#1012 - Sun (I)

One day prior.

"Close your eyes, focus your mind, and feel the energy in the universe."

Ding—

A crisp sound seemed to dispel all the distracting thoughts in Jack's mind.

His bedridden life was over. Riel had taken care of all the problems with his body: remove this, remove that, and then install this, install that.

The so-called Lizard Rampage Type III was, in fact, a complete redesign of all the diseased, non-original parts of Jack's body, thanks to advancements in craftsmanship and technology.

This kind of customized full-body prosthetic technology wasn't rare. Or rather, everyone knew it existed, but only a small number of people could afford it.

Now, Jack was one of those few.

His mind, which had just been cleared of distractions, suddenly thought as he opened his eyes: I really am a big shot now. Leading small-time gangsters to dominate the streets is being a gang leader, but what do you call leading an army to fight this and that?

Before he could think of the word, three tarot cards appeared before Jack's eyes:

"The Sun (upright), The Devil (upright), The World (upright)."

"A very unique spread. The Sun is the best card in the Major Arcana, which means this operation has strong vitality. It is the power of hope and ideals, unaffected by any external interference. Even if the dark side wants to interfere, it will immediately disappear under the light of the Sun."

"The last card is also a card symbolizing the achievement and continuation of success. The goddess of victory will eventually lead you, or rather us, through the door of success. However, before entering the door of success, we must cross happiness and sorrow, success and failure. The road to paradise is not easy; we must continue to work diligently."

"A good beginning and a good ending, but with a perilous process in between."

"The Devil leers at the slaves bound by chains. Although the slaves are bound, they can break free from the Devil as long as they help each other. However, the Devil's temptations blind them, using money and so-called security to lure people into becoming their slaves."

"How strange, this is a card symbolizing that a huge external force will eventually overwhelm everything. If everything is overwhelmed in the process, how can there be victory?"

Blinking again, the cards disappeared. Jack moved his right hand, rotating his arm with a rustling sound, making it hard to imagine the immense force behind it.

Lizard Rampage Component Type III—or rather, the full-body prosthetic "Jack"—was a semi-biological prosthetic completely designed to match Jack's genome.

Over the past two years, the lizard serum that had nearly eroded his brain hadn't caused him to lose his mind. After weighing the pros and cons, Riel increased the content of human-lizard muscle tissue, which would greatly increase Jack's strength attribute.

The skin tissue was completely replaced with bulletproof alloy and ceramic composite, and the joints and bones were all replaced with metal. The lizardman-ized internal organs surged with more vitality than conventional combat machines.

Compared to the previous version, the lizard serum had become a truly normalized substance flowing in the blood, removing the time-limited "Rampage" command and maximizing the constant power.

The tarot cards Misty drew for them flashed through his mind, followed by Riel's response:

"Don't be superstitious all day long. It's fine if it sounds good, but would you listen if it didn't? Scaring yourself?"

Jack calmed himself down and quickly took out his little notebook, writing down this sentence in his "work":

"Tarot cards are a very good thing. I suggest you draw one before taking action to see how beautifully you will win. If it's a bad card, remember, don't be superstitious."

After writing, Jack returned to reality: he was driving the pickup truck towards the administrative building.

The Burger King trio had already split into three teams, and his mission was in Idaho—

Before the collapse of the United States, it was an important agricultural state. Wanderers roaming the wasteland still passed on stories about what it once looked like:

Endless fields of golden yellow.

However, with the corruption of the four major American gangs, the collapse of the financial system, and repeated failed wars with Mexico, life became increasingly difficult for the farmers here.

Companies began to release viruses with gene selection functions, peddling seeds that could only be planted and harvested once, cutting off the possibility of farmers being self-sufficient from the source, and specifically bankrupting each farmer, acquiring their land, and turning everyone into company employees.

If you were unwilling to become a company employee, you would even have problems with basic survival. The company controlled food production, raised prices, and made everyone with a job live just above the subsistence level.

When the United States collapsed, everyone rose up to resist, hoping to establish a free state, a state where everyone had land to cultivate. As a result, the situation became even worse.

The new state government immediately declared the introduction of high technology and opened its doors to agricultural giants, directly killing those who occupied land by armed means, and legislating to prevent people from privately obtaining resources: collecting rainwater was a crime, collecting soil was also a crime, and raising edible animals, even rats and cockroaches, was even more of a crime!

But the agricultural giants, with their vast land and sunshine resources, turned Nevada into a leading agricultural resource exporting state!

A powerful agricultural exporting state where people couldn't afford to eat.

Later, when the New America unified, no one was willing to resist. Miles directly took over here. Some people who often heard Miles's passionate speeches on the radio even fantasized that things would get better, but in reality—

The export of agricultural resources here was even greater, but the number of people who starved to death was also even greater.

They were already numb—

"Why don't you go to the slums and the places where the homeless sleep on the streets to see if anyone is frantically eating burgers on the side of the road, and look for burger graffiti. If there is, go in and ask them who they want to kill, then give them a gun, and when the time comes, go kill people."

There really were homeless people frantically eating expired burgers!

Nevada is a New American state. Miles summed up the reasons for the failure of the American government and, with reference to the strength and stability of the European Community, adopted high-pressure and monitoring measures for all the recovered states.

But at this moment, no drones or monitoring facilities identified this unregistered pickup truck; they simply let it pass.

As if they couldn't see anything—

The homeless followed even more closely, as if this was the rising and setting sun, and they were afraid that the sun would one day fall and never rise again, so they were fools chasing the sun.