Cyber ​​Heroes

Chapter 1197 Fragments of Time Overlapped Together

"Understanding these issues will help all of humanity ascend, and hopefully push the ascension of 'Towards the Mountain' to an even higher level," said the former Fifth Martial God. "Of course, these are all things for later. The path you must take next is one that no one has ever reached before. I will do everything I can to help you."

He picked up a strange-looking toy from the ground and tossed it to Xiang Shan: "Even though you downloaded almost all of my memories, you haven't truly transformed yet. Let me guide you to avoid the pitfalls. This is the part that needs the most care."

Xiang Shan saw the doll slowly flying towards him. It looked like something out of a horror movie, with a rather creepy design. This was a shared hallucination for both of them; the doll's image was a label that Xiang Wu had placed on this memory deep within his heart, an image generated based on his overall impression.

An unfamiliar feeling.

Cold, alien, as if it didn't belong to me at all. Although reason told me that this was my own memory, which could be transformed almost without damage, another part of my heart was resisting.

"You can feel that this is someone else's mistake, but you can also feel that this is a mistake you might have made yourself."

Xiangshan was enveloped by the "glimmers" that emerged from countless logical chains during the collapse and reconstruction.

Xiang Shan was bewildered: "This is..."

“People are capable of making mistakes. This is the mistake that ‘Xiang Shan’ might make, and it’s also the mistake I’ve made.” Xiang Wu’s expression was inscrutable. “This is ‘Xiang Shan’s’ hatred for Zhu Xinyu.”

"hatred……"

“When you were dug out of the Yogomov’s warship, two hundred years had passed. But for me, it was only half a century since that crushing defeat.” Xiang Wu sighed. “It took the Jianghu a hundred years to accept the Turing lineage again because Zhu Xinyu proved her role on this long front. But the time when I started my activities was precisely the period when she was most infamous.”

"The birth of the second brother was a mistake—or rather, apart from you, the birth of all the others in Xiangshan was something that 'should not have happened.' Xinyu and Lao Chen were the instigators. She even ran away. The second and third brothers fought to the last moment, giving the fourth brother a chance to reverse the reputation of the 'God of War.' The fourth brother also rekindled the hopes of many old friends. But she was nowhere to be found in that era."

"Then there's the past me and Lao Liu."

The Martial God, who had just given up his identity as Xiang Shan, seemed to be hijacked by his emotions and fell silent for a moment.

Xiang Shan looked up, tears streaming down his face.

"I searched for her online again and again. Back then, the solar system network hub of the Galileo constellation was still under construction, with Mars as its center. I figured with her abilities, she would definitely know I was looking for her. But every message felt like a stone thrown into an abyss. I sent messages every day. In plaintext, in coded language, in stories only the two of us knew. I left markers at every possible point in time where she might appear. I searched and searched... I searched and searched. In the end, I was exhausted. I just..."

I've come to hate that guy.

The influx of memories doesn't follow a linear sequence, but rather all the "moments" appear simultaneously, like an infinitely complex multidimensional structure. Birth, growth, battle, conversation...

The Fifth Martial God's memories are permeated with hatred for his "ex-wife".

what……

Xiang Shan understood that this was a way of thinking that he might have.

Xiang Shan, the twelfth Martial God, was lucky. He was able to find traces of Zhu Xinyu in the world. Fortunately, A-Ling's personality was present in Songying City, so he easily knew that his lover was still fighting somewhere in the world. Perhaps she was still that mad dog, viciously biting at the throat of her enemy.

However, the Fifth Martial God faced the opposite situation. As "Xiangshan," who began his activities only half a century after the War of Defeat, he was born in the era when Zhu Xinyu was at the most infamous. He sent out signals time and time again, waiting for a response at every node under his control. However, all he received was boundless silence.

Expectations are worn down by time into anxiety, and once the anxiety cools, it turns into heartbreak.

"I understand..."

“But this is precisely a sign of our own immaturity. According to that charlatan AI, this might be an obstacle to ascension,” Xiang Wu said from behind Xiang Shan.

Before they knew it, the two were standing back to back.

“Little AI’s understanding uses a symbolic system based on ancient memes. Converting it to a modern symbolic system isn’t difficult. Ultimately, it’s just used to solve certain problems in the cognitive revolution process.” Xiang Wu sighed. “It’s about letting go of preconceived notions—or prejudices—about others and social relationships. If I had understood this back then, perhaps I wouldn’t have struggled so much. Perhaps I would have had a chance to defeat that bastard, the Six Dragons Cult Leader…”

Xiangshan opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something.

But Xiang Wu interrupted, "No need to argue. The Six Dragons Cult Leader and I were racing on the same track. Even if he had a slight advantage, it shouldn't be to the point where he's left me several laps behind, not even able to see his taillights. I think perhaps my resentment has changed my outward demeanor, thus affecting my persuasive ability. I might have ended up like this because of my own prejudices. There's nothing hard to accept about it."

