"No! No! No!"
Bianca leaped out of her chair, screaming. She stared at the giant screen in absolute horror. "Where are my points? Where did they go?!"
Just a minute ago, Dreamscape Alpha had been untouchable, looking down on the rest of the competition from their throne.
How did their score just evaporate?
They were dangerously close to falling below the qualifying line.
Meanwhile, Serena's pathetic little squad was inexplicably surging to the top.
What was going on?
Bianca's mind snapped. Her eyes turned red with fury as she whipped around, glaring venomously at Serena. "It's you! You did this, didn't you?"
"You're cheating! This is absolute cheating!"
She screeched at the top of her lungs. "Serena, you have no shame! Do you know what kind of competition this is? How dare you cheat? You're a disgrace to Marington!"
"Referee, I want to report her! Report her!"
She pointed a shaking finger at Serena, her shrill voice making everyone wince. "She's using illegal methods to hack our system and steal our points!"
"I demand you disqualify her immediately! Cheaters don't deserve to compete!"
Official Barrett was just as bewildered.
In all his years of overseeing matches, he had never seen anything like this.
He had taken the Doyle family's money. His job was to protect Dreamscape Alpha at all costs.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he sprinted over to Serena's station. "Hope Initiative, cease all operations immediately!"
"What you are doing is a severe violation of the rules! You are maliciously attacking another team's system! You are destroying the spirit of the gauntlet!"
"This is an offensive and defensive coding match. I went on the offense, and they failed to defend. Is there a problem?"
Her voice was incredibly casual.
But her words left the referee's face livid. Bianca and her entire team looked just as sick.
Official Barrett was completely silenced.
His own words had just boomeranged right back to hit him in the face.
The rules technically didn't forbid attacking other teams.
The entire premise of coding warfare tested a programmer's control over a system.
It was just that no one had ever actually done it.
Because most people cared about their reputations. Doing something this ruthless would usually make a team the laughingstock of other universities.

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