Chapter 579: Expand

The familiar scent of blood, tinged with rust, was all too familiar to Sun Jack, who had emerged from a sea of corpses and blood. He was particularly sensitive to it.

In the past, such a smell never heralded anything good.

Through the curtain of rain, Sun Jack looked back at the dark alley behind him; the scent of blood was wafting from there.

"Forget it, it's probably a murder. Let the lower ranks handle it," Tapai said.

But Sun Jack didn't listen; having stumbled upon it, he naturally wanted to check it out. He quickly enhanced his sense of smell and headed towards the source of the blood.

A few minutes down the gloomy alley, he soon found an extremely grisly corpse in a spot without surveillance cameras.

It was the mangled body of a young man, torn into pieces; his eyes were bulging, filled with disbelief. The horrific sight made Sun Jack frown.

Glancing around, he noticed that the nearby cameras had clearly been tampered with—a premeditated murder, no doubt.

"This kind of homicide can be handled by another department, you need to deal with more important matters right now," Tapai, acting as Sun Jack's assistant, urged.

Sun Jack quickly scanned the name of the body, identifying it as a BCPD agent named dogthing, whose combat prostheses had also been removed.

Though displeased with the situation, Sun Jack understood that in Metropolis, a city of tens of millions with their varied temperaments, a complete absence of crime was impossible. His current role was to minimize the crime rate as much as possible.

"Let the BCPD dispatch a special operations team to find this murderer quickly. It shouldn't be hard to catch; the culprit didn't hide any traces."

"OK, I've messaged Hanks, and he has responded."

The two men stood there for a minute, and when they saw several drones flashing red and blue lights come down and swiftly start to cordon off the area around the body with holographic projections, Sun Jack turned and left.

He put that incident aside and contacted the spokesperson of Think Tank to continue with his main matters.

"What exactly do you mean? If it's about establishing relations, I'm all for it; but if you want me to take sides, sorry, I'm not interested," Sun Jack asked the Think Tank spokesperson.

"Mr. Jack, don't rush to dismiss it. Just look at the terms we are offering, and then think it over and make your decision."

Seeing that the other side did indeed want him involved, Sun Jack decisively refused to respond, "Sorry, no matter what the terms are, I'm not interested."

With that, he prepared to disconnect the communication and check on the situation at DF23.

However, just as he was about to turn it off, the spokesperson said something that made Sun Jack stop in his tracks, "What if it's about technology from The Previous Era?"

Sun Jack narrowed his eyes at the speaker, "Do you have it?"

"We certainly do; we wouldn't have been able to contend with the FFP and DF23 for so long without some trump cards."

It was clear from the FFP's attempt to decrypt the Sky-base Weapon that these matters involved more than one force; it was still unclear what technology was at this person's disposal.

"Cut the crap, just tell me what you have," Sun Jack said.

"Do you mean to say you are willing to assist us?"

"First tell me what you have."

"I'm sorry, but we will only share technology with your corporation if you get involved, and moreover—"

Sun Jack saw through the person; the situation was already urgent, yet this guy was still trying to hold him over a barrel—he wouldn't indulge him and immediately cut the communication.

The urgency was not on him; if they didn't want to talk, then they could take their time. Eventually, they would speak up.

Sun Jack once again contacted the spokesperson for DF23, the content of the conversation was about the same as with the other party, which involved transferring shares of the corporation.

As long as Sun Jack was willing to go to the field to help them, he would directly obtain one-third of DF23's assets and market share after their victory.

Clearly, both parties knew exactly what Sun Jack's status was, so they didn't waste any more words, but rather offered substantial sincerity.

However, Sun Jack still didn't agree to anything. After casually dealing with them for a while, he said he would consider it carefully and then directly turned off the communication.

Setting aside whether or not to enter the field, even if he did, it would not be now but at a time when the benefits were maximized.

As the screens from both sides disappeared, a delicate Chinese meal appeared in front of him: Sichuan pepper chicken, stir-fried tomatoes and eggs, stir-fried pork with chili peppers, braised fish, and seaweed egg drop soup—a total of four dishes and one soup, very sumptuous.

The food was sent by the Tapai; sometimes he forgot when he was busy. It was generally his responsibility to act as an alarm clock.

Still dressed in his old trench coat, he pushed the tray forward. "It's time to eat."

Sun Jack picked up his chopsticks and started eating a piece of the Sichuan pepper chicken. Although it looked abundant, he didn't need to skimp on this kind of food; in this high-tech world, productivity was never in short supply.

While eating his meal, Sun Jack suddenly thought of something. An image of a corpse flashed through his mind. "Right, was there any result on that murder case?"

"Yes, there's news from Hanks; it was a retaliatory murder, definitely had past disputes with the criminal during case handling. The criminal has been caught, and judging by the current sentencing, it should be the death penalty."

"Oh." Hearing that there was a result, Sun Jack didn't ask anything further and casually continued eating.

However, shortly after he finished eating, accompanied by a notification sound, two communication codes popped up again on Sun Jack's system interface—still the agents from both sides.

"Damn, it's these two groups again." Sun Jack stuffed food into his mouth and then connected the communication.

Time slowly passed, and during the subsequent period, the struggle between the two sides intensified, and Sun Jack's recruitment continued. However, Sun Jack never gave in and, together with the Think Tank, continuously probed both parties for their highest bid.

However, before Sun Jack could discern the situation, changes began to emerge on the battlefield. Large-yield nuclear bombs exploded crazily between America and Africa, with such force that the already completely chaotic meteorological system broke down completely.

The yield of the nuclear weapons they used increased continually, even reaching the level where they could artificially induce massive earthquakes by exploiting the Earth's crustal stress.

Evidently, this seemed to be the technology from The Previous Era that the TT Corporation wanted to deal with Sun Jack.

Watching the underground plates shift under the effect of special technologies, Sun Jack knew he could no longer stand by.

The conflict between himself and the FFP had never reached this level; if things continued this way, Earth would be entirely destroyed by these two groups.

Sun Jack began mediation as a representative of the Utopia Federation.

Inside Sun Jack's office, looking at the holographic projections of the two groups and the tense atmosphere in the office, he couldn't help but feel a headache.

Sun Jack tapped on the table with his prosthetic fingers, drawing everyone's attention, and said in a low voice, "Gentlemen, you've been quite noisy lately."

"It was them who broke the rules first!"

"You're lying! It's clearly you playing the thief shouting 'catch the thief'! Don't think I don't know about the Little Beidou operation 300 years ago!"

"And what about you? Don't think I don't know that you've been secretly contacting the AI on the space station, trying to use them against me? You traitor to humanity!"

Seeing the two sides begin to dig up dirt and sling mud again, Sun Jack quickly interrupted them.

"Enough! What the hell do you really want to do! Do you want to destroy the Earth completely? What is it? Do you want to wipe out humanity like in the AI Crisis?"