Chapter 31 She Also Mastered Link and Aide’s Skills?

“Did she also master Link and Aide’s skills…” Feng Bujue muttered the conclusion thoughtfully, running through all the other possibilities that could be derived from it.

A few seconds later, he asked again, "You said… she also 'improved' the redundant soldiers?"

"Yes," Billy replied, "To allow these guys to survive in the main universe for a long time, Twenty-Three made some modifications to their structure."

There was something wrong with this statement. First of all, it didn't sound like something an NPC would say. Secondly, even if he could say it… how did he know about this?

"How do you know?" Feng Bujue immediately asked.

"A Derivative named Chi Tie told us," Billy said. "I think you know him too, he's from the Z organization."

"Oh?" Feng Bujue's brow relaxed slightly. "Chi Tie is still alive?"

Hearing this news, Brother Jue was quite relieved. He was really worried that Chi Tie and Yi had been killed by Twenty-Three on Chomagic Island. If that were the case, he would have to take some responsibility.

Now that he heard that Chi Tie was not dead, Feng Bujue was also relieved. Since Chi Tie was still alive, then Yi, who shared the same body with him at the time, should also be fine.

"Alive, and he also gave us a lot of useful information," Billy replied. "If it weren't for him, maybe none of us would be here talking to you now."

"Hmm…" Feng Bujue nodded, his thoughts returning to the information he had just heard. "So… as you said, Twenty-Three's improvement was to 'allow the redundant soldiers to survive in the main universe for a long time'. Does this mean… the original redundant soldiers cannot survive here for long?"

"Correct," Billy replied. "The redundant soldiers… to put it bluntly, are low-level redundant creatures that are secondarily created by higher-level 'redundant creatures' like Derivatives. Compared to the 'complex' Derivatives, the redundant soldiers are very simple and 'pure' in terms of data properties. Therefore, when they are active in the main universe, the 'Supreme Will' can easily locate and directly eliminate them."

"In other words… Twenty-Three's improvement made them less 'pure'?" At this moment, Xu Huais殇 heard a key point and asked.

"Heh…" Hearing this, Zhuan Jiezun took over, and laughed, "It's not that difficult. Actually, she just collected the data genes of various creatures that originally existed in the main universe and randomly added them to the redundant soldier production line, so that each redundant soldier would be stained with a little bit of the data attributes of the main universe's local creatures."

"…In this way, it will be more difficult for the system (these two words, when spoken by Brother Jue, will automatically transform into a word with a similar meaning to 'Supreme Will' in the ears of the NPCs) to search for the coordinates of these redundant soldiers, and… the amount of operations and complexity of eliminating them will also be greatly increased," Feng Bujue immediately understood what the other party meant, and continued, "Heh… it really is a good method."

"Is now the time to admire others?" Dian He Wang looked at Brother Jue with his "unhappy" expression and complained.

Before Feng Bujue could respond, Billy quickly regained the conversation to stop him from arguing, "Actually… those ordinary redundant soldiers are not the biggest trouble. After 'improvement', they have lost their data purity and are substantially weaker than the original version. Even if these guys have an endless supply, we are not completely helpless against them. But… in the redundant soldier legion, there is also a group of extremely troublesome guys – the Sweepers."

Sweepers, that is, redundant arrays of independent disks. The code name used by Link and Aide when creating this creature was [rAid] (redundant_Arrays_of_independent_disks). They were designed according to the concept of "main force responsible for cleaning up powerful players and NPCs in hyperdimensional invasions."

The intelligence of the Sweepers is the same as that of the redundant soldiers, relatively low. They are not AI life forms, do not have the ability to think and learn, and only act according to orders. However, compared to the redundant soldiers, the combat power of the Sweepers has a qualitative leap. Each of them has the combat power equivalent to a level three Derivative, and… they are all equipped with "tactical control modules."

"No way…" Feng Bujue's expression changed slightly. "That kind of mass-produced creature with that intensity definitely can't have its basic structure changed in a simple way like the redundant soldiers."

