The Undying Transmigrator

Chapter 13: The Hard Way

Military-grade augmented soldiers were formidable, but they still had weaknesses.

Compared to heavy war machines that could stack meters or even dozens of meters of armor with plasma shields, military-grade augmented soldiers were only human-sized. No matter how reinforced their defenses were, there was an upper limit.

Setting aside exaggerated urban legends, conventional anti-vehicle weapons could potentially kill a military-grade augmented soldier with a single well-placed shot.

Grenade rifles, rockets, and high-yield explosives were particularly effective.

However, military-grade augmented soldiers could move at supersonic speeds and perform inexplicable high-speed directional changes, instantly switching from full-speed advance to full-speed retreat while completely ignoring inertia.

Without overwhelming firepower to blanket the entire area, the key was to restrict their mobility.

Mo Wen was certain the enemy had marked him as primary target. If he stubbornly refused to die, his opponent would eventually engage personally. As long as he could draw her into a sufficiently complex environment at that moment, she wouldn't be able to utilize her full agility.

Easier said than done—first he had to survive the drone hunt.

The building ruins had become an extremely complex and chaotic maze after multiple bombardments and drone attacks.

It was hard to say whether the original construction quality had been good or bad—while most structures had collapsed into fragments, several rooms remained relatively intact.Mo Wen leaped upward, shattering the glass above him to narrowly evade a barrage of gunfire personally directed by his opponent, then immediately slid sideways through a gap in the steel beams to reach a long-abandoned restroom.

He gasped for breath as he ducked into a stall—just as a drone-fired rocket shattered the ceiling above, sending the entire structure crashing down.

Mo Wen had exhausted his ammunition, and his reserve supplies had been destroyed in earlier shelling. Fortunately, he'd purchased an interesting gadget earlier.

As the enemy's cloaked rocket drone descended, Mo Wen burst from the stall. Guided by the prickling sense of impending death between his shoulders, he pinpointed the drone's location and leaped up to jam a dagger-like physical hacking device into it before it could fire again.

This gadget was utterly useless against normal humans—though admittedly cool-looking and on sale—which was why Mo Wen had casually bought and carried it.

Clutching the commandeered drone as it ascended, he fired a rocket that blasted through the rubble pile ahead.

"Boom!"

The already precarious structure underwent violent changes again as supporting beams twisted and walls fractured, sending several rooms sliding apart.

Before another drone could finish calculating the new structural changes behind the rubble pile, Mo Wen captured it too, then moved to hunt the next drone.

The gang leader watched from a distance as the building ruins tilted and collapsed again, profoundly impressed by someone's tenacious will to live.

But he also knew that once the structure stabilized, the drones would quickly regroup to surround and kill Mo Wen—unless more variables were introduced.

"Using collapsing debris to create complex terrain in his own fighting area—what a madman."

Surviving the first collapse was incredible enough. Surviving repeated collapses while continuously destabilizing the structure and gradually eliminating enemy drones bordered on impossible.

Yet Mo Wen had already begun succeeding at this impossible process. What else could the gang leader do but watch?

One gang member feverishly calculated optimal demolition points while the leader and another member directed drone attacks on those positions.

After the explosions, if possible, they'd need to dismantle those artillery turrets too, lest the enemy change tactics and resume concentrated fire.

As for how to kill the military-grade augmented soldier afterward? They'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

Vanessa grew impatient. Turning the city into a trap wasn't providing the advantage she'd imagined—instead it was making her target harder to kill, and those insane mercenaries weren't fleeing but causing trouble.

The drones capable of effective anti-air were playing hide-and-seek with Mo Wen in the ruins, while the heavy turrets proved ineffective against drones.

Although hacking wasn't her specialty, a military-grade augmented soldier's processing power far surpassed civilian models!

She attempted to seize control of the enemy drones.

"No! No! No! Life Pharmaceuticals' stray dog, your granddaddy's coming for you!"

The moment she accessed their control network, countermeasures left by Dreamweaver Entertainment's cybersecurity engineers flagged her IP.

Had she not disconnected immediately, she'd have been compromised.

Damn it!

Vanessa gripped her ion sniper rifle tightly.

Should she kill? Eliminate non-essential targets...

She activated her loudspeaker for one final warning: "Listen well, mercenaries. Leave now or I'll kill you all. Don't think you're well-hidden."

"Dreamweaver Entertainment specializes in mental suggestion. Their city is saturated with high-power suggestion devices—anyone within intercity network coverage gets brainwashed."

"They'll strip away your free will, turn you into docile sheep."

"Whatever reason you have for interfering, ask yourselves—is it truly worth dying for?"

"Don't waste your lives."

They didn't stop.

Vanessa couldn't tell if they distrusted her as an enemy, mistakenly believed themselves safely hidden, or if Dreamweaver's mental conditioning ran that deep.

People could never truly understand each other.

So they could only fight.

Accelerating to 300 meters per second, she reached an elevated position and effortlessly locked onto the three mercenaries hiding separately behind walls.

As a sniper specialist, her accuracy was 100% unless the environment became impossibly chaotic.

Whether targets hid inside buildings or hundreds of meters away, she could kill with one shot.

Only her mercy had prevented her from eliminating them all earlier.

0.2 seconds later, the first sniper shot vaporized a gang member's upper body; his legs wobbled before collapsing.

0.7 seconds later, the second shot bisected another gang member—his head landed on his pelvis, pausing momentarily before toppling over, much slower than his already fallen arm.

1.2 seconds later, the third shot targeted the gang leader, who managed a desperate sideways leap at the last moment.

This slight success meant his lower half fell in one place while his metal head—now missing its jaw—landed elsewhere, cybernetic eye flickering several times before dimming.

Their drones switched to autonomous mode—some searching for Vanessa, others kamikaze-charging the artillery.

Dreamweaver made no attempt to remotely take over the drones, whether because they deemed the situation irrecoverable or beneath their concern.

Vanessa didn't dwell on it—none of that mattered now.

Having delayed this long, whether Dreamweaver's rapid response team arrived or her own company sacrificed her as scapegoat, she was likely already dead.

She only wanted to kill her mortal enemy before the end.

Finally engaging personally, she advanced toward Mo Wen's position.