Xiang Shan shook his head: "If you've already given up on recognizing Xiang Shan, then aren't you just insulting me?"

"I am both Xiang Shan and not Xiang Shan... Why don't you think of me as a brother who grew up with me and then went out to work on his own?" Xiang Wu said with emotion. "Of course, my defeat to the Six Dragons Cult Leader and the encirclement are things of the past. It wasn't until I started using the pseudonym Skun Sword Saint that I learned that Xin Yu was blocked by that old dog Hartman when the Six Dragons Cult Leader was active."

The Battle of Origin Star, the battle that annihilated the Old Celestial Star Fleet, stemmed from King Agni's inexplicable and sudden departure.

Of course, according to the official narrative, King Agni believed that the Sixth War God's fleet was already a remnant and no longer posed a threat, making it impossible for them to turn the tide of battle. That's why he went after another, more threatening enemy.

“Hatred is a heavy shackle, especially when it’s directed at someone you once loved deeply. And when you realize that the emotion born from love was just a misunderstanding…” Xiang Wu’s tone became more complicated, “The Fifth Martial God of the past often hated her for not appearing when he needed her most. Do you think the Sixth and Seventh brothers had the same problem? The Eighth brother only met her again, right?”

Xiang Shan shook his head: "I don't know."

He had completely absorbed every night he spent wandering alone in the Martian wasteland during the early years of the Fifth Martial God.

Along with the fact that the Fifth Martial God later forgot about this hatred.

"Xiang Shan originally had the potential to be a playboy. If he had fulfilled his initial wish of 'making some contributions to the country,' with his earning power, he would probably have become a top-notch playboy, living a carefree and revelry every night. He originally planned to play around for a hundred years after retirement. He was a guy who loved to have fun. It's just a pity that this system was physically locked down by a beautiful rebel not long after it was activated."

"It's like every good student secretly envies the delinquents who don't have to go to school. You despise these delinquents for their vulgarity, for their irresponsibility towards their own lives, and think they've lost their minds. But deep down, in some dark corner, you can't help but feel jealous of them. It would be even better if that guy had the intelligence to talk to you."

"Being able to do something without considering the future seems beautiful... Is this considered a quirk? Unfortunately, I don't plan to go back to the past. My ex-wife and I can only be described as... meeting again and missing each other in the wrong world. Never mind, let's move on to the next topic."

Xiang Shan knew what Xiang Wu hadn't said.

The Fifth Martial God couldn't tell whether he truly hated Zhu Xinyu, or whether the world believed Xiang Shan should hate Zhu Xinyu, which is why the Fifth Martial God hated Zhu Xinyu.

The God of War is also a mountain that everyone has achieved.

So, let's move on to the next topic.

An ugly ball bounced into Xiangshan's hands.

He saw a strange cyber warrior. His memories told him that it was Florence from the past. She roared at the starry sky, smashing ruins with her fists, as if she could use it to shatter something within her. And the Fifth Martial God stood there, frozen in place.

Those were corpses from a town.

A Martian town was collectively destroyed because of a celebration of a certain anniversary.

This deformed toy ball represents hatred towards Yogemov.

"Admittedly, Xiang Shan had some misplaced expectations of Yogemov. He thought Yogemov was just temporarily disillusioned with humanity. He was too naive, wanting to build an ideal society all by himself. If possible, he might have spared Yogemov's life after defeating him, forcing him to watch the news every day to see how we made the world a better place," Xiang Wu said again. "But you should also know that, unlike now, back then, Yogemov would still personally purge any humans who disobeyed his orders."

"I think this kind of hatred is justifiable..."

“Do you see that girl from my memory, back to back, cursing Yogmov together? She’s now the Venus Queen of the Protectors,” Xiang Wu said calmly. “We need to correct Yogmov’s mistakes simply because they are ‘mistakes,’ not because ‘Yogmov committed them.’”

"Don't have preconceived notions about the Father of All Machines' present because of Yogemov's past, and don't let these notions weigh you down."

"Hatred fueled Florence's fighting spirit. But hatred also consumed Florence's soul. If the King of Mars still vaguely resembled the David of the 21st century, then the King of Venus was no longer the nursing expert of the 21st century."

"The road ahead of you is much longer than the road Florence walked. Extreme emotions will lead to extreme backlash after they end. The fuel of extremism is something immortal people cannot afford to use."

Xiang Wu gave a self-deprecating laugh: "During the short years that belonged solely to the Fifth Martial God, he lived in hatred every single moment. I hate every second—this seems to be his only emotion. The Fifth Martial God was a relatively failed Martial God, and in the 'Xiangshan' lineage, he is a negative example."

