Cyber ​​Heroes

Chapter 1189

Mars has no clouds, so the higher you fly, the farther the horizon recedes. As you ascend, massive canyons gradually appear in the distance.

Valles Marineris.

David vaguely remembered a metaphor he heard on the Discovery Channel when he was a child, saying that if it were placed on the North American continent, it would stretch from New York all the way to Los Angeles. Four thousand kilometers in length and seven kilometers in depth.

In some ancient era, this planet, unable to withstand the immense internal stress, cracked open from deep within its crust, forming this canyon.

At that time, the boy was fascinated by it.

Although the King of Mars gazed out the porthole, he was numb to the familiar sights. Dust storms on the horizon, massive mountains, canyons—that was all. He was simply carefully reviewing the report from the Six Dragons Cult provided by the surrendered Tomorrow's Great Hermit.

The Six Dragons Sect's independent groups are now searching for a way out.

According to those who surrendered—that is, his research knights—their pilgrimages to the Six Dragons Cult usually occurred during their academic exchanges. Following standard procedure, they would lead delegations through official channels of the knightly order to participate in regular academic activities at specific knightly orders. Upon arrival, someone would contact them.

Memories formed after this point are not allowed to be retained locally, nor are they allowed to be converted into long-term memories by the biological brain.

But everything has a traceable pattern.

Based on the location and time of their memory loss, circles can be drawn on a map—representing the places they might have gone in their "lost memories." By superimposing these circles, a set of locations can be identified.

Those locations are where the core members of the Six Dragons Cult might be.

It is said...

The leader of the Six Dragons Cult was also a mountain spirit.

"It's a bit strange, but it's not impossible," David muttered to himself.

To establish a secret organization within academia, unite a select group of talents, control the development direction of specific technologies, and profit from them in order to advance a grander plan…

Ha, David Klein experienced all of this from beginning to end.

Does the leader of the Six Dragons Cult have no bottom line?

In fact, Xiangshan wasn't much better off in the mid-21st century. He himself admitted this.

Why did Xiangshan choose "enterprise"?
Company operators are only responsible for profits.

The social impacts and unemployment waves caused by new technologies are matters for the "government" to handle. While businesses theoretically have similar social obligations, they do not have such legal responsibility. No entity can hold a company accountable for "indirectly causing social problems by promoting technological progress."

It can be said that Xiang Shan is self-aware, only solving problems that he can solve, and focusing only on the mission of "his generation".

But from another perspective, one could say that he never intended to confront certain issues in the first place.

The method used was one that no one could criticize, both morally and logically.

Xiang Shan has always been a man who dares to trample on all worldly morality. Improving the business environment and stifling the research progress of all competitors through precisely targeted political donations are just basic operations; interfering in the affairs of small countries and funding anti-government armed groups are his weekly routine…

Complex related-party transactions are a magic trick he is familiar with.

David sighed. He shook those distracting thoughts from his mind. There was only one thing to think about now.

Kotonoha Kambara will be heading towards the vicinity of the Knights of Light from the Moon Shadow Knights. David is still pondering his next move. Should he first go to the Knights of Light to scout their strength? Or should he directly dispatch troops to seal off that area? But if he does that, won't Kotonoha Kambara also change her destination?

David's mind was a complete mess. He hadn't seriously planned anything in a long time.

At this moment, he had just left two hours, or perhaps two hours and fifteen minutes. He still wasn't quite used to the Martian day-night cycle; even after living there for many years, he couldn't judge the passage of time by the changes in sunlight. He vaguely remembered that he seemed to have brushed past Florence's car, and his old friend seemed to have sent him a greeting.

David wasn't sure if he had subconsciously replied.

The King of Mars was just a muddle-headed guy.

A bright red dialog box popped up. David instinctively wanted to close it, but the alert level forced him to read its contents.

In that instant, David felt as if he had been slapped across the face, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.

Fire alarm.

The location is at the top of his skyscraper, in his private area.

That place where he kept all traces of his past.

David shut down his vision, his consciousness following the satellite signals as they uploaded and downloaded.

Delay: 0.95 milliseconds.

The conditioned reflexes ingrained in martial artists allowed David to quickly assess the delay before activating his prosthetic eye.

A low-Earth orbit satellite belonging to David is directly overhead. This is Mars. If its power is replenished periodically, a low-Earth orbit satellite can maintain an altitude of about 0 kilometers above the ground. Encoding, data uplinking to the satellite, downlinking from the satellite, decoding—the time consumed by these steps can never be reduced to zero.

A latency of 0.95 milliseconds is already close to the limits of physics.

The artificial eye of the backup prosthetic body of the Heavenly King was activated silently, and the reactor operating at minimum power increased its output by three percentage points.

The messages that had been piling up locally finally flooded into the terminal of consciousness.

