Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 200 - 200 120 The Road of Evacuation

200: Chapter 120: The Road of Evacuation 200: Chapter 120: The Road of Evacuation In fact, when Amilcare Zhao returned to the city, he demanded that all anti-aircraft artillery positions voluntarily cut power and pointed short-range missiles and close-defense weapons at these positions, which was not entirely pointless.

There was a practical significance to it.

The reason was simple.

Just the previous night, one of the anti-aircraft artillery positions had been infiltrated.

As long as the Hero left a countdown program in the infiltrated position, commanding it to fire a full volley when the countdown ended, the city’s aerial power would be scrubbed by its own barrage.

In this era, there are few civilian units in the air.

Since most civilians do not live sufficiently high, they wouldn’t even know how to use a powerless glider.

The Hero didn’t need to worry about collateral damage.

This was a “tactic” passed down from the Martial Ancestor’s time.

Therefore, even today, Protectors still retain a considerable portion of weapons that cannot be automated.

Even just defending the one infiltrated position was not entirely safe.

Heroes are like cockroaches.

When a Hero brazenly moves about the city, attempting assassination on the king, it is reasonable for those upon the king’s chariots to suspect that there might be a hundred other Heroes in the city yet to be discovered.

And it’s not necessary for a Hero to kill everyone at an anti-aircraft artillery position to access the fire control system.

One might even say that it is rare for a Hero to cleanly assassinate an entire camp each time.

Normally, Heroes are not that extreme.

Therefore, it was perfectly reasonable to suspect that other Heroes had infiltrated the anti-aircraft artillery positions after the troops were withdrawn.

So much so that Amilcare had to have his Martial Artists skilled in Inner Strength methodically check each position.

And even that was not guaranteed to be safe.

Because the hacking level in Jianghu has always been higher than that of the authorities.

The average level of Inner Strength among the people of Jianghu is higher than in the authorities, and the total number of masters is the same – this is probably because if one can crack a security system in an unexpected and unconstrained way, they likely possess an unrestrained soul.

Even the highest authority is the same.

King Aqini is surely weaker than “the world’s number one.”

Most Protectors feel that the gap between “number one in Inner Strength” and “number two” has never been narrowed.

Plus, Inner Strength can operate through network lines without direct contact.

Therefore, when a city indeed encounters a Hero’s successful action, the Protector must expend a great deal of manpower and resources to resolve the security issues in the system.

Of course, the Solo Kill King did not do this.

He clearly understood that his incomplete Inner Strength could not create a perfect stealthy countdown ignition program.

So instead of doing something and having it cleared, it was better to do nothing at all and let them be paranoid.

This way, he could divert the energy of a large number of Protectors’ legitimate Martial Artists.

And the Protector’s suspicion of “Gu” could rise indefinitely.

Because the anonymously titled “world’s number one” might still be alive.

Any Hero could potentially receive her help and obtain unknown and powerful Gu Poison.

If King Aqini isn’t called out, it’s likely that no one can eliminate the handiwork of “that one.”

But if every action of a Hero required calling out King Aqini to be at ease, then the Heroes’ actions would be far too successful – they could exhaust King Aqini to death in a very short span of time.

Of course, Jader was well aware of the tactical choices he made.

Yet, upon seeing the scene before him, the Solo Kill King still felt a twinge of discontent.

The distance between the two sides was already far enough, so the entire ground portion of the city had disappeared below the horizon due to the curvature of the earth.

But those towering structures, taller than the high mountains, still stood against the sky.

As he watched the planes continuously transporting troops on top of the buildings, the Solo Kill King felt an itch in his heart.

“What if I had created an ignition program, and by sheer luck, it wasn’t discovered…” he muttered, “Just imagine, a ‘boom’!

That would be incredibly satisfying and relieving.”

“Forget it, forget it…” Xiang Shan seemed much more relaxed about it, “He’s probably being extremely careful with his checks right now.

Maybe the entire city’s chips and motherboards may have to be replaced.”

Ask, what if the system has been contaminated with an unknown Gu?

Answer: Replace the entire hardware system.

There’s really no way for any Inner Strength to escape such a sweep.

But a single action by Xiang Shan could potentially cost the Protector so much in resources.

This is the victory of the Hero.

Xiang Shan also adjusted his Prosthetic Eye.

With the help of some optical lenses, he too could see the scene over there clearly.

“Tsk, there are indeed a lot of them.

And it feels like even more are coming from afar.

It’s just that anything further south is below the horizon, and can’t be seen.”

Jader nodded, “It looks like it will be a tough battle.”

Cui Hai, who had been listening to his mentor’s teachings at the side, immediately became excited upon hearing this, “Elder, Mentor, it’s time for us to fight to the death…”

“Clang.” Jader hit him on the head.

Xiang Shan was speechless, “What’s with young people these days?

Impulsiveness is the devil.”

“Didn’t we just talk about this in the morning?” Jader was also dissatisfied, “What did the Martial Ancestor say?

