Chapter 5 - 1: Cyber Realm

Gao Gong opened his eyes in confusion, his metal-plated hand raised slightly but refused to obey.

The scorching sunlight streamed through the torn car roof, bringing not only heat but also traces of nuclear dust radiation, which affected the electronic prosthetic eye (right eye) with electromagnetic interference, a ’pop,’ and it completely shut down.

He had been shot at least three times over his body, slashed across the chest, his skin both painful and itchy, likely because the car crashed, shattered glass mixed with debris from the car in front hit him head-on, and that’s how his right eye was blown out.

The most crucial thing is—

This isn’t my body!

’Wasn’t I just about to steal an NPC template from that bunch of old PUAs in the Collective Consciousness sanctuary, on my way transferring across the star systems? What’s happening now, did the Celestial Calamity invade earlier?’

Feeling the severe pain radiating from all parts of the body, Gao Gong couldn’t help baring his teeth.

Since uploading his consciousness to the data terminal and transforming into a mainframe AI, he hadn’t experienced such a state of severe injury for a long time.

Pain information flowed from all parts of the body to the central nervous system like a gale, converging in the brain.

Unbearable, nauseated!

I haven’t been human for years, why do I have to endure this pain!

’Could it be that my player identity was discovered by those sly bastards in the Civilization Council? Impossible, I cleaned up my tracks, and with my perfect disguise, I survived from the game’s early stage to the late stage without dying once—without information state changes, how did they find me!’

’They instantly switched my body, rendering my rebirth mechanism inoperative.’

’Such an operation—unless they annihilated in an instant my millions of virtual personalities, AI avatars, consciousness sub-bodies, soul viruses, logic information forms hidden across various planets, which advanced civilization used a ’marvel weapon’ on me?’

’Weren’t cosmic marvels mostly destroyed by Celestial Calamities long ago.’

’Did someone foresee my plan to betray for Celestial Calamity and preemptively kill me?’

’Ximen Qing hadn’t even hooked up with Pan Jinlian before getting cut down by Wu Erlang? So unreasonable!’

The stomach churned violently, with throat burning as if stuffed with red peppers, blood gushing from mouth and nose, along with the increasingly faint sound of the mechanical heart beating, all made Gao Gong realize one fact.

He was about to die!

Stimulated by the impending death, neurons in the brain suddenly contracted, neurotransmitters surged along the axons to the terminal, the host’s memories gushed out like a tidal wave.

That was the short life of the owner of this body.

In memory, this flesh body’s owner was named Gao Gong, a seasoned Mechanical Hunter who had frequented the Iron Sand Desert for years, making a living by hunting Radiation Beasts and Mechanical Bio-Beasts, earning ’bounties’ from factories and city enterprises, occasionally freelancing as an assassin/bodyguard/bandit; notorious for being ruthless and vengeful, he was known among hunters as the Wilderness Lone Wolf.

He ended up in this dire situation because of an ordinary escort mission.

The cargo was a specialty of the Iron Sand Desert, Energy Ore.

By Gao Gong’s reckoning, this task should have been extremely easy.

Even the most powerful indigenous warlord in the Iron Sand Desert wouldn’t dare touch the ’factory’s’ goods.

But against all expectations, as the convoy reached the Great Rift Valley, a group of drifters suddenly attacked, instantly killing the scouts sent out, leaving no time for warning; the opposing firepower was completely unlike that of the indigenous, crippling the entire convoy.

Mine workers and escort guards were tragically killed, even this veteran Bounty Hunter was overwhelmed, ambushed and stabbed at close range, his consciousness perished, directly leading to this transference.

He didn’t die immediately because certain vital organs were replaced with mechanical bodies during Human Mechanization.

In this sudden skirmish, Mechanical Hunter Gao Gong was killed, while a new consciousness traveled through space-time successfully merging with the deceased.

Gao Gong became Gao Gong.

In Gao Gong’s fragmented and chaotic memories, there were two groups of people attacking the convoy, one dealing with the convoy guards, the other targeting him directly.

After taking down four opponents, he got ambushed up close, stabbed from behind through the chest, nailed to the front seat, blood and artificial protein liquid dripped along the blade.

Heavy footsteps sounded, boots crunching on sand, a mechanical head peeked in through the car window.

The red light of the visual collector roamed repeatedly over his chest and skull, emitting a ’squeaking’ sound, as if poised to fire another shot at any moment.

"Target confirmed."

The opponent’s voice simulation system emitted a flat and emotionless mechanical synthetic sound, yet somehow Gao Gong heard a hint of excitement.

In interstellar society, many mechanical beings exhibit a peculiar ’interest’ in the flesh of intelligent races, termed ’Mecha-Shedding Syndrome.’

Worth noting, though the opponent had a metal head, their skin exposed under the military uniform was pale, lacking veins and skin textures—clone flesh?

This semblance, quite familiar indeed.

"The human isn’t dead?" Another voice seemed to come from outside the car, but due to the fuzzy consciousness, the voice was distorted and illusory.

Gao Gong noticed distinct outward skin folds on the opponent’s neck, the head appeared directly inserted into the chest cavity, the exposed wires and liquid tubes also confirmed this.

’Inferior implant system, neural splicing below level 4, not even micro-bionic, this thing is trash on the civilization black market, and low-grade mechanical body junk at that.’