The First Order

Silence fell over the administrative building. As Ren Xiaosu strolled through the bloodsoaked environment, the enemies in the building had apparently all died. Only the sound of blood flowing could be heard in the background.

While he walked up the stairway to the fourth story, Ren Xiaosu realized he encountered almost no resistance. He felt that this was a little odd.

He found a locked door between the third and fourth stories, and it seemed like it was not usually accessible to even the officers of this building.

Clang! Ren Xiaosu cut open the door. Before proceeding up to the fourth story, he hid stealthily behind a window and took a look outside. He saw more than a 100 soldiers already gathered below the tower.

With a glare, Ren Xiaosu began to search through the entirety of the fourth story. It would still take a while for the brigade outside the base to get back. If there were 500 Zong Consortium soldiers in the base, there would only be about 300 soldiers below the tower after taking into account the 100 or so troops he had just killed.

To be honest, Ren Xiaosu was hoping he could attract an even greater number of Zong Consortium troops back to the base. This was so he would get a better opportunity to kill the Zong Consortium’s higher-ups once he rushed out of here. As such, Ren Xiaosu believed that his plan of breaking into the Zong Consortium’s base had achieved its goal of disrupting their plans.

When he slashed open another locked door, Ren Xiaosu was startled. He instinctively thought of ducking into the corner to hide as he saw 30 soldiers standing inside this spacious room!

But Ren Xiaosu realized what was going on. After he broke into the room, the soldiers did not even move. They just stood like statues.

Ren Xiaosu cautiously looked at them and was shocked to discover he actually knew these soldiers! Weren’t these the Yang Consortium’s nanosoldiers?!

When Yang Xiaojin was assigned to exterminate the bandits, her third uncle had sent a platoon of nanosoldiers to ensure her safety.

But Ren Xiaosu never saw those nanosoldiers again after Yang Xiaojin suddenly took him on another route to the valley.

But shouldn’t these nanosoldiers have continued marching north with Zong Cheng? Even if they had failed to exterminate the bandits or encountered something unexpected, it didn’t make sense that they would be standing here like statues.

Suddenly, Ren Xiaosu remembered what Zhang Jinglin had told him. “We have evidence to suspect that Zong Cheng’s superpower allows him to gain control of others.”

A conjecture popped up in Ren Xiaosu’s mind. Could these nanosoldiers have fallen under the control of Zong Cheng to become his trump cards?

At this moment, the voice from the palace in his mind said, “Nanomachines not paired to a consciousness have been detected. Would you like to establish a connection?”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned for a moment. In the past, he could only reset the nanomachines of nanosoldiers who had died, so why was it different this time?

Wait a minute! Ren Xiaosu remembered what the palace had said. He realized the condition required for the palace to reset the nanomachines was not dependent on whether a person was dead but whether there was any consciousness controlling them.

And these nanosoldiers had been put into some kind of a sleep mode after being controlled by Zong Cheng. Therefore, were their “consciousnesses” forcefully suspended by Zong Cheng as well?

Living like this could not be more miserable since they did not have control over their own lives.

“Reset them!” Ren Xiaosu answered.

Since his last battle in the wilderness, Ren Xiaosu often missed the feeling of having those nanomachines. That was because the armor was like a lifeline that could allow him to ignore the effects of standard firearms for a short duration!

Although he missed having them, he had not had the opportunity to search for more new nanomachines. He had almost given up hope, so he was surprised he could actually reunite with the nanomachines here in the Zong Consortium today.

As the saying goes, you search high and low only to find it when you least expect it.

“Removing remote access protocol…

“Resetting to factory settings…

“Restarting system…

“Pairing successful.”

As a silvery stream gathered towards Ren Xiaosu, he could feel that familiar power returning to his body.

He heard shuffling footsteps from downstairs again. It sounded like the troops gathered outside had run out of patience and were going to launch an assault.

But Ren Xiaosu chose to ignore them this time and focused on receiving all the nanomachines.

What were several hundred Zong Consortium soldiers in the face of the armor? Ren Xiaosu felt a sense of security spreading in him.

Once he regained this power, the Zong Consortium’s higher-ups living in Stronghold 146 had better start praying hard for themselves!

This was Ren Xiaosu at his peak! And Stronghold 146 was destined to be his final battlefield in the Northwest!

No! Ren Xiaosu suddenly felt it was unnecessary for the Zong Consortium higher-ups to even pray anymore. They might as well just prepare for their deaths.

But before all of the nanomachines were fully integrated into his body, the nanosoldiers in the room suddenly charged at him. It seemed like they had received a command from someone. Ren Xiaosu frowned. Zong Cheng must have reached somewhere close enough for him to control the nanosoldiers!

Zong Cheng!

When this name flashed through Ren Xiaosu’s mind, all he felt was a killing intent.

Although all of the nanosoldiers charged at him, these nanosoldiers without nanomachines were fragile as a paper to Ren Xiaosu.

At the same time as the nanosoldiers were activated, a man darted in from outside to coordinate with them to kill Ren Xiaosu. This person that had just arrived was Zong Cheng!

Ren Xiaosu sneered as he drew out his saber to slash at him. But the moment Zong Cheng came into the room, he suddenly realized something was not right. He backed off immediately and just managed to dodge Ren Xiaosu’s black saber that was coming at him!

Zong Cheng stared blankly at the nanosoldiers who were heavily injured and shouted at Ren Xiaosu, “Where’d all the nanomachines go? Why have the nanomachines in these nanosoldiers disappeared?”

Ren Xiaosu guided the remaining stream of nanomachines into his blood vessels while explaining patiently, “Isn’t it normal that there’s no nanomachines in nanosoldiers? You don’t get a wife in a ‘wife cake.'[1]”

Ren Xiaosu was now certain that even though Zong Cheng could control others, he could not control them in the way he could control his shadow clone, whose sensory perception would give feedback to his own senses.

Otherwise, Zong Cheng would not have rushed into the room at all.

Zong Cheng was not in the mood to crack lame jokes with Ren Xiaosu at a time like this. When he realized that one of his trump cards had been nullified, he leaped out of a window in the hallway behind him without hesitation. He had decisively jumped from the fourth story in an attempt to join up with the garrison troops below to escape. He knew full well he was no match for Ren Xiaosu!

Jumping from the fourth story was better than dying on the spot!

But this time, Ren Xiaosu would definitely not allow him to continue living.

If he missed this chance to get him, Zong Cheng would probably conceal himself and escape from here. At that time, it would be difficult to find him again in the sea of people.

So for Ren Xiaosu, this was his only chance to get him.

Ren Xiaosu instantly covered his entire body with the armor and stood by the window. He saw Zong Cheng limping towards the Zong Consortium’s defensive line while shouting at them, “Kill that man at the window! Fire at him!”

But as the hail of bullets hit the armor, they could only see sparks flying!

Under the gazes of the Zong Consortium’s soldiers, a huge and massive armored being suddenly leaped and crashed down in front of them without any fancy moves.

With this leap, Ren Xiaosu took out the Zong Consortium’s defensive line in the most dominating fashion!

[1] A sweetheart cake or wife cake or marriage pie is a traditional Cantonese pastry with a thin crust of flaky pastry, and made with a filling of winter melon, almond paste, and sesame, and spiced with five spice powder. “Wife cake” is the translation of lou po beng from Cantonese, and although the meaning is “wife”, the literal translation is “old lady cake”, paralleling the colloquial usage of “old lady” for “wife” in American English. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetheart_cake