The Demon Cult's Sinister Shadow

When the tremendous bang sounded behind him, Geliad realized that he might be finished.

Xiang Shan's speed was only slightly below the speed of sound. By the time the sound reached Geliad's auditory receptors, he no longer had time to react.

A machine gun behind Geliad suddenly raised its barrel. Xiang Shan reached out with both hands, gripped the muzzle, and used the force to sidestep. Flames burst from the barrel, but the bullets merely grazed past Xiang Shan.

Seizing the opportunity, Xiang Shan swept his leg like the wind and kicked the machine gun apart.

Geliad let out a roar. A hatch opened above his tracks, ejecting a cylindrical bomb.

The moment Xiang Shan saw the projectile, he had intended to retreat immediately. But reason instantly overwhelmed instinct.

Geliad's head was positioned directly between Xiang Shan and that "bomb." If it truly could harm Xiang Shan, then Geliad would only be hurt worse.

Of course, it was not impossible that this tank's brain was not located inside its skull. But that possibility was unlikely.

When Geliad had used short-range force just now, he had fully activated his internal power system in order to gain instantaneous acceleration. Xiang Shan had clearly sensed the location and type of Geliad's power system.

Like Will Grand Dog, Geliad could not have placed his brain too close to his chassis.

Therefore, it could not be a bomb.

Just as that thought crossed Xiang Shan's mind, the cylinder abruptly burst apart, and a mass of silver light spread outward.

Geliad's thoughts nearly froze. Behind him was his blind spot, beyond the reach of either his guns or shield-arm. This had never been much of a flaw for him. A Gunfire Way martial artist was supposed to destroy enemies from a thousand paces away, or within a hundred paces from five steps away.

If he failed to kill an enemy within that range, then it should have meant his defeat.

And a shot of metal-particle aerosol was already his final means of retaliation.

The silver light drifted toward Xiang Shan. Yet at that moment, Xiang Shan seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

He released the seal on his cooling system.

A sharp sound rang out within his body. Superheated steam immediately erupted from the many gaps in Xiang Shan's outer armor.

It was boiling coolant.

He had released the pressure in the cooling system.

The coolant formed high pressure within Xiang Shan's body, creating a pressure difference between inside and outside. The aerosol was slowly forced away.

Metal-particle aerosol was nicknamed "Iron Blossom." Some called it "Flash Dust," and some even jokingly referred to it as a "Good Wife."

Metal-particle aerosol generally consisted of nanoscale metal particles mixed with high-pressure gas and dispersed by special means.

It was called a "Good Wife" because it had so many uses. It was truly essential equipment for home, travel, and chivalrous deeds.

First, metal particles were excellent conductors. If they entered circuitry, they could easily cause short circuits. Throwing the stuff into a building's electrical system could paralyze an entire area. Second, because metal particles were good conductors, they could form a structure in the air similar to a Faraday cage, allowing them to resist electromagnetic pulse weapons. Furthermore, their refractive properties could effectively defend against laser weapons. Mixed evenly with a powerful oxidizer, they could also be used as explosives in enclosed spaces. If one had suitable heating tools, they could even be used to repair minor damage to outer armor.

Most importantly, it was cheap. At times, early knights had even used it as smoke bombs.

Coolant gushed from the gaps in Xiang Shan's outer armor, then mixed with the metal-particle aerosol and condensed once more into droplets.

Geliad, meanwhile, stared at the shadow on the ground.

Behind him, the figure amid the swirling mist looked like an immortal, like a saint.

With a clang, Xiang Shan seemed to tap the armor on Geliad's back with his finger.

Then came a continuous series of clang clang clang clang.

Geliad knew that Xiang Shan was probably determining the alloy composition of his outer armor, adjusting the high-frequency vibration waves used to destroy its crystal lattice—just as he had done to that final bullet. But Geliad still adjusted his auditory receptors and blocked out the sound.

He screamed, "Spare me!"

In this age, every line of code could harbor malice.

No prosthetic body was truly defenseless. Open-source code was riddled with backdoors, and even tutorials found online could contain hidden traps.

Even if one rewrote the underlying code oneself, there was no guarantee that no security vulnerabilities had been overlooked.

From the intelligence Leif had conveyed at the end, Xiang Shan's Inner Power had reached an inconceivable level. He could very well have mastered backdoors beyond Geliad's imagination, then used overwhelming Inner Power to ravage him.

"Spare me, hero, spare me!" Geliad screamed. "I was once a knight too! I had no choice! It was loyalty! Loyalty drove me here! I wasn't... Give me a chance! For the sake of who I used to be, give me..."

"Don't worry. I have no interest in tormenting enemies," Xiang Shan said calmly. "I'll give you a quick death."

