"What?!"

"Something like that happened?"

Brad was stunned as he immediately began sweating bullets. 'F*ck, the people actually had the guts to stop an uprising? Are they not scared for their lives? I feel like I've been living under a cave!'

He paced around his office as he could not help the worry on his face.

At that moment, the familiar voice sounded again. "She's coming".

"What?" Brad almost fainted as he stared at the shadow hidden in the corner of his office in horror. "W-who?" He stammered in fear. "Who's coming?"

"The NetRunner who attacked the base and sent the message to the Freegrid Collective".

"Talia?"

The shadow didn't reply but Brad was used to Cell's silence and understood the significance of the silence immediately.

He wanted to curse in anger, but then he calmed down and flashed a confident smile. 'This is an opportunity for me'.

'I can redeem my mistake the last time and win contributions with Parasite if I manage to pull this off. Wait, is that why Parasite sent him here? It's because he has high hopes for me!' His eyes lit up.

Brad adjusted the corner of his coat as he looked at the shadow. "Hehe, Talia is just an F Rank NetRunner, I'm not scared of her at all". He sneered.

"That's why you came right?" He asked in a knowing manner. "With you here, we'll trap her when she comes, and we'll kill her". He raised a finger and cut across his neck with it as he smiled cruelly.

Cell didn't say a word as he did all of this.

Brad was in over his head though. This was not a mission from Parasite, this was something that Cell embarked on himself.

After Parasite managed to calm down after absolutely destroying 5 girls on the bed, he and Cain finally had the reprieve to do what they wanted.

Cell immediately returned back to his cave in the underground bunker, and there, the first thing he did was research.

'How did the incident with the reporter happen? Who was the fool who killed her and was too arrogant to dispose of her body?'

'How did Talia get to her body so fast?'

Cell directly put a call to Brad in the cell tower base to ask for his help. With the NetRunner's help, he managed to pull all the information together at record-breaking speed and he managed to crack the puzzle.

'Talia managed to arrive within less than a minute?' His eyes constricted as he did the math and calculated the distance. 'That's already higher than an F Rank Cyber Gladiator's speed and she's just a NetRunner'.

'Is her speed due to an Artifact? That's possible'.

'Or is she already E Rank? But if she's E Rank, her speed should be higher than that'. This Gene Augur racked his brain and then he found a clue. 'His partner! She didn't go to the inn alone'.

'If she didn't want to leave her partner behind as she ran but still wanted to be fast enough, it's reasonable for her to reduce her speed to let him keep up'.

This Gene Augur hung upside down from his chandelier like a bat and in this state, his brain flowed with ideas on overdrive. 'That's right!'

His face turned grave. 'There's a 20% chance that she's already E Rank'.

'She's very careful, she knows her limit and she's very resourceful. This is why she managed to capitalize on a random opportunity like this reporter's article and pamphlets'.

'Following this careful trait of hers…' His eyes narrowed. 'There's a high chance that she'll attack Brad's base again this night!'

'The advantage seems to be on their side now with the mob, they also have more F Rank Ascended, and if she's truly E Rank then she matches Lord Parasite, but with her careful nature she'll likely still try to seek for more advantages'.

'She's not gotten any feedback from the Freegrid Collective yet, so it's normal that she'll try to clear her doubts in that aspect too'.

With all these, Cell came to a conclusion. 'Talia will definitely attack tonight!'

Without hesitation, he packed up that night and secretly left the underground bunker, flying all the way to the hidden cell tower base.

On the way, he conveniently took a detour and beheaded the fool who killed the reporter without disposing of her corpse to avoid problems like this in the future and to also set a precedent for the others.

Then he continued his journey and arrived at the cell tower base.

Just like he expected, despite the fact that he literally just helped him gather information about it, Brad was so focused on his personal psionic research that he didn't even look deep into the information that he sent to him.

The fool was yet to know about the uprising in the community.

From there, everything transpired to the present as Cell broke the truth to the NetRunner, including his guess that Talia was likely to attack this night.

But he didn't tell him of his suspicions that Talia was already E Rank. Cell was pretty sure that if Brad knew, unless he put a dagger to his throat and forced him to stay here, the NetRunner won't stay a second longer in the base.

And so, they waited even as Brad feigned confidence while he was secretly sweating bullets.

At 8:30pm sharp, a commotion started in the base.

BAM!

The invisible barrier outside shuddered as it suffered an attack!

It was just like the first time, it was the same NetRunner, and it was the same attack that affected the very nature of the barrier's existence.

But unlike last time, it didn't crumble immediately.

Brad may not be a fighter, but he was a scientist. Though the technology and ability to create the barrier was not created by him and was rather given to him, he still saw it as his own.

For his barrier to be broken so easily, he felt like the attackers were insulting his intelligence, so he spent the past few days since then working on it. And after a lot of work, he managed to improve on the original design.

The shimmering grayish white membrane that covered and hid the cell tower base was sturdier now.

One attack didn't break it down like before, but the attacker was not discouraged as he piled on the attacks.

Bam… bam… bam…

More attacks came.

Immediately after the first attack hit, the thugs in the tower base reacted as those on duty immediately focused retaliatory fire in the direction of the hidden attacker.

The others directly charged out to intercept him.

The membrane was sturdier now but against the hidden NetRunner's consistent attacks, it still crumbled after 5 more such attacks.

CRACK!

The hidden compound became visible, allowing the sound inside to penetrate outside as loud alarm sounds reverberated.