"Although the Six Dragons Cult Leader is a beast, his focus on one thing might... make him more appealing to the Research Knights than me, who reeks of hatred. Purity is also a kind of beauty."

This was the mistake made by the Fifth Martial God.

This is a mistake that Xiang Shan might make in the same situation.

This is something that should be remembered.

A black box appeared in front of Xiang Shan. He picked up the scattered, sharp fragments of memory one by one, wiped them clean, and then neatly stacked them inside.

Silently, a new shadow overlapped behind Xiangshan.

The Fifth Martial God.

"'Fifth Martial God Xiang Shan' now completely belongs to you." Xiang Wu's expression was somewhat sad, but more so a sense of relief at having been relieved of a heavy burden. "If we're going to follow your chuunibyou naming convention for personality armor, then let's call it 'Sigma Trauma'—although you won't need this kind of self-suggestion the moment you achieve ascension, humans rely on language to think. Giving it a name will make it easier to perceive."

His demeanor was like that of a messenger crossing numerous lines of fire to deliver confidential documents to a designated comrade.

Σ/Sigma, automatic summation.

All the anger, sorrow, peace, despair, and hope of Xiangshan are added together and automatically summed to form the foundation for sedimentation.

This is the exploration of ascension that Xiang Shan and Xiang Wu, the fifth martial gods, have been pursuing until now.

"Next, let's do a reconciliation. Let's cross-reference the different versions of 'Xiangshan' and their solutions to the 'Ascension' problem. Let's see what kind of nonsensical answers we each wrote on this exam paper, and then... let's try to scrape together a passing grade."

Xiang Wu snapped his fingers.

The surrounding darkness was instantly illuminated. Countless threads appeared between the two, like an intricate neural network, or an unfinished star map. Some threads were as bright as gold, flowing with the luster of liquid metal; others were as black as ink, like long-dried bloodstains, with a rough, granular texture.
As the hallucinations clear, the two men who were once the same person face each other again.

Golden light gathered in Xiang Shan's hand. That was the purest part.

"The distillation algorithm comes from the tenth brother, and according to Tuoba's memory, it may also contain some of the sixth brother's ideas."

Dugu Beiluo Shimen and Tuoba Xuanyuan Shisi broke away and escaped separately. Dugu Beiluo Shimen lost his mobility first and drifted in space for several years. Tuoba Xuanyuan Shisi, on the other hand, carried the research results of the Tenth Martial God and continued his research on Earth for more than ten years.

Now, this accumulation has transcended time, entered Xiangshan's hands, and become part of the ladder of ascension.

“The sixth brother’s thinking is indeed clearer than the fifth brother’s,” Xiang Wu said. “The tenth brother naturally stands on the shoulders of the times and goes a step further. This is something that, taken alone, could potentially advance the cognitive revolution further.”

Chen Feng previously believed that the vast amount of data on human consciousness consisted mostly of commonalities. Very few parameters truly determined individuality. And it was precisely because of the long-term training of social life that humans became exceptionally sensitive to these parameters.

Within the Six Dragons Cult Master's model, memory, experience, self, and ability are all interconnected modules.

The Six Dragons Sect's ideal of ascension is to arbitrarily replace the "self" while maintaining its original identity.

The ideas of the Sixth and Tenth Martial Gods were completely opposite to those of the Six Dragons Cult Leader. They did not care about themselves, but wanted to turn their cognitive abilities into the cheapest yet most powerful weapon.

But these are actually two different solutions to the same problem.

Through model compression and knowledge transfer, distillation algorithms transfer some capabilities from a large and complex model to a smaller model. Conversely, the smaller model can also serve as a reference to identify which parts of the large model are irrelevant to the "transferred parts".

The "small model" here is a specialized branch of the "comprehensive large model".

The Tenth Martial God only accomplished two things: honing his martial skills and researching distillation algorithms.

"The Six Dragons Cult Leader possessed a more comprehensive theoretical foundation, and even ruled out many erroneous paths." Xiang Wu twirled that dark memory, "But he made a directional mistake. He expected to solve the problem of 'self-consistency' purely through technical means."

However, the level of consciousness that humans can grasp, their description and imagination of the "self," is basically one-sided and arbitrary.

Many people make choices that surprise themselves in unusual situations—because they haven't truly understood themselves, and that's why they're surprised by their own actions.

The Six Dragons Cult had long since grasped the threshold of consciousness uploading. Through technological monopoly and blockade, through stealing research like rats, and through the targeted elimination of key researchers, they were indeed far ahead in related technologies. They could naturally create remarkably stable "pseudo-personality masks." Furthermore, this "personality" could be decoupled from "abilities" to a certain extent.

However, even if the participants in the cult are mentally prepared to accept "this is who I am" and feel that they can accept it, the actual personality mask created can easily contradict their true selves. Either the participant or the personality mask will always deviate from expectations.

