Chapter 1012 - 55: Injecting Nuclear Power

[Illuminati: Are you sure what you’re giving them is training? Never seen such brutal training.]

Night City accesses Marvel World’s prosthetic combat through cross-dimensional devices, and it seems these "mad" combat robots are causing quite a headache for Ultron, perfectly prepared for the role of disposable soldiers, though the actual losses are not insignificant.

This immersive combat technology, dying once hardly leads to any irreversible damage, but successive deaths are a different story:

Cyber Prosthetics adjust body conditions on the battlefield, but simulation devices increase the connection of prosthetics to perfectly sync battlefield conditions, only disconnecting at the last second of death, much like watching the Black Superdream—

In Night City, experiencing death and killing in the Black Superdream has always been a heavily affected area for creating cyber psychosis, but many can’t afford prosthetics with destructive capabilities, becoming more of a mental illness.

On the day of the operation, in Night City City Defense Army base, many soldiers repeatedly foamed at the mouth and lost consciousness, and other NCPD outsourced members in the area were no exception, even those who pride themselves on being tough, Vortex Gang members highly resistant to such intense stimuli, failed quite a few...

In the Illuminati’s view, this is almost equivalent to giving everyone a group screening of a Black Superdream; it completely baffled Lille on what it was doing. If it’s just training, doing it to this extent could be called a disaster.

"Oh my..."

V exits the virtual environment, her mind filled with massive fireballs, flashes, and molten metal pools melting from high temperatures, burning skies, fire rain...

She had never seen such scenes in her life, even battlefield Black Superdreams she had watched were never this real, suffocating.

She walked out of the room and saw Hansen sitting dazed alone on the real-world training pod, looking quite mentally disturbed—

But the self-regulation ability of new American veterans with traceable records was still quite strong; he shook his head and snapped out of that Hell just as Lille reappeared in the public view.

Upon seeing Lille’s emergence, hearing his footsteps on the floor, looking at his massive figure hidden beneath his cloak and the reactor flickering with light on his chest, Hansen was instantly dragged back to that battlefield, beginning to doubt his life:

"...What...what is that? Such a grand battlefield, so intelligent a training subject, I feel like my skin is burning, and it’s still burning now...

Where did you get this from?! There was never such a war in this world!"

Lille laughed, his voice somewhat deep: "Hehe...really no? The Su Federation bombed the whole Middle East until it crystallized, can you imagine the magnitude of that?"

Hansen froze for a moment; of course, he knew about that war, Su Petrochemical long embroiled in heated conflicts with Peizhuo Petrochemical for control over Middle Eastern resources.

The amount of resources the two energy monopolizing giants can pool, ordinary people can hardly imagine, pouring massive amounts of money and manpower into the Middle East annually which the Su Federation, unable to bear it anymore, perhaps received support and guidance from Su Petrochemical, used a large number of nuclear bombs to completely destroy the Middle East, causing its vast desert to crystallize.

As a military commander, Hansen certainly knew.

"It’s not the same... No company can develop land to that extent, so-called claims by Su Petrochemical of bombing the whole Middle East to crystalline is an exaggeration. In reality, that place was indeed subjected to horrifying bombings, but what hinders corporate development is actually radiation...

It’s already a dead zone; neither machinery nor humans can operate there; the annual drifting of radiation dust to nearby areas has people shunning it.

What you demonstrated there isn’t the same thing! If a company had that development capability, it would’ve dominated the world already!"

Illuminati nodded in agreement, it did not connect to the battlefield, merely observed combat records uploaded by returning soldiers.

Rather than saying it was human-made robots... Illuminati felt it resembled scenarios crafted by some extremely powerful military-like counterpart...

In Illuminati’s calculations, humanity does not have such capabilities, at least not for the next hundred years.

Lille nodded slightly: "Indeed, this ability now belongs to us. I have a blueprint here, regarding the Mechanical Nest City.

I’d like Night City’s underground city construction to reference these structures, so we can have a self-sufficient city integrating military and production capabilities.

How many passed the battlefield assessment?"

Illuminati’s voice responded:

[Illuminati: Less than 200 performed well, if you broaden the criteria for psych state assessments, some in the ’fanatic’ state could participate in your plan...]

Lille shook his head in refusal: "I need a special forces unit that can maintain absolute composure; madness is meaningless; even the maddest can outweigh the stability of a Titan robot driver?"

Military Technology and New America always enjoyed hiring mercenaries from Night City at any time, as mercenaries there are of the highest quality in the world—

You could even say the whole North America mass-produce exceptional mercenaries; Military Technology thus benefited greatly from this industry-leading enterprise, especially in the internet age, almost every legendary mercenary had close relations with Military Technology, like Black Hand, Susan, and Legendary Mercenary were Military Technology’s fixed hires.

Unfortunately, as Lille mentioned, on the battlefield, a fierce combatant who can also drive Titan outshines numerous such mercenaries; Hansen even feels that only another Titan-driving Iron Rider can defeat a similar Iron Rider.

"I agree with this plan." Hansen eagerly echoed Lille, "Not just Iron Riders, but skilled soldiers on that battlefield; we need a group of trained individuals, not a bunch of ragtag militiamen!"

[Illuminati: Got it, then I’ll immediately have provisionally suitable Iron Riders and regular army soldiers report to the fortress.]

[Illuminati: Additionally, as you were engaging in virtual combat, the agricultural lab built for Wanderers yielded fruitful results; experimental fields outside the city have begun construction, and the water purification plant has started production, though energy bottlenecks are imminent.]

[Illuminati: City’s stability is decent, but our allocatable resources are rapidly depleting, numerous investors, companies have already withdrawn from Night City, and the number of suppliers is decreasing...]

[Illuminati: New Mexico City’s suppliers plan to increase goods prices, but that’s not the biggest hassle; the Adkaduo Clan reported some military movements, they observed New America deploying garrison south of Southern California.]

[Illuminati: We must take the initiative.]

New America’s retaliation came neither quickly nor slowly, roughly within expectations.

Lille nodded, asking the most critical question: "What stage is the Riftsky Plan at?"

"Three engines have been assembled, just lacking nuclear warheads."

Hansen eagerly snapped up the conversation, very attentive to employing this weapon.

Actually, Lille could roughly guess what the situation was, as the missile designs used in the Riftsky Plan were simultaneously deployed in production in the Marvel World, with the industrial capacities of both worlds complementing each other, the final product was identical.

It’s time to inject Night City with some ’nuclear power’ already.