Legend of the Cyber Heroes-Chapter 1193 - 26: The Existence of the Seventh Martial God
On the spaceship, Winter’s limbs once again emitted sounds of being overwhelmed.
This civilian prosthetic body was barely enough to support Winter’s torso. Winter’s torso contained a large number of computing units, along with a matching power supply and cooling system. Moreover, Chaldea is an area with almost no gravity, and civilian arms and legs don’t even consider dealing with gravity.
"Sigh, where did Chaldea get so many trashy plastic prosthetics," Winter said with a tone full of annoyance.
Now is the final acceleration phase. Leonard’s small ship is accelerating along the return route, all the way to one three-thousandth of the speed of light. During this process, the Black Ship Righteous Followers heading to the battlefield will catch up from behind.
Then, the group can reach their destination.
"Alright, alright, soon I’ll take you to the flagship," the President patted Winter.
Then under the force of gravity, one of Winter’s legs was snapped by the pat.
The President sheepishly withdrew his hand.
Jeanne anxiously looked out the window. She actually didn’t know what she could do.
But at this moment, a notification popped up in front of Jeanne.
Li Zheyuan shared a document.
"Uh, what’s this?" Jeanne picked up the box behind her. It contained Li Zheyuan’s head.
"The final handling result," Li Zheyuan seemed to have no desire to speak.
Of course, Jeanne and Asgard would take this head along. Although they didn’t have any direct hatred for Li Zheyuan, there was some indirect hostility. Li Zheyuan was the least innocent guy in this world.
Even if going to fight a battle where they’re likely to die, Xiang Shan would never let Li Zheyuan escape on his own.
Due to his own situation, Tumor Xiang Shan didn’t trust Martial Gods, and he had doubts about all of them. Jeanne, in the past, never intended to become a Hero.
As the actions of the Twelfth Martial God on Earth unfolded, the Six Dragons Sect hidden in the shadows gradually collapsed, so Tumor Xiang Shan naturally no longer held suspicion towards the remaining forces.
Besides, Tumor Xiang Shan and Jeanne indeed had limited time.
Li Zheyuan tried pleading or cursing, also tried persuasion. But unfortunately, his malicious curses from the old era were almost incomprehensible to Asgard and Jeanne.
Tumor Xiang Shan didn’t care at all.
In the ensuing tens of hours, Li Zheyuan remained silent, seemingly resigned to his fate. The last time he made any noise was several hours ago, naturally still a string of curses.
"Ha, wouldn’t he have written the insults to me into a document... Wow, it’s actually calculated in TB. Then it’s probably not a text document," Xiang Shan’s voice emanated from Jeanne’s synthesizer, intrigued, "Let me see..."
The Chamber President seemed to roll his eyes, as it was clearly visible through the changes in his prosthetic eyes. The President said, "If it’s really insults directed at you, are you planning to take the time to retaliate, word for word? The kind of extreme humiliation. Humiliating such a dispensable thing is too garbage of information."
"...Hmm?" Xiang Shan expressed confusion, "Why?"
"Doesn’t sound like garbage information," the President commented.
"This is based on past medication records, screened from experimental data... usable drug targets, and deduced associated targets from the database," Xiang Shan clicked his tongue in amazement, "If I had resources to conduct experiments now, perhaps it’s possible to develop a special medicine to reverse this darn cancerous transformation. What does it mean? You’re not thinking of having me turn back now, skip this battle, right? Or are you suggesting, you’ve laid the path to survival right in front of me, but I can’t use it, just trying to frustrate me?"
Li Zheyuan’s synthesizer emitted static noise. He seemed to want to say something but didn’t. But everyone present understood some Inner Strength. Xiang Shan directly retrieved the unsaid words from the synthesizer’s cache files.
"’Actually, I also thought about becoming a doctor’... Oh, oh, oh," Tumor Xiang Shan exclaimed in exaggerated surprise, "A doctor."
"That’s right, I applied to Harvard Medical School and then got a degree in genetics. Doctors earn well," Li Zheyuan said indignantly.
Hermo Association President shook his head: "You’ve adopted a posture of lying flat and taking ridicule, yet still won’t admit you once had thoughts of doing good? Is ’wanting to be a good person since childhood’ so shameful to you?"
"What’s shameful? What nonsense are you talking about?" Li Zheyuan tried to express his disdain through his tone, "What do you know? You’re just Zhu Xinyu’s dog."
"But I think what this guy says makes a lot of sense. You said you had no sense of shame when the so-called ’commercial spy’ tempted you, but you said you felt so ashamed wanting to be a doctor who saves lives." Tumor Xiangshan said, "It’s so easy to admit you’re vile, but admitting you once wanted to be a good person makes you so embarrassed. I really don’t understand."
"A few years ago, I learned a theory from the Turing Lineage: as long as you put yourself low enough, you don’t feel the ’fall,’ you don’t feel the loss." The chairman said, "If Li Zheyuan admits he was immoral from the beginning, he wouldn’t have to face the fact that his wrong choices led him to become worse."
