Chapter 1 The Beginning

In a city ravaged by war, a small squad of mercenaries and a "civilian" moved through the streets, using the surrounding buildings as cover. They were far from the ongoing firefight, and the occasional sporadic gunfire sounded distant. The journey seemed peaceful, at least for the moment.

Nolan glanced back at the "civilian." He had been carrying the dead blonde girl on his back, keeping up with the team on foot for a long time now, and hadn't fallen behind once. She didn't know whether to admire the natural-born's stamina or his persistence—or to curse this damned world.

"I said he wouldn't last a kilometer," one of the mercenaries muttered to his comrade, one of the two rookies who had been responsible for recovering weapons earlier. "Tsk, I lost this one. I owe you a meal."

His comrade grumbled, "Speaking of which, that girl looked like a second-generation Evolver. It's the first time I've seen a natural-born get so close to a second-generation Evolver."

Nolan sternly silenced her soldiers: "Shut up and focus on moving."

Meanwhile, the seemingly quiet Hao Ren was having a heated conversation with his data terminal in his mind. The data terminal was commenting on the "scandal": "Actually, this unit doesn't think this is your first scandal—think about the pot at home, and then think about your image in Hesperia's eyes. Don't you have plenty of scandals already?"

Hao Ren had been annoyed by this guy's chatter all the way, and now he was too tired to argue: "Why don't you ever shut up… Instead of thinking about this crap, why don't you analyze why you turned into this?"

"This unit has analyzed it, but hasn't found the reason," the data terminal said frankly. "This unit is a logical machine, and it's okay to analyze quantifiable experimental data. But asking this unit to use its sixth sense to guess out of thin air is no better than asking Lily. At least she has a broad mind."

Hao Ren sighed inwardly: "Either you were interfered with when you entered the Dream Plane, and you were converted into this image, or it's 'body snatching,' and your consciousness was attached to a local. Now it seems like the latter is more likely."

Before discovering the Tanagrus Rift, Hao Ren and his team could only enter the Dream Plane through mental intrusion, so they had studied the process extensively. According to research, when a spirit body enters the Dream Plane, because the main body is still in the physical world, it forms a "clone" similar to a data projection. The image of this clone is usually based on self-perception, so if a person with schizophrenia falls asleep and enters the Dream Plane, they may turn into an image that even they can't recognize—but Hao Ren didn't think that a data terminal could also have schizophrenia, and even if it did, it wouldn't split into a blonde, soft girl, let alone a dead one...

In summary, "body snatching" was more likely. Perhaps at the moment the data terminal entered this world, the blonde girl happened to die, and then the two people's consciousnesses resonated or something... That's what the books say, anyway.

The data terminal thought seriously: "It's all guesswork, lacking data support. This unit is not good at judging such propositions. This unit only knows that the current state is not good, the senses have a big problem, and it still cannot move. What an inefficient and useless body..."

"Nonsense, putting Windows into an abacus, it would be a miracle if you could run it. You should be grateful that you still have the function of arguing with me," Hao Ren was even more resentful than the data terminal. "I'm the one who's annoyed. You suddenly turned into such a big lump, and I have to carry you on the road! Where's the convenience of being able to put you in my pocket? Tsk, there are so many people around, and I can't throw you into my personal space..."

No one knew about his conversation with the data terminal in his mind. Ulanov turned his head and curiously sized up the man who had been "silent" all the way: "Were you originally planning to cross the entire No-Man's-Land? To Zero City? Or to Black Street?"

Hao Ren didn't know what these places were, but he couldn't expose his ignorance too much, so he asked back: "What's the situation in these two places now?"

"What else can it be? Neither is a good place," another mercenary clicked his tongue. "Zero City is a bit better, at least it's a city with someone in charge. Currently, Evolvers are in power, but natural-borns can also survive, but getting in is more troublesome. Either you have money, or you have technology, or you'll be harassed. But if you can fight, you can join their city defense army. Black Street is more relaxed than Zero City. Anyone can go, but how long you can live there depends entirely on your luck. Natural-borns and Evolvers are no different there. Life is cheap."

Ulanov added in a muffled voice, "By the way, we 'Gray Fox' do business in Black Street."

"I suggest you go to Zero City," Nolan said from the front without turning her head. "Someone like you wouldn't last three days in Black Street. Your gold will be the death of you. If you go to Zero City, you can hand over all your property to the city management committee, and you should be able to exchange it for three years of survival. You should be able to find a job within three years."

Hao Ren slowly digested these world-view aspects, outlining the distribution of power in the nearby area and the current situation of the world in his mind. His silence had a different meaning in Ulanov's eyes. The latter patted him on the shoulder: "Face reality. After crossing the Gray River, that's how the rules are."

At this moment, Nolan, who was leading the way, suddenly stopped and signaled the mercenaries behind her to be vigilant. Hao Ren and the others hid behind a half-collapsed concrete wall. He saw an open space not far ahead. There seemed to be some air distortion above the open space. After concentrating his mind, he could tell that it was a layer of optical camouflage.

Nolan squatted down in the shadows, pressing the communicator to her ear as if she was communicating with someone. After a moment, she signaled that the alert was lifted, and then stepped out and waved to the open space in front.

The optical camouflage above the open space rippled and faded away, as if a ring of water curtains fell, and a large truck covered in armor appeared in front of everyone. Hao Ren noticed that the truck had the same logo on its front as Nolan's combat uniform. It seemed that this was the person who had come to pick them up.

"Follow me." Nolan waved her hand and took the lead, but just as Hao Ren was about to step forward, his sixth sense, honed in battle, suddenly sounded an alarm!

"Ambush!" He and Nolan shouted almost simultaneously, and the moment their voices fell, gunfire erupted!

Tongues of fire spewed out from the surrounding buildings without warning. Dense gunfire suddenly rang out like a rainstorm. The mercenaries reacted instantly and immediately retreated to cover, but Nolan was too far ahead and didn't have time to return. She had to grit her teeth and rush forward to the armored truck, seemingly wanting to use the vehicle to seek cover.

Hao Ren had already placed the "corpse" on his back aside and was preparing to find an opportunity to fight back, but at that moment, the corner of his eye suddenly saw the truck door open, and an arm holding a gun was reaching out from inside, pointing at Nolan.

Hao Ren casually took out something hard from his personal space and threw it over, accurately knocking the gun out of the person's hand in the car. Nolan immediately took the opportunity to draw her gun and shoot, eliminating the enemy in front of her, and then flashed into the truck like an agile monkey. At the same time, the other mercenaries also began to fight back, and for a moment, only deafening gunfire and explosions could be heard. Hao Ren looked at the situation nearby and thought that his psionic pistol and plasma lance were too conspicuous, so he simply put away his weapons and tiptoed towards a nearby building. Ulanov shouted from behind, "What are you doing!?"

Hao Ren didn't respond. After a few leaps with his body bent, he disappeared into the shadows of a building.

A moment later, accompanied by a scream, a hidden gunner was thrown directly from the top floor of the building and fell to his death on the open space.

Hao Ren poked his head out from the edge of the roof and waved to the mercenaries below, thinking that this should be considered combat power within the human category...

Ulanov looked at this scene in astonishment and instantly couldn't believe Hao Ren's civilian status. At the same time, a mechanical friction sound suddenly came from the truck in the center of the open space. The roof of the truck was gradually rising, and a small weapon station rose from below. Nolan stood on the lift platform, controlling four multi-barreled machine guns to aim at the firing points on the nearby buildings.

With a wooden expression, Nolan activated these big killers. In the next moment, only the roaring sound of the multi-barreled machine guns remained on the open space.