Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 158 - 158 78 Automatic Fort

158: Chapter 78: Automatic Fort 158: Chapter 78: Automatic Fort Beneath the collapsed tunnel, a tongue of flame suddenly burst forth, striking later but arriving first at the missile that was flying through the air, detonating it mid-flight.

However, the powerful shockwave still caused a row of houses to collapse.

Xiang Shan had originally been silently clinging to the rooftop of a building.

The antenna behind him had already been trimmed by the close-defense cannon.

When half of the antenna fell beside him, he remained motionless.

Even as the shockwave from the explosion crushed everything in its path, he still did not move, falling along with the debris from the roof, only adjusting his body in mid-air to land smoothly.

He was like the miscellaneous objects piled up on the roof.

Xiang Shan’s gaze fell on the collapsed ground.

The same was true for Alan of the Meng Hand Gang Double-Flower Red Stick.

The explosive force of the high-explosive bomb had no effect on him, hundreds of meters away.

He wanted to know why the ground had collapsed and why there was the firepower capable of hitting a missile?

How did he not know that there was such firepower hidden beneath this warehouse?

Then, like burrowing creatures pushing the stones at the entrance of their burrows, three eight-legged robotic tanks, two meters tall and three meters wide, pushed aside the fallen rocks and emerged from the cave.

These three eight-legged mechanical monsters were uniformly painted plain white, seemingly oblivious to the idea of “camouflage.”

Alarm bells started ringing in Alan’s mind.

Meanwhile, Peter Penner screamed, “This is…

a fully automatic fort!

Fully automatic fort!

How can the Meng Hand Gang have such a thing!

They actually have it!”

“—Kansas Brothers, how on earth did you find out!”

“—Could it be because of this big secret that you were personally killed by Tang Shagu of the Meng Hand Gang?”

In that moment, this Straw Sandals of the Capacitor Gang thought of many, many things.

In the areas of “quick aiming” and “ballistic calculation,” biological brains are no match for computers.

Biological brains are better suited for “tactical arrangement” and “recognizing enemies in complex environments.”

However, when the environmental information grows overwhelming, the algorithmic advantage of “recognizing enemies” can be overtaken by computers relying on massive computational resources.

Therefore, fully automated combat robots are predominantly armed with remote firearms.

Simple AI, having difficulty in close combat compared to specialized martial artists’ brains.

Their tactical choices often lack “imagination.” Martial Artists familiar with Martial Arts can defeat them through a variety of cleverly devised strategies.

But firearms are different.

Just one large robot equipped with powerful weaponry and dense firepower can suppress a group of External Martial Artists using just plain AI.

Of course, AI’s weakness is its inability to resist Inner Strength.

But, if appropriate hardware-level protection is applied, then it’s possible to prevent such situations to some extent.

For example, by denying all external operations and leaving only a mechanically protected data interface.

In such cases, even if your Internal Strength Cultivation reaches the sky, you can’t hack into such automated combat robots.

But this also has its drawbacks.

The application range of such robots can be extremely narrow, as they can only react according to pre-set tactics, unable to be commanded in real time even by their own side, making them hardly adaptable to the rapidly changing battlefield.

However, in confined areas, unless the material and structure of the prosthetic body have a overwhelming technological advantage—comparable to the technological gap between 21st-century bulletproof gear and 18th-century firearms—any martial artist would be ruthlessly annihilated by an automatic fort equipped with nearly ten machine guns, eight tactical missiles, and a hundred micro missiles.

This design was specifically made to guard this sewer.

Ever since a few years ago when Deborah applied to use this secret passage as her ingress and egress point into Jianghu, the two automated forts there had been sworn to obey commands.

Since then, only Deborah and her close associate, Carolina, could access that place.

And only they had the authority to operate the data interface of these two automated forts.

Carolina also took up the maintenance work for the two automated forts.

Additionally, if they used prosthetic bodies outside of the preset range, they too would be targeted and shot by the automated forts as enemies.

These two automated forts only received commands through that one physical interface, unable to recognize electromagnetic or acoustic commands.

The protocols and algorithms used by their cameras were also completely different from the Cybermen’s Prosthetic Eye—indeed, it was only after Mr.

Lev of Group Z used the technique of witnessing on Xiang Shan first that he remembered he had similar means at his disposal.

But he was not sure if he could hack into the automated forts using the same method.

No, even if the method existed in his memory, Xiang Shan might not be able to find a backdoor accurately right away.

The automated forts would not give him the time.

If he truly had to fight, Xiang Shan with his Sonicon Blade in hand might indeed be able to take down those two forts.

But the narrow sewer environment left little room for maneuvering, which was exactly the most suitable setup for the automated forts.

