Chapter 43 Supersonic Movement Technique

The physicist Albert Einstein once said that different scales have different laws.

Every theory has its scope of applicability, and any correct theory, if pushed even a single step beyond its limits, turns into a fallacy.

Of course, Einstein originally meant the chasm between quantum mechanics and general relativity. The world encountered by quantum mechanics has gravitational interactions so weak they can be neglected, whereas in the vast universe faced by relativity, gravity is the great force that distorts spacetime and governs everything. Describing the "macroscopic" and the "microscopic," the "low-speed" and the "high-speed," requires different theories.

Here, "high-speed" is also understood in the physicist's sense—meaning "sublight speed."

This refers to the highly distilled theories condensed by human wisdom.

As for human intuitive experience, it is often even more fragile than theory.

The "supersonic" world faced by a cyber martial artist already exceeds the comprehension of human intuitive experience, and goes beyond what evolutionary instincts have prepared us for.

Xiang Shan possessed no vector thrusters, so the first problem he faced was the reprimand of fluid mechanics.

"Fluid" is a concept created by humans themselves. Nature does not dictate that an object must be a fluid or a rigid body. On the contrary, many objects possess elements of both fluids and rigid bodies simultaneously, exhibiting different properties under different conditions.

First is "the duration over which force is applied." If you forcefully strike the surface of water, your hand will feel pain. If you fall from a high altitude, the surface of water is no different from a concrete floor to you, because your impact velocity is greater than the rate at which the water flows and dissipates force. At the moment your hand contacts the water's surface, it exhibits not "fluid characteristics," but "rigid body characteristics."

The reverse is also true. Many things recognized by humans as rigid bodies can exhibit fluid characteristics over vast expanses of time. Take rocks, for instance. Geological movement is the flow of rocks. To an immortal observer, mountain ranges flow just like water.

Second is "yielding." Some substances exhibit fluid characteristics under immense external force. If you grasp a lump of modeling clay and squeeze it hard, the clay will ooze out between your fingers. This is because the "shear resistance" of the clay "yields" to the force.

Hsiang Shan's running was just like this.

He needed to continuously kick the ground with massive force, but this force far exceeded the shear resistance the ground could possess. No matter how hard the earth was, under this level of footwork, it was as spineless as mud. At such high speeds, the sensation of stepping on the ground was close to stepping on water.

The air in front of him, however, was precisely the opposite. He was simply too fast; the air had no time to "escape." The front of his body continuously collided with the air, passing through this mass of deformed gas before the reaction force could manifest. Running through the air was a task even more difficult than a natural human pugilist throwing punches amidst ocean tides.

—Technique...

Xiang Shan roared continuously in the depths of his mind.

He remembered this technique.

The angle of his strike against the ground could not be too small, because the outer armor of his legs was not specialized, and the friction coefficient was insufficient. Rumor had it that only materials capable of allowing a person to walk vertically on a wall could support supersonic footwork without vector thrusters. To Hsiang Shan, his current pair of feet felt as though they had been coated with a layer of lubricating oil...

The angle of his strike against the ground could not be too large either; if he accidentally leaped into the air, changing direction mid-air was never as convenient as staying on the ground. Once his feet left the ground, he would be reduced to a target for the enemy's gunfire.

His speed had to be fast, because the faster he moved, the lower the probability of being injured...

Speed could not be maintained at its absolute maximum at all times. A constant, unchanging velocity would easily allow others to anticipate his movements...

Xiang Shan's right hand shot out, striking forward at a speed neither too fast nor too slow. The overlapping layers of air formed precisely a barrier of "shock waves." In that single split second, Xiang Shan's hand pressed against an invisible wall, altering his trajectory out of thin air.

If the speed of his punch had been just a fraction faster, the lateral shock wave resistance would not even have been able to keep up with his arm.

Three bullets brushed past his hips in succession.

—Trajectory spotted...

—The next round... the correction parameters should be...

—Decelerating...

A bullet slammed into the soil directly in front of him. Through ultra-high-speed vision, he watched the earth roll and churn like waves.

—Accelerating again!

Atomized fuel was injected into the thermal engine housed within his chest. The liquefied alcohol, thoroughly mixed with the atmosphere and oxidizer, burned completely in an instant.

Unlike batteries, which maintain a constant maximum output, every heat engine created by humans—including but not limited to steam engines, steam turbines, gas turbines, internal combustion engines, and jet engines—relies on the power of "explosion." They use the structure of a "piston" to contain the "explosion" of atomized fuel, harnessing what would otherwise be an unbridled detonation.

