Chapter 35: The Scales

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Mo Wen descended onto ground forged entirely from steel.

Countless turrets tried to track him, but they were still far too slow.

By the time they tilted downward by one degree, shifting by an imperceptible fraction, Mo Wen had already begun his slaughter.

A storm gathered at his fingertips. With a casual wave, the atmosphere seemed to explode beneath a hammer, and pale shockwaves hurled the turrets and their occupants into the air.

For a psychic, advancing from Level 3 to Level 4 meant stepping beyond the limits of humanity into an entirely new realm.

At Level 3, Mo Wen could accelerate time dozens of times over. Upon unleashing Level 4, that acceleration rose to thousands of times.

More importantly, he could affect a small amount of matter around him and determine for himself how the effects of accelerated time would manifest.

Put simply, he could move at the speed of sound, and after accelerating time, the strain and recoil he suffered would remain the same as they were at that speed. Yet the effects he inflicted upon the outside world would be equivalent to moving at a thousand times the speed of sound, with at least a million times the energy.

It was terrifying.

Without the influence of his power, the atmosphere at a thousand times the speed of sound would be virtually solid and utterly impossible to push through. Under the effect of his ability, however, the atmosphere itself became a dreadful weapon.

But the people and objects under attack had no time left to feel fear.

Even after they were killed, the speed at which their bodies flew away was far slower than Mo Wen’s movements.

He watched metal burst apart beneath his strength and become scrap. He watched bodily fluids gush from cybernetic bodies, while limbs were severed by metal fragments and sent spinning through the air.

He picked up a weapon that was still more or less intact and pulled the trigger. Yet once they left the sphere of his influence, the sluggish rockets and electromagnetic flechettes were all utterly powerless.

He could simply walk forward and seize weapons capable of threatening an ordinary cyborg. With no more than a snap of his fingers, he could grant them power far greater than they possessed at present.

Only beams of light were faster than he was now. Yet the time required for their energy to act upon an object and destroy it had become unimaginably slow within his perception.

The ecstasy of conquering time was exquisite. The entire world seemed to kneel before him.

But his enemies were not entirely defenseless.

His psychic senses told him that in 0.1 seconds, the city would be able to launch its first counterattack.

That response was already remarkably swift, and its force might severely weaken or even cripple him.

But within 0.1 seconds, Mo Wen could travel more than fifty kilometers—enough to pass straight through this fortress of war.

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And so he passed through it.

The turrets were still turning, but not one of them managed to fire.

The AI issued command after command, yet its models had never been written to deal with a monster moving at a thousand times normal speed.

The psychics finally realized that the enemy had arrived, but they could neither lock onto him nor understand what the red line on the tactical map signified. All they could do was stare blankly as they accepted the anomaly.

The shockwave arrived, followed by countless explosions. Ammunition detonated, and energy conduits ruptured.

The alarms could not keep pace with the sounds of destruction. Yet even those sounds could not catch Mo Wen. He left them far behind until he came to a stop before his target.

It was a colossal building without windows or doors, its defenses impossibly thick. Within it dwelled a powerful mind.

This was a mighty psychic, but unlike Mo Wen—a human who could reach Level 4 only briefly and would dissolve if he remained there too long—it had achieved a further stage of evolution.

Machines thought in its place. A computational matrix served as its brain, every processor a neuron. Its thoughts were electric currents, composed of zeroes and ones. This most concise of languages granted it reaction speeds far beyond those of humanity, enough to keep pace with Mo Wen.

Psychic power did not care whether the brain was biological or electronic. It simply surged within its “mind,” then erupted outward.

And so Mo Wen heard a mental voice like a colossal wave.

Even after becoming a machine, it still possessed emotions. Fury fermented within its computational matrix. It raged at Mo Wen’s slaughter and at its own helplessness—and now, it had a chance to strike back.

All its wrath condensed into two words.

“Libra!”

Was that its name, or its ability? Given the style of this world, it might well have been both.

In an instant, half of Mo Wen’s speed was taken from him, and that stolen speed was bestowed upon everything around him.

Hah. A straightforward trap.

If he had not come here, then in 0.1 seconds he would probably have been locked onto by some device. If he came here himself, then he would be attacked all the same.

Unfortunately, Mo Wen’s ability was not something everyone could use.

The turrets turned, burning amid violent friction, then were abruptly flung aside. The cyborgs activated their vector nozzles, and the wreckage immediately burst apart at a thousand times the speed of sound.

Time had not submitted to them, and their own strength had failed to overcome the laws of physics.

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Libra’s calculations stalled for an instant. It suddenly understood why this individual could interfere with its plans.

He was affecting something that did not fundamentally exist, ceaselessly struggling against everything around him and attempting to force it to submit to his own mad fantasy.

Within his “flow of time,” only he and the things under his control existed.

Libra recorded this information and uploaded it. Then, without hesitation, it unlocked its own functional limit, pushed its psychic power to Level 5, and unleashed a purely psychic assault upon Mo Wen.

If Level 4 was the realm beyond humanity, then Level 5 was the realm of gods—a power that mortals should never have been able to wield, the beginning of a qualitative transformation, the first step on the road to Heaven.

Though this mechanical body was formidable, it could not bear psychic power of such magnitude. But Libra did not fear death.

From the moment it abandoned its flesh and chose to become a specimen, its former self had already died. It had merely been imperfectly resurrected, forcing fragments of the dead to be imprinted upon a machine.

To die once more with purpose was an immense honor—whether for Libra as a psychic or for Libra as a machine.

“Die!”

Surging psychic power replaced the electric current, racing through every processor. Within thoughts composed solely of zeroes and ones, new symbols displaced everything else.

The entire machine, the entire building, and everything surrounding it began to dissolve, melting into the overflowing psychic power and the dazzling light.

Space collapsed. Motion twisted.

The perceptions of mortals could not comprehend what was happening, much less resist it. Every object within the affected area was utterly destroyed.

Only another Level 5 being could survive within such overwhelming power.

And so Mo Wen survived.

[Current Level: 5. Current Cybernetic Stability: 39%]

His vector nozzles were destroyed, his outer skin dissolved, and countless components were damaged, exposing the artificial musculature beneath. Through the shattered fragments of his skull, one could even see something swaying like gelatin—a substance no longer entirely suitable to be called a brain.

But before Mo Wen could catch his breath, a violent gravitational force bore down upon his body.

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