"However, Twenty-Three still successfully improved it," Billy continued. "Although we don't quite understand the principle, according to Chi Tie… she used the data genes of 'Infinite' on the Sweepers under her command."

"Damn it!" Feng Bujue excitedly blurted out a curse in reverse, and was still not blocked. "That… as far as you know, what is the approximate total number of these Sweepers?"

"Not sure…" Billy replied, "But there shouldn't be too many, because they basically appear individually. The only time they appeared in a group was when…"

"It was the day they attacked my pirate crew…" At this second, Blackbeard naturally took over Billy's words, and said in his hoarse voice, "Heh… I remember very clearly, seventeen… one more, one less…" He mixed some dispensable nonsense into the sentence like a standard drunkard, as if waiting for his brain to catch up with the rhythm of his words, "That dusk… seventeen guys you call Sweepers, leading countless redundant soldiers… on the sea, surrounded the Queen Anne's Revenge."

"Those bastards didn't say a word to us, no negotiation, no mercy, and didn't accept surrender…

"Before the war started, my crew knew that this was a kind of battle they had never fought before.

"Our opponents are not for honor, not for bounty, not for anything… These bloodless and tearless guys only have one goal until they can't move at all… and that is to kill us all."

Speaking of this, Blackbeard picked up the wine bottle, took another sip of rum, and then, with a solemn expression, said four very heavy words: "We… won."

He used "we" instead of "I"… As a notorious villain, an extremely evil pirate who basically doesn't care about anyone's life other than his own… perhaps only he himself knows what kind of experience made him firmly add that word "we."

After speaking, Blackbeard also raised his head, hooked his collar with his finger and pulled it down, revealing his neck.

On his neck, there was a hideous wound, and just by observation, it was impossible to judge what kind of attack he had suffered to leave such a terrible scar.

"Unfortunately, I don't have a feeling of 'victory'." Two seconds later, Blackbeard smiled bitterly and ridiculed himself, "The spoils I got are probably a fake leg and a voice that sounds pretty sexy…" He paused, "And the things I lost…" He glanced at the empty deck, and shook his head again, "…too much…"

At this point, he seemed unable to continue, and after taking another sip of wine, he looked into the distance with muddy eyes and fell silent again.

For a time, the atmosphere on the deck became heavy. At this time when someone really needed to come out and liven up the atmosphere, no one responded.

After a long while, Feng Bujue opened his mouth to Billy, "So… what is the situation of other forces? The Kingdom of the Undead, the Kingdom of Monsters, and the Illusory Demon Church…"

"Not sure…" Billy said, "Two-thirds of the entire main universe is now scorched earth of chaos. Outside are either wandering brainless monsters or patrolling redundant soldiers… We cannot contact people from other forces; in addition, something seems to have happened in the inner world. People from the Z organization and Origin have not appeared for a long time. I guess they are also running around for their lives." He paused for a second, then continued, "However, Oink did come here once a while ago to pass on some messages…"

"Oh? You guys are being chased and killed and hiding, but Second Senior Brother is still able to move around outside?" Feng Bujue continued.

"Hmm… this is a very important piece of information I'm going to talk about next," Billy said. "The 'Mirror World'… seems to be safe at the moment. Even Twenty-Three has no way to invade that space. And Oink, he seems to have reached some kind of agreement with Doma (God of Eternal Life), so he can use the Mirror World to travel back and forth in various places to pass on messages. Although his messages cannot be verified and the timeliness is unknown, it is better than nothing…"

"Then, when he came last time, what information did he tell you?" Brother Jue asked again.

"He said…" Billy was about to answer.

Unexpectedly…

Zzzzzz – squeak squeak squeak –

In the gray void around them, a series of strange noises suddenly sounded.

"Tsk… we've been discovered again…" Dian He Wang looked up at the surroundings, "We just moved to this place not long ago…"

Just as he was muttering this sentence, pieces of data streamers had faintly emerged in the gray void. Feng Bujue could see clearly from a distance through the data perspective – a massive amount of redundant soldiers were tearing apart the space cracks and drilling in.