Your life is also a life.

‘If one doesn’t cherish their own life, even more so they can’t talk about…’ Can’t talk about…”

“Reverence for life.” Xiang Shan prompted.

“Ah, right.

Those who don’t cherish their own lives can’t talk about reverence for life.

You have to realize, ‘fighting to the death’ and ‘it doesn’t matter if I die’ are two different things.

Those who don’t cherish their own lives can’t embody the ‘righteousness’ in ‘sacrificing life for righteousness’.”

——I always feel like some strange word has sneaked into this sentence.

But looking at the context, it seems to make sense…

Did I really say this?

Xiang Shan couldn’t help but mutter to himself.

“Moreover, it is quite obvious that we cannot die.” Xiang Shan added, “We are more valuable alive than dead.

As long as we are alive, Amilcare’s large force will be tied down in this piece of Wilderness.

We only need to operate two vehicles.

But the energy they need for their operations is countless times more than ours.”

“And as long as we keep this force tied down here, the chances of our old friend to the south escaping danger will be a little bit greater.”

Cui Hai nodded.

“So young man, don’t always talk about life and death.

‘Sacrifice’ isn’t such a simple matter.”

However, Solo Kill King said, “That said…

elder brother, do you have any plans?

Are you planning to escape to a relatively safe place, or do you intend to draw the attention of Pine Eagle City right here in this Wilderness?”

“Escape…

Do you think there is any place that’s relatively safe?”

“Hmm…” Solo Kill King pondered for a moment, “If we head north for another two hundred kilometers or so, we will be able to leave the Protector domain of Amilcare Zhao and enter the territory of another Protector.

Since Protectors absolutely cannot aim their guns at each other, Amilcare wouldn’t be allowed to dispatch soldiers into that Lord’s domain, without permission.”

“Moreover, because of your assassination operation, Amilcare has lost face, so he might pull out all the stops to hunt us down as a way of apologizing.

But other Lords, even if they were to hunt us, wouldn’t be as serious.”

“Therefore, once we escape, we’ll be half safe.

After that, whether we strike at Bering Fortress to head for the Arctic, go to the Old Continent, or split up, it’s a matter of freedom.”

“Oh?” Xiang Shan frowned, “In this era, is that even a question?”

If this really was the Middle Ages, then this might indeed be a problem.

But now, humanity has only regressed to the Middle Ages in certain aspects of its superstructure, while technological capabilities remain.

What permits can’t be obtained remotely?

“That’s exactly the problem,” Jader shrugged, “If we were to go in the southwest direction, we could enter another Protector domain of a Lord who has good relations with Amilcare.

But the one directly north has a very bad relationship with Amilcare.”

Xiang Shan was somewhat surprised, “I would think…

eliminating people from Jianghu should be the most important thing, right?

Can’t the gene bank protection forces cooperate better?”

“After the tenth and eleventh defeats, Jianghu has entered a relatively low period in terms of Martial Power,” Jader felt helpless, “Some senior experts have fallen and died, and the Jianghu is full of youngsters like my pupil nephew.

Many years ago, Jianghu’s aspirations were treated like a ‘minor ailment’.

Jader snorted twice, his tone full of “grievance”, “They have also been propagating that the return of the Martial God is just consuming the goodwill left by the Martial Ancestor, and now Jianghu is no longer viable.

But we all know that those inspired by the Martial God to enter Jianghu, they are the hope.”

Xiang Shan offered no judgment.

He was silent for a moment and then said, “What you are thinking is, just head north?”

“That’s not possible,” Solo Kill King said, “Heading straight north at this time could very likely result in a direct strike from Space-Based Weapons.

Right now, satellites would probably be closely monitoring all vehicles moving north across the Wilderness, and their alert thresholds would be lower than usual.”

Let’s put it this way, if there’s a patch of ground with an abnormal temperature, which might indicate a vehicle or could just be a false alarm caused by atmospheric heat movement, the Heavenly Punishment System would calculate the potential benefit of launching “a hit” based on a mathematical expectation.

Although the cost of the lowest level of space debris Heavenly Punishment is very low, space debris is not infinite, and Protectors tend to let them reach places where they can be effective.

But during the period after the Hero’s assassination, the Heavenly Punishment System would change its algorithms, lower the detection thresholds.

So even if the mathematical expectation of a benefit from the space debris Heavenly Punishment is lower than usual, the Heavenly Punishment would still be triggered.

“Looks like we need to plan our route?”

“We also need to consider the Green Forest along the way.

See which ones are best to avoid and which can be used as potential weapon caches.”

Solo Kill King might seem a bit simple, but after all, he’s an old hand at Jianghu, with basic Jianghu experience.

The two of them discussed back and forth and quickly determined the retreat route.

In the end, Xiang Shan deliberately adopted a “let me test you” tone and asked Cui Hai, “Let me ask you, do you know what the phrase ‘I have returned from Hell’ means?”