A short film set the internet ablaze. Fans who thought Liu A'dou wouldn't release anything new this year were ecstatic—he was back, and he brought with him a brand-new work.
The short, titled Mobile Infantry, lasted barely ten minutes, yet it left countless viewers desperate for more.
War has never been far away. Opening with a plagiarized-sounding narration, the film told from the perspective of an ordinary infantryman traced the unshakable place of foot soldiers throughout human history.
From the Macedonian phalanx to the iron might of Roman heavy infantry. Then the glory of cavalry overshadowing the infantry's blade. To rows of muskets ending the age of knights. To the rise of tanks exposing the frailty of flesh and bone. To the modern age of beyond-visual-range precision strikes where infantry shifted from being the backbone of armies to becoming raiders and shock troops.
The age of infantry's supremacy had long ended. Cavalry, tanks, long-range strikes—now only paratroopers and special forces held prestige. The true masters of war were artillery, mechanized divisions, and air power. Once the front-line spearhead, infantry had been relegated to sweeping the battlefield's aftermath.
The short's protagonist was a handsome middle-aged man. He reviewed infantry's rise and fall, eyes closed in deep thought throughout.
"But time moves forward. The clash between infantry and every other arm has once again ended with the infantry's return." The man stood and walked toward the camera until he blocked it entirely.
Darkness fell. Then battlefield artillery roared.
"Zerg! The Zerg are attacking our position! Requesting support!" A frantic voice rang out, heavy with the urgency of war. Humanity could retreat no further.
The screen lit up. Smoke, fire, chaos. A swarm of insects blanketed the field, rushing the human lines. Tanks and artillery were overturned, crushed under the tide. The Zerg's overwhelming numbers devoured every inch of human ground.
Heavy weapons were useless against them. Too fast, too relentless. If the Zerg got close, annihilation was certain. To fight them face-to-face, humanity pooled its technology and created the KT-01 Infantry Mech. With it, a brand-new combat arm was born—Mecha Infantry.
Encased in KT-01 armor and loaded with weapons, Mecha Infantry stood as the army's shield, holding the line against the swarm, creating openings for other forces, and serving as the battlefield's core.
"Some say infantry is obsolete." The protagonist donned the KT-01 as he spoke. "I say as long as humanity wages war, infantry will stand at the front, no matter who the enemy is."
"The fight begins now!"
The visor snapped down. Clad in heavy armor, weapon in hand, he took position at the head of a squad. The truth was revealed—he was their captain. "Move out!"
The camera panned back. The line was about to break. Further back, stretching into rows upon rows, stood entire regiments of Mecha Infantry.
The battlefield was a dividing line. On one side, the Zerg surged like a black tide. On the other, the Mecha Infantry stood like a seawall. No matter how ferocious the onslaught, they would not yield a step.
"Quantum blades!"
Like warriors of the ancient fields, the Mecha Infantry drew melee weapons. Their perfectly synchronized movements shook the heart.
The spectacle rivaled any blockbuster—tens of thousands of armored soldiers facing off against a swarm ten times their number. It was the embodiment of humanity's highest courage.
The swarm drew closer until the black flood smashed into the gray seawall.
"Kill!" The Mecha Infantry's weapons fell as one. They held the line, suppressing the Zerg at the very front.
Blades fell like ripples spreading outward, cutting down every enemy in sequence. In an instant, insect shrieks and the hiss of hydraulic joints drowned everything else out.
The most primitive, yet the most advanced battle—zero-distance, steel-against-claw—unfolded in a storm of fire.
Faster than the swarm, the Mecha Infantry fought with agility, taking on many at once, fighting with unmatched bravery.
Viewers outside the screen felt their blood boil. They longed to leap inside and slaughter bugs themselves. Liu A'dou's work always carried that overwhelming pull, dragging people straight into the heart of the fight.
The short film ended quickly, leaving viewers unsure of how this life-and-death battle for humanity would end. After showing a few scenes of Mecha Infantry skills cutting down Zerg, the screen went dark. Then a metallic logo of Mecha Infantry appeared, followed by small text: Releasing on Christmas.
"What the hell? Isn't this supposed to be a movie trailer?" Liu A'dou's fans had been waiting for his next film, but "release" sounded wrong—shouldn't it be "in theaters"?
"You don't know? It's a game."
That answer crushed the movie fans. Liu A'dou wasn't focusing on films anymore? Why was he making games now?
Someone explained further: "This time, Director Liu A'dou teamed up with his toy company and Osborn Corporation to develop Mecha Infantry, advertised as the world's first fully panoramic virtual game."
That only deepened the confusion. What on earth had Liu A'dou gotten himself into?
To explain, we go back a month earlier, when he passed through the Nantianmen into that strange, eerie realm. After two days of research, he finally figured out what this place called Ruyi Heaven was. It was a domain where imagination became reality. That's why Kara, longing for her parents, saw them. That's why Liu A'dou himself saw absurd, comical figures from his own thoughts.
His conclusion: Ruyi Heaven was a place where dreams came true. Inside, you could imagine alone, or share your imagination with others, and everything would feel "real." But that reality only existed inside Ruyi Heaven. Anything imagined there vanished the moment you left.
Compared to even the power of his ring, this place was outrageous. In Ruyi Heaven, whatever you imagined came to life. Picture a sun, and a sun appeared. Think of kryptonite, and kryptonite appeared. The imagined objects couldn't hurt the imaginer—so the sun wouldn't burn you, kryptonite wouldn't harm Superman.
But imagined creatures could be harmed by imagined weapons. You could even set their personalities, making them lifelike. And imagination there didn't need to follow science. If you said gravity pulled upward, then toss an apple and it floated instead of falling. But all those rules stayed within Ruyi Heaven and disappeared outside.
Liu A'dou didn't realize this "Ruyi Heaven" was actually the playground of immortals from the primordial world. They had used it for fun. But like those before him, he treated it differently. He designed a game inside—basically a rip-off of StarCraft. Since players could only control human characters, he renamed it Mecha Infantry, telling a brand-new tale of humanity, Zerg, and Protoss, from the infantry's perspective.
All it took was designating a space inside and setting the rules. For example: when a signal entered, it created a new controllable avatar. Virtual characters could act based on those signals. You could add odd restrictions too—like forbidding physical contact between sexes, or enforcing a "three-second rule" so that even same-gender contact couldn't last longer than three seconds, meant to keep things "pure." Ruyi Heaven enforced it all automatically.
All Liu A'dou had to do was channel players' brain signals into the game zone of Ruyi Heaven.
Neo marveled: Ruyi Heaven was the perfect computer server. Programming by sheer imagination—it was cheating incarnate. But it wasn't limitless. For instance, if you wanted it to solve a mathematical conjecture, it wouldn't.
Ruyi Heaven only realized concrete ideas or final outcomes. You could imagine a tank, or imagine the assembly of its parts, but if you only imagined loose parts without the process, it wouldn't build it for you.
Even with those limits, Liu A'dou, with help from others, completed the game. And now he was preparing to cash in big. His first thought at anything he saw now was, 'Can this make money?' From that mindset, a great game was born.