This time though, the hidden NetRunner didn't try to hide.

This time, he came charging out to meet the thugs.

Thud… thud… thud…

In a thick black coat and undertaker hat, he looked like a Devil incarnate from hell as he charged. He had a dagger on his right hand and a pistol on his left.

As the thugs approached this man, they suddenly felt fear from the depths of their heart as they hesitated.

Then all hell broke loose.

BOOM!

Ghostwire slammed into them like an unstoppable tide.

…

"She's here! She's here!"

Brad quickly shot up to his feet as soon as the first attack hit the shimmering grayish membrane that hid the base.

He didn't receive a response though as he instinctively stared at the shadow hiding in the corner, but the living element of the shadow seemed to have disappeared, turning the shadow inert.

'Huh? Did he leave? Is he scared?'

'What am I even thinking?'

Despite his thoughts, Brad was not scared at all. He didn't believe that Cell left, afterall, he was Cell.

"Hehe, this base shall be her grave this time". He muttered arrogantly.

While he thought, the rim of his smartphone pulsed suddenly in his pocket as he received a notification but too engrossed in looking out for the enemy, he didn't even notice this.

Neural Projection!

Talia already started hacking the base's cyber net again.

The silence stretched for over a minute and the longer it stretched, the more uneasy Brad became.

He hesitated. 'Uh, should I go outside?'

Just as he contemplated this…

DING!

His computer lit up a WARNING projection.

"What? She already infiltrated? How???" Brad's eyes stared in horror.

In that moment, the inert shadow that was in the corner of this room finally reacted. Unlike what Brad expected though, Cell didn't even try to fight, instead, the shadow squirmed and turned into a bat.

With a single flap of its wings, this bat soared towards the window as it shattered it and escaped without hesitation.

Brad's eyes twitched in disbelief. 'H-he escaped? Just like that?'

Only then did he realize that something was not right, but it was too late.

Bzzz!

A ghostly green figure suddenly appeared beside him the next moment.

Brad froze. He stiffly turned his head to see the ghost, and he almost fainted. What he saw was an AR projection that looked like the enemy, Talia!

'H-how?' This NetRunner felt like his whole world was turning upside down as he collapsed on the ground and crawled back on his butt.

'What sorcery is this?'

'Is this an illusion? No, the danger that I'm feeling is real!' He was horrified.

"Tsk," Talia clicked her tongue in regret as she looked at the bat that already escaped into the night sky. "I didn't even realize that he was hiding here, or that would have been two of Parasite's Ascended taken out in one night".

'T-taken out?' Brad was no fool, and no matter how frightened he was, making his brain slow to react, he was still an Ascended.

His brain whirred. 'She said it so naturally. Wait, s-she's already a NetRunner?' He almost pissed his pants. 'Is this ghostly green form the result of an ability at the E Rank NetRunner rank?' His eyes suddenly lit up in desire.

Talia glanced at him coldly. "You still have the luxury to fantasize when you're about to die".

Thud!

Brad immediately climbed to his knees as he started crying. "Forgive me, please forgive me, I don't belong to the Zmer gang".

"I just work for them, I promise. I don't even like Parasite, he's a foolish, lecherous, evil, dirty, and narcissistic bastard".

"I'm saying the truth, please forgive me". He hit his head against the floor repeatedly as he pleaded with snot and tears flowing down his face.

"…"

Talia was speechless.

She had calculated a hundred different scenarios on how this encounter would play out, and this was definitely not one of them.

She blinked.

"Please forgive me, please, I'm just a scientist looking for knowledge". He continued pleading.

Talia finally recovered as she looked down at him.

In this AR state after activating Neural Projection, she had continually learned new things since she became E Rank and got the ability, learning new applications for it.

And tonight, she just learned something new, the suppression ability of Neural Projection on lower-ranked NetRunners.

Because she didn't have any animosity towards Ghostwire, she never realized this hidden function of the ability but in front of this man now in her AR state, she discovered something.

At E Rank, apart from Data Lash, NetRunners don't have other ways of directly attacking an enemy's psyche.

But in this AR state in front of Brad, Talia realized that she underestimated Neural Projection still. 'I can attack his psyche directly!'

'Is this because he's a NetRunner?'

Her brain whirred. 'It makes sense. Afterall, even at F Rank, NetRunners already gain access to the psionic network through computers. So in a way, they're recognized as half-psionic beings'.

'As half-psionic beings, it's only normal that me as a full psionic being in this state can deal direct damage to his psyche'.

'I feel that attacks in this state cannot just damage him, I can also directly reduce his intelligence if I want'. Her eyes gleamed. 'Is this the suppression effect that higher-ranked NetRunners have over low-ranks?'

This also explained why Brad would directly collapse in snot and tears, unable to control himself in front of her.

This was because the NetRunner felt such a primal threat to his very soul that he couldn't even shield himself against.

'The NetRunner Class truly is an extreme Class'.

With that thought, Talia looked at Brad coldly and demanded. "Tell me everything that you know about the contents of reply from the Freegrid Collective, and don't you dare hide any details".

When she hacked the base's database, she found what she was looking for, the reply from the Freegrid Collective but the contents were already deleted.

She saw it in the database's virtual bin.

Without even needing to think, she realized that it was the resident NetRunner who deleted the message, and this was why she directly left his smartphone and revealed herself in her AR state.

She never expected Cell to be hiding nearby.

Brad nodded profusely. "Yes my Lord". He bowed even lower, and then he started speaking.

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