Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 385 - 29 The Story of Old 2

Chapter 385: Chapter 29 The Story of Old 2

This was a summer night in 2334. Xiang Shan was sitting on the roof of a broadcast vehicle, speaking to the retreating driver, "The road is quite long. Old Ba, how about you tell a story about the Martial Gods?"

"Oh? If you want to talk about that, I won’t be sleepy anymore!" Babbitt immediately said.

Although Xiang Shan found it a bit odd to say "I won’t be sleepy anymore" during driving, it was largely acceptable. After all, everyone was now using automated routing for self-driving, so it didn’t matter if the driver slept. Only the Military Martial Path emphasized conscious direct control.

"But where to start from... The emergence of the Fourth Martial God, the Fifth Martial God who mastered a hundred weapons, the Seventh Martial God who battled in the Asteroid Belt, or the Ninth Martial God who led a thousand soldiers to defect?"

"Start from the beginning," Xiang Shan said, raising his hands and looking up at the sky. He didn’t really expect Mr. Babbitt’s story to tell him much about historical truth. That was impossible. From what he had heard so far, the "literary image" of the "Martial Gods" differed quite a bit from himself.

"Personality Masks" are things that, under the same circumstances, are likely to make the same choices as the original person, whether genuine or simulated. So, when hearing the stories of the Martial Gods, he should feel "that’s worthy of me" or "although hard to believe, it is indeed something I would do."

But those romance-like stories probably mixed in the achievements of others and blended in the heroic images of other Heroes.

That "Xiang Shan" had long ceased to be this Xiang Shan.

Yet this Xiang Shan of "romance," no longer a true reflection of himself, formed one of the cultural foundations for the constant metamorphosis of the Martial Gods.

Perhaps the "path of heroism fitting for this era," and the exploration process, are encapsulated within these deeds washed by the river of history.

"If we start from the very beginning... then wouldn’t that be the Second Martial God?"

In the story, the Second Martial God appeared in the third year after the "First Martial God" — the Martial Ancestor himself — fell.

In reality, rumors had spread in the first year after the Martial Ancestor’s fall, claiming that he hadn’t died but was severely injured when Yawgmoth’s flagship crashed. His lover had found him, and he was healing, waiting for the next rise.

And then in the third year, "Xiang Shan" truly reemerged.

Thus began the "Battle of Sublimation" once more.

However, according to the official perspective, this did not belong to the "Battle of Sublimation." For under Yawgmoth’s definition, the battle had ended on the day the Martial Ancestor was executed, the old-era Lich King was purged that day, and the new era began. The conflict of the New Calendar year three was a new rebellion.

There’s no "Historical Academia" nowadays. Within the Hero Faction, some are convinced that it is a continuation of the "Sublimation War," while others call it the "Second Sublimation War." The Scientific Knight Order and the Protectors internally unified it under the term "Second Martial God Rebellion."

And under the spread of the net, this history that is merely two hundred years old has become a kind of fog.

Back to the story. This new "Xiang Shan" fought desperately on the frontline, just as he had many years before, dashing through the entire Solar System.

But this time, for some reason, his core supporters and logistics units became increasingly scarce.

In the beginning, the Heroes just thought that the disappearance of Anatoly, one of the top Internal Strength Masters, had left the Hero Faction with one less powerful ally. Turing alone was stretched thin.

But only after Turing broke down and fled did people discover the truth. This Xiang Shan was not Xiang Shan. Turing had deceived everyone but could not bear the weight of the deceit.

——I see...

Despite being prepared, hearing about "a few Famed Heroes whose faith was shattered and thus defected to the Protectors" still felt like a stirring in the reactor.

Knowing it was merely a sensory illusion, but...

"Wrong," "Eight" reappeared in the corner of Xiang Shan’s vision. Something deep inside him detached and then unearthed scant intelligence.

"According to the conclusion drawn by the true Eighth Martial God before his death, Two wasn’t simply a ’chat AI created from the Martial Ancestor’s chat logs.’ He might have had biological plugins? But he couldn’t use Inner Strength like nowadays, could he?"

The technology to "borrow another person’s brain to use internal martial arts" must have surfaced in the era of the Eighth Martial God eighty years ago. So, the Second Martial God was probably a Personality Mask unable to use Inner Strength. Where the Martial Gods needed to wield Inner Strength, Zhu Xinyu could do the job.

After all, in the legend of the Second Martial God, "Turing" indeed fought alongside him at the frontlines.

The external explanation was "because of the lessons from ’The Only Defeat,’ ’Turing’ would not stray far from his lover again."

But the Second Martial God was not simply a pure AI.

"Furthermore, ’Zhu Xinyu deceiving everyone about this’ wouldn’t have caused such a severe backlash," "Eight" said.

"Xinyu herself wouldn’t have such development technology. She’s a genius at finding loopholes, but building things is not her forte. She only performs at one thousand percent when working with another creator," "Native Xiangshan" murmured.

——So, who created Two? Inga? Chen Feng? Or... who... Volpe... who else...

The lost memories obscured Xiang Shan’s thoughts.

"Eight" disappeared again. Xiang Shan refocused on Babbitt’s story.

——Speaking of which, which Heroes became Protectors back then...

But that question was unsolvable too.

Discussing the names of the Kings is prone to triggering various malicious mechanisms on the net. After double encryption, the names of the Kings within the Protectors that remain in the romance are no longer specific individuals. Each of the inappropriately named "Kings" in the story is a collective of real deeds of the Kings.

It was completely impossible to determine which old friend had turned traitor.

After the Second Martial God was exposed, past allies gradually couldn’t face this guy any longer. The more he raised the banner, the more discomfort and sadness he caused them.

Eventually, in an operation to destroy the Mars Orbital Military Port, the Second Martial God’s squad was exposed and cornered by an antagonist character named the "King of Divine Power."

This "King of Divine Power" was also a patchwork monster of numerous counterrevolutionary deeds, and in this story, he was omnipotent.

Perhaps in real history, the Second Martial God faced two or more Protectors Kings.

In his final moments, the Second Martial God detonated the port’s reactor.

In the eighty years that followed, the Protectors never succeeded in rebuilding the Mars Orbital Military Port. It wasn’t until the time of the Seventh Martial God that there was space for amassing an army again.