"Quickly get out of the stone gate! Escape back to the scorched earth of chaos, and then find a way." The next second, Zhuan Jiezun immediately said loudly.

In fact, it didn't matter if he didn't say it, because this was obviously their only way out at the moment. When the strange noises sounded, Billy had already used telepathy to ask Bill to push the stone gate.

Fortunately, it took time for the redundant soldiers to invade the space and approach the ship. These dozens of seconds were enough for everyone to escape.

Soon, the stone gate was opened again. The Billy brothers ran out first, Brother Zun and Lao Wang followed closely behind, and Xiao Tan, Xu Huais殇 and Feng Bujue also walked towards the stone gate one after another.

"Hey! What are you still spacing out for?" Walking to the door, Feng Bujue looked back and found that Blackbeard was still sitting leaning against the mast, silently drinking wine, "Can't you get up by yourself?" As he spoke, Brother Jue planned to go over and pull him up.

"You go…" But… Blackbeard waved his hand at him, and said in a calm tone, "The great Captain Blackbeard, will not abandon ship and escape."

Feng Bujue knew what this sentence meant, and he respected the other party's meaning.

"Okay…" Brother Jue stopped, he stared at the other party deeply for a few seconds, and said in a deep voice, "Goodbye, Captain."

…………

The stone gate, closed again.

On the ship, only Blackbeard was left alone again.

The expression of this sea overlord had never been as calm as it was at this moment; within this calmness, there was even… a bit of disappointment.

When the thousands upon thousands of redundant soldiers surrounded him from all directions, Blackbeard only got up unhurriedly, raised the crutch in his hand and swept it away… easily smashing the stone gate not far away into pieces.

When the stones landed, the magic circle painted on the deck also dimmed, declaring that the portal had completely failed.

"Yoo~hoo~yoo~hoo~"

At this moment, Blackbeard paced slowly on the deck, and sang in his hoarse voice…

"We drink, we plunder, we do whatever we want~

"We can get everything without spending a penny~"

"We'll clean you up first, then steal your girl~

"We are the Chaos Pirates!"

When he walked across the deck, many faces from the past appeared in front of him, as if… those people were still on the ship, right by his side.

Mr. Vog seemed to be still sitting on the wine barrel, scolding the clumsy newbie…

厄迪尼 was standing at the helm, gnawing on an apple…

Garlic, Godfrey and Madi were still playing their money-scamming poker game under the mast…

Nessru was still like an idiot, holding a mirror and tidying up his cake head…

And the Mark brothers, those two real idiots, were waxing the door panels of the captain's room under the flicker of the broken gong voice…

Just then, Blackbeard sang the sentence: "Let's 'yo ho ho' together!"

But… no one came to respond to his "yo~ho~ho~"

Because he was the only one left on the ship.

"Another 'hee hee'!" Knowing this, Blackbeard continued to sing.

"We traverse the sea of chaos!

"We brave the hurricane, scare your balls off, we are the Chaos Pirates!"

When he sang this sentence, a redundant soldier had already boarded the ship, and rushed towards Blackbeard non-stop.

Blackbeard grabbed the redundant soldier's neck with one arm, stopped its momentum, and then, with a force, twisted off the redundant soldier's head.

"We leave our hometown, leave our mother, for plunder and revelry~

"We'll cut off your ears, break your toes, and make you drink our pee!"

More and more redundant soldiers boarded the ship, and Sweepers also appeared among them, but Blackbeard did not stop singing while fighting the enemy.

"If you sail into our waters, you better listen to this law first~

"We'll take your ship and throw you into the sea~

"We'll happily smash your face and cut off your thing to feed the crocodiles!

"Because we are the Chaos Pirates!"

The number of redundant soldiers was still increasing, constantly pouring out from the gray clouds, covering the entire Queen Anne's Revenge like locusts. Blackbeard's figure… was gradually obscured and swallowed in the vast sea of soldiers.

But until the last moment, he was still singing the song belonging to the pirates with his injured voice, hoarsely.

Singing the "Let's yo~ho~ho~ together" that no one would respond to.