Chapter 589.1: I'm Not Going To Be A Human Anymore!

The most complex and intricate instrument on the planet was, without a doubt, humanity itself.

Everything created during the Prosperity Era paled compared to nature’s craftsmanship.

Even after devoting their entire, brief lives, scholars of the old world had never fully unraveled the secrets hidden within the organic machine.

The machine was nearly omnipotent.

Though the unsolved problems always outnumbered the solved ones, in the face of time, all known problems seemed to eventually find answers.

However, the machine was never designed for a single purpose. In specific domains, limits inevitably existed.

To break through those limits, one had to abandon being human.

From the moment he resurrected at the spawn point, Midnight Pubg had decided.

To become stronger,

He would no longer be human!

At least, not with his life in game!

...

"Have you thought it through? Once you step onto this path, heavy shackles will bind you for life, and you will never have the chance to turn back... Kekekekeke."

Boulder Town Arms Industry Tower, in the cybernetic modification lab.

Looking at the man lying on the operating table, Eberts wore a twisted grin.

Though he could have smiled more kindly, he simply didn’t want to.

The engineers and doctors around him were long accustomed to their boss’s morbid sense of humor.

Saws, wrenches, hammers, countless flexible robotic arms, and blade-tipped tools hung above the table. Everything was ready.

All the client had to do was nod at the camera, signing his life and death away, and they could start the operation.

But to Eberts’ mild disappointment, the man on the table didn’t look afraid or hesitant at all.

His crisp reply sounded as if the one lying there wasn’t even himself. "Hurry it up! Stop dawdling."

Startled for a moment by this impatience, Eberts chuckled, "As you wish."

He waved his hand.

The doctors and engineers didn’t waste words. They grabbed their equipment and got to work immediately.

Midnight Pubg, lying face down, simply closed his eyes. He didn’t watch the gory spectacle at all, he simply logged out.

Human bones determined the human frame, and thus the limits of strength.

Even awakeners far beyond ordinary humans still remained within the bounds of humans.

So... Boulder Town Arms Industry’s first step was to replace his entire spine, his limbs, and more with titanium alloy, replacing calcium salts. Complex bioelectric and chemical signals were swapped with pure electromechanical controls.

Next, they replaced his organic skin with 10mm thick prefabricated steel plates. Complex motors and power units bulked his frame into something massive.

The operating room rang with hammering and sawing. Bones were sawed, metal was pounded, welding arcs sizzled. Blood sprayed about everywhere, charred scraps falling to the ground.

It looked less like a surgery room, more like a machine shop.

Technically, it was. Amid the sparks, a nearly three meter tall metal giant took shape.

His left arm mounted a one-meter chainsaw, interchangeable with a mechanical hand. His right arm carried a 19mm barrel from the XB-1 Howler. It was foldable and also swappable with a normal hand.

It could fire armor-piercing rounds like a heavy rifle, or launch airburst grenades.

His power source was a three-kilogram metallic-hydrogen battery, giving a full week of operation.

He was, in essence, a walking lumberjack machine plus a recoilless cannon, with 30mm frontal armor.

The helmet was the most reinforced, where the most flesh remained, and the information hub.

If he could, Midnight Pubg would have mounted rockets on his chest.

But unfortunately, the suit wasn’t custom made to whatever he described, he was only a guinea pig testing Boulder Town Arms Industry’ experimental prototype. He had no right to direct how it was going to be. At least, not yet.

The entire system was designed by their R&D department under Project Exowarrior.

As the name implied: wearable exoframe, but replacing redundant human tissue entirely, turning a man into self-propelled armor.

With this design, even a pierced heart wouldn’t kill him. There was no heart, only a simple blood pump. The digestive system was gone too, replaced with a nutrient feed port and a waste outlet.

As the modification progressed, the so-called Exowarrior system became a part of him.

Eberts watched on as a look of intoxicated delight appeared on his face.

The idea had struck him after watching the Jungle Corps’s battle footage.

Those green-skinned freaks pursued strength by turning themselves into half-meat, half-machine brutes.

To him, that was brilliant! It should be promoted across human society!

If Boulder Town’s people shared that same pursuit, Boulder Town Arms Industry would already be the world’s number one arms corporation.

Sadly, most people disliked replacing parts of themselves with machinery. They preferred flashier bionic prosthetics.

Even mercenaries only installed one or two cybernetics when absolutely necessary.

But luckily, in the New Alliance, there was never a shortage of eccentric folks willing to push limits.

They embraced bizarre cybernetics, no matter how freakish they looked.

With such clients supporting them, alongside superior equipment and experience, Boulder Town Arms Industry had every reason to succeed.

Eberts was confident.

His Project Exowarrior would redefine exoframes, uniting man and weapon completely.

It was unprecedented!

Of course, with bionic parts rare and costly, his approach was simpler and cruder than even mutants. He used machines instead of organs.

With nuclear fuel scarce, even though the New Alliance had black boxes, he had to settle for chemical batteries.

But despite inconveniences, the war machine’s power was undeniable. It was practically made for the Jungle Corps!

Unlike Eberts, however, the chief surgeon felt his skin crawl.

Glancing at intestines and chunks of flesh discarded in a plastic bucket, he muttered, "... This guy is most likely insane."

"Be confident in your conjecture. He’s 100% insane.” An engineer quipped while wiping blood off his tablet. "What sane man would turn himself into this?"

If he ever did it to himself, his wife would divorce him by morning. No one wanted to live with a monster. Doing this was abandoning humanity itself.

Why chase strength so far?

Wasn’t being human enough?

"Are all the shelter people freaks?"

"Who cares. Hand me that saw."

"Here."

Of course, not everyone thought this way. Some looked at the iron figure on the table with admiration.

To give up humanity itself in pursuit of power to oppose the evils of the wasteland, those men were true warriors!

With respect, an engineer installed the signature 19mm barrel, tightening the final bolt.

An Exowarrior worth half a million silver coins was complete.

Midnight Pubg was still unconscious.

Eberts studied the steel form, then suddenly frowned, rubbing his chin.

That face... Why did it look so familiar?

At that moment, Midnight Pubg stirred, shook his head, and sat up from the table.

Startled, the doctor exclaimed, "Sir, you shouldn’t move yet! We used tissue-repair fluid, but please take it easy."