Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 96 Intranet
"Wouldn't it be too dangerous to go into the city now?"

Hua Xin lowered his voice and spoke cautiously, "The patrol density of the Nuclear Group is three times higher than before, and there are informants everywhere."

"Don't worry, I have a shortcut to get into the city, and I also have two clean identities."

Watson paused for a moment, then realized: "Pepper and George?"

"Well, I've been renewing both of these identities, so they're relatively clean. Last time I got you out of the criminal camp, I already ruined one of the 'Danny' identities."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhuang Fan opened the nano briefcase and reshaped it into the appearance of "Pepa".

He put on a custom smart ring, and the shape of his finger bones was subtly adjusted accordingly.

Watson stepped forward: "Boss, don't you have another identity? I'll go with you."

Zhuang Fan shook his head.

"Too many people will inevitably lead to mistakes, and you are now the team's manager, so you need to keep an eye on everything."

He then looked at Hua Xin: "You continue to monitor the nuclear activities and report to me at any time."

Hua Xin nodded: "Be careful."

"I will."

After watching Zhuang Fan's figure disappear into the end of the ruins, the two siblings remained silent for a moment.

Hua Xin's voice was somewhat muffled: "...It seems that every time, it's always the boss walking in front, and we can't help him at all."

Watson's metal hand slowly clenched into a fist.

"So he's our boss."

Zhuang Fan followed the secret passage previously dug by the ratmen and crawled into an abandoned sewer entrance.

He climbed up the ladder, and the manhole cover was pushed open a crack, allowing the noise from the outside world to rush in instantly.

After confirming that no one was around, he climbed out and put the manhole cover back on.

Nearby is the outermost garbage disposal area of ​​Linhai City, where towering mountains of garbage stretch endlessly.

He didn't stop, using the shadows of the buildings to avoid the aerial patrols, and headed towards the distant garbage mountain.

A thick, decaying fog permeated the garbage mountain, causing ordinary scavengers to instinctively avoid it.

But in Zhuang Fan's eyes, this place is full of prosthetic body remnants, composite armor plates, and chips, a treasure trove that has never been explored.

How can we make use of these resources?

Thoughts raced through Zhuang Fan's mind, and a preliminary plan had already taken shape.

But right now, he has something more important to do.

He turned into a deeper alley next to the garbage dump, where the light was dim, the smell was sour, and the walls were covered with graffiti of unknown meaning.

At the end of the alleyway was an inconspicuous iron gate.

Behind the door was a spacious underground space, which was a hidden underground black market.

Various stalls were set up along the wall, and most of the vendors covered their faces with hoods or masks, hawking various goods of dubious origin in low voices.

There are military-grade weapon parts, hacked smart chips, and prosthetic bodies taken from corpses.

Zhuang Fan's goal is very clear.

He pushed through the crowd and came to a stall that specialized in selling machinery.

The stall owner was a thin, bony old man with a cloudy prosthetic eye that gleamed with a faint red light.

"Boss, give me a dog." Zhuang Fan's voice was low.

The old man sized him up. "What's the quality?"

"It can run, it can bite, and it has clean information."

"Easy to say."

The old man took out a mechanical dog that was half a meter tall.

Its outer shell is made of different types of metal sheets pieced together, and it looks like it might fall apart at any moment.

"Make a price."

"Ten thousand."

"Two thousand, plus a remote control."

This is robbery.

"Sell it or not?"

The old man stared at him for a long time, then said, "Deal."

Zhuang Fan paid with gold coins, took the palm-sized controller, and then picked up the mechanical dog.

He turned and disappeared into the crowd, quickly vanishing into the shadows of the market.

The night is getting darker.

Zhuang Fan stood in front of the window of an abandoned house, a slum in Linhai City, low and dilapidated.

He hid in the shadows, observing the inconspicuous little building from afar.

That was Xu Renyi's hidden sanctuary.

