Electric sparks erupted.
The high-energy electric baton truly lived up to its military-grade standard. The sparks it emitted were even visible to the naked eye.
If a natural person were using this baton, and they attacked an enemy with it, there was even the risk of electric recoil—the attack range of the baton was simply too short, and the electricity, after piercing through the air or traveling across the ground, still retained powerful energy.
Only such an electric shock could effectively kill a Cyberman.
Will's claws had initially landed on Xiang Shan's "torso." The explosive air pushed the two apart. But in that brief moment, the powerful current still swept through Xiang Shan's neurons at the speed of light.
Pain.
The organ of thought trembled, neurons seeming to shiver massively amidst the electrical shock.
Xiang Shan fell to the ground.
—This is...
The sensation of a battery detaching from the body, the feeling of being on the brink of death, and the current pain, triggered even more memories in him.
He recalled images of fist and palm strikes, recalled the pain of injury.
He remembered... remembered...
—"Xiang Shan the Insurmountable"... this title... I...
—I once...
He seemed to recall something.
Huge emotions crushed Xiang Shan's thoughts. His thoughts were so chaotic that his brain even failed to send out the correct commands. There the man lay on the ground, his body trembling.
But he had no weapon in his hand.
Meanwhile, the dog named Will also fell to the ground. The electric baton was stuck in the intake port on his left side. Xiang Shan had inserted it deeply enough. When he fell from mid-air, the baton did not dislodge from the canine prosthetic body. The baton continued to discharge electricity. The nervous signals in Will's spine were entirely overwhelmed by the electric shock.
Yaningping looked up at the projection.
Only one minute and five seconds had passed. Theoretically, Will Grand Duke still had three minutes and fifty-five seconds left to defeat this yokel.
But he felt there was no need to keep a countdown any longer. This piece of trash didn't look at all capable of freeing himself from the electric shock.
[Do you see his pattern now?]
The Secretary Officer responded, [Even between life and death, he has not shown any signs of mature martial arts. It looks like he might just have a talent for external strength.]
Yaningping felt his brain was synthesizing dopamine on its own. This was a rare occurrence. Sometimes, Yaningping had to use assistance programs to stimulate his brain to perform such chemical synthesis. He was somewhat surprised by this result.
There was no need to keep time any longer.
That's how Yaningping walked into the circle drawn by bullets, approaching the yokel called "Shan."
"Hey, townsman..." Yaningping spoke to "Shan." But Shan looked very strange. His whole body trembled; his speaker was synthesizing some sort of white noise.
Xiang Shan's eyes kept opening and closing. His eyes felt very wrong. This was not a bug in the prosthetic eye. He had long been used to "crying" to vent the grief in his heart. But now he simply couldn't cry—he had no tear glands, and his speaker could not comprehend such complex emotions, nor synthesize such complex sounds.
There were no tears, something always felt wrong with his eyes.
But it was not just that. He even felt his entire body was in pain. This was phantom pain. This body had neither tactile neurons nor similar sensors. The flesh and blood body that had grown up with him was long gone.
—Why did I come back to life...
—No, did I really come back to life?
Xiang Shan could not handle such emotions. Instinctively, he raised his right hand and started pounding on his own torso.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
It seemed only thus could he feel his "heart beating."
It seemed only thus could he once again feel himself existing!
Even though he knew this was just a bad habit of his from the old era of humanity, yet...
He had to do it.
Why did he come back to life?
Why did he wake up in such a distorted world? Why did he, even having forgotten his own name, live on under the name of his enemy, in a world much like Hell itself?
Because...
"I lost..."
Unable to shed tears, almost wishing to smash his eyes.
Xiang Shan yelled at the person in front of him, "I lost... I lost! I lost! I lost! I! I lost!"
He lost.
That must have been many years ago, right? How many years had he slept?
Before he fell into a coma, he had lost a duel—perhaps that was the most important "Martial Artist's duel" in human history?
He still couldn't remember all the details of the past. But the bizarre nature of this world might well be linked to that.
—How many years have I slept? How had the world progressed when I lost consciousness?
—This inhuman Hell... does it have anything to do with me?
Confusion, fear, anger, bewilderment.
He could only shout, "I lost!"
"You..." Yaningping didn't know Xiang Shan's true meaning. He didn't realize that Xiang Shan was referring to another battle from many years ago. He only thought that this country bumpkin had been scared silly, scared into quickly admitting defeat.
—Could he really have been a Martial Artist once?
Yaningping shook his head, swallowing back the words of recruitment he had prepared.
As a subordinate or as a temporal lobe for storage, this guy was unfit.
With that, his excitement also dwindled considerably.
