Chapter 25: Overheating

Military cyborgs are the kings of combat in complex terrain. By combining psionic powers with cutting-edge cybernetics, and supplementing them with various jamming and stealth equipment, nothing can stand in their way—unless they face absolute numerical suppression or others of their own kind.

Even though Mo Wen had only been a military cyborg for a single day, his breakthrough capability, supported by Alpha-plus grade psionics, was already among the best in the world.

That is, assuming his opponents weren't completely insane.

[Ren Sisi: This scenario seems to be an emergency operation; the residents haven't fully evacuated yet. Once we enter the city, the enemy's naval firepower should weaken significantly. They wouldn't just slaughter their own logistics, would they?]

However, reality turned out to be the complete opposite of what his teammate—who could only speak through the post-mortem channel—had imagined.

Mo Wen passed through the entire outer ring safely, but the moment he did, every building around him became death traps in his psionic perception.

An instant later, they all detonated.

The enemy hadn't evacuated the civilians, but they had found the time to pack the residential areas with nuclear weapons.

The extreme heat and pressure, capable of forcing matter to reorganize at the atomic scale; the high-energy particle streams that could disintegrate genes and almost all electronic components; the shockwaves traveling at over 200 times the speed of sound...

Even with Mo Wen’s speed, he couldn't escape. He could only curse under his breath the split second before he was vaporized: "Are they insane? Packing nuclear weapons in a residential area? Aren't they afraid of someone triggering them?"

With a total yield exceeding two billion tons of TNT, the nuclear weapons caused a small sun to rise over the outskirts of the city.

Even though the city's architecture met nuclear-warfare standards, the blast still obliterated everything within a six-kilometer radius and severely damaged the rest of the city.

The civilians—whether they were driving toward shelters on the streets, peering out of windows in confusion at the distant light, or simply sleeping or working as they always did—were all dead.

In a single instant, hundreds of thousands of people were reduced to ash, becoming collateral damage in this war.

As for those outside the direct destruction radius, most would likely struggle to their deaths from radiation sickness.

However, this was just a virtual reality training simulation; the NPCs would never live to see the future.

The world froze again due to the total annihilation of the trainees.

Mo Wen looked down from high altitude at the destruction below. He couldn't understand why this had happened. Did the designer of this scenario have a screw loose?

Beside him, Ren Sisi slowly began to understand: "Is this a glimpse of the Corporate Wars?"

"Are the Corporate Wars this deranged?" Mo Wen couldn't believe it. He didn't think this was something a sane person could do.

Ren Sisi recalled the contents of her history lessons: "The rulers of the Old Humanity, those who were completely wiped out during the Corporate Wars, had a pathological obsession with power and wealth. They didn't view people as human beings, but as their assets."

"If they couldn't keep their assets, they would never let anyone else have them."

"They would rather have a lose-lose outcome than accept defeat, and if they could deter others in the process, even better."

"Virus bombs, super-nukes, the Volcano Project... those legends might have nearly become reality."

"Even though humanity wasn't completely wiped out, the old ecosystem was on the brink of collapse. Over 90% of flora and fauna disappeared, the world was nearly incinerated, and the ecological restoration efforts were incredibly difficult."

She took a deep breath, adjusted her mindset, and continued: "I'm not sure if this scenario is a faithful recreation of the past—some history was erased for various reasons, and what remains isn't necessarily true—but some things never change."

"Compared to destroying everything, sacrificing a portion of the population to set a trap must have seemed perfectly reasonable to those people."

"But why would this kind of scenario end up in a corporate training ground?"

"War has established bottom lines now. Even if a world war broke out again, we would never tolerate the top brass making such choices. It doesn't actually align with the training objectives."

Mo Wen said nonchalantly, "I don't know. The training ground administrator told me it was created by some extreme history buff online."

"But even if you want to recreate history, this is just..." Ren Sisi glared, but as she spoke, her anger dissipated. "Fair enough. We shouldn't distort our own past."

"Even if we would never do such crazy things now, the previous generation did. Errors shouldn't be erased; they should be remembered to ensure we never commit them again."

"If you can't face your mistakes, how can you correct them?"

A "ding" sound suddenly rang out.

Ren Sisi was full of fighting spirit: "Then, let’s let these bastards from the past experience the thrill of invincible defense, one-hit kills, ten-thousand-fold attack speed, and super teleportation!"

She waved her small, delicate fists. "Quick, restart! This time I want zero casualties. Let's speedrun this and smash those child-killing scum into dust!"

Mo Wen scolded, "Turn off your cheats! I’m here to train."

Ren Sisi urged, "Get your revenge first, clear your mind."

Mo Wen didn't accept it: "History is in the past. We live in the present. What’s the point of taking revenge?"

Ren Sisi replied righteously, "Because it’s fun!"

"I just can't stand villains. I want to ruin all their plans, crush everything they have, and prove that abandoning their moral bottom line was useless—that it only made them look even more despicable and incompetent. Plus, I want to save everyone!"

"If you won't accept cheats, then next time, allow me to show off my electronic warfare skills. You can train on coordinating with a specialist."

"Don't worry, I'll restrict my strength to the peak level of this era, leaving you plenty of room to perform."

Mo Wen looked at Ren Sisi suspiciously. He didn't really believe she would suppress her level, but to be honest, he had felt the sorrow and anger of that helplessness, and he desperately wanted to retaliate.

But it was meaningless.

He had been angry countless times, imagining himself killing those who had killed him, but that couldn't change reality.

But it was indeed satisfying.

"Fine."

"However, how exactly do you plan to suppress your electronic warfare skills?"

Ren Sisi said proudly, "I'll just avoid using era-discrepancy exploits and minor vulnerabilities."

"Let me tell you, I'm a top-tier hacker, one of the top three in the world. It’s only because I don't want to be a cybersecurity engineer and prefer running around that you'd even have to submit an application just to meet me and ask for help."

"You? Top three in the world?" Mo Wen almost laughed.

Regardless of her age, brain, external equipment, or how much the higher-ups valued her, he didn't think this girl in front of him possessed the strength to be in the world's top three. He instinctively felt she was boasting to the heavens.

But no matter how bad a hacker she was, she was still better than him right now.

He knew almost nothing about hacking. If he encountered electronic warfare, he would only be able to rely on his cybernetic internal firewall to take the hit, and he couldn't possibly learn from scratch in such a short time.

In any case, restart. Let’s try again.