Lin Ke hid behind a clothing rack, watching Jacob repeatedly fire his gun, blowing apart the security cameras in the mall supermarket.
This behavior was truly baffling.
Then again, in the game, every cyberpsycho’s breakdown manifested differently.
The thoughts, actions, and behaviors of these cyberpsychos were beyond the comprehension of ordinary people; perhaps the world in a madman’s eyes was completely different from what a normal person saw.
Watching the cyberpsycho slowly approach the clothing department, Lin Ke didn’t make any rash moves to stop him, nor did he warn the onlookers.
Doing good deeds in Night City never ended well.
Besides, the mall’s security force had arrived.
Six beefy guards in uniform pushed through the crowd, appearing nearby.
Spotting Jacob still shooting at the cameras, they called out a warning first.
“You are damaging corporate property!
Drop your weapon immediately!”
But Jacob ignored them completely.
He kept walking, raised his gun, and blew away another camera with a loud bang.
Seeing their warning fail, the six guards instantly drew their mall-issued tech pistols, aimed at Jacob, and pulled their triggers.
After a brief charge, the barrels fired several electromagnetic projectiles, striking Jacob’s back.
However, as the bullets tore through his clothes, there was no sound of tearing flesh.
Instead, a metallic clink rang out.
Subdermal armor.
The guards exchanged glances and kept pulling their triggers, emptying their magazines of electromagnetic ammo into Jacob.
After a barrage of dozens of rounds, the clothes on Jacob’s back were shredded to ribbons.
Against a flesh-and-blood body, his entire upper torso would have been turned into mush.
But what about Jacob, whose cybernetic replacement rate exceeded 68%?
He only seemed to carry a single pistol with limited ammo, but thanks to the information provided by the Eye of Truth, Lin Ke knew this man was a veteran who had survived the Unification War.
With such an absurd cyberization ratio, he was bound to have lethal, military-grade implants.
Ripping off his shredded shirt and tossing it aside, Jacob turned around expressionlessly.
He stared at the beefy guards who stood in the way of his revenge, his optical cyberware twitching once more.
From behind the clothing rack, Lin Ke got a clear look at Jacob’s back.
His eyes were instantly drawn to it.
The skin on his back was peppered with deformed metal slugs, but it wasn’t the bullets stopped by the subdermal armor that caught his eye.
Instead, it was the implant running down his spine.
Segment by segment, stretching from the back of his head down to his lumbar vertebrae, it was dug into his back like a mechanical centipede.
Right now, the personal port at the base of his skull glowed with a dangerous red light.
[Kerenzikov] Military-Grade Implant (Nervous System) Quality: Rare Description: Manufactured by Dynalar.
Passively increases reflex speed.
PS: Is this an external soul bone?
[Sandevistan] Military-Grade Implant (Operating System) Quality: Rare Description: A second-generation neural implant chip manufactured by Kang Tao.
Slows down the user’s perception of time to 40%–50%.
PS: The stepping stone to cyberpsychosis.
Damn!
A Kerenzikov and a Sandevistan.
Working together, these two implants that stimulated the nervous system to increase reaction speeds could easily slow down time to at least 30%.
Lin Ke barely caught a glimpse of a dark blur.
Following four gunshots that sounded almost as one, four of the six guards had their heads blown apart.
High-pressure blood sprayed onto the ceiling, painting four crimson blossoms.
Weapons manufactured in the cyber world were truly overkill when used against flesh and blood.
A human head was like a balloon, popping in a single shot.
The mixture of red and white, along with shards of cyberware still clinging to neural tissue, was a nauseating sight.
Nudging a stray piece of neural-link shrapnel that had slid under the clothing rack away with the edge of his boot, Lin Ke continued to observe the cyberpsycho to see if he had any other combat implants installed.
Clack—
The empty pistol clattered to the floor.
Jacob’s forearms split open, deploying a pair of glowing-red Mantis Blades.