When he escaped from the criminal camp, he intended to hide here, but he sensed that the eerie mist inside was mixed with other people's information, and that strangers had been inside.

Clearly, the nuclear agents had already figured out this place and laid a trap, just waiting for him, this big fish, to walk right in.

"Since you want me to take the bait, then I'll take the bait."

Zhuang Fan didn't approach, but retreated to a more distant, shadowy corner and opened the mini control panel.

He maneuvered the robotic dog, approaching the target from another alleyway.

But just then, he caught a whiff of a strange yet familiar eerie mist.

They are members of the Apocalypse Church.

The group's eerie mist-like characteristics were similar to those of humans, but the fanaticism and chaos mixed within them could not escape his keen perception.

His gaze swept across the street and quickly locked onto an inconspicuous figure.

The man was wearing a large coat with the hood pulled low, obscuring his face.

His eyes were wary, and he kept glancing back.

He then turned into a deeper slum and disappeared into a dilapidated house.

Zhuang Fan followed silently.

The closer you get to that area, the higher the concentration of the Apocalypse Cult's eerie mist becomes.

There are more than just one or two believers here; the eerie fog in the air is formed by the convergence of hundreds of independent sources, resulting in an abnormally high concentration.

There are at least several hundred believers lurking in this area.

Clearly, he had inadvertently exposed a stronghold of the Apocalypse Cult.

Instead of rushing in, he went around to the back of the stronghold, climbed onto the roof of a building, and looked down.

The place is almost entirely inhabited by humans, who are the lowest-ranking followers of the Apocalypse Church, also known as the "Lambs".

Their faces were covered with distorted totems, their eyes were fanatical and empty, and they swayed in the hallucinogenic smoke like a group of puppets.

Next to it was the slaughterhouse, which reeked of blood.

Skinned corpses hung upside down on iron hooks, their dark red blood flowing and pooling into puddles.

Zhuang Fan found a more secluded corner, opened the control panel, and the mechanical dog's perspective appeared before him.

The show is about to begin.

……

Nuclear Group, Linhai City Branch, Command Center.

The crow was standing in front of the huge holographic map, examining the various areas.

On the map, the white area representing "safety" is already more than half full and is constantly encroaching on the red danger zone.

On the light screen, the progress of the block clearing under Grey Goose's responsibility has exceeded the preset target.

"She is very efficient."

Crow traced his fingertips across the map. "Much better than those incompetent bastards at Fengmang."

The deputy beside him was puzzled: "We've already searched most of the outer city area. Is the target really in the outer city?"

The crow frowned. That's a good question.

What if Zhang Dafan is in the city?
Just then, an encrypted communication came through; it was an urgent report from the monitoring team.

"Sir! Something is approaching the shelter in Sector A-7 of the inner city!"

The crow raised an eyebrow. "What foreign object?"

"It's a mechanical dog."

The voice on the other end of the communication channel carried a hint of excitement: "It was very cautious, constantly lingering outside, but our monitoring equipment captured its movements throughout."

"Switch the camera over here."

The screen shifts, and a dilapidated mechanical dog appears on the screen.

It moves nimbly, knowing how to use any obstacle that can provide cover, approaching little by little, like an experienced scout.

Finally, it cautiously ventured into the house and precisely located the entrance to the underground shelter.

"interesting."

The crow's gaze never left the screen, revealing an expression of certainty.

He knew very well that apart from that guy named Zhang Dafan and some clueless vagrants, no one had been interested in that dilapidated house for decades.

There was nothing inside except for junk.

"The fish has finally taken the bait."

His voice was steady, and he tapped the map with his fingertip, issuing a series of instructions:

"Notify the city's internal forces to locate the operator's position and secretly surround them without alerting them."

"Yes!"

A moment later, new information arrived.

"Report: The location of the manipulator has been pinpointed. They are in another slum. Our people are on their way."

"Yes, let's surround it first."

