Stars, Players and Immortals

Chapter 23: Brother, join the glorious Skywards and purify the church together!

Five days later, Mars, on the outskirts of Mariner Valley.

The waste heat pipes baked the entire alley red, and the neon signs overhead flashed, one half advertising discounts at a prosthetic clinic and the other half demanding payment of debts from a middleman company. The puddles on the ground were mixed with engine oil and blood, making a sticky sound when stepped on.

The player, [Press Ice and Don't Move], leaned against a broken vending machine, his chest heaving violently, and the prosthetic joint of his left arm was still buzzing.

Across the alley, two cyborg gang thugs were closing in.

Despite being called a cyborg, they were really nothing special, only level 5 overall, and equipped with cheap, gray-quality prosthetics. One of them was carrying a haphazardly modified [Foldfire-7 Short-barreled Spray], while the other was carrying a [Rivet Submachine Gun], its muzzle trembling as if it were having a seizure.

"Damn, this kid can run pretty fast."

"Once we catch you, we'll break your legs first, then dismantle you and sell all the parts of your body!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than the thug with the [Folding Fire-7 Short-barreled Spear] raised his gun and fired.

boom!

The scattered iron filings grazed An Bing's unmoving shoulder, causing the [Subcutaneous Armor], which he had just equipped, to jolt violently. A warning message immediately popped up on the panel indicating that the armor's durability was decreasing, and An Bing's face twitched.

"Hold!"

I just bought this prosthetic body!

An Bing cursed under his breath, but his body didn't stop. He pushed off with his feet and charged forward, his whole body pressed against the wall.

[You activate your skill: Neural Acceleration!]

[Reduced motion latency!]

The gangster carrying the shotgun only felt a blur before his eyes, and before he could move, he was already in front of the man's face. He drew his short knife from his waist and stabbed it into the man's ribs.

puff.

You dealt 21 points of damage to the "gang thug"!

"ah--!"

The man screamed, trying to raise the [Frostfire-7 Short-barreled Spray] in his hand, but the ice-pressing device gave him no chance. The ice-pressing device pushed up with its left shoulder, using the momentum to slam the man into the corner of the wall. Then, the ice-pressing device lifted up and delivered a solid, hard slam to the man's groin.

Take this kick that will make you lose your manhood!

[You dealt 33 points of fatal damage to the "gang thug"!]

"This kick is for my precious leather armor!"

[Target is dead!]

The thug who was critically hit collapsed to the ground, while the remaining thug with the [Rivet Submachine Gun] turned pale and retreated while still holding the gun.

How could he let him go if he didn't move? His health bar had already dropped by almost a third, and the durability of his [subcutaneous armor] was visibly decreasing. If he dragged this out any longer, the gang reinforcements would arrive, and he would really lose money on this job today.

So he slid forward on the oil stains on the ground, his shoulders slumped, his body lowered, and he crashed into the other person's arms like a predator pouncing on its prey.

[You activate the skill: Prosthetic Impact!]

You dealt 16 points of damage to the "gang thug"!

The thug was knocked off balance, his gun barrel veered off course, and all the bullets went flying.

While holding the gun, An Bing pressed down on the other man's wrist with his knee, twisting his entire body inward. Relying on the basic prosthetic arm he had painstakingly built, he managed to bend the other man's arm into a strange angle.

Click.

"Aaaaaah—!"

You dealt 18 points of damage to the "gang thug"!

[Target is dead!]

Anbing stood still, catching his breath. He had used up all his stamina in the previous attack, but thankfully he had managed to turn the tables.

However, when he looked down at his [subcutaneous armor] which was almost at its lowest durability, his face turned dark.

Immediately afterwards, the task settlement window popped up.

[Mission Complete: Deal with the "Rust Gang's" thugs who overstepped their bounds]

[Task Reward: Experience +500]

[Received: Prosthetic Parts x4]

[Received: Mars Shield x1000]

An Bing stared unmovingly at the pitiful reward. Already not wealthy, he cursed loudly upon seeing the BYD reward.

"You heartless middleman! How much of a kickback did you take from me for just one mission? I worked so hard to kill two thugs, and you only gave me 500 experience points and 1000 Mars Shields! Why don't you come and take the beating yourself?! All of you should be hanging from lampposts!!"

The more he cursed, the more heartbroken he became. It was the prosthetic leather armor he had painstakingly saved up for!

