The signal station, when initially constructed, could never have anticipated being swallowed by the "growing" city.

This place is horrendously high, with no paths to tread.

Maintenance staff rely on company hovercars to reach it, unable to station security personnel, leaving management to drones and detection devices.

John no longer concealed his movements.

He climbed the last few dozen meters of the skyscraper, took a running leap over the high-voltage wire fence.

There were several locks inside the signal station.

Gino isolated the alarm through the local network.

Plato used a backdoor in the municipal network to remotely unlock the electronic locks.

John forcefully dismantled the server cover.

He inserted the terminal into the relay station following the instructions.

"Done."

[Plato: Good job, the signal is stable. Let me check the hovercar's number and night path. You get down here, we'll prepare to leave... Wait, I detected... F*ck!]

Zzzzz.

[Interference Detected/Reconnection Attempting]

John's prosthetic eye flickered, turned mosaic, and when he gathered his senses, he had lost connection with the ground.

The cold wind suddenly became stark.

Realizing something was wrong, John climbed to the edge of the signal station to look for possible enemies.

The surrounding red signal lights were constantly lit in the darkness.

His foothold was narrow; the sensitive arch sensors could capture the slight vibration of the base, with heat from the equipment conducted through the cement layers to his palms.

The high-altitude nightscape was dark blue leaning towards black.

Holographic projections writhed between the rigid building corners.

The segmented construction crane slowly turned around.

The steel boom, like a hand grazing through misty light, faintly resonated with the hum of steel and pulley sets.

Zzzzz.

Electromagnetic interference struck again.

John suddenly let go, like committing suicide, falling backwards.

Almost simultaneously.

A dense stream of blue arcs shot up from below.

These were the intelligent bullets' tails, many in number, sketching a humanoid outline in the air but precisely avoiding all facilities of the signal base station.

Messiah's Eye instantly locked onto the attacker.

[Device: Uriel Surveillance Drone]

[Manufacturer: (Unregistered)]

It almost blended in with the darkness, with its body and the red signal lights gradually appearing from the mosaic.

If not for the high dynamic capture rate of the prosthetic eye, it would have been undetectable.

John landed and rolled without hesitation, lunging forward in a slide to jump directly off the building edge.

Buzz—

Uriel halted in mid-air, making a sharp-angle turn.

Equipped with a micro-reactor and a full-angle vector engine, it was definitely military-grade equipment!

"F*ck!"

The scenery around John kept changing.

He ran quickly on the unfinished rooftop, specifically seeking narrow gaps and significant height differences to slip through.

But it was of little use.

The pale blue intelligent bullets howled as they approached.

Not only that but as they moved away from the signal relay station, the drone's attacks were unleashed, becoming even more fierce.

Cement walls and materials were riddled with holes.

[Scan Detected/Reconnection Attempting]

[Hack: Prosthetic Body Locking 3%]

A mosaic appeared in John's vision.

The drone even carried a remote network access pod, equipped with aggressive hacking capabilities!

"F*ck!"

Without hesitating, John used Black Light to interrupt all external hacking attempts.

The bullets shooting around him paused briefly.

John shook his head.

The side effects of the Black Light made him feel drowsy, though it wasn't too serious.

[Mission Objective Updated]

[Escape from Uriel's Pursuit. (Not Achieved)]

[Destroy Municipal Drone. (Optional)]

John did not hesitate, running at full speed.

He had climbed up to the relay station lightly equipped, with only a smart submachine gun, insufficient to break through the drone's military armor under automatic cannon fire.

[Signal Reconnection Successful]

[Gino:... We've got to run, John. Drones under direct management by the council are tougher than those damn ECPD ones. These are battlefield equipment, damn it. We should've considered this—after all, this is an airspace signal relay station!]

"You don't have to tell me, I'm trying!"

[Plato: There's no road ahead. I'll help you calculate a route down.]

Bang—

John had just crossed the cement barrier when a sharp pain hit his back.

[Subcutaneous Armor: Spine Area A (94%)]

Municipal arms management ordinances had restricted the drone's bullet specifications.

The intelligent bullets didn't fully penetrate John's body, also because Plato's subcutaneous armor was strong enough.

If he took a full burst, it would be unbearable.

"F*ck!"

John fell to the ground, didn't even dare delay, and rolled down the stairs, falling through the open space.

Uriel drone was rebooted after being interrupted by Black Light and locked onto the target again.

It halted and changed direction, diving down.

The narrow space echoed with electronic mixed sounds.

[Warning, you have violated the Eden City Public Facility Protection Ordinance, action records have been uploaded to ECPD, please cease resisting and submit to inspection...]

The wind whipped through his storm jacket.

As John continued to fall, he observed downwards; inside his prosthetic eye, data constantly flashed red warnings.

This was the maximum fall height for his foot prosthetic to withstand.

Bang—

John tried to grab the building edge, but was flung off by momentum, his fall direction becoming disoriented.

His vision spun in the cement structure, getting knocked around several times.

The blue intelligent bullets narrowly missed him.

Bang!

John finally landed on a floor platform.

Ignoring the dull pain in his internal organs, he quickly rolled and sprinted towards an even narrower corner.

Whoo—

Buzz—

The drone hovered behind him, calibrating.

Its red indicator lights akin to insect compound eyes, lacking vibrating wings yet capable of stirring up plumes of dust.

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