Chapter 42: The Martial Art of Extreme Visual Range

Upon seeing the drone, Hsiang Shan felt an instinctive urge to shoot it down.

Yet the very instant he leaped into the air, a profound sense of foreboding washed over him.

—Bullets...

If propelled by gunpowder, a bullet's muzzle velocity might reach three thousand meters per second. If driven by electromagnetic force, seven to eight thousand meters per second was entirely possible—no, perhaps in this era, technology had advanced further, making it even faster. But the enemy's choice to use a drone for auxiliary targeting suggested that he had opted for "extreme sniping."

That fellow was positioned near the horizon. Five thousand to seven thousand meters away.

—Where is he...

His two prosthetic eyes independently scanned every direction. A bullet traveling at two thousand five hundred meters per second was undeniably fast, but compared to the speed of light at three hundred thousand kilometers per second, it was as good as "stationary." If a muzzle flash occurred, he would definitely see it.

—Where is he...

It would take about one to two seconds for the bullet to arrive here.

One or two seconds... to a cyber-martial artist, this duration felt practically "endless." But that assumed he could pinpoint the muzzle's location the exact moment the enemy fired, and only then make his evasion.

Besides, the enemy was also a martial artist, at least skilled enough to anticipate movements...

—Cannot find him...

—If that bastard is reading my actions, then my intended landing spot will undoubtedly have a bullet waiting for it... By now, that round is already in flight...

He could not crash this automaton and then land on his original trajectory. To do so would mean certain defeat.

Hsiang Shan was suspended in mid-air, seemingly devoid of any surface to push against. Yet for a cyber-martial artist, as long as there was "air," there was leverage to be found.

Hsiang Shan's legs unleashed force with maximum velocity.

The atmosphere was a fluid, much like water. But "fluid" was merely a concept invented by humans, a classification belonging strictly to the realm of mechanics. Nature did not label objects with tags like "fluid" or "rigid body."

Some substances that appeared fluid would, if subjected to a sufficiently rapid application of force, fail to "flow" in time, thereby exhibiting the characteristics of a "rigid body."

In a high-speed world, water was not "infinitely yielding"...

Nor was air!

A long-forgotten tactile sensation. Hsiang Shan felt as though he were plunging his legs into deep mud and sweeping them through.

The martial arts algorithms of the Bionic Fist adjusted the center of gravity of his prosthetic body once more. Hsiang Shan's legs found leverage within the realm of the sonic speed...

Treading upon the air...

"Boom," "Boom," "Boom."

Two explosive reports rang out almost simultaneously. Hsiang Shan walked upon the empty air, and the shockwaves generated by his prosthetic legs striking the atmosphere threw the propeller-driven drone off balance, sending it spinning down toward the opposite side.

Meanwhile, the other two explosions originated from the ground... Two small craters suddenly appeared in the earth, within which molten metal pooled, emitting a dull red glow.

"Hhahahahahaha!" Enoch laughed like a madman: "Boss, that's it, that's it! Kill this guy! Kill him!"

"Gun-kata..." If Hsiang Shan still possessed facial muscles and skin, his expression would undoubtedly have been grim.

He had just remembered something. He did not like Gun-kata.

In an era where information technology was monopolized by totalitarian powers, transmitting an idea or an emotion to another person was exceedingly difficult—far harder than it had been in the old days of oral tradition. Those wicked capitalists did not necessarily ban the truth outright. It was enough to surround the truth with countless true yet meaningless pieces of information alongside outright falsehoods, enough to control the minds of others.

That was why "Chivalry" had been designed as a force where "even a single person must keep resisting."

Yet Hsiang Shan loathed "collateral damage to innocent bystanders."

The blades and fists of a cyber-martial artist possessed a lethality that did not exceed the bullets of the old world. But compared to "bullets," "swords" and "fists" had one distinct advantage.

The very instant a bullet left the muzzle, it became entirely uncontrollable.

One could not interfere with a fired round, nor could one guarantee whether another human being happened to be in the path of its trajectory. The sheer range of firearms made them dangerously prone to harming the innocent.

In this regard, even "poison" carried a lower probability of collateral damage than a bullet.

The earliest modern firearms had no need to consider such matters. They appeared exclusively on the battlefield, a place where "unrelated personnel" were presumed non-existent.

Yet combat between martial artists of equal caliber frequently evolved into a cycle of "evasion" and "probing." Could one truly guarantee that the bullets missing their mark during this process would not land on the heads of "bystanders"?

And right now, there were two of them here...

Upon landing, Hsiang Shan executed a roll, tipped off the ground with his toes, and leaped close to the earth once more.

A bullet struck the ground right behind him.

—Right now, there are two bystanders here...

Two bullets were evaded by him in succession.

—By now the rounds are already in flight, and based on this trajectory, his strategy will be...

Hsiang Shan dropped into a slide to dodge a third round.

He was closing in on the Mayor and Yulia.

The "Coercion" posture from the "Three Talents Gun-kata." This was the foundational template for all Gun-kata combat strategies, a set of tactics that used "missing the target" as a premise to herd the opponent into a "zone of inescapable doom."

—Therefore, following this trajectory...

Hsiang Shan consecutively evaded twelve bullets, flipped mid-air, activated the rotational mechanism of his pelvic ball-and-socket joint to generate power, and delivered a side kick to the Mayor's thigh [a visible prosthesis that would not incur catastrophic damage], flinging the Mayor out of the danger zone.