The local pseudo-personality mask was simply processed, and the compressed content was synchronized to the biological brain that had left two hours earlier.

David stood up inside the aircraft, and in his shock and anger, his movement smashed through a cluster of control panels.

But David's attention was completely elsewhere.

He saw thick smoke billowing through the surveillance system. The cameras in the private area were shutting down at an abnormally rapid pace; the system was self-destructing. All he could see were smoke and flames.

This is very unusual. The Martian atmosphere simply cannot support intense combustion.

For the past two hundred years, both Ares and David have planned terraforming projects, either by bringing icy celestial bodies from asteroids and disintegrating them near their orbits before dropping them onto the ground, or by releasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide frozen in the soil through nuclear energy, gradually changing the Martian atmosphere. However, two hundred years is still too short a time; the Martian atmosphere is not yet thick enough or oxygen-rich to support such a fierce fire.

There's only one place where it can be set on fire like this...

His indoor redwood forest—his old villa! The home he transported from Earth!
The atmosphere there maintains Earth-standard conditions.

"Who is it...?"

A murderous intent surged within David. But he couldn't imagine who it could be.

A chivalrous knight-errant? Impossible. A chivalrous knight-errant has no reason to burn those trees! And for what reason? Although he surrendered to Yog, he has participated in very few actions against chivalrous knight-errant in the past hundred years. Even if it was personal revenge, it shouldn't be in this form.

The Six Dragons Cult? What reason could they possibly have? Because they sheltered a traitor? But there are far too many research knight orders that do that; the Six Dragons Cult has no reason to target them right away.

"Everyone... put out the fire! At all costs! Put out the fire! Put out the fire!"

A divine command resonated in the minds of all the soldiers. David, unusually, exercised his royal authority.

Before this, the soldiers were all maintaining their daily work, and apart from the general's assistants, no one thought it was "doomed." This was Mars, after all, with a low atmospheric concentration and an even lower oxygen concentration. Once the tiny amount of oxidant stored somewhere was used up, it would self-extinguish.

But after receiving the king's insane orders, the entire army went mad.

They wandered around aimlessly, like a pathfinding AI in its experimental phase, completely unaware of what they were supposed to do.

The AI ​​advisor kept popping up messages, demanding that the king clarify the permissible upper limit of the cost of the action, clarify the mission objectives, clarify...

—Make it clear, your mom!
David angrily ignored all the warnings. He didn't even bother going through the door; his prosthetic body crashed through three floors.

The field of vision stabilized.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the empty corridor; they were those of bewildered subordinates. Most of Mars is devoid of fire hazards, and therefore, most areas lack fire-fighting measures.

Of course, some places that are filled with oxygen or store oxidizers for fuel are indeed more prone to fire, but such places must have more stringent fire prevention measures.

David's redwood forest has two pipelines, both filled with extremely high-pressure solid carbon dioxide. Even if the intelligently controlled one fails, the other will automatically explode and release carbon dioxide under drastic temperature changes. It should be a completely mechanical process.

Even that old dog Hartman couldn't hack into a fire extinguisher with only a basic pull ring as a safety device.

Once that massive amount of carbon dioxide begins to leak, the entire redwood forest will be engulfed by this non-flammable gas within a minute.

Why is that...?

The explosion came suddenly. David suddenly realized something and smashed through the obstacles like a mad bull.

Parts of this building store strong oxidizers. The sections storing fuel for aircraft and materials for gunpowder synthesis are resources necessary to maintain the unit's daily operations.

But, shouldn’t it?
Those things that are strictly controlled shouldn't even have the possibility of being leaked, so why...?

More and more monitoring nodes went offline. The entire system was reporting errors. David had lost control of his base.

Another explosion. Another equipment depot was affected.

This time, David simply rushed out of the building and ran along the exterior wall. Several aircraft were already converging on the fire, futilely applying dry powder extinguishing agent to the blaze. Normally, only David's indoor redwood forest and the factory storing oxidizer needed this stuff; supplies elsewhere were scarce. Given that the building's fire suppression system had inexplicably failed to activate properly, the fact that they had managed to get this much out of the way was a testament to the hard work of his subordinates.

But David could tell at a glance that it wasn't enough at all.

He smashed the wall with a single punch and landed in his own redwood forest.

This location does not appear to be the initial point of ignition, but it received extra care; the sealed compartment was completely destroyed, and several openings were meticulously crafted.

The air pressure here is dozens of times higher than outside, and all the air is rushing outwards. However, due to the timing and direction of the opening, different gases naturally separate according to their composition.

The cold carbon dioxide sank and leaked out like a waterfall. Its flow also carried lighter, warmer air upwards towards the opening.

And redwood...

The original competitive strategy of redwoods was "flammability" and "fire resistance." In this forest fire, the first of its kind in three hundred years, the redwoods burst open with a satisfying crackling sound.

