Chapter Eight: The Legend of the Black Sun

Just as Shuang Ye had mentioned, when Mo Tan logged in around 8:30 PM, it was indeed midday in the game. He materialized in an alley not far from where he had disconnected, roughly a two-minute walk from the barracks.

Mo Tan quickly made his way back to the base, familiar with the route. Since the guard on duty was the same Mediterranean-haired gnome warrior from the previous night, he was waved through without even having to produce his military tag.

"Hey, Hei Fan!" The members of the Fenrir squad seemed to be gathered together, chatting about something. Seeing Mo Tan approach, Ned immediately waved him over. "Over here!"

Shuang Ye was there too; it appeared she had logged in a bit earlier and was currently sitting in a corner, lost in thought.

Mo Tan ran over, greeted everyone in turn, and then smiled at Ned. "I’m here to report. What are you guys talking about?"

"Uh, the current topic is whether an ogre girl or a goblin girl is more beautiful," Ned patted Mo Tan on the shoulder and chuckled dryly. "Crab and Salazar have rather different opinions on the matter."

Mo Tan turned his head stiffly toward the two individuals beside him.

"You lizard will never understand how sexy those fangs are!" the dark-skinned orc warrior, Crab, roared, spraying spit as he spoke.

"Yes, and I am truly glad that I cannot comprehend the world through your eyes," the lizardman monk retorted, arms crossed, with a sneer. "But are you truly unable to realize how fascinating that petite frame and those large ears are?"

Mo Tan: "..."

"Just to be clear, we aren't participating in this low-brow debate," Yin Na said as she walked over, pulling Shuang Ye along. She cast a look of disdain at the two "men of culture" before turning to Mo Tan with a mischievous grin. "Though, perhaps you could offer your own perspective?"

Mo Tan answered without a moment's hesitation: "I think elf and human girls are better looking. Yep, that’s it."

"Ho~ what a crowd-pleaser," Yin Na winked at him.

Shuang Ye, meanwhile, let out a listless yawn and said languidly, "Don't expect me to be happy about that, anyway."

A moment later, after the bizarre debate finally concluded (with Salazar knocking Crab to the ground), Ned gave Mo Tan a more detailed rundown of the squad's discipline, and the group resumed their idle chatter.

Through his role as a wandering priest, Mo Tan engaged in some small talk, gaining a basic grasp of the world-building. During this process, Shuang Ye, who was also a player, barely spoke, though she secretly sent a friend request and a message expressing her admiration for his eloquence.

"You're actually quite good at fishing for information. It's a waste that you aren't an underground agent."

That was what Shuang Ye had said in her message, and Mo Tan simply took it as a compliment.

According to Ned, the Autonomous Army they were part of was essentially a private force belonging to the Marshall family. Naturally, its existence was legal.

Lord Buffy Marshall, the contemporary head of this long-standing family, was also one of the nine dukes of the Violet Empire—the overlord of the Eastern Frontier in the Land of Innocence. He ruled over thirty-some cities, with the family's seat, Mercury City, as the central hub. The Autonomous Army was the lowest and most motley component of his armed forces. Compared to the elite Mercury Guard, the Sword of Buffy Knights, and the Ice Veil Mages, the members of the Autonomous Army were essentially on par with a militia. However, they carried heavy responsibilities, mainly maintaining basic order within the territory and serving as cannon fodder in large-scale battles.

"In short, it's just a way to make a living," Ned shrugged. "At least the pay here is stable, and the risks are much lower than being a mercenary or an adventurer."

Mo Tan nodded. He didn't feel uncomfortable being in this "cannon fodder camp." On the contrary, he believed that starting from a low point in the early stages of the game was a good thing. After all, the official website for *World of Innocence* was basically useless; in terms of intelligence, it wasn't even as informative as a random NPC on the street.

So, as the saying goes, it’s best to go with the flow.

"Alright, chat time is about over." The lizardman monk, Salazar, glanced at the antique pocket watch around his neck and turned toward the camp exit. "We have to patrol outside the city tomorrow, so let's disband early today."

Yin Na looked at his retreating back and shook her head helplessly. "That guy is always like that. I’m going back to my room to read."

With that, she nimbly climbed up a towering, unnamed giant tree nearby and soon disappeared into its lush, yellowing leaves.

