Legend of the Cyber Heroes
Chapter 877 - 122 Squid in Action

Chapter 877: Chapter 122 Squid in Action

The Holy Lord intertwined his fingers, resting them under his chin, elbows on the chair’s armrests.

Even though there was no biological brain in this shell, the Holy Lord genuinely felt impatience. A series of codes were looping to output commands, urging him to hurry up.

Opposing Xiang Shan is extremely dangerous. The same tactics will not be effective against Xiang Shan twice. If you gain an advantage using tactical arrangements, it’s best to defeat Xiang Shan in one stroke, with a single effort.

Moreover, this process must be a seamless operation.

The real body of the Holy Lord—the Six Dragons Sect Leader—is completely different from all other Martial Gods. He hides in the shadows, observing every move of the other Martial Gods. To the Six Dragons Sect Leader, other Martial Gods are nothing more than stones cast to test the waters.

With every failure of a Martial God, the Six Dragons Sect Leader gains a deeper understanding of his own weaknesses.

But because of this, he also knows very well how troublesome he really is.

Those whales being capable of cybernetic transformation must have a relatively complete industrial system. They can provide Xiang Shan with a base. Once Xiang Shan changes to a prosthetic body more suitable for underwater actions, there will never be another chance like this.

"That whale..." the Holy Lord pondered, while thinking of another issue.

Ever since the Six Dragons Sect began letting these intelligent squids interact with the external environment, many squids mysteriously disappeared. Of course, a significant portion fled. But some squids had no prior records indicating a tendency to flee.

Thinking it over, perhaps they were eaten by those cetaceans.

Upon this thought, the Holy Lord sighed once more.

Actually, this time, they originally intended to solve this problem once and for all.

The Six Dragons Sect, at their main altar on Mars, created a sequence of genetic fragments. These were gene segments pieced together at a microscopic scale using optical tweezers, capable of accurately implanting specific information into a biological entity.

With the help of a reverse transcriptase virus, the Six Dragons Sect can insert this gene segment into a squid’s genetic information, permanently altering the cognition of these squids. The squids’ "fight or flee" mechanism and their perception of "stress" and "pain" would be rewritten, enhancing their obedience.

And this modification is highly precise, not affecting other instincts.

This is one of the achievements of the Scientific Knight Order over the past two hundred years, used to adjust the cognitive abilities of animals, allowing those surviving animals to adapt to the narrow confines of reservations, and ensuring that, after several generations, humans can still reverse this modification through the virus, resulting in offspring identical to those before transformation.

Biological entities taken away by Yawgmoth prior to the Ichigo infection incident basically have to undergo such modifications to ensure these animals can adapt to confined indoor environments comfortably.

Originally, this task could have been completed on Earth. The Secluded Crane Knight Order has the relevant equipment. However, the oversight here is just too stringent. The Secluded Crane Knight Order undertakes some direct tasks from Yawgmoth, being quite fully booked themselves. Their related instruments are always operating under high load, not to mention having to endure online surveillance.

Earth is King Aqini’s territory.

The Six Dragons Sect would rather manufacture the genome on Mars and send it to Earth, bypassing King Aqini.

Yet unexpectedly, the biological material escorted by Kanhara Kotoba was contaminated due to a container breach—precisely because of an earlier encounter with the Twelfth Martial God.

Instability within the squid community is likely another issue.

——Hopefully, those cephalopods can execute the task normally this time...

——If they deliberately delay...

The Six Dragons’ Holy Lord assessed the continuously analyzed intelligence concerning squid activities, the light in the prosthetic eye flickering unpredictably.

"Holy Lord..." a subordinate suddenly addressed the Holy Lord, "The squid’s behavior seems odd."

"Odd? What happened?"

"A portion of the squid group is swimming under the submarine, appearing very close to that ’Zodiac’ unit..."

The Holy Lord vaguely sensed something was amiss. He instructed, "Switch the monitors over to take a look."

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

Xiang Shan could feel the chains on him trembling. The strength of these hastily made chains wasn’t very high, mainly serving as a restraint to ensure he couldn’t dodge incoming torpedoes while breaking free. At the moment, his thoughts were still simple.

——These squids do have some skills.

Until he saw a squid swimming toward the seabed along the direction under his feet.

That squid had lost all its arms. Squids propel using terminal fins and funnel jet propulsion, losing their arms doesn’t prevent movement, only makes balance harder to manage. The squid’s escape speed was still swift.

But Xiang Shan, looking at the squid’s arm stumps, sliced like feathers in disarray as if by an apprentice with a knife, quickly thought of something else.

These guys now depend on the thorn-like prosthetic limbs on their arms for filtering food.

Without their arms, it means they can’t get food. Right now, there’s nothing in the sea they can eat.

And they can’t go back to the Six Dragons Sect either.

[Where are you planning to go?] Xiang Shan asked the squids using optical signals.

But no squid answered him. After most of their arms were injured and broken, the squids simply left, heading into the deep sea without looking back.

They wouldn’t directly venture into shallower waters, where temperatures are higher, and plankton more plentiful, because bypassing the submarine risks being captured on the Six Dragons Sect’s surveillance. They were only slightly using Xiang Shan’s prosthetic body for cover—not even completely—dragging their severely damaged bodies into the deeper sea.

Soon, the Soul appeared before Xiang Shan, saying, "The progress is more than halfway done..."

"What are you doing?" Xiang Shan exclaimed in shock, "Why is it like this...?"

"This is our only means now. Hopefully, there will still be enough whole squids to leave with you when the time comes," the Soul sighed thus.

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

The Holy Lord’s eyes widened.

He indeed saw some squids, following Xiang Shan’s prosthetic body, slip into a blind spot of surveillance, coming right before Xiang Shan.

——Is this a coincidence? Or...

The Holy Lord raised a hand: "All troops ready, enter combat readiness... Issue orders to the squids, instruct the squid group to stop activities immediately!"

Orders were rapidly issued, as Six Dragons Sect personnel methodically executed the Holy Lord’s commands.

But soon, the Holy Lord saw on the surveillance a large group of squids leaving the submarine, entering the waters.

Along with it came a subordinate’s bewildered report: "Holy Lord, those squids are acting very strangely, they are now..."