That's just a superficial and arbitrary assumption that one is fully prepared.

The leader of the Six Dragons Cult plans to use purely technical means to brute force a solution to this problem.

Was it due to a blind spot in his thinking? Or was it that the doctrines of the Six Dragons Sect held him back, forcing him to choose a more difficult path?
"It's not entirely wrong, is it..."

Xiang Shan does not intend to completely reject this line of thinking.

However, at this stage, he has no idea how to ensure that "partial imagination" and "real and vast potential self" will never contradict each other.

Given the current technological conditions, the most effective approach is probably not to improve the technology itself, but to change the technology itself.

Let go of your prejudices and attachments to yourself.

This is what AI perceives as "no self-image" when looking towards the mountain.

"After a lifetime of going against tradition, has he ultimately chosen to use such a traditional narrative style?"

“I dare say that my concept of ‘no-self’ is slightly different from what the Buddha said back then.” Xiang Wu shook his head. “If you want, you can also find those philosophical achievements that Teacher Jing rambled on about describing the world from the corners of your memory, and change the symbols. You should still remember why we are familiar with this religious symbol system, right?”

Xiang Shan smiled wryly: "Ah, it really is..."

Xiang Shan once pulled off a less-than-stellar job. He promised to donate to certain organizations and invited respected religious figures to debate with him in front of a camera. He even hired a team of liberal arts students to brainstorm possible responses. Xiang Shan himself knew that his main goal wasn't to persuade the religious figures, but rather to persuade the audience. He only needed to avoid being logically refuted.

Ancient philosophers often used metaphors to help the less knowledgeable understand their ideas. However, limited by their time, these examples were frequently disproven as science expanded. Xiang Shan didn't intend to refute the religions theoretically; those that have survived to this day possess their own "cognitive shield." He simply aimed to make their followers appear awkward in the face of science. Science can always find examples far removed from everyday experience.

Xiang Shan felt that this was an easy part of his great cause of changing the world, a way to reform the world's atmosphere.

At the same time, he also passively memorized those things.

“Ancient religious figures were philosophers who answered many questions about ‘the world and me,’ organizers of grassroots mutual aid groups, and technical engineers who explored the question of ‘human happiness.’ They will always have something in common with you and me,” Xiang Wu said. “In a group of three, there must be one who can teach me. After eliminating prejudices and removing ‘explanations of the world that have been replaced by science’ and ‘shared imaginations that maintain organizational structures,’ what remains may be helpful to us.”

If something is useful and feels handy, then use it.

Xiang Shan closed his eyes. His near-transformation-level internal energy and the extraordinary spells shared by the Turing lineage granted him high-level access to the network.

A torrent of data is pouring down, cascading from the spaceport to the ground like a waterfall.

Inside the "Skull of Zeus" spaceport, all the computers displayed overheating alarms.

Above the ground, the anomaly expanded at near-light speed.

Centered on the Olympus Space Elevator, all the scientific knights or data centers experienced varying degrees of performance degradation.

The research knights, resting, felt a burst of inspiration strike them. And not just any knight-errant; all the martial artists outside the knight-errant camp couldn't help but begin to ponder, to contemplate topics about themselves and life. Novel sparks flew through their minds—a completely new experience unlike anything they'd ever had before.

At the Hibernation Technology Research and Development Center, the research knights maintaining the computers felt an unusual heat. King Agni's patch seemed to have been easily breached. The low-intensity stimulation originally intended for maintaining the hibernating brain was being diverted to other uses.

The work that Tuoba Xuanyuan XIV was unable to complete due to computing power limitations was distributed to the entire Mars by Xiang Shan.

Behind Xiang Shan, one shadow after another lit up. Numerous martial gods... numerous Xiang Shans, no, numerous people.

The Six Dragons Cult Leader's unfulfilled plan—to compare different mountains to find the location of "self-data" and "ability data".

And there's AI's final realization about the mountain.

There is no self, no person, no sentient being, and no life span.

It has been completely mastered.

“There was never a person named ‘Xiangshan’ in the world, only beings who ‘imagine themselves as Xiangshan’,” Xiangshan sighed.

Xiang Wu replied, "Ultimately, this really is a matter of perspective. Holding onto the idea of ​​'self,' believing that mechanical ascension merely creates an individual 'different from me,' is also a way of cognition. There is no right or wrong in the way of cognition, but there are indeed differences in 'strength'."

Right and wrong are subjective, but "big and small," "more and less," "strong and weak," and "whether it is more in line with the environment" have objective standards.

"Next, it's the Fifth Martial God... and the exploration I'm undertaking."

The torrent of data is beginning to flow back. The entire Martian network is responding to Xiangshan's inquiries.

That was a massive amount of computing resources that the Tenth Martial God had never been able to obtain.

