Chapter Thirty: A Friendly Spar (?)

More and more people connected to Mo Wen’s virtual training space. Within moments, the number of participants exceeded one thousand.

At DreamForge Entertainment, almost every military-grade cyborg without an active mission had come to watch the spectacle. They observed Mo Wen, curious as to why this newcomer was so formidable.

Mo Wen knew exactly why he was powerful.

Learning devices were not rare, nor were military-grade cybernetics. Even the Dreamweaver Type VI, while slightly superior, could not create a qualitative gap when restricted to Level 3. But Psionics—once the technique was mastered, it could truly crush anyone.

The strength of psionics depends largely on a person's mental willpower, and his mind was sufficiently resilient. To be blunt, in terms of sheer toughness, his spirit had surpassed every other intelligent life form that could possibly exist in this universe, unless there were some heaven-defying entities that could survive the death of the universe itself, transcending the cycles of eons.

His greatest fears, the most unbearable pains, and the pasts he wished to discard had now transformed into his greatest strength. The suffering he had endured seemed to have finally blossomed into fruit.

Mo Wen even had a wild thought. Perhaps, with his own power, he could forcibly cling to this world, living out a normal life instead of being driven away to another world upon death.

He had died time and again, ravaged repeatedly. Even while holding onto hope, he had never seen a glimmer of dawn—until today.

It turned out he could truly be this strong.

Even though it was still far from enough, he could not help but want to savor the sweetness of power and the joy of victory.

Over and over again.

Mo Wen looked around at the people observing him. Before today, he was just a peculiar newcomer; after today, he would be the powerhouse who had branded defeat upon them.

The number of connected users stopped changing; the group willing to battle him had reached its limit.

It was time to fight.

"Random map, you don't mind, do you?"

No one voiced an objection. There were too many of them; rather than debating which map would be optimal, randomness was better. Besides, they did not believe Mo Wen could last long. A duel was one thing, but fighting a crowd was another, and in a real battlefield, the coordinated strikes of air, land, and sea were entirely different.

Mo Wen could feel their certainty in the outcome, but he was equally certain of his own victory.

"Then, let's begin!"

The moment the environment shifted, Mo Wen’s fighting spirit surged to its peak. Simultaneously, one hundred and twenty-six cyborgs launched a mental assault against him.

The ethereal power, accumulated in such quantity, seemed to turn into something tangible. It felt as if hundreds of thin needles were piercing Mo Wen’s brain. But he was long accustomed to pain, so...

"Not even a scratch!"

His impenetrable mental defense, carrying the weight of a hundredfold disparity, repelled every attack. Under the system's calculations, small amounts of brain tissue flowed from Mo Wen’s orifices, while those who had attacked him directly suffered explosions in their virtual heads. They were even forcibly disconnected by safety protocols to prevent them from dying in reality.

But what followed were numerous negative effects.

Dislocation of the five senses, sensory confusion, disconnection of body and soul, calculation errors...

When fighting one-on-one, these abilities were not difficult to resist, but facing them all at once could truly limit one to the point of despair.

Mo Wen’s world became nothing but madness. He could no longer distinguish the shapes of things; everything his eyes saw was woven from murky colors he could no longer comprehend. The scents he smelled and the sounds he heard became distorted and chaotic. His cybernetic sensory systems failed completely, leaving him unable to judge anything.

If the entire world is deceiving you, mocking you, and even your own senses are no longer real, what can you do?

Mo Wen had been asked this question once before. During that previous traversal, he could only die, confirming his existence only at the [Respawn Point]. But this time, he could believe in himself—believe that his psionics would not deceive him.

He stopped looking and listening. Casting aside his distorted external senses, he turned to stare directly at the essence of others and the shape of the world.

Beyond human senses, purely through psionics, he redrew the map of positions.

He picked an enemy at random.

Strike!

The hothead, who had come from nowhere, took the blow head-on. In the psionic vision, he had only lost a bit of skin.

"Buddy, are you trying to kill me through the internet cable? If I hadn't been tanking, both of us—being essentially Level 5 restricted to Level 3—you would have blown me up through the connection with your mind!"

"Wait, is this your first time using this move? You absolute monster of a talent!"

"Turn off the sensory distortion psionics! Once this super rookie loses his senses, not only can the virtual reality system not identify him, he’ll even break through the safety measures!"

The world before Mo Wen’s eyes returned to normal. In front of him, the hothead who had been cleaved in two rolled his eyes, raised his middle finger, and slowly dissipated, helplessly exiting the match once again.

Immediately after, standard restriction-type psionics fell upon Mo Wen.

His body became several times heavier, and everything around him turned viscous. His direction of movement no longer matched his intent; despite his thrusters pushing forward, he moved diagonally backward, even finding himself inverted, falling toward the sky.

A normal person would find it hard to adapt to such changes, but Mo Wen had encountered such desperate straits before.

A man who had died a thousand deaths, reflecting on his own demise, he understood, adapted, and even began to utilize the changes imposed upon him in the shortest possible time. Combined with his own time-acceleration psionics, his movement became extremely abstract.

Even though he had slowed down, not a single attack could land on his body.

"Damn it, can't get a lock!"

"Can you coordinate when using psionics! It’s a rookie taking the debuffs, why does it feel like we're the ones being affected?"

"We are coordinated! But when the effect hits him, he splits it. We can't decide at what speed the effects on him should run."

Against others, even though everyone could move without inertia, one could at least judge their general direction through the light trails of their actions. But Mo Wen, fully debuffed, moved with complete unpredictability.

At least they had dragged his speed down. Mo Wen was now only several times faster than them instead of dozens, making combat possible.

Wait, where did Mo Wen go?

The instant they realized their target had vanished, a precise shot eliminated the user of the deceleration psionic.

Stealth in plain sight, sniping key targets—Mo Wen felt he was performing quite well.

The once-solid cooperation had already been fractured by his strikes. Most cyborgs could not keep up with Mo Wen’s speed, and due to the current state of the battle, they fell into slight chaos, momentarily unsure of what to do next.

But a few cyborgs, who had held their own judgments and tactics from the very beginning, remained unmoved with their teams.