Chapter 64: Upgrade Plan

Although he held little hope, Xiang Shan still went to check the spot where the Steel Vulture had crashed.

He found no chip.

"The 'Steel Vulture'... I was just wondering what to do if the strength of his outer armor was too high for a rifle to pierce," Xiang Shan said, tapping the debris on the ground with his finger and letting out a sigh. "Just to be safe, I took him out with their organization's anti-aircraft autocannon. It's only natural that nothing dropped!"

Since he possessed the authorization of the Z Organization's leader, Xiang Shan could naturally command the automated weapons here. He had just invoked the anti-aircraft autocannon to execute Daniel.

As for little Edward, he had died under the gunfire of the Steel Vulture Daniel.

Xiang Shan had originally intended to put a few more rounds into him.

And so, the wilderness returned to a dead silence. Only the sound of the little girl weeping remained.

Yuki looked at the dead woman and the child, sighing softly. "Her mother is dead... She must be so heartbroken."

Xiang Shan looked at Yuki and said, "Don't project your own experiences onto—never mind."

"What?"

"I'm just advising you not to be too sad," Xiang Shan said. "You must have been reminded of your mother."

Yuki hadn't heard the final, grim exchange and assumed this little girl was the daughter of the deceased woman.

Yet, through the communication lines, Xiang Shan had intercepted Edward's final conversation.

Still... it wasn't necessarily important to tell Yuki. The kid was still young; if he were to hate the baby by association just because of her genetic heritage, that wouldn't be good either.

Xiang Shan said, "Dig a hole and bury her."

Yuki was stunned. "Bury... her? What is that?"

"Ah, that's right, I forgot. You people no longer have customs like this." Xiang Shan shook his head. "Scoop out a pit, place that lady's prosthetic body inside, and let nature decompose it. It's a sign of respect for the fact that she was once human."

Yuki nodded, understanding only vaguely, and began digging a hole in the ground with his hands.

As for Xiang Shan, he scavenged some sealing silicone from the bodies of other thugs and used it to roughly patch the horrifying wound on Emiko's occiput. Then, he turned the woman's body over and gently closed her eyes.

Even in her final moment, the woman's instinctive action had been to protect the infant.

"What a noble spirit, madam," Xiang Shan murmured, lowering his head. "I salute you. I will take responsibility for bringing that infant to a safe place."

Soon, a grave large enough for one person was dug. Xiang Shan picked up the woman's corpse. Not knowing what was happening, the toddler wailed frantically and kicked at Xiang Shan. Yuki had to pull the little girl away, while she struggled desperately.

Xiang Shan placed the woman's body into the grave.

By the time he finished filling it with earth, the toddler had cried herself to sleep.

Xiang Shan shook his head, turned around, and walked into the tunnel. "Keep up with me this time."

Yuki cradled the little girl and followed him in.

More than ten minutes later, they arrived at the base entrance closest to that gateway. However, this was not the motorcycle parking area, but another storage room. The heavy door was cracked open a fraction, radiating terrifying heat.

Xiang Shan waved a hand. "You two still have biological skin, so don't charge in there. Wait a few hours."

Yuki glanced left and right, noticing that the interior was littered with corpses. A considerable number of them were in stiff, distorted postures, having clearly endured something horrific.

In truth, after receiving Yuki's message, Xiang Shan had emerged through this very door. Next to it was the armory. Xiang Shan had casually grabbed some weapons from inside. He first stood far back in the deeper recesses and hurled metal aerosol bombs in this direction. High-density metal aerosol quickly flooded the entire space. A vast number of bandits suffered immediate short circuits, severely crippling everyone else's mobility.

Following closely behind were the bombs.

The explosions ignited the metal aerosol suspended in the air, triggering an even more massive blast.

That was how Xiang Shan had carved out a path.

Though Yuki did not understand what had transpired, he nodded in awe.

Xiang Shan dashed swiftly through the high-temperature zone, casually fanning himself with his hand. As he passed the armory, several grenades were suddenly hurled out from within. Without breaking stride, Xiang Shan merely glanced at them, braced one leg on the ground, and used the other to kick the grenades right back. Then, with a powerful push from his trailing leg, he rolled along the floor to evade the direct line of fire facing the armory doorway.

Immediately afterward, a chain of explosions shook the earth.

"Four more dead. Let me see... there should be around... twenty to thirty people left in here?"

In any case, they were no longer a threat.

Thinking to himself, Xiang Shan strolled through the base while monitoring the security feeds. He intended to clean up the loose ends before Yuki entered.

After all, it wasn't great for a child to witness R-rated scenes.

Ten minutes later, Xiang Shan returned to the training room where the Little Poison Insect was located. Without wasting words, he directly ordered the chip to eject from the Little Poison Insect's skull. Xiang Shan retrieved the chip and memory storage, then focused on reading the thoughts recorded over the past half-hour.

He sighed.

It seemed the Little Poison Insect had not lied to him. That kind of... that kind of devastation was indeed irreversible.

