Reborn as a Mechanist with a God-Tier System-Chapter 225: Day 12 [3]
Tick! Tock!
Time ticked forward.
10:10pm.
That night, all the dead who died on the 1st of April were finally catalogued and gathered as Major Lawrence, the D Rank Gene Augur of the rebel army presided over the mass burial.
Thousands of bodies were piled in white bags and burnt as the ashes were placed in individual urns.
Each urn was labeled with the name of the dead soldier, including a short story of his life and war achievement. Each urn served as the final epitaph for each soldier’s life, each urn ensured that even in death they would never be forgotten.
Each urn was a testament to Iron Reef’s struggle.
It was a solemn event as the dead were laid to rest in absolute silence right until the soldiers did the gun parade, sending their comrades to the afterlife with a loud symphony of gunshots.
No one knew what came in the afterlife.
Life after death was a concept that no body still truly understood, but no matter what it was, they wanted to send off their comrades with gunshots, reminding their ghosts of the life they once lived.
To the surviving soldiers, this process was extremely important.
It now felt like a daily ritual.
For the past 12 days since the war started, this was the ritual that the soldiers of the rebel army were forced to take part on every night because of the ceaseless casualties of the ongoing war.
At times, Ren Nora himself presided over the mass burials, personally sending off his dead soldiers to the afterlife while at other times any of his Lieutenants presided over the burials.
The mass burials everyday were the tangible receipts of the ongoing war.
All the soldiers approached each day with a dead mindset. Afterall, none of them knew if tomorrow was going to be their last day.
And if it was, they would not go cowering in fear.
They would go like true warriors and freedom fighters, they would go in a blaze of glory just like their predecessors.
Burying the dead was a ritual that reminded and anchored them on the reason why they were fighting. Watching the dead being laid to rest felt like a passing of the torch moment.
They felt like they could hear the whispers of the dead urging them on. ’We’ve done our part, now it’s up to you’.
’Fight on and make the dream come to life!’
...
At the same time that the mass burial happened, a certain mercenary in a mask stayed working inside the control data center of Iron Reef.
He added the finishing touches to a revamp that had started days earlier.
Miniaturization!
Construct!
BZZZ!
Leon’s grayish white ADE swirled around him as he worked, while five invisible C-5 drones including dozens of modified Mosquito i7 pac 3060 and Vita7 Magnesium Nanites floated in the sky outside above the control data center, observing everything.
Leon was on high alert.
During the past few days, apart from setting up the ambitious trap algorithm with the control data center as the core, Leon also constructed other things.
After days of working on it, with all the knowledge that Ren Nora helped him with, he managed to upgrade Davis to a far more powerful version.
~----~
[Congratulations! You have completed an upgrade to your A.I System, Davis!]
[You have completed a major crafting milestone!]
[You have been rewarded with +85 Data Points!]
[Current Data Points: 1127]
~----~
Now, the A.I could do far more and supervise far more than ever before, and it had the intelligence for more autonomy than ever before.
Davis was the one controlling all five C-5 drones and the dozens of Mosquito i7 and Vita7 Magnesium Nanites that were outside.
Leon would only personally take control of the five C-5 drones with Drone Control Matrix when Davis confirmed danger.
For now, he focused on his work.
In his mind, he prayed for the current peace to last. ’It’s not yet an hour since Ren Nora’s Trial started’.
Leon hoped for a few hours to pass before anyone would notice, and preferably for no one to notice but he had a hunch that no one noticing was unrealistic.
He could only prepare against the worst case scenario.
Leon was not the one attempting the C Rank Trial but he felt like the weight of the entire world and this city was on his shoulders, he was under a lot of pressure.
The only other person who bore this pressure with him was Major Kai.
...
Inside a residential room in the main military base of the Freegrid Collective, a few rooms away from Ren Nora’s room, Major Kai laid down on his bed after receiving treatment.
With his blanket covering his body on the bed, it looked like he was asleep but the Major was secretly awake as he paid attention to what was happening in Ren Nora’s room.
Neural Hack!
All the CCTV cameras inside the military base were his eyes.
Periodically, he observed the military base in a manner that won’t drain too much of his ADE while keeping constant watch of Ren Nora’s room.
The decoy was actually a Basic Cleaning Bot that Leon constructed.
With Ren Nora and Major Kai’s help, he was able to dress up the bot to look just like the leader of the Freegrid Collective.
Only someone extremely close to the General would easily notice the difference, it was enough to fool most means of observation.
At this moment, the bot laid on Ren Nora’s bed and was fast asleep, deceiving all the people that were possibly watching the General’s room 24/7.
The only problem was that as part of a military protocol that was put in place by Ren Nora himself, a special squad of elite soldiers were put in place to check on the status of the leaders of the rebel army every night.
Ren Nora could have decided to stop the special squad’s activities that night, but that would have been an obvious anomaly for General Sylvari Charr.
Ren Nora had no choice but to let things progress naturally.
The purpose of the special squad was to prevent against insidious NetRunner attacks or Quantum Shaper assassination attempts at night.
The first shift of the special squad was scheduled for 12am.
This was where Major Kai came to play, the Major was tasked to find a way to convince the elite squad not to check the General’s room.
Major Kai was also under pressure.
As a special squad that was instated directly by the General, he didn’t have the authority to truly influence their activities.
...
Tick! Tock!
Time ticked forward.
11:53pm.
It was already more than 2 hours since Ren Nora’s Trial started, and still no one realized the truth.
The plan was working.
Before 12, Leon completed setting up everything that he needed. He also checked up on all the existing cutting-edge technological structures of the control data base, configuring all the hardware and confirming that none of them were tampered with.
They were all in working condition.
He was ready.
...
Around 12am on the dot, the special squad finally moved!
