Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 402 - 46 The Story of an Old Friend

Chapter 402: Chapter 46 The Story of an Old Friend

Mech-Breaking technique, colloquially joked by homophone enthusiasts two hundred years ago as "Evil-Breaking Slash."

It is a demanding Martial Study that requires a massive amount of engineering knowledge and maintenance experience to execute.

It’s so demanding that a Martial Artist must be able to detect the operation of machinery and then infer its mechanical structure solely based on hearing and Listening Skill.

Indeed, there are people who understand engines very well and can judge the status of a car’s engine by sound.

But that’s just cars.

To discern the operating state of an enemy’s Prosthetic Body amidst a hail of bullets through hearing alone is pure fantasy.

However, over the course of many long months, human experience and knowledge accumulate.

Ultimately, a few individuals can really achieve this.

By delivering Inch Energy at precise points, they can cause precision instruments to malfunction.

Moreover, since its principle is "utilizing the different inertias of parts with varying masses, creating displacement through Instantaneous Acceleration, and inducing misalignment or contact failure," this method, in theory, can bypass External Armor.

But the issue also lies here.

The "Instantaneous Acceleration" a Martial Artist imparts on the enemy must be greater than the upper limit that the Prosthetic Body can withstand.

It’s like a piece of mechanical equipment falling from midair.

At a low height, it might be alright.

But if it falls from a great height, while the Shell may remain unscathed, the internal components could fail first.

This is because the equipment undergoes an instant change of speed from "high-speed descent" to "rest."

But achieving this is not easy.

The design limit of an opponent’s Prosthetic Body might be set higher than the endurance capacity of its External Armor.

Furthermore, shock absorbers are also quite effective against this type of attack.

Therefore, this technique is usually targeted at individual parts like the "hands" or "feet."

Especially the joints.

Some also jokingly call it the "Cyber-Dismembering Hand."

It’s a Martial Arts skill of such low cost-effectiveness that it’s infuriating.

Ordinary people would not consider it.

Unless one’s external strength moves and Unity of Heaven and Man have truly reached their limits, one would not consider delving into this area.

Of course, the old timers from Jianghu mostly know a bit of beginner-level Mech-Breaking technique.

But it’s only applicable in scenarios like "an old Jianghu meets a thug and casually breaks their wrist with a move."

It’s not very effective in the face of a true expert.

And on an extreme competitive stage like the Paralympics, this rather useless technique is naturally "insipid."

In fact, any Martial Arts in a competition setting, once pushed to the limit by "rules," have strategies that seem bizarre in a "fight to the death" situation.

Take "fencing," for example.

Olympic fencers have indeed high level swordsmanship, but their skills used within the context of actual combat are "madman’s techniques."

They forsake the footwork and evasion that a normal person would have, investing all their energy in "contesting the centerline," with each move being a mutual destruction approach — in other words, each move is aimed at "trading an injury for a life."

However, due to the sports rules, the athletes do not actually get hurt.

But that doesn’t mean they have it easy. Athletes really can face a sword strike straight at their face without flinching, and if necessary, they can completely overcome even the instinct to dodge.

If an Olympic fencing champion and a Street Swordsman were to have the same series of fights, the Olympian might win each match beautifully but at the risk of their life for a single mistake. Meanwhile, the Street Swordsman might suffer minor injuries each time, confront for a long time, but each round would be barely safe.

— Of course, this assumes that the fencing champion can overcome the fear of death and strictly adhere to the swordsmanship they have trained.

An Arena Fighter transitioning to a Street Swordsman is similar to a Performance Martial Artist moving to the arena, and they would require a certain level of training.

But just like a Performance Martial Artist also possesses great physical fitness, sometimes even better than some actual combat Martial Artists, the technical awareness of an Arena Fighter is also stronger than that of a Street Swordsman. This is not to say they can’t fight.

It’s just that the way they "can fight" is different.

Therefore, on the Paralympic Arena where rules are pursued to the utmost, it’s indeed rare for someone to practice the Mech-Breaking skill.

TX-0 pondered, "That’s true when you think about it. The Paralympics have an age limit, right? I remember it’s around sixty? The vast majority of ’ordinary geniuses’ reach their peak before the age of forty. And those ’extraordinary geniuses’ also face a bottleneck at that age."

But that’s far from the peak of external strength techniques.

Just as Zhu Xinyu once described the "Ultimate Realm of Inner Strength" as an "ocean where the Other Side cannot be seen."

The pinnacle of external strength, like the Himalayas, would make ordinary people despair just by looking at it. And for climbers, even if they only reach the higher sections, they can look down and see all other mountains as small. The "summit" is also a relatively broad area.

Even after truly reaching the "summit," the mountain can still grow taller at a faint rate.

Of course, of course, Mount Everest certainly has its limits. How tall a mountain on a planet can get depends on gravity and the material of the rocks.

If an eternal being were to observe the mountains, it would see the rocks flowing. Rocks are indeed fluids, just very slow-moving ones.

External strength must also have its limits.

Hiroshi Matsushima asked, "Why did you guys even think of creating such a useless technique back then?"

Xiang Shan shook his head, "It wasn’t ’creation.’ No one would deliberately design such a skill. It just happened that someone, in the midst of battle, naturally mastered a similar technique, which was then distilled into a new Martial Study."

"I had an old friend who was an engineer. The best kind. Of course, so was I, but we specialized in different areas. He was better with machinery, especially transmission parts under extreme conditions; I was better with computer hardware."

"When the troubles first started, he was with us. Back then, we lacked everything. The Prosthetic Bodies were top-notch, but all channels were controlled, and getting new ones was really difficult. Everything had to be patched up and repaired."

"So he took on the pressure from logistics for everyone."

"And because we were short-handed at the time, even logistic personnel had to join the Assassination ranks. That’s how we prayed we could eliminate all the... villains as soon as possible."

Xiang Shan said this.

"The more he repaired, the better he understood the Prosthetic Bodies. He could judge the internal mechanics of a Prosthetic Body by its sound alone and make diagnoses just by Listening Skill."

"Then afterwards, he had to go and deal with the ’bodyguards’ of those Tyrants."

"Gradually, he mastered this."