"She built a treehouse up there; she says she can't stand the dorms shared by us stinky males," Ned gestured to Mo Tan before saying, "We're dismissed. Meet at seven tomorrow morning, and then we'll all go for a routine patrol outside the city."

Mo Tan smiled at him. "Understood, Captain."

Afterward, Ned and Crab, who had just climbed up from the ground, wandered off. The warm, open space beside the encampment was left with only Mo Tan and Shuang Ye.

"Come sit over here," the female mage with waist-length orange hair beckoned lazily.

"It would be my pleasure," Mo Tan readily agreed. He figured she must have plenty of information to share.

However, he did not expect that his gains would far exceed his expectations.

"This world has its own set of operating rules," Shuang Ye whispered, leaning toward Mo Tan. "The twelve hours we can log in each day (7 PM to 7 AM) are doubled here, meaning twenty-four hours. During the daytime when we cannot log in, the world pauses until 7 PM real-world time, which is when players can log back in."

Mo Tan was shocked. He had never heard of such a thing. Not from the official company, nor even on the forums. If this theory held true, the information was incredibly valuable. The most immediate benefit was in interacting with NPCs; at the very least, Mo Tan now knew when he needed to report to the barracks the next day.

"How did you..." Mo Tan looked at Shuang Ye curiously, but she interrupted him with a slight wave of her hand.

"I’m just returning a favor. I got quite a bit of useful information when you were fishing for details earlier, so consider it a fair trade." Shuang Ye chuckled. "Besides, even if I didn't tell you, someone would have figured it out soon enough. As for how I knew first..."

Shuang Ye blinked and said playfully, "Because I'm a tech nerd. I do a bit of hacking now and then, which is why I’m playing this game."

"Planning to steal some data or find a way to breach the company's system?" Mo Tan looked at her with slight surprise and remarked, "I heard the company's firewall is absurdly strong, even the legendary 'Black Sun' failed."

Black Sun was a legend, a living legend. This king of modern hackers had breached the servers of almost every major private institution worldwide. According to vague statistics, the losses they caused directly or indirectly reached astronomical figures, and they remained at large to this day.

Some said Black Sun was an organization, others said a duo, aliens, a special government agency, or even Koreans...

In short, the name was a godfather-like figure that all modern hackers idolized. Their modus operandi and hacking methods remained a mystery, and their targets seemed completely random. Perhaps Black Sun would hack hundreds of private ATMs across the globe simultaneously to make them spew cash, or infiltrate a family conglomerate to spread intimate photos of its core members on the local network, or access a famous actor's personal computer to leak interesting videos to forums, or even break into a school to post fake answer keys for exams on the homepage...

Like a genius sociopath with a twisted sense of humor.

Shuang Ye suddenly laughed awkwardly, scratched her hair, and shrugged. "Yeah, that's exactly why I came to play this game after failing! I ended up getting a bit hooked."

"What!?" Mo Tan’s pupils contracted, and he stared at Shuang Ye. "You're saying you *are* Black Sun!"

"That's right," Shuang Ye replied nonchalantly, looking up at the sun hanging in the sky. "It's so hot..."

*Pop.*

A small ice ball appeared on her raised index finger, radiating a hint of coolness.

Shuang Ye nodded with satisfaction. "Much better now."

"Can skills be used like that?" Mo Tan looked at the ice ball on her fingertip. "Or is it because you're Black Sun that you can do this?"

He stared fixedly into Shuang Ye's bright brown eyes as he asked, as if trying to see through her.

"Don't be so tense..." Shuang Ye shook her head helplessly. "If your intelligence stat is more than double the minimum requirement for a spell, you can manipulate it to a certain extent. But this also proves that the data model in *World of Innocence* is ridiculously flexible. I’ve been struggling for days, and besides making a cheap, compatible simulation pod, I've achieved nothing. I was almost ready to give up."

Mo Tan didn't see a trace of lying in the girl's eyes; instead, he noticed a lingering sense of frustration. He couldn't help but ask, "If you really are Black Sun, then why..."

"Why tell you?" Shuang Ye glanced at him, pouting indignantly. "It doesn't matter anyway! Even I can't hack a single byte of this game's server. Plus, I’ve modeled my avatar so much that even my mother wouldn't recognize me. You couldn't possibly find out my real identity through this character, 'Shuang Ye.' Even if you went to the forums to broadcast it, no one would believe you, so it doesn't matter... Sigh... what a piece of junk... does it think it's the CIA? Even the CIA isn't like this... Ah, go to hell! The company can go to hell, I can go to hell~~~"

The feeling of someone who had given up on everything...

