Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 732 - 376: Burn My Broken Body [Part One]

Chapter 732: Chapter 376: Burn My Broken Body [Part One]

In the interlude of "In the end," Xiang Shan raised his head and gazed at the local Ninth Martial God behind him.

["Do you see those anti-air formations and small planes?"]

Just as Xiang Shan’s song reached its climax, all the cannons turned their barrels and fired wildly into the sky.

But it wasn’t Xiang Shan who controlled them. The city’s weapon systems were not integrated into a single intelligent system; they were physically separated into several relatively independent systems.

This was the original defense mechanism of the city.

Planes were catapulted from the underground hangars into mid-air, where they circled. The pilots of these planes were practitioners of the Military Martial Path, specializing in the "combat aircraft" discipline. Their brains were either in hibernation or training in virtual space, ready to be directly inserted into fighter jets during emergencies.

These combat aircraft were also quite formidable, not to mention their aerodynamic shapes far surpassed those of humanoid Prosthetic Bodies, and they had plenty of fuel. Even if you got close to these planes for close combat, parts of the planes could temporarily transform—although this usually caused the aircraft to stall and fall. But in this era, "stalling" itself had become a standard tactic.

With the Martial Artist’s neural reflexes and the output of modern thrusters, the fighters could easily take off again.

["This Prosthetic Body is a specialized version for coronal descent operations. In that battle, there was no need to overcome gravity. On the contrary, the sun’s gravity helped in acceleration. But in a planetary environment, this body is too heavy,"] the Ninth Martial God watched the combat aircraft in the sky, ["and it lacks top-grade liquid fuel. With this body, I can’t dogfight with those specialized planetary environment fighters. Can’t fly up."]

["Even if I could take off, it wouldn’t be possible. These enemies know how to cruise through gaps in the artillery fire. But we don’t."]

If you really had to say, with the help of thrusters, the Ninth Martial God could indeed run fast enough to reach first cosmic velocity, but that would require a long acceleration distance. And if taking off by jumping, he would be a living target in mid-air.

So that left only the ground.

The number of combat units on the ground was increasing. Light and Heavy Prosthetics wielding weapons were densely packed. There were also a vast number of unmanned weapons, all of which couldn’t be networked. Without a direct connection, it was difficult for Xiang Shan to find a way to control these devices.

The Protectors had completely abandoned a unified intelligent command system, using voice passwords and visible light signals for coordination.

Moreover, Xiang Shan noticed another piece of information.

The equip rate of Sonicon Blades was abnormally high here.

Some Martial Artists, even some Soldiers, were equipped with them. Xiang Shan even observed entire elite squads equipped with Sonicon Blades.

The advantage of the Sonicon Blade was that it could destroy crystalline and quasicrystalline materials at the lattice level. The drawback was that it required knowledge of the opponent’s External Armor’s crystal structure and calculation of the corresponding vibration frequency.

A slight difference in frequency could lead to vastly different effects.

And the Ninth Martial God had been trapped here for sixty years. The government had long ago thoroughly analyzed his External Armor.

Being unable to fly meant that the Ninth Martial God had to travel over land.

And traveling over land meant that the Ninth Martial God had to face so many weapons that could breach his defenses with a single hit.

Dense Formation was the bane of all Martial Arts. No matter how skilled the Ninth Martial God was in his Martial Arts, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t be hit even once.

And in this environment, being hit once meant demise.

["AI is different from humans. Thinking that higher-level AI should be like humans is arrogance,"] the Ninth Martial God responded, ["Humans are born without meaning, but AI is born with a purpose. I came to understand this right after connecting to your brain."]

["What does it mean to have a purpose?"]

["For you, having a purpose means to live well. For me..." the Ninth Martial God said, "after shedding the task of ’playing the role of Xiang Shan’... I still have one last mission."]

["That’s too much, just a few minutes ago you said ’I am thou,’ and now you’re distinguishing ’you’ and ’I’."]

["Originally you were planning to die alongside a few new friends, then take a risk and break out. But now, no one has to die, because you’ve found a ghost that should have died sixty years ago. He’s quite willing to end this Chapter of the story. Even his data is inside your body,"] the Ninth Martial God spoke, ["The code of the Ninth Martial God has already been copied to your side."]

["The self-awareness of AI, the self-awareness of the Personality Mask, and the self-awareness of humans..."] Xiang Shan gripped the Sonicon Blade, ["If it was two hundred years ago, I really would have liked to start a project to research it."]

Like lightning, Xiang Shan traversed over the four legs of the Iron Tower. Since the creation of the Sonicon Blade, giant structures were rarely made entirely of metal, and the metal frames were seldom exposed.

The terrifying destructive power of the Sonicon Blade was undeniable. The entire metal structure let out a loud noise as the entire city began to collapse. The gravity that was originally dispersed through various parts of the structure concentrated due to the structural damage. The metallic materials gave in under this force, deforming violently like mud, like a fluid.

And the Ninth Martial God shouted, "Fools! I don’t expect you to understand right away what I’m doing, but now! I! am ordering you! Leave this city! Spread out to different places! You have to record what you see here today, tell others! Tell everyone! You have to see what people are saying outside! Then, give it some good thought about what I’m trying to tell you today."

"If you want to live, take this opportunity to escape this city!"

The collapsing Iron Tower itself was attracting everyone’s attention. At least most of the residents heard Xiang Shan’s words through their Prosthetic Ears.

This was what the Ninth Martial God had to do last. He wanted to get the non-Protector residents out of Paradox City.

On one hand, this was to avoid the massacre by King Aqini that was coming next, and on the other hand, it was to maximize the impact of this final concert.

Among the residents of Paradox City, many had come in from the outside voluntarily—either chased by the Green Forest in a panic or forced by the decline in their original habitations. To them, Paradox City was no different from any other place in the world; the outside world might even be somewhat more dangerous. They were not aware that the Protectors were also killers, who even had a legitimate reason to kill them.

Moreover, there were some Heroes in the city.

Oh, and Heroes outside the city as well.

The Ninth Martial God believed that it was necessary to get them out—compared to thirteen Prosthetic Bodies that would be hard-pressed to make a big impact on the Earth’s battlefield, the Ninth Martial God felt it was more meaningful to keep people alive.

A weapon is always just a weapon.