In reality, Gu Kaisheng was carrying a bottle of coolant, which he poured onto the mainframe. This was a port, not a data distribution center. Even if the Fifth Martial God temporarily allocated some computers, it wouldn't be enough to support such preprocessing and data distribution tasks. But Gu Kaisheng knew that something was critical, and he had to find a way to ensure that these overclocked computers could work until the very end.

Numerous components are replacing Juan Rebin's original parts. All the top-tier resources collected by the entire Martian scientific research order are cutting-edge products.

Xiang Shan seemed to be asleep, completely unaware of the changes in his body. But Gu Kaisheng could glimpse a corner of the transformation within the network from this terrifying data exchange.

He seemed to recall what Xiang Shan often said two hundred years ago.

—Has human history turned a new page?

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

This was just minutes before that transformation of the online world took place.

A martial arts master with the second-highest seniority in all of humanity, facing off against a leading figure among the new generation of chivalrous heroes. David's first reaction was actually to run away. He hadn't fought a real battle in a long time, and seeing such a menacing enemy as Dugu Beiluo Shimen, he immediately activated the jetpacks on his back.

Then I received a series of error messages.

A carbon fiber rope is wound around one side of the thruster assembly. Magnetized metal buckles likely aid in forming the complex knots. Although David's prosthetic body is among the highest-spec of all kings, even such a prosthetic body cannot be strong in every aspect. The rope wrapped around the vulnerable parts of the thruster assembly has tensile strength far exceeding that of diamond. The carbon atoms are tightly connected by covalent bonds, making its resistance to scratches and indentations unparalleled.

It's impossible to break it.

The angle at which the rope was pulled made it impossible for David to maintain his balance after taking off.

"To the mountain...to the mountain! You beast!" David roared in anger.

"if not?"

The sword light, wreathed in plasma, reminded David of solar flares erupting from the sun's surface—a sight he had been fortunate enough to witness once during his last meeting with Yogomov. At that moment, even David's long-dead soul couldn't help but tremble at the sheer power of nature.

That was violence beyond the reach of ordinary people, beauty beyond their reach.

David felt disoriented by the sword light emanating from Dugu Beiluo Shimen.

The new generation of heroes, as if wielding fragments of stars, slash at the traitors of the old era.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen roared, "Do you really think you did nothing? You didn't participate in a single battle? Now that you've become a king, you're putting on this show?"

The metal blade turned bright white due to the excessive energy it carried, and the surrounding air was instantly heated and expanded, forming a shock wave visible to the artificial eye.

David regained his senses at the last moment, using the outer armor of his forearm to strike the spine of the sword, sending it flying. Dugu Beiluo Shimen rotated his wrist, changing to a horizontal slash.

Like a strike on the horizon at dawn.

David stepped back. A pale gold mark remained on his chest.

Composite armor coatings are not affordable for every high-ranking officer, but they are standard equipment for King-class units. The outer absorbing coating is used to jam radar, making the steel body appear like a ghost in radar, while there is a reflective coating underneath. The absorbing coating is used to prevent being locked on, but if unfortunately hit by a beam weapon, the absorbing coating will sublimate into gas, and the reflective coating will reduce the thermal damage to the machine.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen pressed closer, slashing, chopping, cutting, and slicing, white light flickering. The matte reflective coating on David's arms, abdomen, and thighs gradually disappeared, revealing large patches of pale gold shimmering.

The thermal sword has unique properties. Unlike the phonon sword, which can cut through armor with a light tap without relying on the blade's kinetic energy, it can continuously accumulate damage and deplete the machine's heat resistance more quickly. Even the most reflective heat-resistant coating will deteriorate upon contact with it due to uneven heating.

The thermal blade sword technique under the Tenth Martial God has a tactical approach that superficially attacks what the enemy must defend, but in reality continuously damages the coating, armor, external weapons, and even joints.

Ingrid, who was traveling with the Tenth Martial God, named this martial art, which was perfected by the Martial God's disciple, "Sanglin". It was a dance in ancient Central China to commemorate the act of a holy king who was also the incarnation of the sun sacrificing himself to pray for rain and to get rid of drought. It was also a ritual to cut slaves into pieces and offer them to the heavens.

The Tenth Martial God sighed at the time, saying that it was a beautiful yet cruel name, and it would be even better if young people today could understand it.

David immediately realized he was being pushed toward defeat. As the absorbent coating evaporated, his figure would become clearer on the radar. The resources his opponent's brain would use for identification would decrease, while the resources used for strategic maneuvering would naturally increase.

Roman King Juan Rebin had half of his armed forces cut off by that lion-like fellow using similar tactics!

Actually, dying here wouldn't be so bad.

The thought did indeed flash through David's mind. Dugu Beiluo Shimen's sword was reminiscent of the sun, and even his aura reminded him of the sun he had seen that day.