With a single horizontal sweep, he sliced the remaining two guards in half at the waist.
No blood sprayed.
The searing heat of the blades had instantly cauterized the flesh, blood vessels, and bone at the incisions.
The two bisected guards weren’t dead yet.
Screaming in terror, they dragged their upper bodies across the polished floor, clawing desperately with their arms to get away from the demon behind them.
If they had a Trauma Team platinum membership, they might have survived after escaping, but Jacob didn’t give them that chance.
The glowing-hot blades pierced the backs of their skulls, the extreme heat instantly boiling and smoking their brains.
Hiss—
[Thermal Mantis Blades] Military-Grade Implant (Arms) Quality: Rare Description: Manufactured by Arasaka in 2067.
Arm-mounted blades designed for lethality and concealment.
Its power is rivaled only by how cool it looks.
PS: Fast as the wind, a single strike kills.
If he had only shot the cameras earlier, no one would have thought Jacob was a psycho.
At most, they would have assumed he was just another cyberpunk with a corporate grudge.
But now, he had slaughtered six people in a row.
Blood was literally splattering onto everyone’s faces.
Anyone who still couldn’t figure out what was happening had lived their lives in vain.
“Holy shit, it’s a cyberpsycho!”
“Call the NCPD!
Call MaxTac!”
“Oh my god!
I don’t want to die!”
The onlookers scattered in panic, screaming in terror as they scrambled for the elevators scattered around the supermarket.
But it was too late to escape.
The mall’s security system had already detected the situation.
To prevent the cyberpsycho from using the elevators to escape to other floors, they immediately locked down all elevators on the third floor.
The crowd could only scatter and hide in various corners of the supermarket.
Jacob, having slaughtered six people, didn’t retract his Mantis Blades.
He raised his head, his eyes scanning the surroundings.
His cybernetic eyes, equipped with infrared detection and thermal imaging, allowed him to easily spot people hiding behind the shelves.
With blood-red thermal signatures painted in his vision, Jacob dragged his heavy steps over and swung his blade.
The shelf, along with the trembling figure hiding behind it, was sliced in two.
“Dammit, this game of hide-and-seek is not fun at all!”
Watching Jacob chop through people like vegetables and head in his direction, Lin Ke felt thoroughly annoyed.
Though he believed that if he wanted to run, Jacob wouldn’t even touch the hem of his clothes as long as he didn’t activate his Sandevistan.
But he was a transcendent being with a system.
Screw it!
Let’s do this!
He pulled his Sword and Shield from his inventory.
Just as he was about to step out from behind the clothing rack, he nearly slapped himself.
*Wait, don’t I have a gun?
Why the hell am I pulling out a Sword and Shield for close-combat suicide?*
Storing the Sword and Shield, Lin Ke retrieved the D5 Copperhead and flicked off the safety.
If the electromagnetic projectile of a tech pistol carried 1,000 joules of kinetic energy, enough to punch through a three-millimeter steel plate…
Then an assault rifle firing 12.7mm gunpowder rounds possessed at least 5,000 joules of kinetic energy, more than enough to pierce a one-centimeter steel plate.
Dashing out from behind the clothing rack, Lin Ke lined up his rifle’s crosshairs with Jacob’s head and pulled the trigger.
The Copperhead’s recoil had no effect on him; his immense physical strength held the gun perfectly steady.
But Jacob, possessing a Kerenzikov, reacted instantly.
Though the pouring bullets forced him back step by step, he raised his arms—having retracted the Mantis Blades—and blocked them all.
Some bullets even ricocheted off the curved metal plates of his forearms, shattering ceiling tiles and floor tiles.
The sixty-four-round magazine was empty in seconds.
The synthetic skin covering his cybernetic forearms was completely shredded, but only minor dents appeared on the exposed silver-gray metal.
*Damn!
Tough bastard.*
Just as Lin Ke reached to eject the empty magazine and reload, Jacob activated his Sandevistan again, his Mantis Blades snapping out as he charged.