Li Zheyuan angrily retorted, "What are you talking about? I’m not the only one who made wrong choices that made the world worse, right? Eh?"
"Listen clearly, what I said is ’leading oneself to become worse.’" The chairman leisurely inserted garbage information into the interface, "You were Yogmoth’s second or third assistant, right? Although Yogmoth enjoyed most of the honor due to his martyr-like behavior, you also shared the glory. You are rotten but not a fool, logically you should have deduced it, right? If it weren’t for those events, you, Li Zheyuan, maybe not remembered through the ages, but at least as a somewhat positive controversial figure in history textbooks."
"Xiangshan’s plan would never succeed, even without me..."
"I didn’t mention Xiangshan at all. Put aside grand narratives, focus on yourself." The chairman shrugged, "Maybe you’re right, this country, even if you didn’t steal, others would. But you joined, you solved critical technical problems for the Usurpers, but you’re still nothing but a dog. Yogmoth was mad, consuming his old friends fully, but also let the world play his mad game. Others, some died, some still fight, but basically, they are respected, right? Some still cherish those old things." The chairman pointed at the camera used by Li Zheyuan: "Look at yourself? Wow, I think even the youngest person here has no respect for you, no one thinks you deserve any."
"Think again about how you’ve been living these years? Hiding everywhere, afraid of the Protectors, afraid of the Heroes, feeling you’ll die if seen by anyone? Look at Xiangshan, though always struggling between life and death, has always earned respect from at least some part."
"But who can you blame?" The chairman spread his hands, turning to Jeanne—or Xiangshan, "Xiangshan, if you’re familiar with this guy, do you want to guess his mindset in the past few hours?"
Tumor Xiangshan now also felt it’s pointless to mock Li Zheyuan: "Can’t be bothered to guess. More than two hundred years ago, I truly thought I understood Li Zheyuan well. But hearing him refer to his graduate assistants as ’gorgeous commercial spies,’ I realized I didn’t understand him at all."
The chairman asked, "Did you think two hundred years ago this guy had any good roots?"
Tumor Xiangshan hesitated for a moment, then said, "Maybe he had. That guy Yogmoth... initially cared about morals and justice. He was discovered by Yogmoth."
Li Zheyuan, as a junior from the same school as Yogmoth, was recruited into Yogmoth’s lab.
Moreover, though Yogmoth was naïve, he wasn’t just an ivory tower scholar. Before meeting Xiangshan, he was already recognized by the FBI as having extreme ideological tendencies, requiring monitoring as a social activist.
"Even if just for building a resume, managing personal image through disguise, he also pretended to be earnest." The chairman commented, "Look, this guy knows what is good, knows what the greatest good is. Human hearts are enclosed, good and evil are hard to tell, but knowing good and evil could be said. ’Once wanted to be a doctor,’ wanting high income, wanting respect, these are quite natural desires. Xiangshan or Yogmoth also considered living carefree after retirement. Anyway, being a doctor is closer to a ’good’ profession."
"For people like this, is self-hypnosis with ’I was rotten from the start’ more comforting? Or pondering ’I’ve erred again and again, making me rotten’ more comforting? Hahaha."
Asgard privately messaged Jeanne: [This one seems to be even more vile than the Xiangshan in your head, personality-wise.]
The chairman continued speaking, "You are not stupid, Li Zheyuan. So you shouldn’t expect Xiangshan to let you go, right? Even if some deal extends your life through labor, you shouldn’t expect to be set free. The moment you were caught, it was destined that the best outcome is being imprisoned for life, occasionally assigned some obligatory labor. You can’t possibly be oblivious to this. So... what are you avoiding?"
Winter scornfully said, "Does such a person have that kind of character?"
"Indeed." Tumor Xiangshan also said, "This person is rotten to the core. I could laugh at the phrase ’gorgeous commercial spy’ for a lifetime."
"After hearing Ms. Jeanne’s recount, I was indeed stunned, but..." the chairman said, "I ultimately believe in the hidden goodness within culture..."
Li Zheyuan loudly retorted, "Ha, those things that trick people into dying, at this point I’m expected to believe?"
"Knowing good from evil is conscience. You’re not stupid, so you understand the general norms of society, you comprehend what is good and what is evil." The chairman calmly said, "You can regard this as a ’fiction that tricks people into dying,’ there’s nothing wrong with that, because it indeed is a kind of description of the facts."
"However, it’s not an objective description, nor the only description. I’d rather view it like so: Humans are pseudo-social animals living collectively, unable to be truly social creatures, dying for the group as per innate programming. Yet, the underlying logic consolidated through evolutionary history drives some to sacrifice for the collective. The concept of ’goodness’ developed by humanity is a comforting caress for heroes at their end, granting them faith beyond cold, vague strategies. Regarding ’tricking into dying,’ that’s probably a secondary aspect. Conspirators and madmen exploit the end-life comfort that should’ve been reserved for the dying."