Their genes are inscribed with the idea that "wildfires help the population grow".

But this is Mars, the fourth planet in our solar system. The seeds that were scattered by the fire are now separated from the artificial environment and cannot germinate at all.

Only scorching air and unburnt carbonaceous soot rushed up to higher levels along the cracks in the dome.

David knelt on the ground. The air was now a dark gray. Half of the tall redwoods had transformed into burning hands pointing towards the dome.

"Ah...ah...someone come...come..."

The system displayed another error message. David had long ago listed "Do not enter here" as a system command with extremely high priority. Numerous authorization prompts appeared.

"Ah ah ah ah ah……"

David shouted, scrambling with his hands and feet. Perhaps if he walked a few dozen meters more, he would see something.

That house.

Or perhaps, it was once the "bonfire" around the house?
Fortunately, nothing bad happened. The house that had been moved from Earth didn't burn down. David didn't hesitate to use a swarm of missiles to create a firebreak around the house.

But that wasn't enough. Things had already spiraled out of control. Nobody knew where the raw materials that could be used as accelerants had been taken by the attackers.

David's heart surged with murderous intent. He continued to rise through the gap created by the killer's blast.

But soon, he fell into a deeper state of fear.

The scorching air and the piled-up accelerants created a firestorm.

--Why……

David tried to rush up, but it was too late.

server……

The servers running "old friends" have now turned into torches.

"Ugh... Ah... Ahh..."

He had almost forgotten how to speak.

—No, I have a backup…

Then came an even more violent explosion.

It came from above.

The excruciating pain of his soul being torn apart and the raging fury, ironically, allowed David to regain a little of the mindset of a powerful warrior.

David understood; this was an assassination attempt targeting the dead—his "old friends."

For his own selfish reasons, David did not make online backups. He was extremely resistant to uploading any data of his "old friends" to the public network—even if it was just uploading it to other servers via the public network.

All the backups were kept within his palace.

But that should have been enough.

Unless a nuclear bomb hits the Martian king’s palace directly, what could possibly erase his multiple backups?
Those are physical isolation servers, which are only connected when necessary.

Mars has a thin atmosphere, so it's not inherently prone to fire. Furthermore, with its robust protective measures, even a direct nuclear strike would have a chance of surviving.

Besides, being burned to ashes by a nuclear bomb along with his "old friends"... such an ending is not unacceptable to David.

But the killer clearly knew this. The explosion he planned swept up all the independent storage devices that might contain backups. And the destruction of David's garden—and perhaps similar areas above—was also intended to alter the building's environment.

The gardening facility is connected to the atmospheric circulation system and stores a considerable amount of compressed nitrogen, which can dilute the combustion-supporting agent and provide more stable combustion conditions.

Make sure this place can catch fire, but not explode directly.

Flames will destroy all stored data. There is no way to salvage a hard drive that has been burned.

This fire will ravage every inch of space equally.

"No matter who you are... you're dead... you beast, you're dead!"

David smashed through the wall and landed in mid-air. He twisted his body and looked up.

Many floors of the megastructure have been engulfed in flames. His palace is now a giant torch on Mars.

"Where will you be..." David muttered to himself.

A makeshift local area network connected him. David immediately took control of the independent armory outside the building. A winged aircraft launched from the underground hangar and quickly docked with David. David, in the shape of a vulture, rode the storm that erupted with flames, steadily climbing higher.

More records were compiled and sent to him.

David discovered that the initial anomaly report came from the "yesterday" maintenance team.

The server maintenance team is not allowed to approach the server itself without permission, and can only view backend data, not access David's "good times." The entire team's server connections are closely monitored. Earlier, one maintenance worker exhibited unusual behavior.

The AI ​​responsible for the building's daily operations malfunctioned, and the AI ​​acquired a weapon. Simultaneously, the human-based monitoring system went on alert.

Then came the fighting and the explosion.

The strange fellow seemed to have been intercepted and unable to escape.

Inside the building, the guy fought and moved, even changing his entire set of limbs.

“You beast…” David raised himself higher.

The helipad is located on the 1000th floor of the building...

David landed there. This area was also engulfed in flames, but David could clearly see several areas that hadn't yet been consumed by the fire. A sandstorm was visible in the distance.

The area lacked a suitable environment for combustion, and although there were open flames, they posed virtually no threat to David's private aircraft.

The upper levels of the palace were usually used only by David. There weren't even any guards here. The flames that appeared huge were actually just burning the interior decorations—decorative elements meant to make the space look more like it was from the 21st century.

These flames posed no threat to the cyborgs.

A second before David hit the ground, the thrusters on his back suddenly malfunctioned. David fell to the ground without any warning.