However, Lin Ke had been keeping his focus locked onto Jacob.
Fast as Jacob was with the Sandevistan active, Lin Ke’s eyes could still track his movement.
Lin Ke hurled the empty magazine hard at him.
While Jacob blocked the projectile, Lin Ke feigned reaching into his back pocket, actually retrieving a fresh magazine from his system inventory and slapping it in.
Since all the cameras in this area were destroyed, even if someone was watching, the cluttered environment of the supermarket allowed him to block their line of sight simply by leaning against a shelf.
Besides, in Night City, it was perfectly normal for a man to pull a few magazines out of his back pocket.
Jacob was incredibly fast, but only during the few seconds his Sandevistan was active.
Meanwhile, Lin Ke’s 7 Agility, 7 Spirit, and 8 Constitution allowed him to burst at twice the speed of an ordinary human, maintaining it for several minutes.
Even if Jacob was a veteran of the Unification War, he couldn’t use a high-grade implant like a Sandevistan too many times in quick succession.
Furthermore, the man’s brain was fried right now; he didn’t even use the shelves for cover, charging straight ahead.
The bullets from the Copperhead could hit him easily.
Even if the rounds couldn’t pierce his subdermal armor, aiming for his head would force Jacob to raise his arms in defense, limiting his movements.
Pulling the trigger, Lin Ke fired in short bursts, delivering a few rounds every time Jacob got close.
Currently, Jacob had no heavy ranged weapons, allowing Lin Ke to maintain a safe distance with his rifle and keep him at bay.
The Mantis Blades couldn’t touch him this way.
But this couldn’t go on forever.
Lin Ke’s inventory held a limited amount of ammo, and he might run out of bullets before the NCPD arrived.
As for getting help from other armed people in the supermarket?
Ha!
While he was keeping Jacob busy, they had already fled and hidden far away.
You really couldn’t play the hero in Night City.
A minute later, Lin Ke had emptied another two magazines.
Slapping in his very last magazine, he knew that once this ran out, he would be forced into close-quarters combat.
A zero-damage run would be out of the question.
Just then, a woman’s voice echoed in his head.
[I need fifteen seconds to breach his personal ICE.
When I fry his system, his cyberware will temporarily lock up.
Seize the window and end him with one strike.]
It was Kiwi!
“Oho, backup’s here.”
Delighted, Lin Ke listened to the countdown in his mind.
He kept up the suppressing fire while advancing directly toward Jacob.
[7…
6…
5…
2…]
Before the count reached one, Lin Ke stowed his rifle.
Pushing off the ground with his right foot, he shot forward like an arrow toward his enemy over ten meters away.
[1.]
*Now!*
Arcs of electricity crackled across various parts of Jacob’s body.
He lost all motor control; his protective arms fell limp, and his knees buckled, sending him crashing to the floor.
Maintaining his forward momentum, a flash of black light swept through.
Lin Ke zipped past Jacob.
Behind him, a head flew high into the air, propelled by a geyser of blood and cybernetic lubricant, before gravity brought it crashing back to the floor.
With only his head left, Jacob remained briefly alive.
At this moment, his consciousness seemed to clear, and a profound sorrow washed over his previously expressionless face.
His eyes stared intently at Lin Ke, the man who had decapitated him.
His lips parted and closed, but his vocal apparatus had been shredded.
Deprived of his body’s life support, the light in his cybernetic eyes began to fade.
Right as the last ember of light vanished, Lin Ke’s neural link received an anonymous text message:
[Please, save my son.]
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Drawing his pistol, Lin Ke expressionlessly put several bullets through Jacob’s head, shattering it.
He then pulled a grenade from his back pocket and shoved it into the chest cavity of the headless corpse.
Many military-grade neural implants had braindance recording modules.
He had no desire to wake up tomorrow and find himself starring as the lead in some Edgerunner braindance.
Boom!