Chapter 617: More Information on the Artificial Saint

When Yu Sheng said he was going to call over an expert, Xu Jiali and Ling Dang hadn't reacted at first, but then they immediately saw Yu Sheng casually pull open a door leading to No. 66 Wutong Road—the moment they recognized the figure walking through from the other side, the two of them instantly understood what was going on.

Luna walked over—followed by Hu Li and Aileen, who had come to watch the excitement.

As soon as he saw the tall figure crossing the threshold, Xu Jiali, who was lying on the bed grimacing in pain, instinctively moved his body, only to nearly let out another curse through gritted teeth. Beside him, the cat-eared girl let out a "Mrow!" as she instinctively arched her back, her tail puffing up to at least twice its usual size in an instant, and even the fur on her ears stood on end…

Of course, Ling Dang knew Luna—but her fur standing on end was an instinctive reaction at that moment. It could only be said that the psychological shadow left by that previous encounter was still too strong. A killing machine like the Artificial Saint brought a kind of terror pressure when faced as an opponent that wasn't easy to shake off.

"I might have nightmares for the next couple of days, meow," Ling Dang said after her momentary burst of bristling fur. She mumbled as she turned to grab her own tail and started smoothing down the fluff. "This was way too sudden…"

Luna was also a bit stunned at this point. She glanced at Yu Sheng, then turned to look at Xu Jiali lying on the hospital bed, stabbed full of holes. After a long moment, she finally stammered out a few words: "This… was beaten… by whom?"

"What's going on? Hey, I can't see…" Aileen had followed along out of curiosity, totally confused. She was spinning around on the ground in frustration, then climbed up onto Yu Sheng's shoulder to get a clear view of the scene on the bed. She let out an impressed whistle. "Whoa! That's some fancy carving work…"

"Ran into one of Luna's former colleagues," Yu Sheng sighed and began to explain. "Still in the dark alley. This time, besides a full knightly order, there was also an Artificial Saint…"

He then roughly recounted the situation he had learned from Bai Liqing and Xu Jiali. During that, Xu Jiali himself chimed in with many details—mostly the specifics of the engagement, and a smaller part about how he had been the superior fighter. In the end, even Aileen couldn't stand it anymore. The little puppet looked down from above and teased, "Superior fighter, huh? Getting cut up like a squirrel-shaped mandarin fish, and you still have the nerve to say that…"

"That depends on who the opponent is, okay? Fighting an Artificial Saint in close quarters, and getting ambushed at that—if you don't die, that's a win, haven't you heard?" Xu Jiali argued confidently from the bed. The painkiller pump was probably kicking in again, and he sounded surprisingly energetic. "And besides, which of you could have beaten Miss Luna in a close-quarters fight?"

Yu Sheng, standing nearby, wanted to retort but didn't dare to interrupt. After all, the last time he fought Luna, he got stabbed twice and ended up with eight holes in two exchanges—his record was searchable and embarrassing.

Plus, Xu Jiali was precise in his wording, specifically emphasizing the word "close-quarters"—because if it really came down to a fight, Hu Li was actually the most destructive force in the Traveler's Inn. Even Luna's armor-grade shell couldn't withstand a reentry-level orbital strike. The Fox Radish Strike was an equalizer; the Cyber Fox Fairy didn't play by the rules…

Luna, as the topic of conversation, didn't react much. Her attention was now entirely focused on the "other Artificial Saint." By the time Aileen mentioned "squirrel-shaped mandarin fish," she had already moved close to the hospital bed and was carefully examining Xu Jiali's wounds. After a moment, she even raised a hand, reaching toward the deepest wound.

Xu Jiali broke out in a cold sweat on the spot. He stopped emphasizing his superiority and stared with wide eyes: "Hey, wait, this—"

But it was just a false alarm. Luna didn't actually press down. She only swept her palm over it in the air, as if scanning something, with a faint hum occasionally coming from inside her body.

Yu Sheng moved closer: "What do you think? Can you tell anything from the wounds?"

Luna didn't speak for a long time. After several seconds, she gave a slight shake of her head.

And through the connection established by his blood, Yu Sheng could "see" more information from her memories—

What he saw were magnificent holy halls and battlefields filled with glory. He saw armies of temple knights and saints assembling from Fortress of Radiance and charging across battlefields infested with demons. In those scenes suffused with holy light and hazy imagery, every face seemed shrouded in a veil. The "comrades" were nothing but radiant projections formed after being filtered through a cognitive mask.

Luna's voice came through, stuttering: "I, don't know, what they, look like."

The Holy Order of the Hidden Sanctuary had created cognitive masks that covered the minds of the knights and saints. They had no correct understanding or memory of their past experiences. Even standing face to face at this moment, Luna couldn't recognize some of her former "battle comrades"—even if, in past illusions, they had feasted and trained together in the same holy hall.

