Chapter 148: The Oppressive Weight of the Shadow
“Zed, how much do you remember about the PROJECT world?”
Roland steadied himself, then looked at Zed with curiosity and gestured for him to stand.
Zed rose slowly. After a brief moment of thought, he replied, “Almost everything.”
Roland’s lips twitched. Almost everything? That meant Zed had already crossed paths with most people and possessed an enormous amount of intelligence. Fortunately, he was on their side.
“Then you should already understand the situation here from the information Lissandra transmitted to you, right?”
“Yes. Far beyond my expectations, Boss.”
Zed couldn’t help but sigh. In this world, PROJECT had turned former powerful enemies into reliable allies, which pleased him greatly.
His loyalty to PROJECT was beyond doubt. What truly gave him a headache were the scientists from the original PROJECT world.
He really couldn’t understand them—how could they not even leave a backdoor? In the end, all his former teammates had become enemies.
“So you should also know who the current PROJECT Compatible Hosts are, right?”
“Yes.”
Zed nodded.
“Good. I need you to do one thing—no, two things.”
“Please give your orders.”
“First, fight me head-on. Second, go teach those guys a lesson. They’re getting a little full of themselves. Just teach them a lesson—nothing more.”
A smile appeared on Roland’s face. He wasn’t about to be the only one getting beaten up.
Zed nodded. With a flick of his wrist, the fist blade extended. He lightly tapped the ground, performed a backward flip, landed at a distance, and took up a combat stance.
Seeing this, Roland drew Light’s exclusive weapon. After spinning the blade in a clean flourish, he assumed his stance as well.
Lissandra immediately projected a countdown between them.
3… 2… 1!
The instant the countdown ended, Zed burst forward. His hands blurred into afterimages as several alloy shuriken shot out from razor-sharp angles.
Roland didn’t hesitate. He muttered the command phrase and activated overclocking mode.
In that instant, the trajectories of the shuriken became crystal clear to him.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sword light flashed. The shuriken scattered across the ground, but Zed’s figure vanished at the same moment.
Swish—
The instant a streak of light entered Roland’s vision, he reacted, shifting into Acceleration Mode and slashing toward it.
But the feedback was wrong—his blade passed straight through the target.
Bang!
The figure dissolved into smoke.
Roland’s pupils shrank sharply.
“Solid-state smoke!”
Swish—
Clang!
Zed suddenly struck from a blind angle, aiming straight for Roland’s vitals. Yet even so, Roland—still in overclocked mode—reacted in time, blocking as their weapons collided.
And only then did Roland realize something terrifying.
Zed had been keeping up with his movements even in overclocking mode.
“Damn it… figures. This really is a tech world, not some fantasy one!”
Clang—
At their next clash, Zed’s figure vanished again, only to reappear behind Roland in an instant. Countless Solid-state smoke were deployed at once, accompanied by—
“One… two… three… four…”
A low, tormenting whisper.
Swish—
A figure burst up from beneath the ground and flashed behind Roland. A high-frequency fist blade stopped just short of his throat.
Roland’s expression turned helpless as he waved his hand, signaling the end.
Zed immediately retracted his weapon and stood respectfully to the side.
“How many times did I die?”
“…Fifteen times.”
Roland’s lips twitched. He knew he’d “died” a lot—but not that many.
“When you have time, I’ll need your help with special training.”
“Yes.”
Zed placed a hand over his chest and bowed slightly.
“By the way, I’ve always been curious—what kind of tech is actually installed in you?”
“Solid-state smoke, virtual–real conversion, energy burst, overclock fluctuations, extreme-response cyberware…”
As Zed listed them one by one, Roland’s mouth twitched again. All of a sudden… it felt perfectly reasonable that those three hadn’t stood a chance.
And it seemed Zed hadn’t even gone all out with his ultimate techniques yet.
“Alright, I’m done here. I’ll leave the rest to you. Oh, and give me your authorization credentials—I’ll arrange your identity.”
“Yes.”
Zed nodded. A red light flashed across his helmet as the authorization was transferred. With a small movement of his hand, smoke rose and wrapped around his body, and he vanished from the spot.
“He really is… decisive and efficient…”
Roland blinked at the empty space and sighed.
“Lissandra, establish a counter-espionage intelligence unit. Appoint Zed as the leader and classify it as confidential. Then announce the department’s formation corporation-wide. Also, increase the rewards for reporting spies—priority consideration for high-level promotions.”
“Understood.”
Roland planned to let the spies tear each other apart—while also giving Zed something to stay busy with.
“Oh, right. Almost forgot… include Jhin’s identity as well. Temporarily appoint him as deputy leader.”
...
So where did Zed go after leaving?
The answer was the area where Vilet was stationed. His first target was Vilet.
Recently, Vilet’s work had been fairly easy. Most of her duties involved street security patrols—dealing with petty thugs and minor gang conflicts. She hadn’t encountered many cases of cyberpsychosis.
And when she did, they were just low-level nobodies—ordinary cyberpsychos not worth mentioning. She even had to hold back when handling them.
After all, using too much force could send someone straight to the afterlife.
“Hm?”
As she passed an alley, Vilet suddenly halted. She’d felt someone watching her—but the sensation vanished almost instantly.
“Just my imagination…?”
Frowning, Vilet turned to leave.
Swish—Bang—
In the next instant, she exploded into motion, smashing a punch into the alley wall. Zed leapt out of the dust cloud and clung to the wall.
Every feature that could reveal his identity was concealed—the PROJECT emblem, even his mechanical body was hidden by advanced technology, making detection impossible.
“I knew it. No way I imagined that,” Vilet said, the corner of her mouth lifting as she looked up at him. “Hey. Who are you?”
Zed didn’t answer. He slowly straightened—standing upright on the wall itself—then flicked his wrists as the fist blades extended.
Smoke curled upward, and his figure vanished into the wall once more.
“Truth lies hidden within the shadow.”
Author's Note
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