The chairman pointed at Li Zheyuan: "Honestly speaking, I’m not too concerned about your thoughts, not concerned about what you thought when losing heart, why you suddenly decided to help Ms. Jeanne. But since we’re considered to share a ten-year fate on the same boat, I’ll ask: rekindle the childhood idea of being a doctor, putting aside other considerations and striving for lives of others - how does it feel?"
"Hmph, terrible." Li Zheyuan said, "Not even a decent face in return."
"Don’t care too much about others’ opinions—I tell this to everyone, especially those management staff in the chamber who know we hold a heroism stance." The chairman said, "Business-wise, always caring about irrelevant people’s views makes it hard to manage. Back to the previous topic, Li Zheyuan—if at life’s end, you saved one more person, would you feel more accomplished than yourself who saved no one?"
"Who cares?" Li Zheyuan muttered.
"Have you heard the story ’the little fish cares’? Apricot Forest Duke’s life motto was quite famous in those times, right?" The chamber chairman looked at Tumor Xiangshan, "Boss Xiang, isn’t your business culture construction done poorly? I say this as a peer from another company."
Jeanne clearly heard Xiangshan "tsk" in her mind, but the synthesizer showed no fluctuation.
"We’re just in the same boat, so I’m too lazy to say more. Educating you is your parents’ and your Teacher’s duty, perhaps it was the duty of a society centuries ago, rather than mine." The chairman said, "For yourself, Li Zheyuan. Think carefully. Whether subjected to long and special labor reform as a special talent, or waiting for the death penalty, you should try finding a shred of peace for yourself."
Li Zheyuan fell silent.
Actually, he didn’t know what he was thinking. There was a data processing progress bar, the system was running data, and the progress bar was moving forward. He didn’t destroy the data. That’s it.
Tumor Xiang Shan was more interested in the president at this moment: "So, who exactly are you? You’re quite familiar with ’our generation’s’ culture, right?"
"Get out of here, who’s ’our generation’ with you, I’m quite young." The president waved the garbage information storage device between his fingers, "At most, I’ve just skimmed Yog’s memories."
"Martial God?"
"No. I don’t think of myself as Xiang Shan." The president shook his head, "Alright, let me rest a bit."
Asgard poked the box containing Li Zheyuan.
"What?" Li Zheyuan’s tone wasn’t very friendly.
"Um, if it makes you feel a bit better to think this way..." Asgard said, "I think Jeanne wanted to thank you, but Xiang Shan is in his head."
Jeanne saw the hallucination in her mind silently clap and praised in a way only she could hear: "Alright, alright, the little girl is learning quite fast, huh."
So, Jeanne nodded silently.
Li Zheyuan seemed to be stimulated by something. A burst of noise came from the synthesizer, even more intense than when the Hermo Association president destroyed his psychological construction.
But he ultimately said nothing.
"Ah." Li Zheyuan said, "In any case, goodbye. Let’s not meet again."
............
Black Ship Righteous Followers Commander Li Wenyang propped his elbows on the chair armrests, pressing his chin with both hands. His gaze was on the image in the AR.
The paths of Black Ship Righteous Followers and Sky Star Fleet abstracted into two torrents, which would converge near Chaldea. Hundreds of warships lined up before him.
But unlike ancient times, whether it was enemy or friendly warships, they were abstracted into a clump of vectors.
If the "horizon" was the natural cover for ancient ocean warships, then the "speed of light is insurmountable" is the natural cover for cosmic warships.
Spanning light-second distances, observational data becomes historical records, hard to make use of for real-time tactical decisions. No matter how good the observational equipment, it only sees the enemy’s position several seconds ago—the specific number for "distance divided by the speed of light."
In the Earth battlefield, this number can be ignored, but in the universe, this number is noticeably significant.
Information delay causes modern war’s opposing sides to be strategically transparent to each other, yet in tactical combat engagement, they are in an information blur.
The government warships can even use the astronomical equipment of the Solar System’s inner ring to lock onto warships from the outer Solar System earlier. But even the best astronomical equipment can only observe the Heroic Fleet’s position minutes or even tens of minutes prior.
And this set of data transferred from the Solar System’s inner ring to the Sky Star Fleet takes almost the same amount of time.
The delay in data transmission nearly equals the observational delay.
By "nearly," it’s because every time the data stream goes through a relay node, the processing and forwarding of the relay node add an extra millisecond to second-level delay.
For the commander, the enemy’s warships become a cone defined by clear historical coordinates and vectors, constrained by the speed of light on their current and future states.
The key isn’t "seeing" historical images but accurately inferring the target’s "now" and "future" positions from historical images.
The fleet commander must think beyond the "horizon of causality."
Li Wenyang felt he wasn’t quite a master yet. Compared to the infamous King Aqini, no height seems high enough.
King Aqini could be said to belong to the second batch of human cosmic warship commanders but could also be described as the first batch of the new era’s tactical masters. Apart from those rapidly eliminated old-era officers, King Aqini possessed the most commanding experience.
In old era terms, this is "playing the full game."
Thus, upon seeing the Hermo Association president, he expressed his delight with a "bright-eyed" manner.