The crow's gaze shifted from the coordinates of the slums back to the map of the coastal city.

"All troops in the white zones of the outer city shall be withdrawn back into the city, while the red zones shall continue to be searched."

The deputy hesitated for a moment: "Sir, if this happens, what will happen to the safe zone we worked so hard to clear out..."

"There's no point anymore."

The crow interrupted him, its gaze returning to the slums:

"Our intelligence network, patrols, and even assessments on the internal network are all drawing our attention outside the city, towards the southern part of the city."

"He thought he was the hunter and treated everyone as pawns."

A slight smile played on Crow's lips. "But he forgot that the chessboard belongs to me."

……

Zhuang Fan emerged from the shadows and stepped into the core of the Apocalypse Cult's stronghold.

The dark mist, as if alive, clung to his entire body, completely blurring his features and figure, sending chills down one's spine.

The surrounding "lambs" retreated, their eyes filled with awe.

Zhuang Fan tossed the control panel to a believer; "Take it and put it in the warehouse."

The believer paused for a moment, then immediately nodded and left.

At this moment, a patriarch dressed in black robes strode over, stopped in front of him, and bowed slightly.

"This... Lord Demon General."

The patriarch was humble, but his eyes held a subtle scrutiny: "I didn't know you had come all this way. What brings you here?"

"Whom do you take orders from?"

"Reporting to my lord, it is the Iron Tower Apostle."

The Eiffel Tower—it was him all along.

Zhuang Fan had clashed with it before, absorbing two demon generals and scaring it away, but now it has managed to become an apostle.

The Apocalypse Church has a strict hierarchy, with the Patriarch above the Twelve Apostles, who are all demon generals.

Seeing that Zhuang Fan did not speak, the patriarch continued to ask:

"Sir, what are you doing... " "Look what you've done.

Zhuang Fan coldly shouted, "Why did you bring the nuclear people here?"

The Patriarch was startled and instinctively retorted, "Ah, absolutely not! Our spies..."

How dare you speak to me like that?

The patriarch suddenly realized his slip of the tongue and quickly corrected himself, his voice becoming even more humble: "My lord, please calm your anger. It was my mistake."

Although the demon general in front of him was not his superior, the demon general's status was far above his, so he dared not be negligent.

"Sir, we just confirmed that the sentries and informants on the perimeter have not detected anything unusual, and the eyes we have placed in the nuclear network are also showing normal operation."

"Go check again."

"Yes!"

He turned around and whispered a few instructions to the technician behind him.

Soon, a nuclear officer with a pale face was strapped to a metal cart and pushed out of the warehouse.

His head was covered with a dense network of wires connected to a complex instrument.

The display screen shows the internal network of the Nuclear Group.

Zhuang Fan's gaze swept over it; the intranet interface was very familiar, activating a part of Xu Renyi's memories.

The patriarch explained from the side, "My lord, we have only caught this one so far. We have also caught one each from Morisaka Networks and Bionic Intelligence. We are still trying to infiltrate these companies."

The officer had low-level privileges, but enough to access some basic information.

The technician swiped his finger across the screen and quickly brought up several key data points.

"Reporting to the Patriarch, we have confirmed three things:"

"First, the terminal's intranet access is still valid; second, his personal status is [on vacation], and his last check-in record is in the inner city; third, we have not detected any high-level network alerts targeting this area."

The technician paused briefly, glanced at the Demon General, and added with a touch of professional reserve:

"The data link is stable, no abnormal packet markers or encrypted handshake requests were detected, and everything is normal."

Zhuang Fan caught a glimpse of a technician’s superiority complex—the kind of sense that a “layman” wouldn’t understand—in the fleeting look in his eyes.

Hmm...this guy is interesting.

The technician cleared his throat and summarized:
"Based on our comprehensive assessment, the Nuclear Corporation was unaware of our presence. If they were to launch a surprise attack, according to the emergency security agreement, the first step would be to implement regional network silence and cut off all low-level access."

