Reborn as a Mechanist with a God-Tier System-Chapter 206: The battle of the free folk [5]

Neural Projection!

Neural Projection!

Neural Projection!

Neural Projection!

Neural Projection!

Neural Projection!

One moment, the battle stayed conventional, following the normal chaotic script of aerial transport vs aerial transport but the next moment, the world above Iron Reef suddenly exploded with a violent conflagration of neon green ADE.

The world turned into a neon green canvas, and NetRunners were the artists painting a gory picture on the canvas.

With Neural Projection, thousands of NetRunners in Iron Reef entered the psionic ghost state at the same time and followed it with Ghost Line.

They’ve been on standby since, all they needed was Ren Nora’s signal.

And the moment Purgatory came on, that was their signal.

Instantly, thousands of rebel NetRunners became invisible on the enemy digital sensors, suddenly rendering hundreds of enemy transports blind.

They didn’t give the Federation Army time to adjust as the assault began instantaneously in multiple locations.

Nothing prepared the Federation Army for what followed next.

High up in the sky above Iron Reef, the hundreds of flight vessels and warships of the Federation Army beeped warning alarms as suddenly, targeting arrays lost lock on thousands of enemies!

They became blind.

Motion sensors returned nothing but static and thermal scans smeared into meaningless noise, revealing only the enemy transports as thousands of cyber assassins took action in stealth.

And then, silent infiltration took place at the same time across hundreds of enemy transports as the NetRunners surged into the city’s psionic circuitry like ghost assassins, flicking in and out of reality like a mirage.

They flowed through fiber lines, through traffic cameras, through personal implants, through enemy battlefield networks and through the atmosphere itself with unrestricted mobility.

Iron Reef itself became a giant neural interface.

And then it started.

BZZZ!

Inside a 10-meter long war transport of the Omnicore Federation, the cyber defense of the vessel suddenly collapsed as a NetRunner infiltrated, emerging from the transport’s navigation console like a ghost behind the pilot.

A short dagger was on the NetRunner’s hand, his eyes glowed in a violet neon green hue as he focused on his target.

There were 5 soldiers on standby in the pilot chamber, stationed to protect the pilot but they didn’t realize what just happened till it was too late.

Nothing could stop the cyber assassin.

Data Lash!

BZZZ!

BAM!

One stab was all it took.

The NetRunner first assaulted the Synth pilot with Data Lash to slow his reactions, then he stabbed him in the neck!

"Gah!" The Pilot grabbed his neck amid gurgling sounds as synthetic oil sprayed from his neck like a fountain.

As the Synth pilot bled to death, vitality rapidly draining from his mechanical body, the soldiers stationed inside the pilot chamber finally noticed the anomaly.

They were alarmed but as elite soldiers, they reacted instantly as they retaliated and assaulted the NetRunner with their guns.

The 2 Gene Augurs among them aimed and shot with their guns, while the 3 Cyber Gladiators tightened their grip on their weapons as they charged towards the enemy NetRunner but then...

Neural Projection!

He was gone... like a ghost.

BZZZ!

The NetRunner didn’t just leave though.

Firewall Bypass!

Amid a final flare of neon green ADE, he left a final gift for the enemies with Firewall Bypass, hacking and overriding the transport’s stand-in control A.I.

He took control of the Federation flight vessel!

"...!"

The soldiers were alarmed but they didn’t have the ability to instantly wrestle control against a NetRunner.

Before the soldiers could take control of the flight vessel, the transport suddenly spiraled out of control, charging right at their neighboring vessel!

All the soldiers inside the 10-meter long vessel were trapped inside!

They couldn’t escape.

The rotating blades of the Federation transport cut into the hull of its neighboring vessel as both transports collided, then they both shuddered and erupted in a violent explosion from the force of collision.

KABOOM!

The sky rained blood, synthetic oil, and metallic debris even as neon green ADE snaked through the sky like green lightning storms.

The first Federation transport to fall victim was quickly followed by the second, then the third, the fourth, the fifth, then the fiftieth!

It was a methodical NetRunner massacre! 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

With Purgatory active, there was no defending against it, the NetRunners became literal bugs in the system!

Across the sky, it happened again and again and again as thousands of NetRunners went on a rampage.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The sky rained wreckage!

...

Inside a 200-meter long capital warship of the Federation Army, all the soldiers were on high alert as the warship blared warning alarms, and then the lights suddenly flickered as a squad of NetRunners infiltrated and hopped inside the massive vessel!

The Federation soldiers noticed instantly and resisted.

Those with guns unleashed a barrage of bullets, the Cyber Gladiators and Gene Augurs charged out to assault the infiltrators at close range while the NetRunners focused on countering the enemies.