She could only identify those "knights" who, like her, had broken free from the cognitive mask. And even that recognition was made possible only because Yu Sheng's blood had "connected" all their minds together.

"Tsk…" Xu Jiali sucked on his teeth from the hospital bed, making a displeased sound.

As the victim of the skirmish, his mood was quite complicated now. He was certainly wary of the "Artificial Saint" who had attacked his squad, but he was even more furious at the controllers behind the Artificial Saint and the knights—as a veteran diver, he always respected enemies who attacked from the front, but many of the foes he dealt with weren't straightforward opponents; they were more often the cultists hiding in the sewers.

"This cut, is a bit shallow," Luna broke the silence again, pointing at a wound on Xu Jiali's side. "The opponent, missed?"

"Ling Dang unleashed a psionic shriek right then," Xu Jiali quickly snapped back to attention. Recalling the situation roughly, he explained, "The psionic shriek suppressed all mental activity of the enemy, and that worked on the Artificial Saint too—I managed to counterattack because of that."

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow at that: "Counterattack succeeded? Did you wound her?"

"I was already in bad shape, so I didn't see clearly, but based on feel, I hit at least four times. Two of those should have pierced her armor shell," Xu Jiali tried to recall, and despite the pain from his wounds, he raised one hand to gesture the angle of his strikes in front of Luna. "I used the Security Bureau's Model 26 enhanced beam dagger. One strike definitely hit her ribs—though I'm not sure if Artificial Saints have ribs—and the other might have hit her lower back or flank."

He sighed, looking regretful. "Her speed finally slowed down at that point. Sigh, if I hadn't been wounded from the start, I could have won."

Ling Dang muttered beside him: "The boss's mouth is tougher than his power armor, meow."

"Ribs… there's a seam, inner lining, living metal," Luna tugged at Yu Sheng's sleeve and pointed to the corresponding spot on her own body. "Beam dagger, might pierce."

"Really?" Yu Sheng blinked, then quickly asked, "Is that spot a weak point?"

"No," Luna shook her head, pointing at herself. "Whole body, no weak points."

Yu Sheng: "…"

Just then, a voice came from the doorway, interrupting their conversation: "Let me explain."

Yu Sheng turned his head and saw another familiar face—Captain of the Second Brigade, Song Cheng.

Clearly, Bai Liqing had arranged for him to come.

Song Cheng greeted the people in the room, told the grimacing Xu Jiali to lie still on the bed, then turned his gaze to Luna. After a moment's hesitation, he let out a soft sigh.

"We've been gathering information about the Holy Order of the Hidden Sanctuary from various channels recently, and we also found some intel related to the Artificial Saint from the Bamosa Hermits' Society and Terra Academy. In short, the 'Artificial Saint' is an extremely complex technology, encompassing biotech, artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, as well as several fringe technologies classifiable as 'black psionics,' and possibly even some power derived from the Warp… We don't know how those cultist followers managed to develop this stuff, but it's clear that their so-called 'Great Sages' got their hands on some terrible 'knowledge.'

"The outer shell of the Artificial Saint is already a ridiculous piece of black tech. But inside that armor is even more mind-boggling—living metal symbiotically merged with biomass, with no clear life-cycle system. This internal structure is like some kind of… 'distributed life form,' completely eliminating the concept of 'vital points.' That's why Miss Luna says she has no weak points.

"Artificial Saints indeed have no weak points. In theory, unless you completely disassemble and pulverize them in a short time, no matter how many wounds the enemy inflicts—even if every hole goes straight through—it only changes the external appearance of this 'distributed life form,' none of it is fatal."

Song Cheng's gaze then fell on Yu Sheng.

"…Of course, your ability is just too bizarre, and it happens to ignore this characteristic of the Artificial Saint."

Yu Sheng's mouth twitched. He didn't know what to say, so he just gave an awkward little laugh and reached out to hold Luna's hand.

The metallic palm was a bit cold, but it gently squeezed back.

"Then… what about the mind? Where does the mind reside?" Yu Sheng looked into Song Cheng's eyes and asked cautiously.

"That involves another forbidden technology—something close to black magic. The soul is extracted from a living person and transformed into a state resembling an 'artificial machine spirit' or 'vessel spirit,' which is then attached to the entire structure of the Artificial Saint," Song Cheng raised his hand as if to touch his clothes, instinctively wanting to light a cigarette, but immediately realized he was in a hospital room and stopped the motion. "Same thing—no vital points, no weaknesses. It's just that they ran into you, Yu Sheng, their 'natural enemy.' You're practically hard-countered."

(End of chapter)