Living is, in reality, an escape from death. But it is precisely because death stands coldly at the finish line that you burn with all your might, trying to strike a glimmer of light in the darkness.

The body's compressed survival instincts were faster than his will. Electrical signals replaced adrenaline, overriding some of the underlying impulses.

David, wake up!

The urge to die inexplicably subsided, like the tide, and what arose spontaneously was a sense of emptiness that burst forth from the soul.

If you can't figure it out, don't think about it.

The palm was penetrated by a faint plasma glow.

David reached out and gripped the blade in the direction Dugu was swinging his sword. The intense heat system emitted a series of alarms. This was the pain of a body of steel. Dugu forcibly changed the direction of his sword, intending to slice off David's hand in the process.

Before the gauntlet completely turned into a pool of molten iron, the Heavenly King captured that moment.

With a "snap," it felt like snapping a thin, long biscuit in half.

The gesture of Dugu and the strength of David combined to create a tricky lateral shearing force in the middle of the sword.

David tossed the blade behind him, the armor in his palm already glowing white-hot. In an instant, his gauntlets would suffer a drastic performance drop due to the failure of the enhancement phase and the formation of harmful phases. But David paid no heed and pounced.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen hurriedly retreated. A replacement blade popped out of the cyborg sword case behind her. Dugu swung her arm, and the fixing on the hilt simultaneously disengaged, leaving only a small portion of the blazing blade flying towards David.

David raised his arm. The broken sword pierced the armor. David jerked his arm, shaking off the broken sword.

The sword case, now equipped with cybernetic armor, had already ejected a replacement blade. Dugu tried to connect the hilt to the blade, but her wrist inexplicably trembled. A series of error messages appeared.

"Varied……"

"Your sword-holding habits are terrible." David threw a punch. Dugu dodged, but David's fist broke the blade's retaining head.

The torque in that instant not only broke the sword but also traveled along the hilt to Dugu Beiluo Shimen's wrist. It was just a matter of parts coming loose.

The broken blade springs out completely. David's massive iron hand has transformed into a blade, slashing horizontally. Dugu is forced to block David's horizontal hand strike with his left elbow. David's prosthetic body is much larger than Dugu's, and the enormous impact forces Dugu Beiluo Shimen back again, kicking up a cloud of dust. Dugu Beiluo Shimen senses an error message again.

David's force penetrated the joints, seemingly intending to loosen or destroy the joint area.

This is outrageous...

Dugu instantly deduced the truth from David's comment about her "poor sword-holding habits." She always swung her sword with so much force that her wrist reached its limit. The laser sensor could detect this minute vibration. To an ordinary person, this vibration would be meaningless noise. But to David, this vibration was a crucial clue.

David judged the structure of her wrist based on this subtle movement, and thus skillfully loosened the parts of her wrist.

David didn't instantly break her elbow joint simply because he lacked an understanding of its structure...

"Ha, as expected of a veteran!" Dugu Beiluo Shimen dodged again. David's palm struck towards her side. Dugu Beiluo Shimen deliberately detonated her hidden reactive armor, creating some distance.

Several bullets landed on the ground. The Firefly arrived in time to provide support. David didn't even look up at the trajectory of the bullets; he simply lunged forward, pressing himself against Dugu Beiluo Shimen, using Dugu Beiluo Shimen as a shield against the bullets.

Several radar waves swept across the area, seemingly casually.

——A strong enemy!
David paused, narrowly avoiding the sweeping beam of light. Singlehorst emerged from behind Dugu Beiluo Shimen.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen retreated more than ten steps, taking advantage of the brief moment to replace his thermal blade.

The thermal blade has a brief heating window. Although a few seconds is insignificant, it feels like a long time in a battle between advanced martial artists.

David spread his arms, dodging Singlehorst's sword strikes with a dance-like grace. Unlike thermal blades, which can be withstood by brute force, the phonon blade penetrates any defense upon contact. David's upper arm ejected a miniature missile pod, launching more than ten miniature missiles. The miniature missiles trailed white smoke, like a swarm of frenzied wasps.

Singlehorst spun in mid-air, his blade piercing the gap between the missiles in the split second. At that instant, David extended his fingers, caught the phonon knife's blade, and pulled it out.

Then, he instantly changed his tactics.

The moment his hand, gripping the sword blade, pulled back, his left foot slammed into the ground, shattering it. Using the recoil, his massive steel body was propelled forward without warning. The Heavenly King's elbow shot out like that.

Singlehorst crossed his arms to block the attack. He kicked out with both legs, intending to hook David's shoulders for a joint lock. However, a series of unexpected errors startled him, causing him to change his lock into a kick and create distance between himself and David.

My hands are trembling. This is simply not scientifically possible. The "force" of the breaking technique could never reach this level.