"Damn it, repairing this thing will cost another huge amount of Mars shields, and in the end, I'll have to go to those shady clinic doctors to spend gold coins. Mars is no place for humans."

Only after An Bing came to Mars did he realize just how dark this place really is.

At first, he thought that since the Homeworld world line was the main storyline map, it wouldn't really put him in jail.

Reality proved me wrong; people really do need to listen to advice.

He had only been on Mars for a short time when he was lured into a shady clinic under the guise of "free basic prosthetic modifications."

The other party moved very quickly, as if afraid he would run away. After installing the basic prosthetic body, he was able to successfully take up the cyborg main profession.

But there's no such thing as a free lunch.

On the very day he changed jobs, the clinic slapped the loan application in his face and also gave him a whole series of daily quests.

This is a system-mandated task, read as a beginner's tutorial, which translates to: you have to work for us first and pay off your debts before we talk about anything else.

From that day on, pressing ice was either running errands for the middleman or doing dirty work for the clinic.

Mars is full of tricks, I want to go back to Terra; Terra is slippery, and people's hearts are even more complicated.

This homeworld timeline is so ridiculous, it's like being in prison. Even a player like him who has completed Black Souls XII found it hilarious after arriving on Mars—his anger was amusement!

Just as he was squatting by the wall, feeling sorry for his armor and wondering if his thousand Mars Shields would be enough to repair half of it, a friend message suddenly popped up.

[Contact Person: Large Meal]

He glanced at the screen without moving, then casually answered the call.

"What are you doing, taking a dump? Don't bother me unless it's something important. I'm saving up to buy a new prosthetic body. Once I've saved enough, I'll beat up that shady clinic doctor first, and then beat up that middleman who takes the biggest cut."

Immediately, the sleazy voice of someone eating a large meal came from the other end of the channel.

"Still working as a slave to Martian capitalists? Brother, I have a great story to tell you about a freed serf who's singing songs of good news. Do you want to listen?"

He pressed the ice still: "Tell me about it."

"Brother, join the glorious Skywards and purify the church together!"

He rolled his eyes and remained motionless.

"It's that Skyward Faction stuff again? Let me tell you, joining a faction just sounds like a loss of freedom."

"And Skydrive hasn't been active lately either. Apart from initially boosting the popularity of that big streamer and that British pound every day, they also did a task to recruit people and cut them down. I heard from the forum that the task was stopped a few days ago."

The person at the other end of the large lunchbox immediately adopted an indignant tone.

"You're not allowed to talk about us Skywalkers like that!"

"The 'One-Hit Kill' quest may have stopped, but Skyward is still constantly absorbing new blood. Brother, I've seen you working like a slave for that shady clinic for too long, and I really couldn't bear it, so I decided to give you a hand today. Don't be ungrateful!"

After saying that, he directly sent over a mission panel and a list of several Skydrive cybernetic clinics that had already been unlocked.

At first, he was quite nonchalant when pressing the ice, but he still wouldn't let it go.

"Tsk, why does your Skyward Flying Scouts have such a villainous vibe? And you even became a glorious Covenant soldier for the Skyward Flying Scouts."

"Pimping isn't enough, you're planning to make us Fourth Calamity parasites who draw salaries without working, huh? Hilarious, the Skywards are so poor they can't even pay their own salaries."

"Even if I continue to be a slave, continue to run missions, and continue to develop cybernetic implants, I will never become a Covenant soldier for the Skyward Expedition—"

He stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence.

Because below the mission panel, the list of unlocked Skyward Prosthetic Clinic items was flashing with rows of dazzling redemption options.

Military-grade subcutaneous armor, reinforced skeleton, neural response assist module...

There were even a few high-end prosthetic bodies that he had seen others rave about on the forum, but which he had never even touched himself.

An Bing stared intently at the list, his previously droopy eyes gradually widening, and the corners of his mouth began to curl upwards uncontrollably.

The person on the other end of the channel, who was eating a large meal, immediately laughed when he suddenly went silent.

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

An Bing coughed once, and his tone immediately changed.

"Well... the main thing is that I've always loved the collective since I was a child, especially loving to share the burdens of the organization. What I was saying just now was just a joke."

If you had told me earlier that Skywarders had such a good job, I would have gone to serve the organization long ago. Why would I still have to put up with Mars Lord's temper?

……

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