"Hello, comrades. And you, Ms. Winter." Li Wenyang greeted very politely, his voice extremely magnetic (this is just a figure of speech, not physically magnetic), "How should I address you now, comrade president?"
"Nameless, formless." The Hermo Association president just sat on the bridge absorbing garbage information.
After Jeanne and her group boarded the flagship, they handed Li Zheyuan and Leonard over to the fleet soldiers. They were taken away and detained separately. It’s said that the place they’ll be in is a large lead box, where no signals can come out, and there’s no data interface available.
It seems the Hermo Association president received a reminder after boarding the ship, then downloaded several files.
Then, he began to absorb garbage information intensively.
"Is it a memory deficit?"
"It shouldn’t be." The Hermo Association president shook his head, "Memory has backups, it can be re-downloaded at any time... it’s just that this brain has changed too much."
"That’s quite unfortunate." Li Wenyang shook his head, "After the Twelfth Martial God’s victory on Earth, the Hero from Mars sent us the latest intel from the Six Dragons Sect. Originally, our project’s progress had advanced another step. Unfortunately, Mars later lost contact as well." His gaze turned to Jeanne and Asgard, "So which of the two is Ms. Jeanne?"
"Just say you’re looking for me." Tumor Xiang Shan directly took over the consciousness and spoke, "Shouldn’t you introduce yourselves first?"
"My apologies." Li Wenyang stood up, nodded slightly, "Black Ship Righteous Followers, acting commander, Li Wenyang..."
"Why ’acting’?" Tumor Xiang Shan straightforwardly asked, "You don’t have some... ’This commander position is just held for Xiang Shan, we’re waiting for the Martial God,’ do you? Are you some old-era warlords?"
"Well, your doubt is indeed normal. But please be assured of this point." Li Wenyang’s tone seemed to conceal a smile, "Even if the Sixth and Seventh Martial Gods appeared simultaneously, even if the First Martial God reincarnated, we couldn’t possibly hand over fleet command. The title ’acting commander’ is actually part of our system and culture."
Tumor Xiang Shan paused: "I find it rather odd."
"Actually, it’s not odd at all. Why not let me start from the beginning." Li Wenyang said, "There’s a long time before we reach the battlefield, enough to finish this story and verify the assumptions our fleets held all along."
"I’m all ears." Tumor Xiang Shan nodded.
"The story should start about two hundred years ago." Li Wenyang’s tone was nearly ’nostalgic.’
The story should begin over two hundred years ago.
After the usurping of the state, the early assassination activities of Xiang Shan’s team had just begun.
The usurpers’ first move was ’righteousness.’ They initiated the ’cosmic development plan’ fantasized by Xiang Shan and David.
David and Xiang Shan’s wildest entertainment was to piece together plausible-seeming bragging. You propose a space development plan, I offer an idea, throw it to AI to make a PPT, then agree on how many years later we’ll see who can deceive more investments.
Of course, at the level of these two, even wild bragging was as refined as possible.
Playing the game of ’seeming probable.’
After the usurpation, the usurpers launched these projects.
It’s because they hardly believed Xiang Shan and David would spend hundreds to thousands of hours bragging decades ahead. Xiang Shan and David’s PPTs looked too genuinely convincing.
And the usurpers needed so-called ’legitimacy.’
When Xiang Shan’s party stirred up storms, shouting ’everything from above is fake,’ the usurpers also needed new achievements to prove Superman Enterprise was still moving forward, still moving ’for humanity.’
Cyberization was already a past glorious achievement, and space was destined to be the next era’s hotspot.
Hence, many projects were pushed forward in immature conditions.
Simply because the usurpers needed it.
Many who weren’t concerned with the situation were moved by the grand prospects described by Superman Enterprise (Xiang Shan and David’s PPTs), determined to contribute to humanity’s conquest of space, regardless of who’s in power. They joined the first batch to leave Earth.
The era of the Heroic War raging like wildfire was also the era of cosmic development.
These two historical events run parallel.
During the era of the Ascension War instigated by Yawgmoth’s betrayal, Earth’s population drastically decreased due to resource scarcity and war, allowing the off-Earth population to emerge as a group larger than the "Earth population" on the historical stage.
The residents of Jupiter Space City are the descendants of those deceived off Earth by the Usurper of the State.
At that time, Jupiter served as an advanced outpost for human development. The average educational level of this population far exceeded that of Earth, and their mentality leaned more towards idealism and romanticism.
When Yawgmoth announced the prohibition of all cultural activities, the reaction here was only second in intensity to that on Earth.
The Jupiter outpost of that year was also the homeland of the Fourth Martial God and the Sixth Martial God.
Many original soldiers of the first generation of White Fleet Prosthetics Followers and Black Ship Righteous Followers, as well as the first generation of officers, originated from here. If it hadn’t been long conquered afterward, Jupiter would now be unquestionably an ancient heroic region.
The Fourth Martial God gathered strength here, occupied the Space City, and contended with the local Kings, only to be evaporated along with the Space City by Hartman.
