In American comics, all your teammates are the main characters and bosses

Chapter 176: The Nature of Prophecy

Of course, Valerie would not admit that she chose to follow Mann's team to meet the unnamed company executive because of that famous sentence.

The main reason is that I work in the intelligence department, and it is necessary for me to understand this mysterious organization for the company.

Afterwards, Mann's team brought a bunch of Vs to the residential area of ​​Santo Domingo.

When approaching Santo Domingo, the street kid and the company dog ​​were stunned at first, and then asked: "Why did you bring me here? Do you want to kill us?!"

Glancing at the two people beside him, Mann shrugged and said, "The person who hired me is right here."

"..." The street guys and the company dogs fell silent. In contrast, the wanderer V on the side was puzzled - he had never entered Night City and just lived on the streets of the wilderness. He didn't know what the Santo Domingo Apartment District represented in Night City today. He even felt a little regretful.

"This place is too shabby, it's like it just went through a war." Wanderer V scratched his head and said, "It feels a bit unreliable, why don't we leave."

The wanderer looked at the street kid and the company employee. In response, the two shook their heads and said numbly: "Now, if we leave, I'm afraid we will be taken to some unknown secret base for interrogation..."

As Mann reappeared here, many people in the company began to investigate Mann's team because of Mann and his team's successful entry into the apartment building. After confirming that David Martinez in Mann's team was the young man who surrendered first before Armstrong broke out in the war to avoid being implicated, many people in the company also keenly realized that Mann's team might be the key to contacting the apartment building.

Although according to intelligence, Armstrong has already left the apartment building. Unfortunately, even so, the Valkyries stationed outside the apartment building still prevented them from taking a single step beyond. No matter whether it was a high-level prosthetic assault expert or a solid and reliable heavy tank, as long as they crossed the blockade formed by countless corpses, they would be cut into pieces of varying sizes without exception.

They couldn't even see the trajectory of the opponent's attack, and could only capture some subtle afterimages through high-speed cameras...

As for the three Vs, although they had just met for the first time, it had taken eight days from the time Mann's team found the first street kid V. Especially the female V, who was a company employee, had just joined the team for less than three hours. Although the time was short, the three of them had quite similar ideas. When faced with problems, although they had different ways of dealing with them, they all had the same fundamental views.

Especially the street kid and the corporate dog, who even have a mutual friend, Jack.

This gave them a lot of common ground. In contrast, although V, a wanderer from the wilderness, seemed a little silent because he was not very familiar with Night City for the first time, his yearning for freedom and the unique wildness of wanderers in his conversation still made them happy to communicate with each other.

"It's not as simple as you think here." Female V held a cigarette in her mouth to relieve the tension and oppression brought by the surrounding gazes.

"From what I know, almost all companies have spies here now. Not only those in Night City, but even those monster companies in Europe have sent a lot of people to make contact. But without exception, everyone who got close died. Before we set off, nearly four-fifths of the people in my department were processing all the intelligence related to this."

After a pause, Valerie glanced at Mann and the others, then said simply: "The reason why I am willing to agree to your request is because your information has been uploaded to the company's database. I originally just wanted to collect useful information to facilitate promotion, but now it seems... I quit."

"Quit now? Are you sure?" The street boy looked at Valerie in surprise.

"How about you pretend a little longer? Maybe you can get more information when you go in?"

"That's gambling your life." Valerie said with a look of disgust, "And you two too, we get along pretty well, do you want to come with me? The company is recruiting right now, and with your skills, it shouldn't be a problem for you two to join with my recommendation, you just have to intern for a while."

"You can't leave even if you want to."

Mann on the side shook his head.

Hearing this, the homeless V narrowed his eyes, while the street kid and the company employee looked at each other, and then said coldly: "What do you mean?"

"Behind you."

Turning around, Diana, wearing a champion helmet, appeared in everyone's sight again. However, unlike the previous brief appearance, this time Diana did not hide her figure, allowing the surrounding electronic eyes to take pictures of her. Diana herself carefully looked at the Mann team and the three Vs in front of her. Nodding, as if the communication was completed, Diana said:

"Well, you are the ones that Ron is looking for. Stop talking nonsense and follow me... I don't know what's so important about you."

Diana didn’t hide her voice.

In the Flashpoint world, she even killed her lovers in the normal timeline. It is a bit similar to Armstrong. Without sufficient power, it is really harder than climbing to the sky to get the recognition of the war lord Diana.

The reason why he can still talk nicely like now is because he is under pressure from above. If he doesn't talk nicely, he will make things difficult for him.

But the result was a bit unfortunate. Street kid V had been hanging around the streets since he was a child, and had a bad temper. He was immediately unhappy when he heard Diana's sarcasm. Before Mann could help explain, he said:
"Tsk, aren't you also a worker? Why are you so proud?"

Hearing this, Diana looked at the street kid and said nothing. But for some reason, everyone felt that the temperature around them suddenly dropped by several degrees. In a trance, Diana also stretched out her hand, and the Sword of the God of Fire reappeared. With a wave of her hand, accompanied by the surging divine power, a white light nearly a hundred meters long flowed like mercury on the ground, leaving a bottomless black crack on the ground in an instant.

All obstacles along the way, whether houses, rocks or even paralyzed chariots, and the crowd in the distance were cut off in an instant.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror, not like it was cut violently, but rather like it was processed bit by bit on a precision lathe...

