Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 744 - 388 To the One the Whole World is Waiting For

Chapter 744: Chapter 388 To the One the Whole World is Waiting For

King Aqini fell silent again, waiting for his orders to be carried out. At this time, Feheart breathed a sigh of relief and began to carefully consider the intelligence he had seen.

According to the records of the command system of Paradox City, when only three high-level military officers remained and the troops were severely crippled by the structure, the entire Paradox City experienced a collapse of morale. Not even death could stop those troops from fleeing. The remaining three high-level military officers unanimously chose to flee for their lives.

However, two of them were swiftly slain by the Ninth Martial God before they could escape.

The remaining high-level officer would be pursued by a designated executioner.

King Aqini pardoned the remaining soldiers. He could not forgive those high-level officers, but he was relatively lenient towards the soldiers. Since the highest-ranking commander had also fled, there was no need to hold each soldier accountable.

But what was truly crucial was something else.

—A sniper-specialized assassin-type mech had escaped...

—The remaining mechs all showed signs of missing modules...

Feheart stared at the sections marked by King Aqini on the screen. These missing parts were either used to regulate the mech functions during prolonged battles, related to the propellant, or needed for overload operation.

In short, lacking fuel and able to last only a very short period, the Ninth Martial God stripped down those modules that would not affect the battle, and then loaded up with fission fuel and fission weapons charges found within Paradox City.

The missing parts, coupled with the departure of one of the Twelve Zodiacs...

And that one of the Twelve Zodiacs might also have carried away more parts from Cybernetically Enhanced People beyond the First Heavenly Layer.

This meant that the Hero might have obtained...

Enough resources to assemble two top-tier Prosthetic Bodies?

As King Aqini’s confidant, Feheart/Iron Heart Dharma King was aware of the true intel on the Ninth Martial God.

The Ninth Martial God’s struggle on the ground was not due to his lack of skill. His Martial Arts were supported by a supercomputer to combat neural networks and were artificially selected by Yawgmoth to ensure "the style is very similar to Yamamoto himself but obviously innovative to experts." The Ninth Martial God might not be the best among humans at solo operations, but in a battlefield scenario limited to single digits, he could tie with King Aqini from seventy years ago.

Incidentally, as the size of the Battle Formation increased, the advantage of the Ninth Martial God as an artificial intelligence would gradually become apparent.

However, the Ninth Martial God had long believed he was human, so he thought he was limited by human brain capacity and that multitasking would plateau after reaching a certain level. He never deeply explored this area during his active period.

The main difficulty for the Ninth Martial God was because the Twelve Zodiacs were highly specialized for the corona environment. There, radiation was extremely strong, air was very thin, resistance was negligible, and gravity was an ally that sped up the Ninth Martial God’s charge. These factors fundamentally differed from the Earth’s atmosphere.

Since the Prosthetic Body completely disregarded aerodynamic shapes, no matter how plentiful the power of the Ninth Martial God was, he couldn’t dogfight with jets within the atmosphere. His last ascent was made by flattening all ground forces and forcibly clearing a path with ground-to-air firepower.

Only after entering space did the Ninth Martial God truly enter a suitable battlefield.

The Paradox City Defending Army was completely incapable of breaking a corner of King Aqini’s fleet.

In fact, if the Prosthetic Body of the Ninth Martial God was modified—such as replacing "Magnetic Levitation Omni-Wheel", which was of little use in a planetary gravity well, with a heating cabin that could ionize air, and making similar modifications in other respects—these Prosthetic Bodies could equally handle combat within a planet.

With the switching of external weaponry, such Prosthetic Bodies could also handle space warfare and sustain combat in deep space.

Of course, after such modifications, these Prosthetic Bodies would no longer be able to move freely in extreme environments like the corona layer.

But such a Prosthetic Body would be enough to change the entire situation in the Earth-Moon system.

—Would King Aqini keep this fleet in a near-Earth orbit? This could ensure the strike capability against the surface but would expose the fleet to the risk of being sniped by ground forces. Warships are not comparable in cost to satellites. Moreover, this would pin down the strongest fleet forces on the Protector’s side...

—In the next few months, the situation in the Asteroid Belt would change. It’s necessary to consider what the Six Dragons Sect will do next...

....................................

"In summary, this is the scene observed by the deep space observation station between Mars-Earth orbit. In the near-Earth orbit, a target identified as both the Ninth Martial God and one of the Twelve Zodiacs crushed a corner of the Sky Star Fleet, with damages to ships and personnel exceeding seven percent of the entire Sky Star Fleet. This is quite good news,"

Several minutes later, the same report appeared on a satellite of Jupiter.

This was a dark and narrow space, entirely supported by steel. It looked more like a small segment of some massive structure.

A few cybernetically enhanced people, looking nearly like Homo sapiens, leaned together, forming a circle, one of them reported like this.