It was in this harsh environment that the Sixth Martial God was born.
The Sixth Martial God gathered the last courageous people of this place, completely abandoned the practice of occupying cities, compressed all their possessions into two cargo ships, used meteors to create camouflage nets, and began a long guerrilla war.
Until the fleet was rebuilt.
Until a permanent stronghold was established in the Asteroid Belt.
Until a formidable reputation was gained.
Until... defeat.
Li Wenyang said, "After the Sixth Martial God, the commanders of the Black Ship Righteous Followers, White Fleet Prosthetics Followers, and Red Star Prosthetics Followers were always only ’acting commanders.’
Tumor Xiang Shan scoffed, "Don’t think that just because I’m the old Xiang Shan, I haven’t learned the new history. The Seventh Martial God immediately took over the fleet."
Li Wenyang’s tone finally held a hint of amusement: "What if I told you now that the Seventh Martial God never actually existed?"
The president of the Hermo Association sighed, "Why did you just say it outright? What about confidentiality and memory management?"
"We strictly manage this piece of information because we fear King Aqini." Li Wenyang closed his eyes and sighed, "If King Aqini learned of this information, it might reveal certain pathways to him, leading to a dreadful... humanitarian disaster, that’s all I can say. Therefore, we kept it strictly confidential."
"Except for Ms. Zhu, we truly couldn’t hide it from anyone else; the entire soldier body of the three Heroic Fleets did not leak a fraction of this news."
Li Wenyang sighed, "But now, it’s unnecessary. There was an issue on Ms. Zhu’s side, and what should not reach King Aqini has already been exposed to him. Now that it’s open, it’s no longer a problem."
"This is impossible!" Asgard said, "The Seventh Martial God Xiang Shan has records of controlling prosthetics in battle! He... he can control multiple prosthetics... he..."
"Madam, have you ever heard of ’Shadow Warrior’?" Li Wenyang said, "The so-called three-machine maneuvering was actually three First Layer Heaven Martial Artists cooperating flawlessly."
The president of the Hermo Association nodded, "Of course, this still requires considerable acting skills. And there are unexpected benefits, indeed. In the Earth Karman Line battle, after the King of Godspeed hit the main body of the Twelve Martial Gods, he immediately determined the vice machine as the main body because he had seen such vice-main body confusion techniques on the ’Seventh Martial God’—but it was really just different people’s acting skills."
"In the Seven Battles of the Asteroid Belt, the King of Godspeed destroyed eight of the Seventh Martial God’s vice machines, and each time the conclusion was the Seventh Martial God claiming ’Hahaha, fooled you again,’ and then casually leaving..." Tumor Xiang Shan looked at Li Wenyang, "So what was it really?"
"Seven First Layer Heaven Martial Artists willing to forgo their names," Li Wenyang replied.
Tumor Xiang Shan was incredulous. He took a step or two back, "Why do such a thing? Why go to such lengths? People who could have died as heroes under their own names, why pretend to be Xiang Shan’s shadow?" He stared at Li Wenyang, "So-called ’Humanity only sees this star of Xiang Shan’... isn’t it because these later heroes all gave up their names? Why do such a thing?"
"Because the casualties were too high; the three fleets couldn’t bear the losses anymore." Li Wenyang said calmly, "By the end of the Sixth Martial God era, most people in the fleet had distressingly little experience. Apart from the original officers, we also recruited soldiers from space refugee camps. Those small space settlements, to save resources, would send elderly people and those with children to join us, possibly just to lighten their burden. Those primitive settlements were relics of war. We also converted captives on-site. The universe we heroes occupied was indeed too barren. At that time, we didn’t have a complete soldier training system. Many officers were hero-converted, not accustomed to fleet warfare."
"Before the advent of the Seventh Martial God, things had already reached the limit. Every warrior could only be considered a war refugee and survivor; a few survived by luck and innate skills, yet couldn’t correctly attribute it to themselves. The art of war doesn’t have an absolutely stable and reliable growth path."
Li Wenyang rhetorically asked, "You are also a Xiang Shan. So do you think, under those circumstances, could we use every possible means to save ourselves?"
Tumor Xiang Shan choked up.
"The same personality often exhibits the same thoughts in many situations—many years later, I saw similar thoughts in the Tenth Martial God. The Sixth Martial God had done something similar to the Tenth Martial God," Li Wenyang said, "The Tenth Martial God tried to distill his martial arts memory. The Sixth Martial God also once attempted to distill his understanding of war and military martial arts as instructional material for nurturing fleet commanders."
"But unfortunately, there is nearly a century of technological difference between the Sixth Martial God and the Tenth Martial God. The algorithms of the Sixth Martial God at that time were not quite advanced, and the data distillation wasn’t very efficient," Li Wenyang said. "Like the other Martial Gods, the Sixth Martial God didn’t really want another Martial God to emerge. But back then, the three great fleets had no choice."
