Returning It

"I have only one question. In this day and age, does inviting someone to join always come with the intent to kill?"

Hearing that, Leif Sjelett could not help but sigh. "Looks like negotiations have broken down!"

What Xiang Shan had said was a line commonly used by righteous wanderers of the martial world. Once those words had been spoken, it meant Xiang Shan could not possibly go back with them.

Leif still rested the staff on his shoulder. The difference was that he held it upright against one shoulder, both hands gripping the tail end of the long staff as he strolled forward casually, looking completely relaxed.

But this was the most classic opening stance of Greatsword Swordsmanship. For a master like him, a "long staff" alone could produce the effect of "cutting." Anyone who underestimated Leif's seemingly casual movements would only end up split in two by the descending steel staff.

SSC Style Three Weapons, One Staff inherently contained transformations of three different weapons. The long staff in Leif's hand had also been modified, filled with solid metallic fluid composed of nanoparticles. These fluids could shift according to the electromagnetic field Leif created, simulating the different weight distributions of different weapons.

In almost an instant, Xiang Shan calculated the possible attack strategies Leif might use, as well as the attack paths of every strategy. He stared intently at Leif, calculating a safe distance while slowly backing away on both hands and feet.

In terms of prosthetic output, he was unquestionably at a disadvantage...

—With this prosthetic's current shock-absorption systems, one hit from that staff and his brain would turn to mush...

At that instant, Leif's eyes widened.

A faint red glow. On the infrared spectrum, an immense amount of data turned into electromagnetic waves and crashed into Xiang Shan's cybernetic eyes. Jingbao Kui's formidable Inner Power clung to those electromagnetic waves, waiting only for the cybernetic eyes to transcode it before charging straight in and destroying the enemy's driver chip.

—Won!

At that moment, both Leif and Jingbao Kui had the same thought.

Then Jingbao Kui froze.

He felt nothing.

A martial artist's Inner Power was not merely code. In order to manipulate Inner Power in the blink of an eye, chivalrous warriors also mapped concrete sensations onto those code settings. Every master of Inner Power could describe its flow through specific sensations.

It was not the feeling of "hitting something and being blocked, then bouncing back"—the sensation one got when striking an ordinary firewall. But the guy on the other side was completely different.

He had not even sensed the existence of a firewall... nor had he sensed anything that could be executed afterward.

If the chip's upload records had not been undeniable, he might even have thought that he had not attacked at all.

But that guy clearly had cybernetic eyes too... Even if he understood Inner Power, had a firewall, and could cycle a Lesser Celestial Circuit, it should not have resulted in absolutely no sensation...

—Could superior Inner Power really conceal itself so thoroughly?

In that very instant of thought, Jingbao Kui suddenly sensed something. At that moment, extra data entered his body through his connection with Leif... Just for a brief instant, the downloaded data suddenly increased by several MB.

Xiang Shan, meanwhile, was in a daze as an indescribable sensation washed over him. A segment of foreign code had not passed through his compiler. Somehow, as if possessed, he reconstructed the code his cybernetic eyes had just downloaded, repackaged it, and sent it back.

As though this move had long since become instinct...

Something he refused to forget, even after forgetting who he was.

Like dirt pulled up along with a radish, more memories were stirred awake.

—Hey, brother, how about I teach you three moves?

—Ah... Wait, these three moves?

—Think they're weak? Let me tell you, Xiang Shan. If you master these three moves, then unless your enemy's hacking skills are at least half as good as mine, you won't be at a disadvantage against anyone.

—I mean, where am I supposed to find an enemy who's even half as good as you? In my hands, these three moves won't be able to show their true power, will they?

—Heh heh, you'll never need to unleash these three moves' true power in your life! They're dragon-slaying techniques... In that case, let's call them the Three Dragon-Slaying Techniques!

The Three Dragon-Slaying Techniques included Neglecting One's Own House, a move for quickly searching one's own software for abnormal data; Returning Their Own Way, a move that did not execute foreign code, but directly scrambled, packaged, and sent suspicious data back; and Ten Thousand Paths, No Trace, a move for erasing traces of one's own intrusion.

These three moves were neither methods nor principles. To that godlike programmer, they were mere trifling tricks. Practicing them could not grant even the slightest glimpse into the essence of programming. No matter how perfectly one learned them, they had limits, while the way of programming was something that approached infinity within the finite.

Yet within these three "techniques" lay wisdom that transcended technique and approached the Way.

Xiang Shan had merely memorized the three moves through countless exchanges of Inner Power—though he had died once, he still remembered the feeling.

He did not remember how many times he had done something similar. He only knew that after he repackaged that segment of code, its creator could neither see it, touch it, nor manipulate it.

Unless the other party's Inner Power surpassed his own.

Leif sensed that something was wrong. In that instant just now, he had felt something off about his vision.

He had lost several frames of footage.

No one saw that, in the instant of attack and defense, Xiang Shan's pupils dilated as he projected several entirely different QR codes onto the surface of Leif's cybernetic eyes in the infrared spectrum. While those QR codes caused Leif to lose visual frames, they also activated several ancient backdoors that had existed for more than two hundred years, hidden within the common knowledge of modern people.

Defenses designed against ordinary "witnessing" were utterly powerless before something on this higher level.

The malicious code Jingbao Kui had originally sent out was stuffed back in through the wide-open gap.

Then that stream of Inner Power circulated through Leif's chip, transformed again, and sent itself into Jingbao Kui's body.