Diana let out a breath of foul air and looked at the street kid calmly:

"continue."

"Sister, I was wrong."

Street V immediately bowed 90 degrees with a respectful attitude.

Having been hanging around the streets since childhood, Street V is not a fool who doesn't know how to adapt to the changing circumstances - people who only act recklessly cannot survive on the streets.

In response, Diana spat in dissatisfaction: "I don't know why Ron values ​​you more... take them up." "Okay." Everyone in Mann's team nodded obediently.

Rebecca: Is this... is this real? Is this a pre-planned projection?!
Kalio: Not to mention projection, even Mewtwo doesn't feel this close! What level of prosthetics is that? Why do I feel like it's almost as close as a war weapon? !

Rebecca: Could it be some special model of Mewtwo?

Qiwei: Forget about it. The computer-generated 3D environment is essentially virtual vision and artificial neural electrical signals. What happened just now... was real.

Communicating in the team voice chat, Qiwei glanced at the rift-like marks left by the cut. This... this is no longer the destructive power of a prosthetic, right?
Thinking of the terrible destructive power that Armstrong had shown before, Qiwei took a deep breath and told herself not to think too much - no matter what, she had to find a way to join the 'World Tree' first.

Even if he was a peripheral member, it would be better than struggling at the bottom like now. As their thoughts raced, they brought the three Vs to Ron.

Looking at the three Vs in front of him, who had different looks and even different personalities, Ron touched his chin with interest.

Ron was looking at them, and they were also looking at Ron. Especially after seeing Diana's undisguised strength, it was absolutely impossible for them to say that they were "not interested" in the company represented by Ron. The only thing that made them hesitate was what kind of power Ron and the company behind him had.

Wanderer V is used to being free and is not that enthusiastic. In comparison, Corporate V and Street V on the side are much more nervous.

After observing for a while, Ron nodded thoughtfully.

Having reached Ron's level, he can more or less see things that ordinary people cannot see. At the beginning, Ron also wondered how many Vs there were in this world. You know, different beginnings represent different fates and even endings for V.

And now, looking at the three Vs in front of him, Ron more or less realized why David from this world was lucky enough to be chosen by the World Tree.

The three Vs in this world have intertwined destinies, and they all aspire to be famous. Unfortunately, only one of them can become "famous". If nothing unexpected happens, they will eventually meet because of their respective destinies, and only the last one will be left, becoming the only V, and the famous V.

In the process, they may or may not know each other, but they can exit the stage safely just because of the butterfly effect of what the other person did.

But... this is all part of the original destiny.

This world had already been forcibly rewritten when David joined the World Tree and Armstrong arrived in an extremely violent way.

If finding the hidden world virus in this world is the main task that Armstrong is responsible for, then these three Vs are the side tasks with rich rewards.

Thinking about it this way, it is a bit like an open world - the rewards given by the boss of the main quest are just a few melons and a few juicy fruits, which are not enough for players to fill their teeth. They always think that the boss at the end of the level must be very strong, so they keep preparing and exploring the world. After completing all the side quests, they go to the main quest, only to find that the level of the boss on the other side is not as high as their own.

This is also the reason why Adam Hammer failed to leave an impression on the players... If it weren't for Edgewalker, the players wouldn't even know that Adam Hammer was so oppressive.

Then, on the day the Edgewalker finale came out, Adam Slaughter was killed 1.2 million times.

The entire Arasaka Tower was filled with Vs queuing up for the lottery.

Looking at the three people in front of him, Ron said without further ado, "Your abilities will only be wasted in Night City. Come work for me."

"..."

Hearing this, the three Vs looked at each other, and then Company V said, "You should at least tell us the reason."

The three Vs, except for Company V, are all men. And because of working in Arasaka, Company V is also better at socializing - the socializing here refers to communication between companies, not the way street boys interact with gangs.

In response, Ron simply recounted the intertwined fates between the three of them.

“Destiny?” After hearing this, not only the three Vs, but even Mann’s team members nearby were a little confused.

Ron shook his head helplessly. First, a surge of mystical energy formed a brilliant star map, and then the star map condensed into different tarot cards.

The Devil, Temperance, the Sun, the Stars...

These tarot cards represent V's final ending in Night City. Now, they appear in everyone's field of vision, and the people in Mann's team are puzzled, because all they see are different cards... The only thing that makes them curious is how these cards appear, are they virtual projections?

But when they fell into the sight of the three Vs, they each had a different ending.

The concept of destiny has been analyzed countless times in the many worlds of the World Tree. Almost every fantasy world comes with one or more prophets to advance the plot.

But in fact, the true destiny belongs only to the World Tree itself and has never been interpreted. Not to mention the current Ron, even if Ron completes his ascension to God in the future, he may not be able to truly peek into the long river of destiny, let alone peek into those destinies that have been reversed.

But on this basis, if you use the vision of secret energy to reverse the situation after knowing the ending, the difficulty of this peeping will be greatly reduced.

In fact, this also coincides with the fate described by the three goddesses of fate in the Nordic God Realm where Kratos is...

Looking at the three people in front of him, Ron said calmly:
"I can't see the true destiny either. I can only see some nodes and choices. But compared to interpreting destiny, interpreting people's hearts is undoubtedly much easier. This is the essence of prophecy."

(End of this chapter)