Legend of the Cyber Heroes-Chapter 44 - An Encounter on a Narrow Path
44: Chapter 44: An Encounter on a Narrow Path
44 -44: An Encounter on a Narrow Path
In the midst of dust and smoke, Xiang Shan came to a halt.
The dirt and debris kicked up by the landing of the huge external armor remnants spread out like a storm.
Within a few hundred meters, he did not have to worry about “sniping.” The fine dust particles could block or scatter most frequencies of electromagnetic waves.
Based on the trajectory caught by his sight just now, the opponent could not be at sniping points A and D.
Only sniping points B and C were left.
However, he could not afford to make a mistake.
The two sniping points were not aligned with him on a straight line.
If he chose incorrectly, he would lose about ten seconds or so.
He had to take the risk and “measure” the bullet more precisely.
When his vision was obstructed, Xiang Shan inevitably fell into fear.
This was an instinct remaining in his biological brain.
For primitive creatures reliant on vision, loss of sight meant losing the ability to obtain food and avoid predators.
—Don’t panic…
Xiang Shan could comprehend how dangerous the next thing he was going to do was.
If he was unlucky, he would lose the hard-won prosthetic body.
And if his luck was even worse, his head might be blown off with a single shot.
—Trust the Martial Arts Algorithm…
Martial arts was the crystallization of human wisdom.
It existed within the metallic threads and semiconductors.
It transmitted at the speed of light.
The limbs also received information at the speed of light.
Compared to the speed of light, the speed of a bullet was negligible.
The reason humans cannot hit a fly is that a fly’s small body size allows the nerve signals to travel from the sensory organs to the neural processing structures and then to the movement terminals in an extremely short time.
However, in reality, the transmission speed of nerve signals in arthropods is very slow, at best only one meter per second.
If you scaled a fly to one meter in size, then if you touched its hind leg, it would not feel it until a second later.
Vertebrates, wrapped in myelin sheaths made of lipids, can reach a speed of one hundred meters per second in their nerves, which is a hundred times faster than that of insects.
Even during the Carboniferous period, when Earth’s oxygen content was at its highest, insects could only grow to about one or two meters.
The oxygen content during the Cretaceous period was a full ten percent lower than that of the Carboniferous, yet dinosaurs still easily surpassed this mark and even charged towards the limit of thirty or forty meters.
This is because the neural transmission speed of arthropods was too low; exceeding one meter, their response would become slow.
Contemporary pterosaurs could eat the giant insects to extinction with their overwhelming physical abilities and reaction speeds.
Now, the reaction of a Martial Artist is controlled by electric signals coursing through metal-based nerves.
This speed is even faster than that of nerves wrapped in myelin sheaths in chordates.
—If I can see it…
I can do it…
—If that gunner fired a bullet while I was falling, then that bullet would reach here at a fixed time.
Even if I can’t determine which of the two sniping points it is, the bullet would still arrive within a “window” that lasts for several milliseconds…
Within this window of several milliseconds, there must be a microsecond when the bullet could fall between his fingers.
Perhaps it was in the face of life and death that Xiang Shan once again recalled what he had learned in the past…
The lens inside his prosthetic eye dilated, switching to the infrared and far-infrared spectrum.
Cast aside distractions, desires, instincts…
In his field of view, a crimson “dot” suddenly appeared!
Here it comes!
Xiang Shan dug his legs into the ground and leaped backward while trying to pinch that “red, high-heat object” with two fingers.
The scorching bullet passed between his fingers.
The speed of the bullet was undoubtedly far greater than the erosion rate of the bullet material.
The heat generated by air friction couldn’t be completely dissipated through contact with the air.
Xiang Shan maintained a speed slightly lower than that of the bullet, retreating while sensing the force of the bullet with his fingertips’ high-frequency oscillating generator and the pressure-sensitive components in his wrists.
—The trajectory…
the precise trajectory…
The stronghold is at C!
Rage poured into the engines.
Xiang Shan burst forth in a mad sprint!
Bullets fell in front of Xiang Shan.
It was as if he were treading upon a path made of Heavenly Fire.
First was the four hundred meters obscured by dust, with no sniping.
Then, there was the three hundred meters that the opponent had not adjusted to yet.
Next was the four hundred meters of corrected shooting.
He passed through one thousand meters safely.
Four kilometers away, Gleayard clenched his teeth.
He realized something was wrong.
That guy was also an expert.
Not just freshly equipped with the Martial Arts Algorithm, he was incredibly familiar with it, and he knew the Firearm Path all too well.
He knew what strategies a gunner would use.
“`
In the Firearms Path, “distance” is “advantage.” Of course, distance and advantage aren’t always directly proportional.
Below the “extreme distance” of seven to five kilometers, the advantage of the Firearms Path is immeasurable.
But after four kilometers, as the distance closes, martial artists of the Firearms Path will gradually lose this advantage, because within this range, high-precision Prosthetic Eyes can directly observe their gun muzzles.