Singlehorst sidestepped to clear a shooting path for his teammates behind him. He quickly reviewed all the error logs, trying to deduce the intricacies of that attack.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen had already rushed forward, raising his longsword as if holding a torch high.

It was still the Dance of the Mulberry Grove. The air around the sword couldn't withstand the terrifying heat and emitted a shrill scream, as if hundreds of sacrifices were being torn apart alive. Dugu Beiluo Shimen had clearly pushed the power to its limit. Her sword swings were astonishingly fast; ordinary martial artists couldn't even catch a glimpse of the physical blade, only seeing countless crisscrossing streaks of light.

Ordinary sand particles vaporize the moment they come into contact with the edge of the sword's pressure, then are stripped of their electrons by the strong magnetic field, transforming into high-energy plasma. The plasma sword marks linger in the air, weaving a blue-purple net that tightly envelops David's massive body.

Layer after layer of the absorbent coating evaporated. David's prosthetic body turned into a mottled matte black and pale gold, resembling a tiger or leopard.

David's spirit is gradually gravitating towards the ferocity of tigers and leopards. His slumbering courage, dormant for a hundred years, begins to awaken after he abandons all thought.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of moves clashed. David's hand chased Dugu's sword like a moth to a flame, trying to break it again. But Dugu changed his moves at the crucial moment each time.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen changed her swordsmanship. Faced with David's weapon-breaking techniques, her sword moves became more unpredictable... and faster.

Her solution was to "not give David a chance to grip the blade of his sword."

If David knew the name Ingrid had given to this swordsmanship (and perhaps explain its meaning), he would probably agree that it was a fitting name. In this plasma-filled sandstorm, the young swordsman's figure appeared so magnificent, as if she herself were a sacrifice to this dance of destruction, burning her own life to exchange for that fleeting moment of brilliance from the vicissitudes of fate.

"Click", "click", "click".

Between the sounds of plasma bursting, there were three intermittent, crisp sounds.

Left chest, right arm, right shoulder... David already has three wounds that have penetrated his outer armor.

The next instant, Dugu Beiluo Shimen raised his longsword high once more and slashed down in a winding motion.

David finally managed to grab the blade with his left hand once again.

It was still a clean and swift break, the skillful force destroying Dugu's wrist along with it. However, Dugu Beiluo Shimen's hands seemed to separate meaninglessly, the magnetic field generators on his wrists and elbows guiding the plasma stream to meander downwards.

Xuanwu True Qi - Serpent Style - Dragon King Without Heat (Anavatapta).

The most mysterious move in the Serpent Style is originally designed to guide metallic aerosols along a winding path through the enemy's blind spots, pouring into their wounds or vents. Anavatapta is one of the Eight Great Dragon Kings, who resides in the Anavatapta Pool atop a snowy mountain, thus avoiding the three calamities of scorching sand, loss of precious garments by fierce winds, and invasion by the Garuda. The true essence of this move lies in its concealed execution and the minimal interference from the enemy in the trajectory of the aerosol.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen drives a plasma far more violent than metallic aerosols, a product of Martian dust and atmosphere ionized by a thermal sword. Mere contact can damage the coating, and if injected into a wound, it can cause immense harm.

Without a sound, Dugu Beiluo Shimen raised his weapon from his waist. It was the hilt of the acoustic knife that AI Xiangshan had left on the battlefield. Dugu had retreated just now to pick up this weapon.

Before the thermal sword broke, she used her body as cover to retrieve a lone blade stuck in the ground.

If the Heavenly King of Conquest were to use his palm strike to disperse the Dragon King of No Heat, he would not be able to defend against the sneak attack of the Sound Blade.

If he dodges in the direction of the sound blade, the Dragon King of No Heat will pour the liquid into his wound.

—A decisive blow…

【Dugu, retreat!】

A message from Singlehorst.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen was startled. He gathered his strength in both feet, waiting for the attack to land.

But what happened next stunned her. The sonic blade flew out of the hilt with a whoosh, as if pulled away by an invisible hand, and circled around David's lower back. The serpentine plasma that had been winding its way down David's right arm toward his wound also suddenly blurred, turning into a ring that hovered in mid-air above his elbow.

David's punch landed on Dugu Beiluo Shimen's hastily raised arm.

--What……

Judging solely by the speed of David's punch, the power of this lap should have been unremarkable. However, the unexpected error message overwhelmed Dugu Beiluo Shimen.

Dugu Beiluo Shimen retreated, but David did not pursue him. Instead, he looked up to the sky and roared.

The bullet fired by the Firefly deflected in front of David. David instantly swung his hand, changing the bullet's trajectory behind him and directing it towards Singlehorst. Singlehorst took the bullet with his wrist, the armor on his wrist slightly deforming. Singlehorst didn't seem to care, and simply moved his wrist around. A strange sound came from the joint.