Tututututututututu!

Amid a hail of bullets and the fierce resistance being put up by the soldiers manning the warship, the NetRunners moved like ghosts.

BZZZ! BZZZ! BZZZ!

They blinked in and out of existence like ghosts in a horror film.

With Neural Projection, they appeared and disappeared like phantoms, abusing the ability by activating it multiple times just to keep on hopping like teleportation machines, dodging bullets with sheer mobility!

Some died, but the rest infiltrated behind enemy lines.

Their movement was unhinged. They appeared within huddled Federation formations, they appeared above tight Federation soldier formations, it was literally impossible to effectively defend against them.

And the moment they emerged behind enemy soldiers, they sabotaged their enemies without hesitation by stealthily dropping bombs in their midst and hopping out.

Before the Federation soldiers knew what was happening, it was too late.

KABOOM!

Explosions ruptured through entire compartments in the warship as Federation soldiers dropped like flies!

This was not a battle of skill or experience, rather, this was a battle of Class superiority that was being supported by an entire city!

While some focused on infiltration and sabotage, the other NetRunners focused on fighting against those who survived the sabotage attacks.

Data Lash!

BUZZ!

The Federation soldiers had a balanced composition of Ascended, but against a squad of NetRunners on steroids, they were all vulnerable.

The squad of NetRunners stunned them with repeated concussive psionic whips, frying their brains and leaving them paralyzed long enough for them to aim with their guns and shoot even as they also slaughtered with cold weapons.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Countless bodies fell in their wake as they swept through the warship like a plague, the death toll skyrocketed.

Federation NetRunners stationed in the warship tried to counter them, but the superior numbers of rebel NetRunners overwhelmed their resistance.

It was a clean sweep.

In less than a minute, before the Federation soldiers could adjust, the warship was rigged from inside and then it detonated from inside out!

KABOOOMMMM!

Over a hundred Federation soldiers died!

BZZZ!

While the other Class Ascended burned with the warship, all the NetRunners hopped off just in time as the warship detonated, including those in the Federation army as they were forced into other fights.

In this battle above Iron Reef’s airspace, every other Class Ascended became collateral damage. They became victims, including Gene Augurs.

Only NetRunners dominated.

...

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The battle above the city became embroiled in green chaos.

Inside the transports and warships of the Omnicore Federation, panic spread like a plague as order was thrown out of the window.

Comms fractured, orders from military Commanders contradicted each other due to meddling NetRunners and before they knew it, soldiers of the Federation Army began firing at shadows that weren’t there.

Not just shadows, they began firing at each other!

Paranoid Cyber Gladiators and Gene Augurs attacked anything on sight, including allies as the chain of command fractured completely.

Gene Augurs focused on defending, but even they couldn’t defend against a deluge of concussive psionic whips as soldiers died standing, their bodies intact but their consciousness and brain already wiped out and turned into mush!

NetRunners hunted squad by squad like Wolf packs.

For the first time since awakening in Neo-Tokara, Leon saw the pinnacle of what the NetRunner Class could achieve in battle and he was forced to fear them.

Flight vessels and entire warships of the Federation Army detonated in the sky like fireworks amid violent eruptions of neon green ADE.

Thousands of NetRunners hopped in and out of warships through untraceable nodes, hunting left and right like Saints in the world of the Nightmare Spell, they were unchallenged and undaunted.

Every other Class became support in the battle.

Even the flight vessels and mighty warships above Iron Reef were relegated from their previous position as the main attackers as NetRunners went on a rampage, killing thousands of enemies within a few seconds to minutes.

The Federation army also had a large number of NetRunners, but compared to the rebel army, it was simply not on the same scale.

Instantly after Purgatory was deployed, the nature of the battle changed and those at the forefront were Ren Nora and his D Rank NetRunner Lieutenants.

Ren Nora didn’t bother to fight the C Rank enemy NetRunner because he was not delusional. He knew that even with Purgatory active, he couldn’t match him in battle not to talk of killing him, all he could do was outrun him like a Flea.

In the end, a C Rank Ascended is a C Rank Ascended.

So instead, Ren Nora let the enemy do his thing while he did his own thing.

He threw a silent challenge at a C Rank Ascended.

’You think you’re a calamity because you’re C Rank? You think you can singlehandedly wipe out my army?’

’Fine, come on, let’s try it inside my Purgatory!’

’Let’s go all out and see whose army is annihilated first!’

Ren Nora went on an unhinged rampage.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

...

[Special Appreciation to D4rkV1II14n, Yametekudastop, and Shadesworn on the Golden Tickets.]