Watching this girl in round-rimmed glasses mutter to herself, Mo Tan couldn't help but find it amusing, and then...

[You have been urgently disconnected. Please select whether to reconnect.]

"No."

[Execute wake-up procedure?]

"Yes, I need this right now."

[Received. It is currently January 1, 2049, 00:40 AM. You will wake up in two minutes.]

...

Two minutes later, Mo Tan sat up in his gaming pod. After adjusting to the hazy feeling of just waking up, a playful smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

He stood up, walked to his computer, turned it on, and with lightning-fast hand speed, terminated the boot process before the system loaded. He quickly switched to a purely black interface, kicked his computer desk slightly, and pulled a black network cable from a hidden compartment to plug into the computer.

"Heh, what a surprise," Mo Tan narrowed his eyes and muttered. "I never thought that after dodging me for so long, I’d find traces of you in a place like that. You were still too careless, Sun."

By now, you have probably realized something...

Exactly. Black Sun was not an organization, nor were they Korean. They were a duo consisting of two people with almost no moral constraints. And Mo Tan was one half of them, codenamed: Black.

And the true identity of the other person had already begun to surface...

"Open the 'Hunting Angel' system," Mo Tan said softly to the microphone in front of him. "Based on the existing parameters, exclude all males and change the sub-category criteria to: East Asian, height between 155cm and 175cm. Add to the fuzzy conditions: wears glasses, between 18 and 25 years old, Chinese citizen, has not purchased any peripheral products from the game company, and mother is still alive... Oh, and one more thing: did not appear outdoors on December 31, 2048, or tonight. Start."

After a flicker of static, a progress bar appeared on the computer screen. A mechanical voice came through the headset Mo Tan had just put on: "Searching. Remaining time: 99 hours+. Hide search panel?"

"Obviously," Mo Tan rolled his eyes, tossed the headset aside, and looked at the computer screen as it quickly switched back to the official system. He smiled faintly. "If I can expose you with solid evidence, and then play a few more pranks in the name of Black Sun after you're arrested, it should be very interesting... Hahaha... Hahahahaha!!!"

He laughed loudly for a long time, then turned his gaze back to the gaming pod, whispering, "Suddenly, I have another brilliant idea..."

...

Black and Sun had met by accident. At the time, Mo Tan was searching through neurological data from a French hospital when he discovered another set of data also infiltrating the system—a case of two thieves reaching into the same pocket.

For fun, Mo Tan deliberately triggered the institution's firewall and reported it to the police faster than the automated alarm system, while simultaneously destroying a large amount of valuable research material before hiding his tracks.

However, the other party was no pushover. When Mo Tan triggered the firewall, the other thief immediately intercepted Mo Tan’s virtual IP and masked it with their own, attempting to frame him.

A battle of hacking skill ensued. Although neither side was ever caught by the other or the police with any useful information, the police involved in the incident were driven to the brink of insanity. They deployed forces across France, mobilizing countless resources to deal with this "extremely malicious" event, checking one water meter after another, visiting one community after another to "spread warmth," and ended up almost arresting their own top boss...

It was a truly tear-jerking, heroic history of the police doing their duty!

It is worth remembering that although they never caught the two culprits, the event indirectly sparked a sense of curiosity and subtle mutual recognition between the playful Mo Tan and the hacker codenamed "Sun."

A week later, they met in a bank database and completed their first act of great aesthetic and practical value: making every ATM of this global, heartless private bank spew out large amounts of cash, while also kindly deleting their serial numbers...

An hour after the event, an entity claiming to be "Black Sun" claimed responsibility, leaked intimate photos of a corrupt bank president on a social network, and exposed the five-star hotel that had installed hidden cameras in their rooms...

From then on, the two became accomplices, yet they never gave up on their first game: to hunt the other down and dump all the blame for their years of accumulated misdeeds onto their partner.

"This is the ultimate pleasure."

Lying back in the gaming pod, Mo Tan whispered to the air with a chuckle before closing his eyes. "Don't you dare disappoint me."

[Mental connection detected. Synchronizing personal information...]

[Connection complete. Reading character information.]

[Welcome back, Chaotic Neutral Tan Mo. Loading *World of Innocence*. Good night.]

...

Chapter 8: End