The hammering in the docks continued day and night, as the Oro Jackson's wounds slowly healed under the craftsmen's skilled hands. The crew had settled back into their familiar rhythm—drinking, card games, shooting the breeze—as if that earth-shattering naval battle was just a fuzzy memory from a bad hangover.
Only one man was different.
Douglas Bullet, that guy who radiated "stay the hell away" vibes, had become even more silent than before.
He no longer picked fights with anyone, spending most of his time sitting alon...
As soon as Steven entered the door, he received a communication from Rustboro City.
While walking into his treasure vault and looking at the wall full of rare stones, he pressed his communication device.
A kind middle-aged male voice came through.
"Steven, what have you been busy with lately? How are your Gym challenges going? I heard you've been traveling back and forth between Mossdeep City and Fallarbor Town recently. Did something happen?"
Her vision and perception seemed to transcend the boundaries of time and space. Vera could clearly sense another 'her,' or rather, these were her own current emotions.
The rage rising from her heart, the violent fury born from her guts.
Brought on by her "God's gift."
An influence that wasn't quite an influence.
And while feeling restless—
Crack!
Inside the armored hover car, Vera opened her five fingers, clenched them, closed them. The bones and joints beneath her sealed...
A sultry silhouette collapsed onto the filthy ground.
The large-caliber heavy bullet tore through her artificially sculpted beautiful features, exiting through the back of her skull. Metal bone fragments mixed with a spray of red and white brain matter scattered in a fan pattern, leaving only half a head with the jaw intact as her body fell backward from the momentum, crashing heavily to the ground.
The corpse lay limp on the floor, exposed and protruding damaged cybernetic components sparking intermittently,...
"Hello." A steady, commanding male voice answered.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Simmons. This is Vera Adelaide Russell from Umbrella Corporation. Sorry to intrude." Holding the receiver to her ear, Vera spoke with the practiced enthusiasm of an American politician.
A wise person knows when to bend. Umbrella wasn’t Arasaka, and this America hadn’t collapsed—it was still the world’s superpower.
On the other end was the U.S. National Security Advisor, a ...
"Commitment, integrity, and honesty—these three principles form the foundation of Umbrella Corporation."
"Just like our three main divisions—Red Umbrella, Blue Umbrella, and White Umbrella—each carries distinct responsibilities while maintaining interconnection. All three are indispensable and work together to better serve the public."
"We are now formally announcing the establishment of the Black Umbrella division. Based on ou...
A Rayfield Excalibur aerodyne slowly emerged from the landing pad inside the dark tower.
Its surface gleamed with a special paint reserved for the latest supercar models—dark-toned, radar-absorbent, capable of a certain 'stealth' effect while remaining translucent and muted. Understated, yet undeniably luxurious.
2025-09-27 02:39:43 +0000 UTCView Post
Simply put, you can think of it as what used to be the open-source internet.
Why "used to be"? Because someone blew it up.
That's why cyberspace is also called the Old Net.
Countless fluorescent green, blue-white, and deep red gradients of 1s and 0s formed data matrices that created what looked like visible space. Using this as an anchor point for digitized consciousness, Vera gazed at the ghostly data world ...
Time quietly passed by, and as evening approached, in a villa in Cerulean City in the Kanto region.
Kairos pushed open the kitchen door, and a delicious aroma immediately wafted out along with thick smoke. He had finished preparing today's dinner.
As soon as he opened the door, he saw the figure that appeared before him, burning with gentle flames - it was Chandelure.
Ever since advancing to Elite Four level, the aura emanating from it had grown stronger day by day, as if the power of the Rare Candy was still having lingeri...
It wasn't until dusk completely enveloped the city and dazzling neon lights replaced the warm sunlight that Vera, quite exhausted in her personal laboratory codenamed 'Umbrella,' finally looked up, rubbed her temples, and stopped writing the workstation preparation programs.
In the cyberpunk world of 2074, virtually any electronic device had hacker interfaces.
Programmable, connectable, controllable...
With brain-machine synchronization, even for technical research topics, today's researchers mostly performed computation...
Character development is what I desire; gratitude is also what I desire.
This time, Vera straightened her spine, stood upright, and bowed her head in a standard bow toward the Arasaka memorial before her, or more precisely, toward the names of her biological parents engraved upon it, expressing her gratitude.
...
In Night City, there are still people who believe in this stuff?
Passersby in Night City found it strange. A drunk slumped in the grass caught a whiff of alcohol and staggered over, following the scent. U...
"Arasaka Academy's 2074 freshman orientation ceremony, to give a speech."
With the invitation spread on her desk, Vera lit up a premium ladies' cigarette with some satisfaction, her fingers tapping the chair's armrest intermittently.
She never used to smoke, but the self-imposed grinding study experience at Arasaka Academy, combined with the genuinely high work pressure within Arasaka Corporation, had gotten her hooked without realizing it. Environmental influence, she supposed.
With a soft brake squeal smoothed by noise reduction systems, the vehicle broadcasting an internal Arasaka Security ID signal came to a clean stop.
After passing the security scanners and receiving standard inspection salutes from Arasaka guards and hacker agents at the entrance, Vera stepped out. Once the vehicle handover was complete, she led her two assigned bodyguards straight to the executive-only passage.
Arasaka, after all, operated on strict class separat...
The vehicle glided smoothly along as Vera reclined on the plush back seat, gazing quietly out the window with half-closed eyes, appearing to contemplate the contents of the work meeting.
In a dimension unnoticed by either Arasaka bodyguard, Vera's eyes suddenly blazed like brilliant stars.
This wasn't the luminescence of cybernetic implants.
From Vera's perspective, time around her seemed to stand still.
The movement of objects nearby became incredibly slow, her vision sinking as if her soul were plunging into an endl...
