Chapter 347 - Offensive and Defensive Program

Xiao Luo sat back and allowed the engineers' attacking forces to exhaust their resources against his defense. An army of viruses swarmed the firewall in relentless waves of attacks, but Xiao Luo's defenses held. Then, Xiao Luo hit a function key, and his program divided into 64 sub-programs with offensive and defensive capabilities. These sub-programs continued to self-replicate, almost like stacking one brick on top of another, building a massive and intricate multi-layered program.

"All done!"

Xiao Luo muttered to himself in satisfaction as he keyed in the last line of code, and with a wry smile, he hit the function key to concurrently run all the applications.

In the virtual battlefield, Zhou Yuhang and his cohorts used all of their experience and resources to come up with a solution to breach Xiao Luo's ports. Try as they might, the defenses were impenetrable, but giving up was not an option. Suddenly, they found that their applications were not responding to commands. There was no warning, they only detected anomalies in how their programs were running—it felt like the firewall had surged outward, overwhelming the malware files they had directed to Xiao Luo's computer. The firewall defense surged unimpeded, smashing everything in its path, and the virus programs that came into contact with it had their codes stripped bare.

"Huh, what… what kind of program is this? H-how can this be happening?

Utterly shocked by the dominance of Xiao Luo's active defense program, Zhou Yuhang's eyes were filled with apprehension. To an ordinary person, the computer screen looked like nothing more than numerous lines of code, but to an IT expert like Zhou Yuhang, these multiple lines of complicated instructions presented him with a vastly different picture—they filled with terrifying aggression and a warning of doom.

"Everyone, stop attacking. Hurry up and withdraw!"

One of the group leaders roared, sensing that a catastrophe was imminent.

Gu Zhanguo and Dongfang Shuoyu looked at one another. They couldn't help but shake their heads, and it seemed to them like "Mie" now had the upper hand.

In the ranks of the IT engineers, one by one, they began to stare blankly at their computer screens with astonished faces. Xiao Luo's had successfully penetrated their port security and compromised their computers' integrity—on their blue-colored screens, all they saw were the word "MIE" made up with strings of scrambled codes.

"Defend, hurry up, defend!"

Zhou Yuhang was in a daze and sweating profusely. Xiao Luo had already seized control of the server, and all Zhou Yuhang could do was to retreat behind his machine's firewall—and here, in this redoubt, he would make his final stand.

The other three group leaders also recovered in good time, providing rearguards for the other in turn and making it back safely behind their defensive lines. Once again, secure behind their defenses, they started to coordinate with Zhou Yuhang's honeycomb system to lure Xiao Luo. They intended to give their opponent a taste of his own medicine.

The other IT engineers were dropping like flies as more withdrew from the battlefield. They were crestfallen but tried their best to stay calm, waiting for Xiao Luo, the ferocious tiger, to step into the lure and spring the trap.

It was a tense moment, as the rank of fallen engineers awaited in trepidation, even Gu Zhanguo, and the rest could feel that something was about to occur in this fierce battle that would be decisive.

"ROAR!"

To the defenders, it seemed like a ferocious tiger had bounded through the flaming walls, roaring fiercely and on a violent rampage, leaving a blazing trail of destruction.

The virtual defenders, the army of warriors created from the engineers' codes, were no match for the intruder and simply disintegrated back into broken source codes when attacked. In this way, slowly but surely, each and every one of the defenders' computers were compromised. Once again, the structured codes that made up their programs were turned into scrambled strings of characters that formed the word "MIE."

"It's coming now… it's heading towards us!" a group leader nervously warned the others.

"Come on then! We'll make sure it dies without a proper burial place!"

Zhou Yuhang scowled, gritting his teeth. The honeycomb system was a complex application and the most powerful program that he had developed. It was capable of hack-back and instant file deletion, and could also be set up as a booby trap, where it would immediately sequester an intruding malware and render it useless.

But what Zhou Yuhang was unaware of was that Xiao Luo already knew of his strategy right from the start. Xiao Luo hit another key on his board, and a deluge of coded instructions was sent to overwhelm Zhou Yuhang's machine—the prowling tiger roared in the virtual battlefield as it set its sight on the defensive of its adversaries before it leaped in for the attack. And there it was—the attempted breach!