Zhuang Fan's gaze did not leave the screen, but the old man's memory told him something else.

The true top-level security protocol of the Nuclear Group is to maintain all network statuses as normal before launching a surprise attack, thereby deceiving the enemy and preventing the target from escaping in advance.

This trap was both a grave prepared for the Apocalypse Church and its best cover.

In addition, although Xu Renyi had all his access rights cut off, this old fox had already left himself a secret backdoor.

Zhuang Fan silently made a mental note of it, preparing to try it out later.

“The underground passage is crucial. You’re making too slow progress. Take me to see it.”

"well!"

The patriarch immediately assigned a deputy to lead Zhuang Fan to the underground passage.

After the demon general left, everyone couldn't help but laugh.

"Ah."

The technician next to him chuckled and whispered to his colleague, "Did you hear that? That guy is warning us that there's a ghost in the network."

The patriarch's face darkened; he too believed this was merely a bluffing attempt to intimidate.

There are also many wild demon generals in the wasteland. Their strength is far inferior to that of Lord Iron Tower, but they often play tricks and freeload. The Patriarch has seen many of them.

But he still picked up the communicator and called the sentries outside one by one.

"everything is normal."

The response he received was unremarkable, and the sense of absurdity he felt was quickly replaced by disdain.

He was just about to report this "farce" to the Apostles of the Tower when a believer rushed in, stumbling and crawling.

"Your Majesty, something terrible has happened! The sentries... all the sentries have suddenly disappeared!"

What do you mean by "all gone"?

"No one responded on the communication channel; it was as if they had vanished into thin air!"

Before the Patriarch could react, another technician cried out in alarm, "They're doing counter-infiltration! They've locked onto us! They knew about us all along!"

A chill ran down the patriarch's spine.

He finally realized that the warning from that person earlier was not unfounded.

"Combat team, prepare! The rest of you, take the data and evacuate through the secret passage! Quickly!"

But it's too late.

"boom--!"

"Boom--!"

In the air, more than a dozen combat hovercraft roared in, their searchlights tearing through the darkness and illuminating the entire slum as if it were daytime.

On the ground, squads of fully armed nuclear soldiers surged in from all directions, forming a blockade.

“Da da da da—!”

The machine gun spat out fire wildly, and bullets rained down like a storm.

The rockets, trailing plumes of flame, exploded in the rudimentary buildings of the slums, sending up bursts of fire.

"For the Gods!"

The fanatical followers of the Apocalypse Church roared, their eyes gleaming with fervor, as they surged out from behind their bunkers, their flesh and blood meeting the torrent of steel.

The machine gunners set up heavy firepower and opened fire on the hovercraft, trying to turn the tide.

Some fanatics, clutching explosive charges, charged toward the nuclear soldiers' lines, attempting to take the enemy down with them.

However, the nuclear soldiers' firepower was so fierce that these flesh-and-blood bodies were no match for them.

Crows have personally visited the front lines.

Looking at the sea of ​​fire before him, he was certain that Zhang Dafan was hiding here and was colluding with the Apocalypse Cult.

The resistance was stronger than expected.

He never imagined that this unassuming slum was such a large stronghold of the Apocalypse Cult.

"Report sir!"

A subordinate rushed over and said, "The enemy numbers at least several thousand, with around five or six hundred core members. They are putting up fierce resistance!"

"Send the outer city troops back to reinforce immediately!"

The crow's voice was cold and resolute: "No need to leave any survivors, eliminate them all! Also, search carefully, make sure to find Zhang Dafan's body!"

“Sir, the Apocalypse Cultists are always cunning; there must be a tunnel here.”

"Notify the security forces in Linhai City to mobilize them to investigate the nearby underground pipe network. We must not let any important person escape!"

By this time, Zhuang Fan had already quietly returned to the garbage dump via the underground passage.