Because these were not items necessary for sustaining life, there was no need to consider smooth output, no need to consider endurance, and no need to consider the operational lifespan of the engine itself... The efficiency of this engine infinitely approached the theoretical limit of thermal engine efficiency.

This was precisely the kind of gear a martial artist used.

The mechanical structure channeled the concentrated "explosion" directly into the mechanism at his hips. The cyborg's physical structure differed markedly from that of a natural human; there was no "pull one hair and move the whole body" limitation, and every part of the body could generate force independently. A martial artist could choose to channel all their explosive force into a single unified stream, or they could opt for coordinated multi-point generation.

Xiang Shan's speed suddenly surged violently.

Consequently, seven bullets fell behind him!

Xiang Shan felt like a sprinting wild wolf, like a runaway motorcycle. The explosions between the pistons felt like his heartbeat, and kinetic energy was his blood. If he had to describe it using tactile sensations of the flesh, it felt more like someone had shoved an entire motorcycle straight into his chest.

This was fitting... because his fury was truly rampaging unchecked!

Directly ahead lay the wreckage of a warship's outer armor. This was one of the few things that could serve as "cover." Without reducing his speed, Xiang Shan charged straight toward it. The immense velocity pinned him against a plane nearly perpendicular to the ground.

His prosthetic legs heavily trod upon the wall of this wreckage, running along its side.

Five kilometers away, Geliade lost track of Xiang Shan's whereabouts. The drones could not keep pace with that fellow's movements. There were no drones in the immediate vicinity of that sector. Yet he did not cease firing; instead, he shot twenty bullets toward each of the two flanks of that armored wreckage. The formation composed of these bullets would fly through the air for several seconds before biting into whatever target might appear.

—Using that section of ruined wall to swiftly change direction? Is he trying to deduce my sniper position?

This was an asymmetric battle. Geliade was extremely confident. The long-range advantage of firearms dao was also dictated by mathematics. He only needed to move the muzzle of his gun by a few millimeters or even a fraction of a micron, and the impact point of the bullet would undergo a massive shift. No matter how fast a close-combat martial artist ran, it was impossible for them to outpace the speed at which a firearms martial artist could shift their barrel. The opponent could only rely on such speed variations to disrupt his predictive calculations. Meanwhile, he could leisurely and continuously adjust his muzzle, weaving a trap of death with his bullets.

The garbage-heap terrain of this sector was complex, and areas suitable for sniper positions were more than just one. Geliade had even considered this when deploying his drone formation, intentionally letting a small fraction of drones hover in irrelevant positions so as to allow the enemy to misjudge his actual location.

—As long as that punk makes a miscalculation in his prediction, I will gain about ten seconds... No, even before that, choosing to rely on this vertical wall surface to accelerate and turn was a blunder. The moment your hands and feet leave the ground, the moment you stick your head out, you won't have a shred of opportunity to dodge.

Yet at this exact instant, a point of silver light flashed within his field of vision.

The armored wreckage, resembling a city wall, collapsed entirely as if struck by an artillery shell. Yet in that brief span of time, Xiang Shan merely ran diagonally for a short distance before vaulting over the top of the wall, catching the edge of the armor plating with both hands, leveraging the momentum to twist his body, tucking his knees to his chest, and tumbling head over heels toward the ground.

"What..."

Gunfire rang out once more. Yet the moment the bullet left the muzzle, Geliade knew this shot had missed. The bullet would pass over Xiang Shan's current position in a few seconds. The gunner immediately corrected the error, deploying a tight web of bullets across the man's advancing path.

Then, the wreckage and Xiang Shan landed almost simultaneously. Immediately afterward, the billowing dust surging into the sky completely severed Geliade's line of sight.

Next, however, every single bullet missed entirely.

—What's going on?

The drone swarm failed to capture any trace of departure. That fellow seemed to have intentionally decelerated, leaving the dust without any significant signs of being disturbed. For the first time, Geliade appeared somewhat anxious. Dust was practically his natural enemy.

He had no way of knowing whether he had scored a hit or not; he could only fire bullets one by one, sealing off every possible path.

In this era, even sniper rifles could boast a high rate of firing.

Suddenly, however, a dark shadow flashed across his field of vision. Geliade startled, immediately switching his view from the distant panorama to a wide-angle lens.

He saw the overall flow of the dust.

That fellow... had only just begun to accelerate. He had lingered in that spot for several precious seconds, and was only now starting to accelerate again!

Bullet after bullet landed directly ahead of Xiang Shan. Those were the rounds Geliade had fired several seconds prior. That martial artist was actually charging forward all the way by stepping on the tiny craters formed by those bullets, galloping ahead as if riding the crest of waves?