Then, Hsiang Shan's prosthetic leg stamped against the side of Yulia's vehicle.

Ever since his awakening, this man felt "despair" for the very first time.

He could not kick it away.

The weight disparity between his body and Yulia's prosthesis was simply too vast. Having been retrofitted with the propulsion systems of numerous martial artists, Hsiang Shan's explosive power surpassed Yulia's industrial prosthesis, but absolute mass could not be altered.

$F = ma$.

Action and reaction are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

These two parameters had already sealed the outcome. The result of his full-force flying kick against Yulia was merely that he himself would be violently repelled. Yulia's prosthetic frame would sustain damage, but her position would remain virtually unchanged.

Hsiang Shan crashed into a pile of scrap metal like a cannonball. Old machine parts, plastics, and synthetic fabrics were blasted into the air.

Before this debris could even fall back down, an orange flash of fire erupted from Yulia's flank.

"Hahahahaha..." Enoch's laughter cut off abruptly at that exact moment.

Then, a chain of explosions echoed within the scrap heap.

—Is he hunting for me?

Hsiang Shan, who had been rolling silently for three full rotations, flattened himself against the ground, watching the impact point of a shot that had narrowly missed him.

"The debris that flew up just now did indeed block his line of sight; being obstructed by this garbage, coupled with the trajectory of the bullets that can be deduced..."

Hsiang Shan was calculating mentally.

During these past few days, he had been conserving his strength in this junkyard, absorbing the memories of his enemies and deepening his understanding of this world. Along the way, he had also relied on his prosthetic eyes to map out the surrounding terrain.

The three-dimensional map of this scrap yard resided entirely within his chip.

He knew the approximate location of the enemy.

Taking the terrain into account... a minimum of four thousand meters, a maximum of ten thousand meters, across four distinct vantage points suitable for sniping.

Corrections could be made based on the movements of the drone swarm and the bullet trajectories.

If the enemy's rate of fire remained constant, he only needed to evade less than a thousand bullets along the way.

Yet a singular problem snagged within his train of thought.

—Was it because he calculated that after the seventh bullet I would certainly move to protect others... that the fourteenth round was deliberately aimed at the Mayor, and the fifteenth targeted Yulia?

—Has "forcing a hero to protect civilians" actually evolved into a mature tactical doctrine? And one written into the martial arts game theory?

His neurons felt as though they were burning. Hsiang Shan thought that the violent apparatus of the old era, even when reduced to the running dogs of unfortunate tyrants, would never sink to such despicable depths... The enemies he had once fought...

Why must these so-called thugs trample upon human lives in such a manner?

The fans on his shoulders began to spin at high velocity, pumping air directly into his chest cavity. The fuel in his lower abdomen used for adjusting his center of gravity was pressurized, surging upward to feed the propulsion components.

The internal combustion engine harvested from Will Grand Douglas roared, sounding like a heart beating with frantic intensity.

Lowering his posture.

—Human beings... those are human beings...

Blinding blue light leaked through the seams of the paint on Hsiang Shan's legs. The artificial muscles were packed to the bursting point with stored energy.

—How can one treat human lives with such utter contempt?

The next instant, the Mayor—the only one still conscious—widened his eyes in horror.

It was as if he were witnessing the passing of a hurricane.

……………………………………………………………………

—A master.

Griad experienced a long-forgotten thrill of dread.

The first two shots, initially intended as an "assassination," had been neutralized by the opponent's aerial treading technique. This was the final footage transmitted by the drone that had been blown away. There were no other drones in the vicinity, leaving him with only his own prosthetic eyes and the distant drone telemetry to execute the pressure of "Coercion."

All thirteen rounds of the "Coercion" volley had missed their mark. Although "Coercion" was a martial art designed around the premise of "missing," the web of death woven by the crossfire was indisputably real. During the execution of "Coercion," any single bullet possessed the potential to claim a life.

By the eighth—no, it must have been the seventh shot—Griad had deduced the opponent's personality. This fellow was likely a pedantic hero. Hence, the fourteenth and fifteenth rounds had been directed at other targets.

The woman seemed to be something the newcomer wanted. But that was irrelevant.

To force out this master's true strength—that was her actual value.

"Still a lightweight prosthesis..." Griad thought to himself as he watched the flash of fire erupting from the front of Yulia's vehicle.

Though he had acquired Leif's prosthesis, that martial artist had chosen not to mount his head upon it.

The swirling debris had obscured Griad's line of sight. Therefore, he had unleashed a barrage of rapid fire.

Yet that fellow shouldn't perish from something like this, right?

Then, he beheld the "blast wave."

He was coming.

He was coming.

That bastard intended to defeat him in close-quarters combat.

Griad was not particularly skilled at close combat. Encased in full armor, he had once narrowly defeated "Silver Driveshaft" Leif using the military martial art known as "Apocalypse Tank Style," but that had been his only triumph. He was not exceptionally strong in this domain. If Hsiang Shan's close-combat prowess surpassed Leif's, then Griad was undoubtedly doomed.

His chance of victory lay entirely along the path of Hsiang Shan's charge.

This was an exquisite adversary. He was a grandmaster of exterior martial arts, yet he also understood Gun-kata, recognized the strengths and weaknesses of firearm combat, and grasped the tactics of Gun-kata...

This was no longer a matter of abusing the weak through an information gap... This was...

—Only by defeating a combat martial artist who understands Gun-kata can I truly prove my path!