The Sixth Martial God was a rare talent in command. If he had lived in ancient times and had the chance to exert his talent, he might have been renowned throughout history, or be compared to Bai Qi or Han Xin in 21st-century online forums like a legendary general.
However, such talent, that defies logic, not only appears infrequently but is also extremely difficult to nurture opportunities for.
In an era where culture was severed, and the old internet was destroyed, the three great Heroic Fleets only encountered this one learning subject.
"The primitive distillation algorithm led to everyone neither becoming a Martial God nor simply being able to access Xiang Shan’s memories," Li Wenyang said.
Asgard was surprised, "But... the Seventh Martial God is much stronger than the Sixth Martial God."
If the Sixth Martial God’s military achievements were enough to rank him among the top historical generals, then the Seventh Martial God’s status is almost like... how to describe it? Practically the Yawgmoth of the military world.
Situations deemed "unwinnable" by others were persistently chewed down by the Seventh Martial God until his teeth broke.
"But in the eyes of actual participants, the Seventh Martial God wasn’t as strong as the Sixth Martial God," Li Wenyang sighed. "The Sixth Martial God was calm and composed. His solo achievements of charging fleets were real. But the individual kill achievements of the Seventh Martial God were all the result of propaganda, an amalgamation of multiple people’s accomplishments. During the Seventh Martial God’s era, all commanders lived in fear, walking on thin ice."
"So why do such a thing? As you said, all the soldiers knew," Tumor Xiang Shan asked the question again.
"Because we want the enemy to fear us, to fixate on us. We also need to encourage heroes elsewhere, letting them see hope," Li Wenyang looked straight at Xiang Shan, "otherwise, the efforts of the Sixth Martial God and the people back then... would be wasted."
Tumor Xiang Shan finally stopped speaking.
"Even if you are Xiang Shan, please do not criticize the choices of the Three Loyal Followers on this matter," Li Wenyang raised his head, "Then, let’s specifically talk about what happened back then. After the Sixth Martial God was martyred, the three great fleets held a meeting. After that, the previous generation of fleet commanders and staff officers decided to use the uncompleted distilled memories of the Sixth Martial God. But unfortunately, none of them could become Xiang Shan."
"Some people felt the memories were insufficient, so they secretly went to the Memory Labyrinth of Martial Ancestor Xiang Shan to supplement with new memories. But in the end, the three great fleets harvested many... commanders with severe dissociative identity disorders. Yet even so, we couldn’t send them to the rear, because the new frontline commanders hadn’t grown."
"At this point, Ms. Zhu sent us support. The latest technology from Mars. Her original intention was perhaps to hope we could reverse the symptoms of those commanders. But at that time, the Red Fleet Prosthetics Followers made an opposite decision. They privately modified the therapy according to the technical data of the Martian orders of knights, connecting the minds of the staff officers."
Asgard exclaimed, "This seems to be..."
"Indeed, I’ve heard that King Aqini also independently explored something similar. The new generation of battle formation martial arts," Li Wenyang sighed, "Perhaps cautiously exploring forward like King Aqini is the correct path. Back then, the three great fleets were just tormenting the commanders, possibly causing multiple times the consumption. Many originally didn’t need to fall into mental handicaps. But still, we had no opportunity."
"After these mentally ill patients’ brains were linked together, their collective imagination began to interfere and merge with each other. They started to feel that the Sixth Martial God... our Xiang Shan was still there."
"Is this..." Asgard exclaimed, "the Seventh Martial God? The biggest enemy in the Protector’s propaganda?"
"Yes, this is our Seventh Martial God," Li Wenyang’s voice was very light, as if afraid his words would disturb those who died in the past, "our ’Seventh Martial God’ never had a physical body. He did not exist in any flesh or steel shell; he lived within the collective soul resonance of thousands of dissociative individuals. We conjured our general, our Martial God."
"Xiang Shan is strongly correlated with external skills, everyone feels this way. To give this phantom enough credibility, the martial artists of the Three Loyal Followers decided to become the phantom. To remain undisclosed, they set a self-destruct system. Despite the King of Godspeed defeating the ’Shadow Warriors’ multiple times, he always felt like he had only hit an auxiliary unit. Due to explosions, the Protector never realized these ’auxiliary units’ had strong martial artists’ biological brains inside."
"Haha..." The president of the Hermo Association lay sprawled on the bridge, "As a result, a few months ago, he hit the main body again but thought he hit an auxiliary unit."
That was during the Twelfth Martial God’s liberation of Earth.
"The King of Godspeed is strong and rational. He believes in logic, and that a strong individual should only die in combat with another strong individual. He simply could not imagine there would be ants like us, piecing together an illusion with thousands of lives." Li Wenyang sighed.
Tumor Xiang Shan was quite surprised, "Haya... is such a person?"
"You may be very familiar with the Haya Veight from two hundred years ago, but we know the King of Godspeed from a hundred years ago," Li Wenyang said.
Tumor Xiang Shan said, "Then according to your statements, the Seventh Martial God is impossible to kill. No one can kill a phantom or a program."
