Chapter 999 - 44: Otherworldly Reinforcements

The Latovian army is essentially divided into three levels. The lowest level is the militia stationed in mainland Europe to maintain order. These militiamen use skill chips and software to assist in controlling city machinery to complete tasks like maintaining order.

The second level is the regular army, which can generally understand the operating principles of modern weapons like drones, armored vehicles, missile carriers, and rocket launchers. Compared with the militia corps, they have significantly improved intelligence, mobility, and willpower. An important operator of automated equipment can control up to dozens of drones in a smart formation by himself.

The third level is the Iron Riders.

In this war, all armies and Iron Riders were deployed in combat, but in reality, humans only had a little over seventy thousand troops. True combat largely relied on mechanized units, including drones, self-propelled guns, and missile carriers, achieving nearly automated warfare.

The nuclear explosion at the start of the battle clearly dealt a severe blow to Ultron, causing the Ultron army, united through the network, to severely degrade. The machines all turned into independent entities, retaining only their basic combat instincts, becoming truly rigid robots—

Let alone the Iron Riders, even ordinary soldiers’ intelligence far surpasses these Ultron robots. So, the actual key to victory in this battle was never the raid on the King’s Throne but whether the soldiers could annihilate the Ultron army.

However, the nuclear explosion completely disrupted Ultron’s network and equally inhibited the Latovian army’s battlefield communications. Information warfare and information command means became illusions, mechanized equipment refused to obey commands, and delays, erroneous commands, and loss of connection were commonplace...

Not only did Ultron’s robots have to fight individually, but the Latovian army also largely lost the ability to remotely control their equipment. The soldiers could only rely on their guns and knives and the exoskeletons on their bodies.

How do seventy thousand men counter the overwhelming force of robots?

Even if the remaining Ultron robots are low in combat capability, they’re still military weapons!

Ultron’s main consciousness restarted in the factory at the edge of the Mechanical Nest City. Having lost its meticulously crafted body, it could only use the same mass-produced bodies—

This terrifying robot had already transferred its consciousness to the outer industrial district. Although wireless communications were shattered, the wired network, under a strict electromagnetic protection system, had cut off connections with the explosion point, preserving its consciousness almost intact.

However, the characteristic of being built on resource points in the outer industrial district determined that it could only disperse its consciousness, distributedly attaching itself to this nest city—

As Lille said, Ultron couldn’t flee to any network in the world. Europe’s networks had rules set by Lille he couldn’t detect, and America’s network had rules jointly established by Hydra and Rocksen, only this land...

Now, this remaining Mechanical Nest City is it itself!

"Tiny humans are merely struggling to die of illness..."

All the machine bodies in the entire assembly complex started up, rushing out of the breached opening in a grand manner!

It wanted to crush those human soldiers with its absolute numbers!

Ultron watched as its temporary body stood up from the base and charged out the door, but in the next second, it saw something it couldn’t comprehend:

From the Latovian squad it had suppressed with firepower, some mechanical soldiers suddenly rushed out!

This immediately plunged Ultron’s mind into confusion and bewilderment:

The AI able to generate consciousness, defined by Lille as a dangerous threshold, requires a vast amount of computational power and a very subtle design for its creation; the latter can even be said to involve an element of luck.

It was precisely because of this that the AI carried by the individual Ultron robots was very primitive, and although it had a self-iterating function, the upper limit was very low. The military equipment on the Latovian side was even more so...

But the dexterity of those combat robots and their coordination with the human side was exceptionally precise!

Ultron simply couldn’t understand: It’s normal for human coordination, through tactics and individual intelligence, to surpass its machine soldiers in operational quality because every human is an advanced AI.

But what was going on with those robots!!

...

In Night City, the City Defense Army received new training orders:

A batch of new cyber-realistic training equipment had been produced in the northern industrial district within the city and needed immediate training tests—

This city, with a population of seven million, saw its population increase daily, as did the number of the City Defense Army, but more were the NCPD outsourced members transformed from former gang members, and so on...

Kurt Hansen also donned the training suit, which could directly connect to the Reality Cabin’s electrodes. Together with neural implants and brain-machine devices, it precisely stimulated every muscle and nerve on his body, simulating nearly all aspects of sensory experiences except for acceleration.

In fact, Night City now also produced training cabins capable of simulating acceleration, which had already been technically realized. The European Space Agency used such equipment to train astronauts, and large companies like Arasaka and Military Technology used these for training pilots. Coincidentally, Munemasa knew how to do it.

However, the first Reality Cabin capable of simulating acceleration was not for Hansen’s use.

V was wearing an entire training exoskeleton, and compared to Hansen and other ordinary soldiers, her exaggerated rate of prosthetics and the presence of the little octopus meant entering the acceleration simulation cabin would genuinely allow her to experience 100% simulation effect.

V looked at her equipment and then at the enormous acceleration training cabin in front of her—calling it a cabin was more like calling it a huge room.

"New America’s advanced forces and big companies like Military Technology must have a lot of such equipment, right?"

Facing V’s question, Hansen shook his head: "If all troops were trained this way, the cost would be horrendously high. This is a facility only elites can use, and as for your room, that’s for elites among elites—

The cost of training excellent pilots is quite high. On one hand, few biologically gifted people exist, and on the other hand, these potential-evoking devices in controlled environments are very expensive.

Burger King—Lille envisioned establishing a special forces unit with capabilities beyond imagination, and to train such soldiers, you need a room like the one you’re using. If there’s no potential for use, the rate of disability is very high..."

There was more that Hansen didn’t say: He didn’t quite understand why Lille used inhuman technology as he did, but the technology used by those around him was equally dangerous.

Amazingly, so far, none of these people had been reported to suffer from cyberpsychosis, at most only stepping down from the front lines...

And among the retired soldiers once employed by New America and Military Technology, the rate of cyberpsychosis was even higher. So far, many retired soldiers in Night City could still engage in industrial production normally—

Of course, Hansen noticed that Lille treated these retired soldiers differently from Military Technology, but not having a single case of cyberpsychosis was unexpected for him.

Upon hearing Hansen’s words, V felt inwardly delighted, feeling proud: "It just has to be me..."

With that, she entered the room and closed the sealed door.

Hansen was speechless: Normal people would not be so elated when hearing that the things they’re using are dangerous.

But now was not the time to explore the abnormal emotions around Burger King. Lille had distributed similar equipment to everyone, with simulation standards ranging from high to low at every level. In the City Defense Army at Taiping State’s Dog Town military base, the major gangs in the city, and the Wanderers on Evil Land, everyone was connected to the devices...

It was as if they were about to fight a war in virtual reality.

[Reality training mode activated, please eliminate all visible enemy machines.]

In front of everyone connected to the cabin appeared a terrifying scene—

A burning sky, metallic ground, overwhelming rain of fire, endless army of machines...

Even though Hansen could be considered a cultured officer, the first word that popped into his head was:

Hell!