The enemy doesn’t have to be faster than the bullet, nor even move faster than the gun muzzle, because at this range, it takes at least a few seconds for a bullet to leave the chamber and reach its target.
But projecting this information onto the Prosthetic Eye takes less than a millisecond.
For cyber-enhanced warriors, this process is no more difficult than a rhythm game or a parkour game.
As the distance narrows, the enemy will only become clearer.
Only within a hundred meters does the Firearms Path martial artist regain the advantage.
While pure electrical signals can travel at the Speed of Light, the nerve signals of the Biological Brain, the computational process, and the response of the Prosthetic Body hardware all take time.
At this point, the reaction time left for combat martial artists is almost nonexistent.
Fighting Skills can only regain “absolute advantage” within a one-meter range.
The moment Gleayard’s gaze met that of his enemy, he knew his opponent had entered a relative safe zone.
The earth no longer blocked his sight and the light refraction caused by the uneven atmosphere had reached a point where computers could correct for it.
Gleayard kept firing bullet after bullet, creating a “hindering” effect to limit the enemy’s advance.
At the same time, a two-meter-tall iron box behind him opened, releasing hundreds of drones less than ten centimeters thick, swarming like a dark cloud of bees.
The drones that had already gone far couldn’t be recalled in time.
With such construction, the drones couldn’t keep up with the speed of a running martial artist.
To a martial artist moving at high speeds, they were practically stationary.
The next battlefield for the decisive battle would be at the “golden hundred meters.”
So, now to redeploy the drones…
………………….
Xiang Shan observed his enemy.
From afar, he saw countless drones scattering, and a tank leaping down from a metallic mountain peak.
It was indeed a tank, and one with a particularly high turret.
The lower half of the Firearms Warrior had been replaced with two tracks, featuring seven pairs of load-bearing wheels, while the upper half resembled a turret, completely covered by thick Armor Plates.
His shoulders towered over his head, and the arms extending from his shoulders had been replaced by a Gatling gun and a cannon…
no, that’s not right.
Upon closer inspection, beside the cannon and gun barrels, one could still see a pair of highly modified “arms” that looked more like the working arms of a construction machine, arms carrying shields, fully transformed into heavy armor for countering the close-range attacks of fighting experts.
Xiang Shan had read Lev’s memories.
Chain Missile Gleayard, leader of the Green Forest Stronghold’s “Z Organization,” ranked 98th on the Green Forest Tiger List, the “Evil Earth Star”…
This was a man who killed without batting an eye.
—He’s approaching proactively…
That’s right.
For a cyber-enhanced warrior, climbing a wall perpendicular to the ground is not difficult.
His Prosthetic Body structure ensures he cannot effectively shoot at an enemy on a wall below him.
And considering his heavy armor, it was highly likely that he specialized in Military Martial Path techniques such as Tank Path, War Chariot Fist.
On high ground, these skills had no room to be deployed…
Xiang Shan, dodging the oncoming bullets as if dancing, thought to himself.
Gleayard’s goal was to seize “the last hundred meters”…
the hundred meters where the Firearms Path had the greatest advantage over Fight techniques!
He intended to make that “hundred meters” occur in the terrain most suited for his strengths.
—The current distance is…
two thousand meters…
Never mind, accelerate.
Although with every ten meters advanced, Xiang Shan would lose a few microseconds of reaction time—after the bullet left the chamber, the light of the event would enter Xiang Shan’s Prosthetic Eye first, followed by the bullet appearing before him in less than a second.
The closer he got, the shorter the gap between light and bullets became, and the more perilous it was for him.
It was like a rhythm game, with the markers falling faster and faster.
And in this “game,” the cost of a “Miss” was “death.”
But there was no other way.
Since Xiang Shan wasn’t equipped with long-range weapons, to defeat this enemy, he had to get within a range where Fighting Skills were effective.
On a narrow path, the brave shall prevail!
Facing this accelerating enemy, a fierce smile squeezed from behind Gleayard’s mask as he raised the cannon barrel he hadn’t yet used.
Like hoisting a flag, he raised the cannon barrel skyward at an angle.
Gleayard felt the only blood vessels he had expanding.
It had been a while since he last felt this sensation.
Unable to get a fission Reactor Energy Core, he couldn’t compress the air, ionize it, and then shoot it out, nor could he use laser weapons.
He could only use solid shells, which inevitably have a limited carrying capacity.
Gleayard could carry only ten rounds.
But a martial artist doesn’t face “war.” In a one-on-one situation, these ten shells ought to be enough.
In the same class of prosthetics, no one could withstand a single shell.
The golden metal shells howled out.
As the shell left the barrel, Xiang Shan made a sharp left turn, drawing a 120-degree arc on the ground, trying his best to keep his distance from the cannonball.
But in that instant, Gleayard also fired the second shell he had just loaded.
The two shells crashed into a trash heap.
Immediately after, a violent explosion erupted.
Fire and a massive amount of non-combustible debris soared into the sky.
Two Fierce Waves appeared from both sides simultaneously.
