Chapter 536 - 363: Top Secret Terminal, Part 2

Liangzi proudly lifted his chin. "Of course. Your bro Liangzi has been around the block. How could I get by without a few tricks up my sleeve? I didn't dare turn it on before, afraid those bastards would track us. We're far enough away now, so it should be fine."

He browsed for a moment, his expression turning complicated. "The situation isn't great, but it's not terrible either."

"Get to the point," Wu Liangchen said.

"The Dome Corporation is in an uproar over Schiller and his elite squad getting wiped out! The entire city of Zhongjing is on high alert now. There are patrols and checkpoints everywhere, especially at surface transport hubs and the entrances to known underground tunnels. Security is extremely tight."

Liangzi paused, then continued, "But the good news is, they haven't reacted this quickly to unknown, deep underground areas like this one. After all, the complexity of Zhongjing's underbelly is beyond imagination. No matter how many people they have, they can't possibly cover every corner in a short amount of time."

This news allowed everyone to breathe a small sigh of relief, and they began to rest and recuperate.

Wu Liangchen gathered a large amount of dried moss and started a bonfire. Meanwhile, Liangzi showed off his cooking skills, whipping up a surprisingly decent meal with their extremely limited ingredients.

After they finished eating, Wu Liangchen stood up. "I need to go topside."

Hearing this, everyone fell silent.

Jian Yi gripped his sword, his hazy gray eyes fixed on Wu Liangchen. "It's too dangerous for you to go alone."

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Wu Liangchen smiled, his grin radiating an undeniable confidence. "Those small fry on the surface can't stop me."

He paused, then looked at Song Ling'Er and Alina. "Take care of yourselves."

Song Ling'Er nodded emphatically, while Alina said softly, "Be careful."

With his farewells said, Wu Liangchen wasted no more time and turned to leave.

The return journey was relatively smooth. Wu Liangchen made it back to the surface in less than an hour.

By now, night had fallen. Wu Liangchen ran swiftly through the darkened city of Zhongjing, periodically ducking away from night patrol squads.

Soon, he reached the outskirts of the Hive Apartment. After observing for a moment and confirming that nothing was amiss, he dashed across.

Inside the Hive Apartment, everything was as usual. When Wu Liangchen reached Old K's room on the top floor, he saw him facing a bank of screens filled with dense streams of data. Hearing the noise behind him, Old K spoke flatly without turning his head.

"I'm surprised you dare to show your face at a time like this!"

In fact, Old K had noticed him the moment Wu Liangchen stepped into the Hive Apartment.

That was precisely why he felt a flicker of surprise.

After all, following the annihilation of Schiller and his elite squad, the story of Wu Liangchen's deeds had long since spread through every channel of Zhongjing's underworld.

He never expected that this man—the Dome Corporation's most wanted target, who had thrown the entire city of Zhongjing into turmoil—would appear before him so suddenly.

Wu Liangchen wasted no time on pleasantries. He took an object wrapped in layers of oilcloth from his coat and placed it on the metal workbench in front of Old K, which was cluttered with spare parts.

"Dome Corporation. Schiller's personal terminal," he said, getting straight to the point.

The oilcloth was unwrapped, revealing a personal terminal with an exquisitely crafted alloy shell bearing a unique texture.

Old K's electronic eyes scanned the terminal, the data streams flickering in them noticeably faster. He reached out with his mechanical hand—a limb covered in metal joints and exposed wiring—picked up the terminal, and examined it closely.

After a moment, he set the terminal down, and the light in his electronic eyes returned to a steady glow.

"A custom terminal for the Dome Corporation's 'Executioner' sequence. Encryption level is S-class at a minimum," Old K's voice was still flat.

"For anyone else, trying to crack it would be a near-impossible task."

He paused, his electronic eyes turning to Wu Liangchen. "But for me, it's not very difficult."

Wu Liangchen watched him quietly, saying nothing, waiting for what would come next.

