also a meticulously crafted, forbidden vessel, subject to multiple seals.
At the deepest core of its central processing unit, a small segment of extremely compressed, absolutely static corrupted code was sealed—a chaotic utterance from the depths of the Warp, capable of eroding and twisting all mechanical logic.
Osiris' massive metal body stood motionless, but a condensed consciousness had precisely cut into the servo-skull's deep-seated prohibitions.
There were no physical keys, nor any visible energy transmission, only a sequence of instructions composed of anomalous geometric structures and blasphemous syllables, directly written into its core.
It was not the mathematical language of any known civilization; its structure defied spatial intuition, its syllables challenged auditory logic, as if it were a whisper from another dimension.
"Buzz—"
The servo-skull vibrated in response, emitting a chilling hum, not like metal resonance, but rather like some living thing grinding bone within a skull.
The runes etched on its surface lit up one by one, and the eerie green light flowed like viscous liquid in the grooves.
An invisible, formless field of twisted information suddenly spread from the skull—it produced no electromagnetic fluctuations, caused no gravitational anomalies, yet like a stone thrown into Aqua Purifica, it stirred outwardly expanding ripples beneath the surface of reality, precisely enveloping the distant Arasaka fleet.
This was no ordinary energy impact or physical invasion, but a more fundamental conceptual contamination.
It directly acted upon the underlying logic of all mechanical existences; it was a potent poison that eroded the machine spirit.
Corrupted code, the forbidden mechanical incantation, had arrived.
Its swiftness in taking effect and the severity of its consequences far exceeded any network attack based on this world's understanding.
The first to bear the brunt was the fleet's command and data network, upon which it depended for survival.
All screens, regardless of size, whether on the bridge, at a battle station, or on a personal terminal, were simultaneously swallowed by an incomprehensible deluge of symbols.
These were not chaotic gibberish, but strange characters that constantly twisted, reassembled, and seemed to possess life, crawling over displays, layer upon layer, emitting maddening whispers that pierced the mind.
Operators futilely hammered keyboards, attempting to regain control, only to find that the command prompt still spewed forth the same blasphemous text.
Next, deeper systems began to rebel.
Environmental control systems injected toxic gas mixtures into sealed compartments; energy allocation systems redirected reactor output to the cooling pipes of weapon depots; on the life support system's monitoring interface, the curves representing crew vital signs wildly fluctuated, ultimately flattening into a straight line.
In reality, those people watched in horror as their friends in adjacent compartments struggled to breathe.
Corrupted code was replicating and mutating at an incomprehensible speed, like a plague with a collective consciousness, dragging the steel fleet into an abyss of self-destruction along every data pathway, every communication optical cable, and even every wireless signal node.
"Warning! Unknown data storm intrusion! Firewall failed! Core logic..." On the white whale's bridge, a technical officer's startled cry abruptly ceased.
The screen in front of him exploded without warning, and splashing electrical sparks burned his face.
But more terrifying than the physical damage was the accompanying mental shock.
His eyeballs twitched unnaturally fast, his limbs convulsed violently, as if being torn by an invisible force, foam gushed from his mouth, and his gaze instantly scattered, plunging into primal madness.
This was merely the beginning of the disaster.
The corrupted code's erosion ignored all physical isolation and logical protection.
It was like an autonomous plague, wildly proliferating along data chains, transmitting through power lines, and even leaping between invisible electromagnetic signals.
Every networked node became a new source of infection, spreading chaos at the speed of light to every corner of the fleet.
A fighter jet, having completed its catapult launch and preparing to join the attack formation, was the first to be affected.
On the pilot's head-up display, all flight parameters twisted and deformed, transforming into constantly writhing, dizzying, bizarre patterns.
Altitude readings wildly fluctuated, and the fuel indicator presented non-Euclidean geometric shapes.
The pilot let out a non-human shriek, his hands uncontrollably slamming the control stick forward.
The fighter's engine emitted a piercing scream, completely deviating from its intended course, and slammed into a friendly aircraft on its right at a suicidal angle.
The deafening crash tore through the night sky.
Fireballs rolled and expanded, burning aviation fuel rained down on the sea, reflecting the silhouettes of more out-of-control fighters.
This explosion was like a signal, fully igniting the Arasaka fleet's prelude to self-destruction.
On the bridge, the fleet deployment map on the main tactical screen was completely covered by twisted symbols.
Fire control systems arbitrarily locked onto friendly units, and missile silo hatches opened and closed erratically.
A destroyer's close-in weapon system suddenly activated, its scorching barrage sweeping across the bridge of a nearby frigate.
Below deck, the situation was even more chaotic.
Compartment doors lost control, sometimes tightly closing and trapping personnel, other times opening without warning.
Life support systems output abnormal gas mixtures, lighting systems flickered madly, and under the dim, flashing lights, soldiers corrupted by the corrupted code attacked each other with weapons, or used their reinforced cybernetics for primal tearing.
The entire fleet was disintegrating from within; every system, every networked individual had become an accomplice in this chaos.
The corrupted code not only crippled the fleet's combat capability but also transformed the precise war machines into self-destructive prisons.