Chapter 322: Chapter 322

322: Chapter 102 Pursuit 322: Chapter 102 Pursuit Yog hurried down the street, still holding Borshu by the arm.

Yuki followed close behind the two.

After a few more steps, Borshu regained control of his body.

He shook off Yog’s hold.

Yog asked, “Calmed down?”

Through monitoring, he could generally grasp the state of Borshu’s brain activity.

Of course, it was possible to read further into facial expressions and thoughts.

But firstly, with Borshu’s internal strength, mindreading was no easy task, and secondly, Yog wouldn’t do such a thing without necessity.

Borshu said coldly, “Why leave her there?

That doctor didn’t seem to have good intentions.”

He had probably calmed down, aware that there was definitely some situation he did not yet understand.

at least I haven’t found any evidence of him having ‘bad intentions’,” Yog said, “You also heard that, no matter what, he will enhance the girl’s prosthetic body ratio.

We have left enough virtual coins.

She can live well now.

It’s okay to leave at this point.

Even if he does have bad intentions…

with us heroes being out here, he might not dare to make a move so easily.

At least the girl will come out safe and sound.

Can you accept this explanation?”

Borshu closed his eyes: “What if she gets involved in some kind of human experiment?”

“I’ll assassinate the doctor and anyone related to him,” Yog said.

Borshu nodded: “Acceptable.”

Yuki breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed the atmosphere here had eased somewhat.

Both Borshu and Yog were cyber warriors, and his own enhancement ratio was rather low.

If these two had a conflict near him, he would be in more danger than Borshu.

Yuki turned his head to look back at the clinic at the end of the street.

He was indeed interested in enhancing his prosthetic body ratio.

Too bad they had to leave immediately.

In Yuki’s view, right after Yog asked that daunting question, Doctor Hu began making threats and took the girl as a hostage.

Yog counter-threatened briefly before saying a few words that seemed to soften the stand-off.

It appeared both sides reached an agreement on some level.

Yuki felt regret: “So I can’t enhance my prosthetic body ratio here after all…”

“Not for now,” Yog shook his head, “But, he did reveal quite a bit of information to us.”

Borshu mimicked the feeling of a deep breath, then said, “He was a comrade of the Eighth Martial God back then, wasn’t he?”

Yuki also nodded: “It looks like it.

With that kind of attitude, it must be the case.”

“Although he didn’t answer directly, that overreaction was revealing his identity.” As if recalling the image of two scalpels positioned at either side of the girl’s temples, Borshu felt a surge of murderous intent that he could hardly suppress.

Yog once again deprived him of control over his limbs, entrusting it to the gait AI.

Only then did Borshu relax a bit.

“I flipped through the hospital’s log files and downloaded some,” Yog said, “A few days ago, that doctor went missing for several days.

He left no instructions before his disappearance, causing chaos in the management of the lab.

But the government didn’t bother with this disappearance.

The apprentices sought help from the Gene Bank guards, but they didn’t handle it.”

“The ones who captured him were also from the government…” Borshu realized, “Those guys from that day?”

Yog nodded, “Most likely.”

For Yog, King Aqini’s squad under his command was the top priority target.

“He just said, ‘Acting against me now, you might be unaware of the enemies it will attract’…

meaning that…” Yuki exclaimed in shock.

“He’s being controlled,” Yog nodded.

Borshu agreed but then asked in confusion, “Why would he tell you all this?

Because he saw you as a hero?”

Yog pondered for a moment, “That indeed is a question…”

His, “That’s a question,” referred not to “Why would he tell me this intelligence,” but to “My identity cannot be concealed from some discerning people out there; this is a big problem.”

When Internal Strength reaches a certain level, one can read others’ expressions, tones, and physical movements as if reading text.

And certain behaviors inadvertently revealed can expose a person’s thinking and personality.

This is also why the Life-Chasing Cavalry can keep a firm hold on their targets.

After Yog’s own death, eleven Personality Masks appeared, each indistinguishable from him.

It’s better to say, the Personality Masks themselves were entities perfectly capable of verisimilitude in behavior.

Apart from the Second Martial God, each Personality Mask fostered its own new social connections.

Plus the remnants of the Old Era left by the likes of King Aqini…

Perhaps there were not a few who knew him.

This was the second time Yog had been unexpectedly recognized.

The Six Dragons Sect was enigmatic and not a force of the government, so his existence had not been exposed yet.

It seems Doctor Hu’s heart was not with the government either.

But it wouldn’t always be in the future.

— Looks like I’ll need to create a motion management AI to conceal my true thoughts.

After jotting this issue down in his notebook, Yog began pondering another question.

Why could that Scientific Knight from the Six Dragons Sect recognize him too?