"You really can master it, Professor Klein," Singlehorst exclaimed. "The supreme anti-mechanics technique, the Super Electromagnetic Gentle Fist."

David and Xiangshan became friends for a rather simple reason. Despite their different upbringings, their hobbies and aesthetic preferences were strikingly similar. This electromagnetic soft fist technique, along with Xiangshan's Steel Fist, is a tribute to the same comic book. The most basic principle is to hinder the operation of machinery by magnetizing certain parts.

This was originally one of the oldest cybernetic martial arts. However, it didn't flourish and branch out like Iron Fist. This martial art has always faced hardware challenges. In the earliest days, inexpensive cybernetic suits couldn't accommodate such powerful magnetic field generators. By the time powerful magnetic field generators were miniaturized and inexpensive enough, the cybernetic suits' electromagnetic protection had already improved.

Singlehorst deciphered the source of the malfunction from among the numerous error messages. The First Heaven Prosthetics system commonly employs magnetic levitation transmission components, with some joints and transmission parts operating in suspension via magnetic levitation, eliminating friction at metal-to-metal contact surfaces. This optimizes transmission efficiency, enhances agility, and reduces wear on parts.

David uses a device on the front of his fist to create a strong local magnetic field, temporarily magnetizing specific parts to disrupt the seamless transmission components—especially the joints.

Combined with the principles of inertia from Newtonian mechanics and a little bit of engineering knowledge, a magical effect can be achieved.

Singlehorst still couldn't understand how David had mastered it. The principle was simple, but any martial arts master knew that nuclear bombs were made through uranium fission, yet in reality, not just any martial arts master could conjure a nuclear bomb with their bare hands.

According to intelligence, this King of Conquest only maintained his martial arts practice out of habit.

This is indeed not a method of practicing along the traditional path of martial arts.

David has a deep love for flashy, impractical technologies; he likes anything that looks cool. That's why he's still working on the "assembling a bunch of parts in mid-air" technique. His projects have indeed led to some practical maintenance methods.

No one understands the applications of magnetic fields in engineering better than David.

Besides that, David's few hobbies include assembling machinery.

Then smash it with another punch.

He would assemble the latest engineering feats in his palace, based on the latest research findings. Once assembled, he wouldn't bother leaving them behind, and would simply smash them with a punch.

It's like a child throwing a tantrum and knocking down a set of building blocks that they've worked so hard to assemble.

Just as Xiang Shan dislikes using cheats indiscriminately, David is also someone who sets limits for himself in games. Through long periods of self-entertainment, he found a way to reduce costs.

After you throw a punch, the machine will shatter, but the parts must not break. The more intact parts you have, the higher your score.

The technique of loosening parts by using "force".

Stack blocks, then knock them down.

Stack blocks, then knock them down.

Often, David even did this while intoxicated. This means the AI ​​administrator would never hand him materials that would produce a powerful explosion when he was drunk, and the Martian atmosphere indeed doesn't really support combustion; otherwise, the King of Mars would have died in his own game room long ago.

He drank tons of virtual alcohol on the server, activated his physiological response with electrical signals, and then, fueled by this excitement, did this in reality.

Only at these moments did he seem like the teenager filming all sorts of cool gadget videos in his father's garage, or the ordinary man assembling large toys with his children in his spare room.

This doesn't even qualify as martial arts. Even if someone saw David doing this, they would just think he was having a fit of madness. In the empty Martian palace, even if someone saw David staggering around, throwing punches at the air, and then grinning foolishly at the pieces scattered on the ground, they would probably just think he was having another fit of madness.

But David was ultimately a warrior. He was one of the first to work with Xiang Shan on the development of cyber martial arts.

The "resources" accumulated through loneliness were rearranged and recombined in his mind. Over a long period of time, they piled up and fermented, transforming into something akin to explosives.

Then, just now, it exploded.

When he first broke Lonely Beiluo Shimen's sword, he felt as if his soul was undergoing some kind of transformation.

Even though his mental world had stagnated and ceased to develop after surrendering, the moment he threw that punch, the accumulation and loneliness of the past fifty years suddenly felt real.

—So it really has been this long…

David thought this as he knocked Singlehorst away with a single punch.

When David used his hand to slash and push Dugu Beiluo Shimen, he even experienced a hallucination of a "heartbeat".

We haven't needed a heart for over two hundred years.

--happy……

In the glow of the plasma, David felt the world surging.

"Loneliness" and "fear" seemed to flow out of the body with this punch.

"Come and kill me!!"

David raised his head and let out a roar that sounded like a plea.

I originally planned to finish this chapter the day before yesterday. However, my aunt passed away unexpectedly that day. Today is the day of her cremation. My family is all going back to see her off, and I'll be leaving soon too. I hope that for the final stretch of this book, my updates can proceed like those of a normal author.