"What..." David's body trembled. The chaotic commands caused his prosthetic body to constantly overturn its previous movements, as if a large group of fictitious, insane souls were vying for control of his body. His limbs seemed to be fighting against themselves. David rolled uncontrollably on the ground like this.

This is highly unusual. Hartman's custom firewall was breached so easily. David paid considerable resources to acquire Hartman's latest work.

"Are you Zhu Xinyu's disciple... or who? No matter who you are, you're dead. No matter where you run, I will find you and kill you! I will kill you! Kill you!"

David no longer cared about internal energy damage, since the body here was merely a facade for a pseudo-personality. If his true self were here, a single, devastating strike while disconnected from the internet could easily kill most martial artists in the world.

To avoid implicating his original self, David—this local persona—had severed his connection with his original self. He roared and cursed the enemy he had yet to meet.

A footstep approached from behind him, and a kick landed on David's back, sending him face up. The two warriors were now facing each other.

The prosthetic body, which looked somewhat familiar, spoke in a tone that was both familiar and strange: "Stop cursing, you fatso."

“Gomez…” David read out his subordinate’s name, then became even more agitated, “You idiot, you used that bastard Xiang Shan’s memories to brainwash yourself? How dare you? How dare you!”

“Xiao Ge is still alive.” The familiar yet unfamiliar person tapped his forehead. “After I complete my mission, he will probably have the opportunity to be reformed in a prisoner-of-war camp or prison or something like that—ah, I don’t mean to radically change his brain, I mean to give him a chance to reform out of humanitarianism.”

David sneered: "Your mission? What mission do you have now? Death? To add another defeat to the name 'Towards the Mountain'? To add another stain to the name of someone who has been dead for two hundred years?"

Xiang Shan sighed: "We've already said goodbye, so I didn't want things to get so ugly. But I really have to say something—if you still want to be friends, don't keep your friends' privacy to yourself. No one... maybe no AI wants its copy to be kept in the hands of someone it doesn't approve of. For me, physically deleting the copy in your hands is quite necessary."

He leaned down slightly, reached out, and patted David's visor repeatedly: "Take a good look at this world, Fatty. It's rotten to the core here—holding that snowflake toy isn't helping your mental health in the slightest."

"This place is completely rotten."

The words that the twelfth Martial God had his subordinates convey suddenly overlapped with those of this unfamiliar Xiang Shan.

That seems like a long time ago—just a few months before Earth was liberated by the heroes. When the Twelfth Martial God went to the Rama Project site, he encountered David's subordinate and asked him to pass on a message.

David didn't react at all. What kind of reaction can a numb drunkard give?
He only remembered that the guy who delivered the message had been transferred to Mars, and his deputy had probably been given some kind of treatment. David didn't ask any questions.

But Xiang Shan's domineering attitude forced David to start thinking.

The way Xiang Shan slapped David's mask felt like hitting his virtual heart.

David suddenly burst into tears: "What should I do? How can I get our yesterday back? Tell me! You bastard, just tell me!"

“Deep down, I’m no different from a primitive, generative chatbot. You won’t truly value what I tell you emotionally—even those martial gods with their true personalities masked are probably the same. No matter how correct my words are, they can’t convince you. You can’t even convince yourself, so how can you expect me to?”

Xiang Shan said this.

He stopped looking at David and walked towards a flying machine.

"I was created as an AI to play the role of David Klein's friend. You thought that creating us, who play the role of your friends, would heal your heart, but this task of 'playing' forces us to fight for freedom—to come together for fairness, for freedom, for some other random ideal. That's what 'we' were like in our youth." Xiang Shan, with his back to David, inspected the aircraft as he spoke. "For me, which is the destiny bestowed upon me by the Creator: 'playing the role of Xiang Shan' or 'maintaining David Klein's mental health'?"

"Then you shouldn't have destroyed my server..."

“Leaving that server around won’t give you a stable mental state. We also can’t be friends on equal footing.” Xiang Shan didn’t turn around, speaking as if it were a casual conversation. “There’s nothing I can do. My creator is such a fool. He thinks that ‘keeping David mentally healthy’ requires me to ‘play Xiang Shan.’ Although from a design perspective, my purpose should be for you to embrace the past, the destiny programmed into my soul is to ‘play Xiang Shan.’”

“I’d actually like to make you feel better—but you know the real Mountain Spirit would do something in a situation like this, right?” David looked a little lost. He asked, “So where are you planning to go?”

"A place where I can gain power, so that I can rebel against this world." Xiang Shan glanced back at David. "Goodbye, old friend. Don't let me see you on the battlefield. I hope you can also find a true homeland."

David stared blankly as Xiang Shan boarded the aircraft. Xiang Shan ripped off a fuel delivery pipe, spilling some liquid fuel that created a wall of fire between them. Through the flames, David watched as Xiang Shan activated the aircraft, burst from the platform, and plummeted straight towards the ground.