Of course, these guys only "looked" human. Their prosthetic bodies, integrated with a multitude of tactile sensors, were remarkably similar to real human flesh. Such bodies, which most closely matched the brain’s primal urges, were the way disciples of this sect maintained their humanity—they reminded themselves that they were human to counter the madness brought about by the network.

They forced their brains to perform tasks "not designed for the brain." This counter-innate approach brought immense spiritual pressure. After the Soth Divine Realm "engulfed" other regions of the brain, language, script, and language-based thinking would alter within the consciousness of the internal martial artist.

Records showed that high-level internal practitioners had experienced delirious symptoms after reading literary works.

Those who had cultivated their inner strength beyond the Mechanical Realm often had some mental issues.

This was a physiological problem; there was no miracle in thinking of the chivalrous spirit and having one’s heart free from any troubles. For disciples of the Turing lineage, this approach was akin to "psychotherapy."

Of course, there was another method in the world—changing one’s mindset from the bottom up, constantly reminding oneself "I am not human."

That was the path chosen by King Aqini.

Now, these disciples were gathered together, discussing the intelligence they had just heard.

They were debating the potential implications and reasons behind this matter, discussing what benefits the heroes could gain from it.

At this moment, a pleasant voice interjected, "Hey!"

The disciples immediately stopped and stared wide-eyed at the center.

They formed a semicircle as they discussed. In the middle of this semicircle, a woman sat with her knees hugged to her chest, leaning against the wall. Her face was somewhat ageless, a blend of youthful charm and mature grace.

This was what Zhu Xinyu looked like now.

The disciples were very surprised. The master did not speak often. Much of her spirit resided within the network. "Web crawling" and "debug sorting" had become part of her "memory function." Many aspects of her thinking had been replaced by algorithms.

Even the disciples had an illusion. The data flowing and downloading like a waterfall, seemed like running water, constantly eroding their mentor’s "personality." Her mental gestalt was as porous as a sandcastle.

Sometimes, the master would communicate with them. But these high-level internal practitioners could keenly feel subtle differences in the underlying personality of who spoke to them. Sometimes, the master became child-like and treated these grown disciples as the children she had taken in back then. At other times, she was as cold as the solitary warrior from two hundred years ago...

This time, the master calmly sat there and asked, "Zero, you have an avatar in the New World, right?"

Her tone was somewhat elusive, as if her soul wasn’t here but had "ascended" elsewhere.

TX-0 sighed and said, "Well... I can’t be sure. Three years ago, King Aqini tightened the blockade. I’ve been out of contact with that avatar for three years. It might have self-deleted..."

Zhu Xinyu raised one hand, "Did I ask you that?" she teased smilingly, "I was asking about that thing you reported three years ago... no, you seem to have only mentioned it privately in the sect group, not to me—don’t do that next time, okay?"

Zhu Xinyu took a deep breath: "I am asking you about the ’suspected rebirth of a Martial God’... are you sure?"

"No." TX-0’s answer was very decisive: "The hero from three years ago only met my avatar once. I’m not sure if he’s a reborn Martial God or just an imitator."

As for the judgment of "Martial God rebirth," it was made by the mysterious and elusive member of the Six Dragons Sect. TX-0 didn’t think the people of the Six Dragons Sect were more familiar with Martial God than the heroes.

Zhu Xinyu narrowed her eyes, "I’m also perplexed... It doesn’t seem like there’s an opportunity for his return. However, I can’t possibly know everything about the injustices and disparities of this world."

She paused: "Notify the White Fleet Prosthetics Followers and the Red Star Prosthetics Followers, try to assemble within five days. Take this opportunity to take down the Parsifal Holy Grail Fortress, have the Black Ship Righteous Followers keep an eye on Mars. If the Conquest Heavenly King dares to move, attack Mars—I guess their Staff Group will come to this conclusion too."

She didn’t explain how she arrived at this conclusion. The way she obtained information and thought were no longer quite human.

The woman leaned her head back. Several large cables extended from her occiput, falling together with the artificial hair. She looked up, softly humming a song from her childhood, "...揺るがない强い意志が[An unshakeable strong will]/胜利への键になる[Will be the key to victory]...遥かな星空へ祈りを込めて[Sending prayers to the distant starry sky]..."

Her gaze seemed to pierce through layers of steel, seeing the sky. Though her expression was still vague, Zhu Xinyu’s eyes were bright.

A girl quietly looked up the song the teacher was humming. According to the network data, this song should have existed since the teacher’s childhood. It was a song describing fictional heroes to children.

Zhu Xinyu silently hummed, "世界中が君を待っている[The whole world is waiting for you]/闇夜を照らせ光りの戦士よ[Illuminate the dark night, oh warrior of light]..."