The lieutenant also went to see the gods.

He was hiding in a makeshift shack made of shipping containers, with a dilapidated terminal in front of him.

Following the settings the old man remembered, he secretly bridged the terminal and successfully connected it to the nuclear intranet.

Coincidentally, due to the fierce fighting at the Apocalypse Cult stronghold, there were a large number of nuclear soldiers nearby, and the intranet signal was smoother than ever before.

He chose to hack here so that even if he were to be tracked back, he could keep the Nuclear Group's attention firmly locked on the inner city.

Connecting...

[Identification in progress...]

Anonymous identity verification successful.

Zhuang Fan successfully entered the internal network.

The secret access granted by Xu Renyi is extremely high, allowing access to the third to fourth layers of the nuclear intranet.

However, he had no operational authority, because any operation would leave a trace that was difficult to conceal.

Data streamed across the screen as he quickly captured high-level dynamics, troop distribution, and deployment records.

Finally, his gaze settled on a list titled "Wanted Targets".

The first name on the list is none other than "Zhang Dafan".

This is followed by a series of identity characteristics and the probability of appearing in various locations: Linhai City 89%, Nancheng 46%, Zhongdu 33%.

The second is Max Hardy.

Status: Fugitive

Location: South City, probability 93%

Zhuang Fan's gaze lingered on that line of text, a strange sense of emotion welling up within him.

Max, that fierce general... is still alive.

The third is Mona.

Status: Fugitive

Location: Unknown

The name Mona triggered another key memory for Xu Renyi.

He was one of Xu Renyi's most trusted old stewards, and like Max, he was one of his right-hand men.

More importantly, Xu Renyi had secretly stored the main control unit of the group headquarters, a frozen miniature brain, with the old butler.

This is Xu Renyi's last trump card.

If one day he loses control of the nuclear group, he can regain everything through this miniature brain.

The old housekeeper is now missing.

However, they had a secret agreement that the old steward would always stay in the inner city of Zhongdu, but his exact location was uncertain.

"That old fox definitely has many tricks up his sleeve. If I can go to Zhongdu, perhaps I can activate more memories..."

But the thought was quickly suppressed.

Zhuang Fan considered another possibility: Could this be another trap?
After all, Xu Renyi was known for his madness, tyranny, and unpredictable temper. The old steward was like walking on thin ice, and whether he could be trusted was still a question mark.

Fourth place: Gan Zeyuan.

Status: Fugitive

Location: Unknown

It was a very ordinary name, but the image accompanying the portrait made Zhuang Fan see his past self.

He wore thick glasses, had messy hair, heavy dark circles under his eyes, and wore a loose white robe, looking like a miserable research student who had been drained by experiments.

He used to look like this in the lab too.

Xu Renyi's impression of this man was:
A mad experimenter, suspected of possessing some earth-shattering secret, is wanted by the Dewey Group with an 80 million gold coin reward.

Gan Zeyuan suddenly became the most wanted criminal, and mercenaries all over the world wanted to find him.

As for the Nuclear Group, it was purely for fun.

Zhuang Fan continued scrolling down.

He had a vague recollection of many names and silently memorized them and the information.

Until he reached number 26, he finally spotted another familiar name – David Du.

Status: Fugitive

Location: South City, probability 93%

Zhuang Fan's tense shoulders finally relaxed slightly.

Max and David are both alive and in South City, so they are likely to stick together.

He is currently short-handed and must contact them as soon as possible to combine this crucial force before making further plans.

David is easy to talk about, but Max's loyalty... is a double-edged sword.

After spending a long time together, the slightest deviation in habit, a flaw in speech, or the sharpness that shouldn't belong to a four-hundred-year-old man, cannot fool the veteran's intuition.

Moreover, he couldn't very well play the role of a capricious tyrant in front of Watson and the others.

He could neither continue pretending nor wanted to.

A showdown is inevitable.

(End of this chapter)