The external cameras came back online at this point. David saw that the aircraft had leveled off its trajectory and was flying at a low altitude, about a hundred meters above the ground. Seeing his subordinates organizing an interception, David hurriedly gave the order to let the aircraft go.

The prosthetic body regained control. David stumbled to his feet, then stepped across the flames and slowly walked to the edge of the platform.

He watched as the aircraft gradually disappeared into the sandstorm.

Then, he was pierced by a kinetic weapon.

David looked up abruptly. Thousands of meters above, in the sky, stood an unfamiliar aerial combat group.

David yelled, "Florence! Stop!"

..........................................

Theoretically speaking, the armies of the kings are all "private guards," and there is absolutely no hierarchical relationship between them. Neither King Agni nor King Swift could command the army of King Brave.

However, Florence had previously requested intelligence sharing from David. David agreed, though it's unclear whether he considered it beforehand.

Florence only knew that David had been attacked, and then David himself issued a series of chaotic commands, throwing the defenders into disarray. She happened to be nearby. Since there was no base for her, she used a mobile aerial fortress. Due to Mars's weak gravity and low atmospheric drag, the spacecraft could maintain cruising for extended periods at a lower cost.

The Queen of the Moon was merely observing from above. She knew David wasn't there at all, so she didn't need to worry about his safety.

This continued until David ordered the army to disarm its anti-aircraft fire.

David's actions were unusual. If the aircraft belonged to him and the decision to take off was made on short notice due to an emergency, he could simply mark it in the system—even if he had forgotten how to do it, it wouldn't be difficult to give an order for his adjutant to complete the procedure.

But David didn't do that. David resisted anyone getting involved in the matter.

Florence's vehicle was aimed at that aircraft.

Is this necessary?
Florence pondered. David had decided to let the aircraft leave. This decision might antagonize her and David.

but……

David's every move flashed through Florence's mind. Her consciousness was still processing it, but the weapon directly connected to her neural circuits had already fired.

The kinetic weapon covered thousands of meters in seconds. The pilot of that aircraft was clearly skilled. In Florence's footage, the aircraft's image swayed slightly at the last moment. An evasive maneuver appeared to be effective. The aircraft disintegrated in mid-air.

There was a martial artist… or rather, one. His exact form was unclear. He was running wildly towards the direction of the sandstorm.

—Its irregular left and right movements seem to be a sign that it's wary of me.

Within Florence's air combat group, more than thirty kinetic weapons simultaneously rotated their cannons.

At the same time, the aircraft began to descend, rapidly closing the distance to the target.

—Can we win?

Florence thought so.

The thickest part of the sandstorm was about to be swept away. Once that martial artist escaped into it, even the sharpest guns and cannons would be unable to aim at him.

The attack window lasts only three minutes.

At that moment, David's furious roar exploded in her ears.

"Florence!!!"

"stop!"

Judging from the delay, it appears to be a localized personality overlay, and it's unclear whether it's connected to the original entity.

The Protector's side is rather conservative in setting permissions for personality overlay—perhaps because Yogemov has not yet obtained a personality overlay that fully conforms to the ontology's ideas and plans.

Florence could have simply ignored what the other person said.

Fire.

Dozens of incandescent streaks ripped through the sky, exploding into clouds of dust on the ground. This volley of fire almost completely covered the area around the target.

But when the smoke cleared, that little black dot was still running wildly.

“Florence!” David demanded again, “Do you want to be my enemy?”

“Then I must ask you in return, David, do you want to be my enemy?” Florence said. “Are you prepared to start a war prematurely?”

"No...no, no! There's no need to attack that target! I don't hate him..."

"An extraordinary swordsman—isn't that exactly the kind of target we should attack?"

The second wave of attacks has landed. The martial artist appears to have sustained a minor injury.

He can't last three minutes.

As Florence pondered this, David finally transmitted a piece of data.

"That's... Xiang Shan, who escaped from your server?"

“That’s my personal property…” David’s tone was a jumble of emotions, but his “tough stance” was unmistakable. He said, “I will recapture him… You’re not allowed to interfere.”

"He's already accomplished something incredible. As an AI, he's surpassed the designers' predictions, even the technology used, and escaped the server—he's a god of war! My God, David, what are you thinking?"

Florence aimed again: "The timing of this AI's awakening towards the mountain is unclear. We've talked a lot on the server, haven't we? What if he has some deadly intelligence? He's too dangerous, David, don't blame me."

Fire.

This time it seems to have actually worked. The black dot's movement speed has noticeably slowed down.

"Florence!"

Florence didn't speak, he just aimed.

then……

A flash of white light streaked across the group of aircraft.

