Chapter 31: Victory

How does one deal with a warrior whose speed is off the charts?

The answer, of course, is to block their attacks, restrict their mobility, and finally, deliver a lethal counterattack.

Refraction, magnetic fields, oscillations, repulsion, mental links—over a hundred cyborgs managed to construct an impenetrable defensive formation before Mo Wen could fully unleash his power. They knew they couldn't hit Mo Wen, so they decided to make it impossible for him to hit them as well.

At this moment, long-range fire could not breach their defenses; whether it was metal, energy beams, or anything else, everything was inevitably deflected elsewhere.

Attempting to break through this line of defense in close quarters was equally impossible. The moment any cyborg entered this zone from the outside, the components throughout their entire body would collapse, and their brain tissue would be reduced to pulp.

Psionic stuns were also useless. With the psionic resistance of hundreds of people layered together, even if Mo Wen were to force a breakthrough, he could at most knock a few people unconscious or shatter a few layers of defense, but he could not break the whole. As long as they had even a brief moment to catch their breath, they would recover and restore their defenses.

To defeat them, one would normally rely on firepower far exceeding the limits of any cyborg to simply annihilate the entire area.

This defense was perfect.

However, this also meant that those on the outside could not get in, and those on the inside could not fire out. The people within the defensive formation could only watch as Mo Wen slaughtered those outside the perimeter.

And those outside were clearly not happy.

"A magnificent giant turtle shell. The defense is great, but why am I the one being kept on the outside?"

"You're holding a defensive battle; why didn't you notify anyone in advance?"

"Stop arguing and come help guard the corner... Ah!"

Mo Wen’s kill count had climbed to 600. More than a third of the military-grade cyborgs from Dream-Maker Entertainment had already been defeated by him. Yet, he did not continue the slaughter, turning instead toward that solid defensive formation.

Inside the formation, many felt uneasy. This was merely a sparring match, a battle occurring within a virtual space. Even if they lost or "died," it was of no real consequence, but their actions could easily be described as abandoning their comrades. Even though circumstances were limited, and they had acted on a whim to build the defense without prior coordination—and the circle could not accommodate everyone—it remained true that they were safely watching their colleagues and friends being slaughtered.

It was not a true fight to the death; they had no objective that required sacrificing everything. If one plays with friends and resorts to any means necessary for victory, only to end up miserable, it defeats the whole purpose of playing.

Mo Wen felt the same way. Therefore, he prepared to put an end to their internal conflict—by shattering their defense.

He abandoned the others and charged toward the defensive formation. Limited to an energy level of 3, he could not crush the entire formation with psionics alone; even stunning a few individuals was quite difficult. But these defenses were not flawless. If one had the right methods, they could be broken, though it was far from simple.

But if he could not overcome everything with absolute power, how could he surpass his ill-fated destiny and survive with conviction?

The outermost layer was a refraction defense. Light was twisted and skewed; any matter not sufficiently dense could not penetrate it. But as long as one possessed the resolve to advance, this could hardly be called an obstacle.

Next came the magnetic field defense. A powerful magnetic field could deflect incoming matter and was sufficient to destroy most components of a cyborg. Even a natural human stepping into it would die from the disruption of their biological magnetic field. But one only needed to release a corresponding magnetic field to counter it. Military-grade cyborgs were capable of discharging electricity, and under the auxiliary calculations of the Dream-Maker and Mo Wen's precise manipulation, lightning surged across his entire body.

Witnessing this, those inside the defensive formation were stunned. Cyborgs discharging electricity, electricity generating magnetism, magnetic fields interfering with one another to affect the outcome... No! Such behavior was as defying of common sense as a human learning to walk and then deciding to hike to an alien planet!

By the time they realized Mo Wen was using his cyborg's built-in loudspeakers to counter the shockwaves, they were beyond shocked—or rather, they were shocked out of their wits.

The magnetic field defense did not disappear simply because he had passed the previous zone. Unless they were clearly irreconcilable, every step forward required countering even more coordinated psionic energy. With multiple influencing factors present, the computational load increased more than several times over.

Indeed, this level of complexity could no longer be breached by normal calculations. Therefore, Mo Wen combined it with foresight and mind-reading. These were basic psionic abilities, but for foresight to be this precise and for mind-reading to pierce the defenses of other psionic users required strength far exceeding that of an ordinary person. If not for the fact that he had dozens of times the normal duration within the accelerated time, and if not for the fact that those inside the formation were frozen in shock by his advance, he could never have accomplished such a superhuman feat so easily.

If this were not a virtual space, Mo Wen would not have rashly attempted such a suicidal act to probe the limits of his strength. But all the conditions had finally been met.

He advanced, tearing through the supposedly impenetrable defense, walking casually amidst a counterattack that would have destroyed him had he touched it for even a fraction of a second.

The people within the formation, watching Mo Wen approach step by step, truly felt the pressure of what it meant to be the strongest cyborg. No, if the combat were limited to cyborgs, the guy in front of them was simply invincible!

But they would not abandon their resistance just because their opponent was powerful. Their defensive formation had not achieved nothing; at the very least, it had succeeded in slowing Mo Wen's speed to a level they could react to.

They could still strike back!

Fire roared, storms turned into blades, and lightning surged forth. Yet, the person before them was like a hero from mythology. He crossed through the fire, stepping forward through the heatwaves. The storm knelt before him, turning into a tame breeze that ruffled his hair. The violent lightning struck his body, only to dissipate in an instant.

They did not realize that Mo Wen was reaching his limit, his brain nearly fried; they did not notice the momentary lapse in concentration of those channeling psionics, nor did they think to use conventional weapons that might have killed Mo Wen at that moment. They only witnessed that strange and overwhelming power.

The moment Mo Wen walked into the center of the defensive formation, everyone inside conceded wholeheartedly: "We lost."

Outside the formation, the others who had witnessed everything also completely lost their will to fight. "Lost, we lost. It's completely impossible to win against that."

"Truly an exaggerated level of individual combat power. Just with this strength, I feel he will go down in history and be remembered by the world."

The Minister of the Field Operations Department had witnessed the entire battle. As a bystander, he saw more clearly that while it was not entirely one-sided, Mo Wen's strength could still be said to have transcended the category of a single soldier. His decision to take the initiative after noticing the poor morale inside the formation, and ending the battle in a way that seemed violent yet was actually quite gentle, also confirmed his underlying kindness.

"Even if Qi Shiming is always busy, he will definitely take a look. We should give Mo Wen more opportunities."