"The Seventh Martial God we imagine is ultimately also Xiang Shan. He possesses all the characteristics of Xiang Shan known to everyone," Li Wenyang sighed, "which naturally include ’rejecting other Martial Gods.’ The Seventh Martial God hopes to be the last Martial God. Everyone believes, if the Seventh Martial God exists, he would certainly think so. Hence, we left no data backup. It was only preserved within the Three Loyal Followers, with absolute prohibition on dissemination."
"The Three Loyal Followers fought almost to the last man in the battles of the Seventh Martial God, with only a few survivors, and even by the Ninth Martial God era, they had not completed reconstruction. Learning about the establishment of the Neutral City-State, we also sent people over, hoping to use the residents there to find the remnant data storage units of the original Three Loyal Followers."
The president of the Hermo Association supplemented, "The earliest chambers of commerce were established at that time, but the operations were very poor."
Li Wenyang did not refute this point, and continued, "So we did not recreate a new Martial God. But we also decided, abiding by the legacy of the Sixth Martial God, to fight this time under our own names."
Tumor Xiang Shan crossed his arms, his gaze scrutinizing, "Then what do you want from me?"
"We do not wish to become Xiang Shan, but we hope to possess the tactical thinking of the Seventh Martial God," said Li Wenyang. "We aspire to achieve what the Sixth Martial God could not, to create a textbook example of a War God."
"The Ninth Martial God has doubts about the Seventh Martial God, and we haven’t decided yet. Fortunately, the Ninth Martial God’s strategy is direct assassination, so they haven’t contacted us. Our only connection with the Ninth Martial God was assisting the original Mars Planet Suppression Fleet in reorganizing into the Red Star Prosthetics Followers. That was the first organized Planet Suppression Fleet of heroes. Since then, we began planning the liberation of Jupiter."
"Following that was the Tenth Martial God... Our contact with the Tenth Martial God made us think that the original sacrificers’ ideas might work. We exchanged technology with the Tenth Martial God. Although, according to procedure, we didn’t let them know about the Seventh Martial God’s information, there was an exchange of related technological ideas."
"And then came the Eleventh Martial God..."
Li Wenyang looked towards the president of the Hermo Association.
The president, lying on the ground, waved his hand, "Don’t look at me, I have no related memories."
"The Eleventh Martial God is a lone wolf among lone wolves," Li Wenyang said. "He barely communicated with other old knights. It’s said that he was targeted by the Protectors shortly after declaring himself as Xiang Shan. But he was too bold; he directly fought his way from an asteroid to the Earth-Moon system."
"No one knows how he resisted King Aqini. All we know is that later, a life-support device with severe brain damage was smuggled into a cargo ship’s hold and received treatment from the Scientific Knights Order members on Mars."
The president finally spoke up, "But he lost his memory; he couldn’t become Xiang Shan again."
Tumor Xiang Shan was astonished, "Is there such a thing?"
"Yes, there is. It might be a physical injury or a psychological issue. For example, when you’re in the sight of Zhu Xinyu, Xiang Shan is especially unwilling to wake up. All just speculation."
Tumor Xiang Shan said, "Impossible, Xiang Shan isn’t that pretentious."
The president of the Chamber of Commerce, once called the Eleventh Martial God, now nameless, sighed, "People always find it hard to recognize themselves. But the place where I’m most similar to Xiang Shan is probably the ’talent for operation’. So I found a relaxing place to retire in the chamber of commerce."
Li Wenyang felt regret, "So apart from the Tenth Martial God, we couldn’t find any Xiang Shan. This has stalled our research project at the last step."
Tumor Xiang Shan replied strangely, "I feel like the Six Dragons Sect thinks the same. Just one Xiang Shan short, or something."
"We’re heroic, so we won’t do cruel things like the Six Dragons Sect, but we need one Xiang Shan as a reference to distill the memory of the Sixth Martial God and then correct the ’inter-subjective neural network structure’ of the Seventh Martial God era to create our own... pure War God."
The president said, "Remember I asked you, no, I should say Ms. Jeanne, whether she received Merciless Cavalry’s command training before she turned on her position as a reserve member of the Anti-Martial God Squad. That was actually to confirm your personal talent. The original body’s talent also influences Xiang Shan’s own tendencies. Hartman people, though abstract, have skills and a talent for selecting battlefield talents exists. You might be closer to the Seventh Martial God than the Tenth Martial God—though, it’s just a possibility."
"However, two comparative samples are enough to deepen our understanding of the Martial God," Li Wenyang looked towards Xiang Shan, speaking sincerely, "So, would you be willing to help us?" 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Tumor Xiang Shan was silent for a moment, not speaking, instead handing over the mental dominance to Jeanne.
Jeanne pondered for a moment, then asked, "Is there enough time?"
"It doesn’t matter, fleet campaigns require a long preparation time. The Black Ship Righteous Followers’ engines are already off, coasting inertially towards the battlefield," Li Wenyang said. "The strategic deployment and mobility phase of the campaign may last from days to weeks, and in extreme cases might cruise inertially for months. Each battle location is decided well in advance. I can’t say for certain, but it’s enough to bring changes to the Black Ship Righteous Followers."