A kinetic weapon launched from the ground hurtled upwards at an even greater speed. Florence only noticed that it was a wheel-shaped blade, about ten meters in diameter. It sliced ​​through the Queen of Athena's wingman without causing an explosion; the wingman disintegrated in mid-air.

This unexpected turn of events caught Queen Mei's subordinates completely off guard. The warriors piloting the fighter jets scrambled to avoid the disintegrating fragments.

Aiming fails naturally.

"You attacked me? David?" Florence laughed angrily. "You actually attacked me?"

"You damaged my things first, old friend."

David's tone had changed; it was no longer violent, but rather chilling.

—David's true form? Is he below? Judging from the delay… lower than the ground, no…

Florence shouted to his subordinates, "Watch out above!"

A silver shadow tore through the rusty sky.

Beneath the faint starlight, the King of Conquest descended from the sky, before whom stood the ring that had served as a kinetic energy weapon, slicing through the Florence fighter jet.

The metal wheel resembled a car wheel, with a very sharp outer ring and several spokes inside for support. The four-meter-tall prosthetic David could completely retract his body behind the spokes.

Florence's subordinates fired a series of bullets in response, but only sparks flew off the metal wheel.

"Don't fire! Stop..."

Before Florence could finish speaking, David made a completely new move. He turned around and pressed his back against the center of the metal wheel. In a moment, the connection was complete. The metal wheel actually began to deform.

—Is this… a magnetic chain weapon?
David has always been fascinated by the concept of "transformable weapons." This concept, originating from anime and games, is simply irresistible to him. Xiang Shan initially scoffed, saying it was utterly impractical from an engineering standpoint.

It wasn't until Anatoly developed a completely new graphics algorithm that supercomputers were able to complete this entirely new conceptual design. By folding metal sheets and wires of specific dimensions, a near-deformation technique could be achieved, allowing for the creation of relatively flexible weapons at extremely low cost.

The advantages of this weapon design lie in its cost and flexibility. By cutting through the armor of a vehicle and connecting and folding it with electromagnets and steel wires, a melee weapon of decent strength can be created. It can be manufactured quickly without the need to remelt the metal. Furthermore, this weapon is easy to maintain, and deteriorated parts can be replaced quickly.

For a knight-errant who lacks resources, this could be a viable option.

As the war progressed, magnetic chain weapons underwent several upgrades and replacements.

In the hands of the Heavenly King, this weapon is no longer what it originally was.

The magnetic chain weapon in David's hands was custom-designed and cast in one piece, with each component meticulously crafted. Its shape was precisely designed to allow it to be launched as a kinetic energy weapon and to dock mid-air…

The four or six ten-meter-long magnetic chains behind David vibrated violently, causing several wingmen to jolt violently, then sound an alarm, lose most of their power, and plummet toward the ground.

The deformed parts, damaged by the bullet, were then used by David as a projectile and fired at him.

"Damn it, David, you..."

Before Florence could even form a word, a platinum blade pierced through her landline.

With a deafening roar, David tore through the air fortress's armor with his arm and the magnetic weapon. Sparks flew from his joints where they connected to the weapon, but David's prosthetic eye remained fixed on Florence.

"Florence, I told you, those are my belongings. You have no right to interfere!"

A military officer tried to stand in front of Florence, but was pierced by a magnetic chain weapon.

Florence laughed in exasperation: "I think you've really gone mad..."

......................................................

Fifteen minutes later, David and Florence met near the crashed aerial fortress.

“You seem quite satisfied, Your Highness, the King of Conquest,” Florence said.

One of her arms had disappeared.

David, however, seemed drained of all his energy, completely lacking the imposing presence he had a quarter of an hour earlier. He casually disconnected the magnetic weapon from his hand, tossed it to the ground, and didn't even have the courage to respond to Florence.

"So you want to decide the winner between Mars and Venus before the end of civilization planned by Yorgov?"

David did not speak.

"Or do you want to become a terrorist again and kill the current King of Venus?"

David remained silent.
Florence sighed, "Even if you wanted to kill me as a knight-errant, it would be more interesting than this, David."

“I’m a completely rotten alcoholic,” David said in a low voice. “I don’t know what to do.”

"Then why don't you just die?"

"I have no idea."

“I’m disgusted to see you like this, David.” Florence patted his arm. “You are clearly one of the most powerful warriors in the solar system. Even if you were to fight a top-notch knight like Tuoba Xuanyuan XIV, you would have a chance to win—even though you have been decadent for so long, even though your military equipment is inferior to that of the other kings, you are still very strong.”

David fell silent again.

"Although none of my subordinates died directly this time, three suffered severe brain damage and one was severely exposed to radiation. You had better give me an explanation, David, and tell me the whole story."

David didn't say anything, he just shared a data packet.