The young lord turned and walked towards Will Grand Duke. He pulled an electric baton from this dog's body. The dog was already in shock from the shock. The chip in its brain was forcing a restart. The prosthetic body was trying to awaken the biological brain.
But the next second, Yaningping fiercely stabbed with the electric baton.
The electric baton pierced through the dog's chest. Silvery gray fluid splattered.
That was where Will's biological brain was located.
"Disgraceful dog," Yaningping flicked the electric baton, then tossed it to the Secretary Officer, "Take away eighteen infants as the Gene Tax for this time."
"Eighteen…" The Town Mayor tried to argue, but Yaningping glared at him, "Dare to talk back, and I won't even take these eighteen!"
The soldiers quietly came over, inspecting the newborns' weight and other signs. One infant seemed to have entered into shock from the noise at the beginning and was discarded. They chose the healthiest eighteen infants and then reboarded the ground effect vehicle.
Dust whirled around.
The Town Mayor sank into new worries. The full amount of the Gene Tax hadn't been paid, and he didn't know what the Lords were thinking. However, it was certain that the town might be in danger.
Soon, another thing caught the Town Mayor's attention.
The dog's corpse.
The corpse of Will Grand Duke, which Yaningping hadn't taken.
This was a professional grade Martial Artist's Prosthetic Body!
The Town Mayor swallowed his saliva.
Perhaps because the overheated chip had finally cooled down, Xiang Shan groped for a battery on the ground, reconnected it to his body, and stood up. He hoisted up the dog's corpse, turned his back to everyone, and walked step by step into the town. The hydraulic transmission legs simply couldn't run. From earlier on, he had been forced to fight Will Grand Duke by predicting his moves.
If he had a prosthetic body that could display his strength… no, even the worst Martial Artist prosthetic could have easily killed this pet!
A loudspeaker suddenly blared, "Hey! Didn't that guy lose? Why does he think he can monopolize the spoils of war?"
To most people, it seemed as if Xiang Shan had relied on luck, twisting his body to dodge attacks and then collapsing in fright. Xiang Shan was not faster than the dog, and his strength was even weaker. In fact, apart from Will himself, only Martial Artists who deeply understood external techniques could recognize Xiang Shan's "predictions."
In the eyes of the public, Xiang Shan had not won.
A slight disturbance spread through the crowd. How valuable was a professional Martial Artist's prosthetic body? No one knew the exact amount but could imagine it would drive people crazy.
Yet, the Town Mayor suddenly shouted, "You idiots! Everyone stop! Idiots! Fools!"
.................................
Recycling Station Town soon moved past this tax collection turmoil and entered a festive mood.
Well… although it's strange to say, this town did indeed treat Tax Day as a festival. A tax officer was responsible for a large region with many towns. The tax officer's route on Tax Day depended solely on his mood. Also because of this, on Tax Day, town residents couldn't work and could only line up to welcome the tax officer.
And a day off together like this didn't happen often throughout the year.
The residents of the town worked every day.
So every year on Tax Day, after the tax officer left, the townspeople would start gathering together to celebrate.
They celebrated another year gone by, then ate, drank, chatted, and relaxed to their heart's content.
The decorations used to welcome the tax officer would also not be taken down until the next day, stored back in the village storeroom.
Although this year's tax process had not gone smoothly, and the results were not exactly perfect… well, at least the Lords had collected some taxes!
And since the process was so thrilling and exciting, it was indeed very talk-worthy! At least, it was more of a conversation starter than usual events.
As for the situation of "collecting one less baby than the planned amount"… that was the Town Mayor's worry. And, no matter how much they worried, it wouldn't help, right?
Why not inject some ethanol and opioids into themselves!
Soon, someone started boasting, saying that the man called "Yog" really was extraordinary, and he himself was astute, having seen through this person's prowess in an instant.
Of course, there were also those who were envious of "Yog" receiving an entire Martial Artist's Prosthetic Body. In their view, "Yog" was definitely going to strike it rich.
And based on this, some people spitefully said that "Yog" had merely picked up a bargain, as the previous few workers had greatly depleted the dog's energy, allowing "Yog" to succeed. That dog's prosthetic body belonged to everyone; it should be sold and the money divided among them.
But the first group retorted, "You're spouting nonsense, lying through your teeth."
Soon, the two groups began fighting—a common occurrence.
As long as they didn't fight to the point of being unable to work, even the Town Mayor wouldn't interfere—after all, the only doctor in the town was his nephew, and this would at least add a bit to his spare parts sales.
Yuki didn't like this chaos at all. He avoided the crowd and walked towards his home.
He knocked on his door, "'Yog,' you're in there, right…"
The door opened, revealing a shiny silver face, "Kid, don't call me that anymore. I've told you, it's not my name. Besides, this was your house to begin with; you could have just come in."