"Now!"

Zhou Yuhang yelled, and the engineers looked elated as they scanned their screens to check on its outcome—in the virtual battlefield, the ground suddenly collapsed into a bottomless abyss, a gaping sinkhole engineered to swallow whole the onrushing tiger.

The team leaders worked in tandem to preventing Xiao Luo's program from launching subsequent commands while attempting to break into the program file. It was working—in the abyss, the team leaders were coding tons of rocks and piling debris into the trap to hold the ferocious tiger. In cyberspace, they were like the gods, making their creations come to life at the touch of a key.

BOOM!

Finally, the intrusion was stopped, and everything came to a standstill. It was like a gigantic mountain had been formed using codes and dropped into the abyss, forever sealing the ferocious tiger in its prison. Zhou Yuhang shot up from his chair, yelled in exhilaration, and pointed at Xiao Luo as he roared, "He's been defeated! He is not 'Mie,' he is not 'Mie!'"

His joy was absolutely justified. He had proven his skills and had redeemed the pride of the IT department.

Gu Zhanguo, Dongfang Shouyu, and Ji Siying all looked at Xiao Luo, and a frown formed on their faces as they wondered if they got it wrong. Wasn't Xiao Luo the real 'Mie?'

However, at that moment, the other three group leaders gasped, their faces paled, and they looked horrified. They kept repeating the same words over and over again, "How could this be… how could this be?"

Zhou Yuhang noticed his colleagues' distress and could tell something was amiss. As he looked at his own screen, his eyes opened wide, his lips couldn't stop trembling, and he found himself in an extreme state of shock. Xiao Luo's program had reactivated; it had broken free—the ferocious tiger was no more, but in its place was a humongous creature lifting the mountain and crawling out of the abyss.

"Now, the game is finally over!"

Xiao Luo laughed as he entered a series of code before hitting the Enter key.

It resembled a shockwave as the creature revealed its two massive savage fangs and let out a long terrifying howl that shook heaven and earth…

Zhou Yuhang and his remaining forces in the virtual battlefield were wiped out in an instant. A piercing sound of beeps emanated from their computers, and on their screens, scrambled codes began to form the word "MIE."

The entire hall fell into shocked silence.

The cyberspace battle was over, leaving a field of hundreds lying in defeat.

Zhou Yuhang was stunned. He had his hands on his head and could only stare blankly at the word, "MIE," emblazoned on his screen. He was defeated but gradually came to terms with the loss as he closed his eyes with grief and let out a long sigh. He then slumped back in his seat, totally spent.

Swallowing his pride, he walked up to the microphone on stage, and said: "Congratulations! Now, no one will question if you are 'Mie' anymore," then turning to his colleagues, he said, "am I right?"

All the IT engineers nodded their heads, and not a hint of doubt showed in their eyes any longer, but instead, there was only worship, respect, and admiration. And why not? A hundred assailants attacking in unison against a lone swordsman, and yet they were soundly beaten. How could they dare to not accept it?

"Teacher, please enlighten us. What program did you create? I've never seen a program this effective before!"

Zhou Yuhang had regained his soul again and was thirsty for knowledge of these abilities he had experienced first-hand. He would try to seek Xiao Luo's advice, and already he had begun to address Xiao Luo as "teacher."

"I name it the 'sixty-four offensive and defensive program.' It's designed for massive scale deployment and has a unique active defense capability. It dynamically alters the access key and masks the port address, essentially it passively tracks the source of intrusions and diverts malware back to that source. It also has self-learning capabilities, plots virus patterns, and rewrites its codes before redirecting it to its source location. Therefore, it can handle massive attacks, and unless you can disable the program quickly, it will continue to learn and counter any attempts with devastating results."

Xiao Luo patiently explained the concept of his radical program to the IT engineers of the NSA. It wasn't because Zhou Yuhang had addressed him as 'teacher' that he did it, instead, it was that this program was capable of strengthening the nation's gateways and cyber networks. Xiao Luo was just glad that he could contribute to enhancing the defenses of his country in any way he could.

…