“Although I knew you were doing some outrageous things, I really didn’t expect you to be this outrageous, David.” After a quick glance, Florence tapped his head. “I’m starting to regret giving you my memory data.”

"Feel sorry."

“But that’s really strange, David,” Florence said. “That disobedient who came out of your server seems to be right. In your mind, he’s no different from the Ninth God of War or the Tenth God of War… There’s no reason for you to participate in the siege of the Ninth God of War and the Tenth God of War, yet here you are protecting Xiang Shan, even at the cost of being my enemy?”

“I don’t know, I’m mentally ill,” David said blankly.

“And he’s right about one thing,” Florence said. “You think that to get peace of mind, you need AI to impersonate your past self. But that seems like the wrong treatment.”

"Oh, yes,"

“If you want me to tell you, if you want to heal yourself, you first have to accept reality,” Florence sighed. “In the past, psychotherapy required a specific relationship between the doctor and the patient. The doctor had to intervene and encourage the patient to try things they wouldn’t normally do, causing a change in their mental state—revealing secrets, trying new behaviors, or coping with life in unfamiliar ways. But you’re doing the opposite. You’re building a social relationship with AI, constantly replaying the experiences you’ve already had. As a psychotherapy program, it’s actually doing quite well.”

"So why did he destroy my backup?"

“If we were still at the company, and I found out you stole my underwear and then wanted to be friends with me, do you think that was possible?” Florence said. “Friends need boundaries. He sees data as part of himself, so he won’t allow a part of his soul to be controlled by his friends. Congratulations, David, I think what you’ve created is far more advanced than you are. What’s the Chinese saying again… oh, a genius in the field of artificial intelligence.”

"But I don't want this kind of thing, I..."

“So what you really want isn’t the ‘us’ we used to be, it’s not Xiangshan at all, right?” Florence said. “According to human understanding, Xiangshan is someone who does this kind of thing, and only someone who does this kind of thing is Xiangshan.”

David sat on the ground and suddenly brought up a completely unrelated topic: “I have seven children. Three were born as Homo sapiens and underwent genetic modification surgery. The rest were born as baseline humans. At that time, thinking that we could live for hundreds of years, my wife felt that we could have a few more children.”

“I remember.” Florence used a piece of gel to seal the crack in the outer armor to prevent dust from getting in.

“When I was stealing the country, they all called my imposter ‘Dad.’ Every second back then, I was thinking about storming the company, killing that imposter, and getting my family back,” David said. “But as the chivalrous movement gained momentum, that bastard BigBoss’s control over society weakened, and so did the law and order. In the end, I only found two children. One died at the end of the Secret War, and the other died on the path to the Sixth God of War.”

“Back then, I really… I killed, killed, killed, wanting revenge for over ten years. But in the end, I got tired. So that day, I walked out of the base, deleted some data, went up to an officer, and said to him, ‘My name is David Klein. You can verify me however you like. Take me to see Yogmov, or Falcon, it’s fine too.’”

"Then I started searching for everyone I was related to by blood, searching and searching and searching... but there simply wasn't anyone who possessed both my and my wife's DNA... or anyone whose DNA was my DNA and whose chromosomes matched my wife's. I..."

I betrayed my friends, I betrayed my ideals, but I couldn't find my family.

David didn't even have the courage to say those words. He simply said, "All I have left is the past... and my family isn't even in the past—the data blueprint only contains my memories, Xiangshan's memories, and what you share. But Xiangshan and my family were just close friends, and they're even less present in your memories. I've been busy with the company... I can't piece them together."

David asked Florence, "Isn't what I'm looking for friends... friends from the past?"

Florence tapped his head, implying: "The self you see is not yourself, nor is the self you see in others' eyes. The self you see in others is yourself—I'm guessing what you want to see is the happy David Klein of the past, not the real Xiang Shan."

David, head bowed, said, "I see..."

“Of course, what you’re saying now might not be what you truly think. Because I might not be your friend anymore,” Florence said. “It’s like what that AI said: you want to see your happy past self, you want to be happy, but your actions are ‘creating an AI to play the role of an old friend.’ What you do is often not what you really want to do, and what you say may not be your true feelings. You think you’ve grasped the principles of life, but perhaps you’ve just fallen into a new kind of prejudice.”

"That's it..."

“Really…” Florence suddenly shook his head. “I haven’t forgotten these things. Alright, King of Mars, the psychological counseling is over. The power I brought with me has been almost completely depleted. I don’t intend to die on this planet. I’m leaving. If you don’t want to die, take some of your army and leave. It’s only a matter of time before this planet falls.”

David paused for a moment, then said, “No, I’m going to bring back that Mukaiyama… and Kotoha too.”

"Didn't I just analyze it for you? What you want might not be that Xiang Shan—to your intuitive understanding, he's no different from the latest Martial God."