One careless move, and Xiang Shan could also suffer severe injuries.

So, after deciding to come here to kill Yaningping and extracting the relevant memories from Deborah’s recollections, Xiang Shan decided to use this method, finding two groups of decoys to draw the attention of the two automatic artillery turrets.

The Meng Hand Gang, rendered ferocious by the Green Forest Mind-lowering Technique, served as the perfect material.

Of course, the performance of the Capacitor Gang was no less impressive.

Upon seeing the movement trajectories of the gun muzzles on the distant artillery, Peter Pena’s complexion suddenly changed as he exclaimed, “Run!

Run!

Scatter!

Scatter!

This thing is calculating ballistic trajectories!

Scatter!”

As he spoke, he collapsed the recently constructed defenses of the Capacitor Gang and rolled on the ground.

Before he could get up, bullets rained down like a storm.

Blood blossoms bloomed among the Capacitor Gang’s positions.

The three buildings stretching from the location of the automatic artillery to the Capacitor Gang’s position were instantly turned into a honeycomb.

Accompanied by continuous gunfire, one of the concrete structures could no longer bear its own weight and collapsed with a crash!

With such buildings in view being blown away like bubbles, the automatic artillery then unleashed ten lines of fire.

Ten micro-missiles were launched from within it, striking at the Capacitor Gang’s positions.

Another series of explosions ensued.

Peter Pena rolled into a civilian house.

To his surprise, although the lights were still on, it had long been deserted.

Not only that, there was no smell of fuel or oil inside—the valuable items seemed to have been taken away.

Of course, this was also Xiang Shan’s doing.

Before killing Tang Shagu, he had sent out warnings to all the residents in the vicinity, urging them to take their valuables and leave quickly.

He had even gone so far as to carefully instruct a few fully modified prosthetic-bodied individuals who seemed capable to look after those still asleep and unaware of the message.

Not everyone was so benign.

There really were people who tried to sneak to the edge of the Meng Hand Gang’s position and report everything to Alan, the Black Path overlord—probably thinking that reporting such “Someone is watching you” information would earn them a reward.

After Xiang Shan’s warnings proved futile, he stopped the prosthetic heart and lungs of that scum.

Only after all the residents had safely evacuated and Xiang Shan had reached the battlefield did that guy’s breathing resume.

Xiang Shan no longer paid attention to him.

Whether he could escape was up to his own fate.

Alan was not unaware of the residents’ evacuation.

However, such incidents were not uncommon—gangs operating brazenly in an area, being spied upon by local residents, and then scaring the locals into abandoning their homes had happened too often.

The only odd thing was why these people had fled so cleanly.

However, the Double-Flower Red Stick, consumed by a murderous intent, had entirely overlooked such details.

At that moment, his conscience warred within him over “Whether to kill these annoying escapees or not.”

At this very moment, Peter Pena could not afford to care about these details either.

Plain twenty-centimeter-thick ancient concrete walls could not provide effective protection under such intense firepower.

It is worth noting that the automatic artillery did not need to consider mobility or allocate space for components to maintain a biological brain; in terms of sheer firepower, even the Green Forest Hero “Big Bulldozer” Vespa was no match for this automatic artillery.

It is also worth mentioning that even excluding the “Big Bulldozer” Vespa, the combined might of other experts from the Excavator Group was still enough to surpass the martial strength of the Capacitor Gang.

And here, there was even only one branch of the Capacitor Gang.

Initially, when Xiang Shan used his Inner Strength to pressure the Big Bulldozer, forcing him to execute a full volley fire at his own people, he had instantly wiped out half of the Great Stockade.

In other words…

“Certain death.”

Pena screamed, “We’re doomed!

We’re doomed!

Why does the Meng Hand Gang have such weapons?

Why?

Aren’t these weapons only supposed to be used by the government?

Only the government…

the government…”

In that moment, Peter Pena, this Straw Sandal of the Capacitor Gang, seemed to realize something.

A massive conspiracy had tightly bound him.

One automatic turret had just poked its head out from a collapsing cave.

The other turret was advancing towards the Capacitor Gang’s position like a dragon striding.

This side, the Double-Flower Red Stick of the Meng Hand Gang slightly sighed in relief.

——It seems…

this must be a government weapon…

——No wonder Big Brother Shell said, Hero would definitely come this way.

With such a weapon guarding, there must be some big government secret here.

Heh, no wonder…

no wonder…

setting up here, we could definitely catch Hero…

——It’s a pity it was destroyed by the Capacitor Gang.

However, heh, it seems like this machine shows no interest in our Meng Hand Gang brothers…

In that instant, a deserted house spewed a burst of flames.