As he spoke, he pressed his entire palm against the outer armor atop Geliad's head.

High-frequency vibration waves surged forth. The crystalline lattice structure of the metal was repeatedly jolted by mechanical waves of the proper wavelength, causing instant metal fatigue. The metal armor shattered like a biscuit.

Xiang Shan had no interest whatsoever in intelligence. Anything he wanted to know, he could dig out of Geliad's storage devices himself.

Mechanical waves burst from his hand, smashing through the alloy as he moved to take Geliad's life.

But to Xiang Shan's surprise, there was no electronic equipment beneath the outer armor.

A pink shadow suddenly lunged out. It seemed extremely soft, completely absorbing the mechanical waves emitted from the fingertips of Xiang Shan's prosthetic hand. The pink thing abruptly contracted, forming two tentacles that bound Xiang Shan.

Hahahaha! This is my reversal move!

Geliad instantly activated his engine.

These cephalopod-like tentacles had only recently been cultivated by him. They were part of a newly developed project by the mysterious Demon Cult. The year before last, someone claiming to be an apostle of the Demon Cult had come to him, leaving behind precious weapons and secret manuals in an attempt to recruit him. These tentacles were one of the Demon Cult's newly developed methods.

Geliad knew that he had become an experimental subject for the Demon Cult, helping them test their latest scientific achievements.

But that was precisely what wasteland thugs craved.

Apart from an exceptionally thick nervous system and the mantle, the interiors of these two tentacles contained only muscle tissue. Like ordinary soft-bodied creatures, this muscle tissue could be spread thin and concealed beneath the armor's inner layer, taking up almost no space while instead acting as a buffer layer.

Once the armor shattered, the tentacles immediately burst out.

Certainly, metallized muscle tissue could not be stronger than steel. But knights these days rarely had experience dealing with flesh. Methods like high-frequency waves were all designed around fighting enemies in metal shells. Soft muscle tissue could absorb high-frequency mechanical waves and was actually less easily damaged than metal.

Xiang Shan's lightweight prosthetic body weighed only around three hundred kilograms. It was very light. These two tentacles could lift him. As long as Xiang Shan's hands and feet left Geliad's body and lost their support, Geliad could use short-range force to fling Xiang Shan away.

Even if these tentacles were completely ruined after this battle, it would be worth it!

Humanoid prosthetic bodies were far inferior to vehicle bodies like Geliad's when it came to long-distance pursuit.

Like this... it will definitely work...

A burst of agonizing pain.

Blue blood splattered. Xiang Shan's five fingers had already torn through the tentacle.

At that instant, Xiang Shan suddenly remembered something else.

He had studied "how to efficiently injure flesh."

Yes, it sounded absurd. Prosthetic bodies held an overwhelming advantage over flesh, and cybernetic martial artists seemed able to kill natural humans with just a few punches and kicks. But Xiang Shan seemed to have fought enemies of flesh and blood before, under the assumption that "these people were protected by enormous armed forces, so there might only be one chance to strike."

He knew how to use strength more effectively to tear flesh apart.

"AAAAAH..." Geliad screamed and viciously rammed backward.

Xiang Shan's prosthetic hand thrust forward with force.

This time, victory and defeat truly seemed decided. Xiang Shan felt that he had destroyed some soft tissue made of accumulated proteins.

He reached upward, his fingers tearing through the brain-machine barrier. He yanked out the storage device and martial arts chip, then immediately retreated and kept a certain distance from Geliad.

No one said a cybernetic body could contain only one brain, nor did anyone say a cybernetic martial artist could not install a "revenge program" far from the brain.

Of course, self-destruction was out of the question. Every idiot who gave their body a function like "if I die, self-destruct" had their self-destruction mechanism triggered in advance by Inner Power experts.

Still, Xiang Shan felt that someone with Inner Power as mediocre as Geliad's might not know that trick, so he might have installed a self-destruction function for himself.

He kept a distance of thirty meters and observed carefully.

There was no second brain, no artificial intelligence control, and no self-destruction.

Nor did a missile come flying at him.

Only then did Xiang Shan walk toward Geliad.

"Military martial arts..." Xiang Shan sighed as he looked at Geliad's prosthetic body.

Unlike ordinary concepts such as "Inner Power" and the "Outer School," military martial arts emphasized specialized prosthetic bodies rather than algorithms. This was once a martial art created by the rulers of the world to deal with knight uprisings.

"And now even bandits can use War Path martial arts? What bizarre course of development did this world go through?" Xiang Shan shook his head, then climbed onto Geliad's back and tore open the wound pierced through by his own arm.

At that moment, he badly wanted to use the expression of a frown to convey his confusion.