This was a sign that Jingbao Kui's emotions had become abnormal. But Leif did not know why Jingbao Kui had fallen into such a state.

Leif: [Jingbao Kui? What the hell are you doing?]

Jingbao Kui did not reply until several seconds later. In truth, it was only after discovering that his computing resources were being constantly consumed that he realized what the other party had done.

Jingbao Kui: [The other side is an expert. End this battle quickly.]

Leif did not understand. [Why? (#Confused)]

Jingbao Kui flew into a rage. [It's my command! He injected my command into our prosthetic bodies, understand? We'll end up just like that swordsman from earlier! Understand? Idiot!]

Leif: [Your command? Make it stop!]

[The guy on the other side is an expert! An expert! I can't undo it! Can't undo it!] Jingbao Kui raged. [I can only use Inner Power to protect the most important combat processes in both of us and minimize the waste of computing resources! But even so, you only have fifteen minutes! After fifteen minutes, the driver chips will begin degrading from excessive heat. Three more minutes after that, the driver chips will burn out! We'll shut down! Our only way out is to smash this bastard apart within those fifteen minutes, then use the last bit of time to flee somewhere these townspeople can't find us and wait for the boss to rescue us!]

"I fucking thought you were an expert!" Leif roared. He gripped the steel staff with both hands, shifting from the opening stance of a greatsword to that of a long staff. With a low crouching staff smash, he ground his feet against the ground, fully bent his left leg, extended his right leg to lower his body, and drove the steel staff viciously toward Xiang Shan with the downward force of his prosthetic body.

Like the falling blade of a guillotine.

When Xiang Shan broke free from his memories, his legs had already carried him past Leif's waist.

Just now, Xiang Shan had been too focused on his memories and lost the initiative. He had not yet remembered his true Inner Power. If he had been in perfect condition, Leif and Jingbao Kui should already have been implanted with all sorts of "parasites" while they were talking.

Before Xiang Shan landed, he adjusted his center of gravity, pressed both palms against the ground, and kicked the air with his left leg, twisting his direction midair. He landed on all fours, facing Leif.

Leif twisted his upper body, rotating his left hand inward and right hand outward. A returning spear thrust arrived like a shadow, aimed directly at Xiang Shan's head.

Even humans of the old era could pierce through another person's ribs without relying on a spearhead. Even without a spearhead attached to the steel staff, the kinetic force behind that thrust was real. If it struck him, the fragile biological brain would be shaken apart directly.

Xiang Shan had no sense of touch, but he could still feel the air shockwave striking his metal skull. He slammed both hands against the ground and pushed himself backward. Leif jerked his wrist, sending the steel staff spinning violently as it whistled in for a second thrust.

Xiang Shan sprang backward for the second time. By then, the spear's momentum had run out. Xiang Shan reached out with both hands to grab the steel staff, intending to follow the weapon and attack his enemy.

Then heaven and earth flipped.

Leif hooked Xiang Shan up with one sweep of his staff, grinding both feet into the ground as his legs exerted force. Violent power surged down the staff.

—Damn...

Xiang Shan realized that he seemed to have made some mistake born of inexperience. He seemed to have rarely challenged heavy prosthetic bodies with light ones; battles between bodies of equal class had been far more common. Heavy prosthetic bodies had vastly greater output than light ones, while light prosthetic bodies had far too little mass. No matter how powerful one's martial arts, a prosthetic body's mass would not increase out of thin air.

Against a prosthetic body of equal class, "stepping on the opponent's weapon" could indeed establish control. But that was impossible for a light prosthetic body against a heavy one.

His complete self would not have made such a mistake. But he had forgotten that.

Xiang Shan could not let go in midair, either. Force acted both ways. Without a Vector Thruster, he could not borrow force in the air. Once airborne, it was difficult for a martial artist to control his center of gravity and form a stable stance.

And for a cybernetic martial artist, gravitational acceleration was simply too slow. Before Xiang Shan hit the ground, his enemy would even have time to leisurely unleash a full Hundred-Crack Fist on him—one hundred solid blows. Xiang Shan, meanwhile, would be unable to organize an effective defense because his stance had been broken.

Leif used all the power in his body to smash the long staff, together with Xiang Shan, downward.

With a thunderous boom, dust flew everywhere. Cracks spread across the ground as if from an explosion.

There was no cliché rule of "smoke means no damage." Leif had already swung the long staff, using wind pressure to sweep away the dust.

Xiang Shan lay prone on a rooftop, his body still low. Only his left hand supported him while his right arm stayed behind his back. During the impact just now, Xiang Shan had repeatedly struck the ground with his hands and feet to cancel the impact's momentum, bouncing off it for leverage. Then he used the eaves as footing and rode the force onto the roof.

During that series of maneuvers, his right arm had taken a hit and seemed to have malfunctioned somehow.

Cybernetic people did not fear disability, but Xiang Shan feared that his arm might suddenly fail in the heat of battle, causing him to lose control of his center of gravity. So he simply abandoned that hand and stopped using it.

Leif raised the long staff above his head and chopped down like a madman. The air screamed as it tried to flee the steel staff's path, but the staff had already surpassed the extreme speed air could achieve in a fluid state. The air molecules behind crashed into those in front. Layer upon layer, they formed shockwaves as sharp as blades.

Before the staff even fell, the shockwave had already left marks on the building materials!