Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 303 - 303 83 Defeat

303: Chapter 83: Defeat 303: Chapter 83: Defeat Compared to two hundred years ago, the offensive and defensive interaction among Internal Strength Masters in this era was usually quite restrained, involving merely cautious probing or setting up traps named “honey pots,” waiting for the enemy to blunder into them.

They would write viruses, track and counter-track, and seek out their enemy’s true names and identities.

The cryptic method of “activating a certain backdoor” was not commonly seen.

The reason was simple—if your enemy was also a master of internal strength, a backdoor could typically only be effective once.

A master of the internal techniques could at least write their own patches.

If you didn’t defeat your opponent in one strike during a battle, then your enemy would often find a countermeasure.

If the systems developed from the ancient era up to now were called a “mountain of shit,” then this mountain was actually full of various holes.

Some of these cavities were deliberate, while others were naturally formed.

An old backdoor passed down from the ancient era was like an ancient curse.

Positioned at the base, it was crude but lethal.

Every master of internal techniques was like a wizard, mastering curses passed down through generations—the specific number of which depended on their legacy.

The older the curse, the closer it was to the bottom of the mountain, and thus the more hidden it was.

Without the guidance of someone knowledgeable, it was difficult for outsiders to find its location.

However, once a master of the internal techniques saw a loophole, they would find their own way to counteract it.

If you didn’t subdue your opponent in an instant, it was like using your extraordinary internal strength to give your enemy a free test.

Of course, there could also be the embarrassing situation of “Here is a flaw, I patch it, and then ten more appear.” However, the new flaws that a patch introduced could not be invoked by an “old curse.”

Every curse worked only once on the same master.

Even the majority of internal strength practitioners didn’t know about this.

They only used public vulnerabilities that had long been cracked to bully ordinary people who had no internal strength.

Most masters of internal strength would write their own firewalls and even develop their own systems.

Some would even create advanced languages and write their own assemblers.

However, they would also use some of the public components, drivers, or open-source code on the internet.

After all, starting from scratch was just too difficult and incredibly inefficient.

If a Hero took over a decade just to write the control system for their prosthetic body, they wouldn’t think about performing heroic deeds.

And in doing so, they inevitably inherited some ancient vulnerabilities.

It was said that in a certain era, the compiler, components, and tools created by “that person” became mainstream in the world.

To this very day, her influence in the software world still remains, and many of the vulnerabilities from her era have also persisted to the current day.

And naturally, the few acquaintances she knew would also be aware of the most “curses.”

But King Aqini was no weakling.

He too had left a significant mark in the history of internal strength development.

GA-R03 was also aware of many “curses.”

However, many of these “curses” had never appeared in Jianghu.

These “curses” were ones King Aqini had embedded among the myriad free resources and hidden in textbooks.

King Aqini believed that once these were exposed, they would no longer be safe and could probably be detected by “Turing,” who would then find a way to counteract them—Heroes were just troublesome in that respect.

Once they survived, they would go to great lengths to share the intelligence they had gathered in battle, making it difficult to “curse kill” them the same way again.

Therefore, King Aqini had standards.

Each of his “curses,” before becoming ineffective, had to at least curse kill a Hero approaching the First Layer Heavenly Land.

Otherwise, it would be a disservice to the effort he had painstakingly put into setting traps,

[Highly suspected of being Mechanical Realm?

How is that possible?]

Soon, a message came through the data link.

It was a direct connection.

[Why would there be such a master?]

[Suspected to be a Hero drawn in by the affair with Tao Enhai, true name unknown, seems to have never appeared in the records.]

[This guy is so cautious, not leaving any information about himself on any media?

Really careful indeed.]

The squad leader naturally judged.

The first thing a Hero learned was often how to hide themselves within the government’s surveillance network.

And a master of internal techniques was among the best at this.

During the Old Era, those who were not yet called masters of internal techniques, hackers, targeted the authorities in their battles.

They developed various tricks to protect their identities for this purpose..

For a master of internal techniques, “having no records on the internet” was a common occurrence.

This guy didn’t even leave a record of his heroic deeds, which was truly terrifying.

[However, there’s one problem,]a leader of the Mobile Cavalry joined the conversation: [I find this whole situation bizarre.

According to the report, this Hero’s external strength is also extraordinary.

Such a person, proficient in both internal and external strength, already had the conditions to surpass a major threshold, needing only accumulation and a reactor.

If so, why was it Bai Man and not him who inherited Tao Enhai’s power?]

The series of confrontations between Bai Man, the Heroic Hero from the Northern Land, and Fraser had also been shared as intelligence.

These Mobile Cavalry had paid attention to these events before embarking on their mission.