Tao Enhai had deliberately used a term from the Old Era, exposing his identity.

However, even before this, those heroes who admired the Martial Ancestor hadn’t recognized him.

Only Tao Enhai, a friend from the Old Era, could quickly identify him.

The relationship between Doctor Hu and Eighth was unknown, but it must have been more than just a casual acquaintance; otherwise, King Aqini’s underlings wouldn’t be bothering them decades later.

So what was the Six Dragons Sect relying on?

“The worst possibility is ‘a corrupted Xiang Shan becoming the Sect Hierarch of the Six Dragons Sect’…” Xiang Shan shook his head and pondered, “No, the absolute worst possibility is ‘the Six Dragons Sect using Xiang Shan’s memories to create Martial God puppets’…

or even ‘I myself am a puppet created by the Six Dragons Sect’.”

That was certainly within the realm of possibility.

Yawgmoth had put the memories of Xiang Shan captured in “The Only Defeat” online, and other friends of Xiang Shan didn’t want Yawgmoth to edit it according to his own consciousness, so they also uploaded their memories related to Xiang Shan, resulting in a vast blockchain maze.

Those who knew of this maze consciously restricted the spread of this information, but the blockchain was indeed public—that couldn’t be changed.

There would always be people who unintentionally wandered into the maze and then downloaded Xiang Shan’s memories.

The Eighth Martial God was one such person.

If an ordinary orphan girl could do it, then a Scientific Knight with no moral scruples could do the same.

If his memories fell into the hands of that kind of person…

Xiang Shan pressed his hand to his forehead.

—Worrying about this now was pointless.

Perhaps after this was over, I should seek out clues about the Six Dragons Sect, but not now…

—Focus on combating King Aqini…

“Master?” Yuki asked, “You don’t seem to be in good shape right now?” This text is hosted at NoveIＦire.net

Xiang Shan shook his head, “It’s nothing.

I’m thinking about how to deal with those people.”

Borshu said, “Since he stated that ‘touching him would attract enemies,’ how about giving him a couple of bullets?”

“Do you want to fight in that clinic?

Borshu,” Xiang Shan sighed, “Think carefully about who you are protecting right now.”

Borshu’s body trembled.

Xiang Shan said to Yuki, “It’s not the time yet.

As a hero, you must learn to choose your battlefield.

Don’t involve innocent civilians in the fight.

Let the battle erupt on our chosen ground, which can also give us some informational advantage.”

Yuki nodded her head.

To the west of Delacruz City lay an abandoned prosthetic dump—or a mass burial ground.

Urban legends claimed that the burial ground was still home to operating wireless devices connecting to the network, creating a local network of the dying and the dead where agonizing personality data was automatically written and erased.

But this was just a horror story with characteristics of the era.

Some living people even resided here.

According to hospital records, this area was where Benchmark Man illnesses most commonly occurred.

Doctor Hu would occasionally conduct free clinics here—also as a means to collect case studies to expand his research materials.

It was while coming here that he disappeared.

Xiang Shan, accompanied by Borshu and Yuki, hid in a surveillance blind spot.

Yet this place wasn’t absolutely safe; he could only guard against visible cameras, but anyone’s eyes could potentially become surveillance.

Xiang Shan closed his eyes and concentrated on himself.

Inner Strength circulated, expanding an invisible force on the data level.

Xiang Shan hijacked the account of someone asleep nearby, transferred a small amount of Virtual Coin, then found a local dealer of virtual services and stuffed some code into the server.

Afterward, another expansion of Inner Strength.

Xiang Shan’s consciousness continuously hopped and expanded across the internet.

Sequences of code compatible with his consciousness operated within the city’s devices.

The vast sea of data roared towards him like a behemoth.

Within his consciousness, Xiang Shan constructed algorithms to sift through the data.

He was searching for video records of the past few days.

Of course, as expected, he found nothing.

Heroes naturally knew how to avoid cameras.

And the Life-Chasing Cavalry, who had to deal with them independently, knew this even better—more so than the average person from the Jianghu.

They could completely dodge the cameras along their path.

“Everyone’s eyes” were indeed impossible to avoid, but not everyone was a vlogger set to share their visual information online.

And if they did, they would upload only what they found interesting and what they thought would get likes.

Rangers wearing Life-Chasing Cavalry Prosthetics often didn’t stand out too much in disguise, and a Martial Artist focused on competitions would keep their shiny, eye-catching prosthetics protected with covers when out and about.

Among the Protectors, there was also a spread of the “clothing” culture.

Some civilians followed suit in imitation.

“Someone fully clothed but without an outstanding figure” might be uncommon, but not rare enough to make it into a video upload.

the absence of information was information in itself.

“The surveillance in this city is fairly comprehensive.

So, they don’t have many routes to choose from…”