Then, all decisive phases of the fleet campaign—including reconnaissance skirmishes, final battle formation selection, and main fleet’s volley exchanges—are compressed into a brief window defined by physical laws, the process is rapid and irreversible.
The value of classical formations, commanders’ intuition, and on-the-spot decision-making reemerged.
If technology continues to progress, perhaps "heroes" will once more be overshadowed by the tides of the times. But at least at this point, a heroic unit can still alter the course of a fleet battle.
Jeanne asked another question, "Can we participate in the battle?"
Performing the role of "Xiang Shan" might be enough, but Jeanne wanted more.
"With a few hours of intensive training, an ordinary hero can become a soldier of the Black Ship Righteous Followers. As grassroots commanders from the original Protectors, you will be even more competent. Even if you don’t ask, I would invite you to join," Li Wenyang smiled.
"What do you need me to do?"
...............
Mars, Olympus Space Elevator.
The Fifth Martial God Xiang Shan stood with arms folded, anxiously waiting.
"That guy really makes things troublesome..." Xiang Shan sighed.
Not long ago, the AI network sent him technical data, the latest, most cutting-edge reactor.
Ascension AI announced someone would deliver the core components.
The absurd device requires another high-powered reactor to initiate its startup. He watched the sky, calculating if there’s still enough time looking at the blue light mark symbolizing deceleration.
The network transmitted new information.
A vehicle stopped in front of Xiang Shan. Hero Hokia jumped down, a bit excited, "Martial God, mission accomplished, the materials have been delivered."
The "guy" standing on the vehicle silently sent an inventory, then began unloading.
Seeing the "antimatter bomb" and its parameters on the list, Xiang Shan even felt an "eyelid jump" illusion. The Fifth Martial God sent a message to Enlil, then looked at "that guy": "So what should I call you, brother? What do you want to do?"
Ascension AI conveyed that AI Xiang Shan might want to accomplish something. If he’s willing, just give him a hand.
Xiang Shan wanted to ask why, but Ascension AI had always only maintained one-way contact with him, he couldn’t converse with it.
"That guy" seemed to visualize deep breathing. Strange, can pure AI also use contemplation techniques? Or is this the so-called "hijack human brain" effect?
The Fifth Martial God continued scrutinizing that mysterious self.
"That guy" asked a question, "Have you played with the Sonicon Blade?"
"Starting off by asking about old relics?" Xiang Shan scratched his head, "During my time, there was no such thing. Too new, don’t know how to play with it."
A prompt box appeared in front of the Fifth Martial God, a request to download data.
"That guy" said, "A complete set of martial arts for the Sonicon Blade." He stated, pulling a suitcase from the truck and tossing a Sonicon Blade hilt to the Fifth Martial God, "I just learned it myself. Fight me under the same conditions."
The Fifth Martial God shook his head, "I don’t get it, why?"
"Don’t you think, there are a bit too many Xiang Shans?" "That guy" said.
The Fifth Martial God nodded, "Indeed, but..." He pointed towards the sky, in the direction of the Twelfth Martial God, "Why fight other Xiang Shans?"
"It’s not a fight, it’s deciding primary and subordinate," "that guy" said, "Xiang Shan is always a rebel. I don’t intend to seize the right to dominate over all humans as AI, but I believe, as AI, I should be able to do that."
"Oh?"
"That guy"—AI Xiang Shan took out the last box from the truck, hoisting it with effort. His limbs emitted intense noises. With a sound like an explosion, the box was thrown into the sky. As the box activated and spun, numerous Sonicon Blade blades slowly fell, embedding into the ground.
AI Xiang Shan slowly moved.
"I was lifted here by many friends. Initially, I hoped I could do something for the human side of myself. But I changed my mind," AI Xiang Shan said, "Why should I entrust importance to another self? Clearly, almost all of our mental structures are the same."
The Fifth Martial God sighed, "What if I announce now that I’m not Xiang Shan, and you are the real Xiang Shan, can we skip the fight?"
"Save some time for old Twelve," AI Xiang Shan tapped his head, "In my mind, I have the essence of the Turing Lineage and plenty of intelligence."
"Then ultimately, won’t you have to merge with old Twelve?"
"Who leads might be different, you know?"
"That doesn’t make sense," the Fifth Martial God pointedly remarked, "If you need to fight me to know who’s stronger or weaker, how could you fight old Twelve? Ultimately, the result will just be old Twelve taking all, right? You just need to merge me under your leadership then. Anyway, I don’t see a possibility of defeating old Twelve."
AI Xiang Shan seemed to have hit a snag.
"However..." The Fifth Martial God plugged the Sonicon Blade’s power cable into the weapon slot on his wrist, "Though I see you’re just looking for an excuse to fight, I’ll accompany you. Ah, is this what it feels like to be the elder brother?"
"You, playing ethical jokes on yourself too?"