[Perhaps he arrived too late, Bai Man had already inherited the legacy by then, and thereafter he received nothing,]judged the Mobile Cavalry:[If he is really as strong as reported… Alright, permission to use unrestricted internal strength methods.

Eliminate him.]

GA-R03’s eyes flashed, “Eliminate!”

Data began to refresh.

The flow of information through the exclusive data link was redistributed, with more allocation directed towards “maintaining internal strength”.

Electrical energy began to be consumed significantly.

[Cortical self-check in progress…

Self-check complete.]

[Beginning to establish mapping…

Selecting to load…]

[United Annihilation Mode activated.]

[Search, locate, destroy.]

GA-R03 shifted its view away again.

In that instant, he heard singing.

The two Mobile Cavalry closest to him were tensed up, maintaining a stance like a spring compressed to its limit, seemingly ready to rebound at any moment.

—Why are they so nervous…

Then, a Mobile Cavalry came flying horizontally towards him.

There were a dozen people walking and fighting along the way.

They were accompanied by flying sand and stones as they sprinted.

The Mobile Cavalry couldn’t hinder the singing Hero in the slightest or disrupt his stride.

Xiang Shan was even able to block and use Borrowing Force to Strike while running.

In that instant, Xiang Shan was just less than twenty meters away from GA-R03.

Xiang Shan lifted his hand, and the last large-caliber firearm he carried on his back was fired.

The spider legs at the base of GA-R03 suddenly jerked, propelling him backwards and evading most of the bullets.

Some bullets hit GA-R03.

However, there are benefits to being a “tin can”.

The External Armor of this prosthetic was exceedingly regular in shape, hence its thickness and strength were significantly greater than those of other similar prosthetics.

Its shock absorption system was also much stronger.

Such close-range shooting didn’t cause GA-R03 to feel a thing.

Xiang Shan didn’t expect those few shots to take the life of one of King Aqini’s effective underlings.

But GA-R03’s retreat played right into his hands.

This lengthened the battle line, causing King Aqini’s men to be even more stretched thin.

He released the power stored in his legs in an instant, unexpectedly catching up with one of the Mobile Cavalry.

That Mobile Cavalry struggled in mid-air, seemingly trying to use a stance to break the momentum of Xiang Shan’s charge.

However, a flash of cold light spun out from the Hero’s cloak, and in a blink, the Mobile Cavalry was dismembered.

It was a literal dismemberment, just a moment, and the Mobile Cavalry’s prosthetics were instantaneously separated.

In Xiang Shan’s hand, however, was now a two-meter-long sword.

“Indeed, it’s a Sonicon Blade…”

“Fire rapidly!”

Several Mobile Cavalry didn’t care for much else and opened fire together.

The Sonicon Blade was indeed the bane of heavy armor.

If their commander was a “can”, then there was no better “can opener” in this age.

The bullets they were using, however, were insufficient to penetrate the commander’s External Armor, but the Hero with the lightweight prosthetic had to dodge.

This strategy was akin to the tactic of relieving Wei to rescue Zhao.

Xiang Shan shook his arms, and the cloak fell from his body.

The Vector Injector on Xiang Shan’s back operated instantaneously, accelerating Xiang Shan, and also causing the inner lining of the cloak to explode.

Many metal foils flew about, forming a temporary wall that blocked the vision of those men.

Xiang Shan traced a Z-shaped trajectory on the ground, his head bowed as he thrust the longsword towards the top of GA-R03’s head.

One of the two Mobile Cavalry initially guarding this side struggled to break through the friendly fire and tried to cut into Xiang Shan’s path.

Seeing that he seemed unable to catch up, he desperately reached out, trying to grab Xiang Shan around the waist.

In that instant, the eyes of Xiang Shan and the Mobile Cavalry met.

—What the…

Xiang Shan felt as if his brain had been hit with a hammer.

This ordinary-looking Mobile Cavalry had actually used “the technique of witnessing” on him!

Xiang Shan had clashed with King Aqini himself several times, so how could he not know the necessity of blocking wireless signals?

He even strictly limited his own vision, deliberately tightening the camera focus to only look at GA-R03’s feet to prevent the technique of witnessing.

But he couldn’t possibly avoid everyone’s gaze at all times.

Doing so would greatly limit the execution of external strength.

Xiang Shan indeed hadn’t ruled out the possibility that the enemy would use subordinates to deploy the technique of witnessing, but using someone else’s prosthetic components to perform internal strength had a certain delay compared to performing it oneself.

Besides, he had felt it during the exchange of internal strength with GA-R03 just now; a momentary eye contact should not be enough to subdue him.

However, King Aqini’s disciple had actually managed to perform an internal strength attack using a subordinate’s Prosthetic Eye.

This performance was far more powerful than the last time!