Corpo Plaza, apartment 414, Russell family residence.
Dawn was breaking as Vera woke from her sleep, sitting up gently on the bed.
"Ugh... not even giving me a single day off, what a bunch of bloodsuckers."
Silent muttering, rubbing her drowsy head that had become sluggish after voluntarily shutting off her health monitor, Vera pressed her forehead and shook her head. Her indigo cybernetic pupils instantly cleared.
Thinking about how she had just rushed back to Night ...
Gray-white clouds clustered and scattered across the sky. Under the clear heavens, a massive 140-story building stood like a pitch-black tower, quietly rising in the heart of Night City.
Compared to the neighboring Militech Tower and Kang Tao Tower, its design appeared conservative and impersonal—constructed entirely of black reinforced glass curtain walls and steel, giving off an extremely cold and intimidating oppressive feeling.
This was a city full of charm and vitality. At least it used to be...
Woooo... woooo...
Under the blazing sun in broad daylight, rising flames and smoke accompanied by martial law sirens erupted from the bizarre corners of this metropolitan area.
The air was swelteringly hot, filled with an indescribable stench—the foul smell of unbled, ungutted protein chunks after being smoke-roasted, mixed with the acrid odor of burned electronic components.
Actually, today was Red's first day arriving at this villa. Before this, he had been secretly carrying out a mission assigned to him by the League while also training in the wilderness for an extended period.
After completing those tedious tasks, Red's first priority was to bring his Pokémon to this mountain villa for relaxation.
So when Charizard had just indicated it wanted to leave to continue training, Red had those thoughts. It was simply working too hard and pushing itself too much.
Cynthia nodded, then turned around and opened a drawer in a nearby cabinet, taking out several golden candy wrappers and placing them in front of Caitlin.
The effect of the Rare Candy had been so astounding at the time that she couldn't bear to throw away even these wrappers.
Actually, under normal circumstances, powerful Ghost-type Pokémon like Spiritomb don't eat or need to consume substantial food. They mostly absorb energy direc...
In his plan, to reach Spirit City and seize the three Spirit Bones, Ignaz needed not only his own strength but also the dual protection of Dugu Bo and Yang Wudi—both were indispensable.
Beyond that, he required a crucial opportunity: Shrek Academy reaching the finals. The advancement slots from the preliminaries in the Skywater division essentially represented the Empire’s spot in the final. Teams from the kingdoms and duchies under the Empire were no match; for them to displace Shrek would be extremely difficult.
Why did Xiao Wu feel that something was off about Ignaz’s third Spirit Ring? Sure, its power was a bit stronger than usual, but compared to Dai Mubai’s third Spirit Technique, it wasn’t that impressive—one was a wide-area attack, while the other amplified three attributes by 100%.
Faced with Yu Xiaogang’s question, Xiao Wu hesitated and replied vaguely,
“I… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just my imagination because I’m too scared.”
“Don’t be afraid, Xiao Wu. I’ll protect you,” Tang San said firmly, s...
The six qualifying teams from the Heaven Dou Division, along with four teams from the affiliated kingdoms and one from the affiliated principality, entered the competition arena one by one.
To avoid unnecessary complications, the matches were not open to civilians or most Spirit Master academies. As a result, the spectator stands were mostly empty, aside from the eliminated teams from the preliminaries.
In the waiting area outside the arena, Yu Tianheng was already on edge.
2025-09-25 04:32:36 +0000 UTCView Post
“Ma Hongjun may have the Fire Phoenix spirit, but I’ve heard that every time he tries to deal with his evil fire, at least one girl his age ends up harmed—and he only targets pretty girls. Ugly ones are never considered.”
At this, Shui Wuqing’s face darkened. Any trace of earlier politeness or appeasement vanished.
“If that’s true, then there’s nothing the Shui family can do. You may leave.”
“No, Miss Bing’er! Uncle, there’s been a misunderstanding. Those past actions were unavoidable. I haven’t ac...
“Bullshit! You’re still clinging to the same ideas you had back when Bing’er was Rank 20. At your age, that’s pathetic.”
The voice thundered in from outside before the man himself appeared. Everyone turned as Shui Wuliang strode into the hall with Shui Bing’er at his side, his expression stormy.
“Cousin!”
The clan leader, Shui Wuqing, immediately rose to his feet as though he’d just been rescued. His tone was unusually respectful.
This was no surprise—by rights, the clan leader’s position should ...
Before long, the four of them arrived at Skywater City.
Ma Hongjun stared blankly at the women walking past on the streets. He swallowed hard, the evil fire in his body surging uncontrollably.
“This place really lives up to its name. It’s not just Skywater Academy that’s full of beauties—even the women in this city are far above average.”
“Hongjun, keep it together,” Flender warned. “We came here to fix your problem and arrange your marriage with Shui Bing’er. You can’t go around drooling over other wome...
If it hadn’t been for the six healers working tirelessly to suppress the poison raging through him, Tang Hao could never have recovered enough spirit power in such a short time to unleash his ninth spirit ability—the healing skill.
Looking at Tang Yuehua, Tang Hao said gravely, “Yuehua, the one who dealt me such heavy injuries was Dugu Bo. I didn’t expect his poison to be even stronger than I imagined.”
“Second Brother, Dugu Bo is just one man. And his grandda...
“The way that battle ended, both of them must’ve taken heavy damage. Old Poison, I’ll finish you another day. As for Tang Hao, he’s as good as dead.”
Chrysanthemum Douluo’s eyes burned with killing intent. He no longer cared about pursuing Dugu Bo. All he wanted now was to finish off the injured Tang Hao, to settle the old score from the time he and Ghost Douluo had been beaten by him.
He followed Tang Hao’s trail, but by the time he chased into a commoner district of Vast Sea City, Tang Hao had completely vanished....