"So, what's your offer? You should know, this thing is tied to the Dome Corporation's deepest secrets. If they find out I'm the one who did this, even I will be in a world of hurt."

Old K's electronic eyes glowed with a faint blue light as he watched Wu Liangchen.

The air was filled with the smell of oil and the faint tang of rust.

"What do you want?" Wu Liangchen's calm voice broke the momentary silence. He knew very well that people like Old K never made a losing deal.

"Simple. In the West District of Zhongjing, inside the Old Energy Core Quarantine Zone, is the abandoned Research Institute 734. It was once an important pre-war research outpost. Later, the Dome Corporation took it over, and then it was completely sealed off after an 'incident.'"

He paused, as if recalling some long-buried information. "According to the fragmented intel I have, a storage chip from a pre-war mainframe should still be preserved deep inside the institute. I want it."

Wu Liangchen raised an eyebrow. The Old Energy Core Quarantine Zone… even in the underworld, that place had a deadly reputation. Radiation, mutated creatures, unstable energy fields, and the Dome Corporation's outer blockade made it a forbidden zone where survival was next to impossible.

"That place is now a military exclusion zone for the Dome Corporation. The perimeter is patrolled by heavily armed soldiers, with enough firepower to handle a small-scale war. As for the inside…"

The light in Old K's electronic eyes flickered more intensely. "Rumor has it, some of the Dome Corporation's early experiments got out of control and were abandoned there. After all these years, heaven knows what they've turned into."

"So you want me to go there, past a horde of monsters and through the Dome Corporation's guns, to retrieve a chip for you?" Wu Liangchen's tone remained unchanged.

"Precisely," Old K said frankly. "That chip is vital to me. Of course, risk and reward go hand in hand. If you can bring it back, I'll owe you a favor. In the future, if you run into any technical trouble in Zhongjing, I'll help you out once, free of charge."

Wu Liangchen pondered for a moment, his gaze sharp as a knife. "Alright. But you have to unlock this first."

"Deal."

Old K picked up the exquisite personal terminal and skillfully connected it via a custom data cable to the massive, complex mainframe behind him. In an instant, the bank of screens before him lit up, and countless streams of ghostly green code cascaded down like waterfalls, a dazzling sight.

Old K's ten fingers—if you could still call them that, those metal tentacles and probes shimmering with a faint light—danced nimbly across the console, tapping and touching so fast that they left only a blur of afterimages.

Data streams refreshed frantically in his electronic eyes. Various complex encryption algorithms and permission firewalls appeared on the screen like fortified city walls, only to be cracked one by one with what could almost be described as brute-force elegance.

"A custom terminal for the Dome Corporation's 'Executioner' sequence. S-plus encryption, nested with three layers of dynamic firewalls, plus a recognition lock based on the user's bio-electric field… Interesting."

Old K's voice held a trace of amusement, as if he weren't facing a series of problems that would stump even the Federation's top security experts, but rather an interesting toy.

The minutes ticked by. The only sounds in the room were the low hum of the mainframe's cooling fans and the faint mechanical clicks of Old K's work.

About an hour later, as the last red warning rune on the screen was replaced by the blue words "ACCESS GRANTED," Old K's movements ceased.

"Done." He disconnected the terminal from the mainframe and pushed it toward Wu Liangchen.

Wu Liangchen picked up the terminal and connected it via a simple adapter to a separate light-screen provided by Old K. The terminal's interface was force-activated, revealing its internal storage structure.

He first opened some routine communication logs and mission briefings. Most of it was correspondence between Schiller and other members of the Dome Corporation, along with details of some cleanup operations against "resistance elements." While this information had some value, it wasn't what Wu Liangchen wanted to see most.

He patiently dug deeper, layer by layer. Soon, a few specially encrypted folders labeled "Top Secret" appeared. Wu Liangchen's heart rate quickened slightly. He had a hunch that the real core information was in here.

When the first force-decrypted video file began to play, even the iron-willed Wu Liangchen couldn't stop his pupils from contracting sharply.