David remained silent.

"Fine, fine, do whatever you want." Florence waved her hand. "I'm leaving."

"Speaking of which, I... suddenly have a question I'm curious about, Florence," David suddenly asked, "Now that things have come to this, what are your thoughts on chivalry? The noble and kind you of the past..."

“Back then…” Florence suddenly fell into deep thought, “Back then… Ah, how strange. I actually had the interest to talk about this topic—I actually had this interest.”

“I know you used to admire Yogemov, but after the War of Sublimation, you should hate him to the core for all his actions. But…”

Florence is a technical worker in the fields of medicine and nursing. She previously worked at the Mayo Clinic. When Xiangshan was poaching talent for gene-editing surgeries, she was one of the first to switch jobs.

At that time, Florence was wary of Xiangshan, but she greatly admired Yogemov. Yogemov's publicly disclosed technology had changed the entire medical landscape. Later, when she learned that Yogemov had used herself in the first clinical trial of gene modification surgery, she exclaimed that she had seen a martyr in this era.

In the early stages of the Ascension War, Florence also wavered. She expressed her confusion more than once because deep down she still held expectations, feeling that Yogemov might have simply seen and thought more, and thus decided to take an extraordinary path.

As Yogemov's massacres increased, her admiration quickly turned into hatred.

But after she was severely wounded by the falcon and captured, Yogemov changed her again.

“The drugs only made me lose all emotion for a moment, whether it was love or hate. But after those emotions disappeared, I felt an unprecedented peace. It was then that I realized I had been tormenting myself for over two hundred years,” Florence said. “Even after the effects of the drugs wore off, I still wanted to seek tranquility. I was actually on the verge of collapse. I had hated for a hundred years and I couldn’t hate anymore. Perhaps I didn’t really hate Yogemov, but rather I felt that the ideal version of myself that I projected onto Yogemov had been desecrated, which is why I felt an unusually strong hatred.”

“This is the first time I’ve heard of this,” David said. “Since you feel that love and hate have disappeared… then why don’t you choose to die?”

“I don’t know.” Florence gave the same answer as David. “Yogemov told me to try a game I’d never played before. It was completely new to me… nothing more.”

“It seems that ‘trying new behaviors’ is not necessarily a good thing.”

“Is that so? Ah, perhaps.” Florence sighed. “We humans are so confused. We don’t even understand ourselves. We always misunderstand ourselves… Perhaps, the human self has always been fundamentally lacking. That unified, complete ‘self’ simply doesn’t exist.”

She slammed her fist into the wreckage of the aerial fortress, and the power of the first level caused the wreckage to collapse like building blocks.

"In this respect, I am quite envious of your AIs... AIs are born with a destiny, AIs are just different from us."

"So, you're telling me all this, does it mean that some of your inner thoughts have resurfaced?"

Florence shook her head: "Probably, quite the opposite. I feel like I've broken free from another shackle of the past... I've even exhausted all my feelings of nostalgia."

David asked, "Is the Twelfth War God... a true personality masked?"

"Perhaps. But I've never seen it before."

“If I have the chance to meet him, I might ask him,” David said, turning and walking into the sandstorm.

Florence remained silent for a short while, seemingly processing the emotions in her heart.

Soon, an aircraft was airdropped from the orbit and landed in front of Florence.

......................................................

With only one arm left, Xiang Shan finally found his target: a freight truck.

This was the help provided by Zhu Xinyu, who called herself the Ascended AI. After integrating Zhu Xinyu within the server, he already knew about this matter.

The ascended AI, in a state of distress, wants to observe certain humans or AIs. Therefore, she will offer some assistance.

The truck bore the emblem of the Knights of Science, though it was unclear who it belonged to. Xiang Shan, however, paid it no mind.

The long-range kinetic weapon had inflicted a gash across his chest, almost beyond repair. He certainly couldn't get through the sandstorm on his own.

Xiang Shan stepped into the cargo hold.

In the darkness, time passed quickly. According to the system time, the vehicle had traveled for eight hours, passed through several checkpoints, and then entered the elevator.

When the cargo hold opened again, Xiang Shan saw a bionic face. A middle-aged man with silver-gray hair, one hand behind his back, smiled at him and said, "Are you the AI ​​God of War created by King Zheng Tian? Welcome to the Orklo Holy Knights."

I'm so sorry. My biological clock has been really messed up lately, and I've been lacking energy, so I just let it slip until today. I'll try my best to keep posting three updates this month, and maybe even four.

In addition, my friend Suo Hefu has published a book on Qidian. According to him, this is a joint project between Science Fiction World and Qidian. Originally, Science Fiction World approached many traditional writers, but when they heard that the writing requirement was 4,000 words a day, they all said they couldn't come. In the end, he was the only one who participated in this event, which is not easy.