Without further ado, he casually scooped out the Little Poison Insect's brain, haphazardly inserted some flexible electrodes, and tossed it into a vat of preservative fluid.

Perhaps this exceptionally lucky internal arts master would curse the cellular damage resistance that genetic modification technology had bestowed upon New Humans.

With this, the Z Organization was officially destroyed.

Xiang Shan walked up to another still-living brain. He had no idea whether any consciousness remained inside. Yet, such irreversible modifications could only yield distorted agony.

He pressed his palm against the glass container and triggered high-intensity ultrasound.

Intense ultrasound could create localized pressure differences within the liquid, generating massive numbers of micro-bubbles that formed and collapsed instantaneously, thereby pulverizing the cells suspended inside.

In a matter of mere seconds, that brain seemed to dissolve entirely into the nutrient solution.

"I'm sorry," Xiang Shan whispered to the emulsified liquid.

One by one, he granted release to the remaining brains.

Then, with a single punch, he shattered the storage device that Fierce Kui had worn on his back.

That was the "collective memory" of the Z Organization.

"Damn it." Amidst the empty, pitch-black room, Xiang Shan growled to himself, "Technology has no will... technology has no will... damn it... technology has no will..."

Merely viewing the memories of Leif and Galiard hadn't given him such a visceral understanding of the underworld's perversion.

Yet, after wiping out the stronghold, he understood. He understood completely.

This world was a colossal mistake, and the existence of the underworld was merely a tiny microcosm of that error.

The "shared memories" used by the bandits to propagate themselves shared the exact same technological roots as the techniques used by chivalrous heroes to exchange martial arts experiences. And the predecessor of this technology was a kind of "learning technology" aimed at cyborgs—a technique designed to "reform the education industry" by injecting knowledge directly into the brain.

Xiang Shan's arms trembled.

Humanity ought to have relied on such technology to lift more people from the "class in itself" into the "class for itself"...

—Strange, why am I so angry...

—Strange... strange... strange...

"Dammit!" Xiang Shan suddenly grabbed the Little Poison Insect's mutilated corpse and hurled it violently against the wall.

If a twisted individual used such technology to record their own distorted emotions...

This was a form of spiritual HIV.

You had to admit, HIV's contagiousness was actually quite poor—a disease that required the exchange of bodily fluids to spread would be beaten down to the dirt in terms of transmission rates by pneumonia and hepatitis. Yet, it remained terrifying nonetheless. What HIV attacked was the immune system itself. Once a human contracted HIV, the chances of self-healing were virtually zero.

The same applied to underworld memories. What it destroyed was personality itself.

Yet this technology was never meant to be used for such atrocities.

No... this perversion didn't stop there, either.

Cyborg modification technology was not meant to turn human beings into tools. It was a technology meant for humanity to conquer all diseases, all innate limitations, and all physical defects.

Xiang Shan pressed his hands to his head. "No, even the technique of 'martial arts' is deformed..."

With so many military technologies in the world that were simpler than "cyborgs throwing punches," why had this world instead become a world of martial arts?

Geek culture was clearly born alongside an open-source ethos that emphasized sharing, so why had hacker technology—once elevated to the realm of internal arts—managed to eradicate the open-source spirit almost entirely?

"Where on earth did it all go wrong..."

"What era am I truly from? What happened during the time I was asleep?"

……………………………………………………………………

When Yuki saw Xiang Shan again, several hours had passed.

Yuki didn't know what had happened; he only relied on their days together to read the body language of Xiang Shan... and deduced that his master didn't seem happy at all.

"Master... you seem..."

"In a good mood?" Xiang Shan replied as he gathered scrap metal from the floor. "Ah, because there's really a lot of resources here. I feel like my prosthetic body is going to reach the next level this day. Hmm, give me a few days' time, and I can be reborn, swapping out for a much stronger prosthesis."

Xiang Shan muttered as he sorted through the salvage.

After a moment, he stood up and said, "The 'Donkey' has arrived. You keep sorting through the trash here, finding those prosthetic pieces or equipment that aren't blown to bits. I'm going out for a bit."

This could also be considered a foundational skill for a chivalrous hero. If one didn't understand the design logic of prosthetic bodies, one wouldn't even be able to "listen to force" (Ting Jin). "Disrupting the center of gravity" was likewise built upon a certain understanding of prosthetic anatomy.

Yuki nodded, enduring his discomfort as he set off to search for prosthetic parts that weren't too severely damaged.

Before long, Xiang Shan led the "Donkey" over.

"All right, the tasks ahead of us are still heavy," Xiang Shan declared. "Replacing the spine, designing the prosthetics, repairing the prosthetic limbs, crafting a skull... Oh right, and giving the 'Donkey' an upgrade. It's best if we can get it all done within four days."

Yuki was startled. "So rushed? We could just take our time upgrading in this base."

Xiang Shan nodded. "Nonsense. There are still so many underworld strongholds out in these lands. Slaughtering them one by one takes time."