Running on two fleshy legs across the Badlands was never going to outrun a four-wheeled piece of technology.
If he hid, he would be left in an incredibly passive position if those two recovered from their cyberware glitches and came looking for him.
Lin Ke had spotted the driver glancing in his direction through his binoculars earlier.
Therefore, he had to take the initiative and eliminate these two threats to his life.
They were just two Wraiths!
He had killed plenty of them in the game.
Remembering Lucy’s warning, Lin Ke quickly packed up his binoculars and nimbly climbed down the steel tower.
“Five minutes?
That’s plenty!”
He sprinted out through a gap in the wall, charging toward where the pickup truck had stopped.
His Strength of 8 gave him powerful muscles comparable to an Olympic weightlifting champion, kicking up plumes of dust with every stride.
His Reflexes of 7 gave him lightning-fast neural response times, allowing his legs to churn at a much higher frequency.
The combined power of his legs, waist, and hips, coupled with his swift reaction speed, allowed Lin Ke’s sprinting speed to easily break the ten-meters-per-second barrier.
His Constitution of 8 endowed him with powerful cardiovascular function and abundant stamina, enabling him to maintain his ten-meter-per-second sprint for over a kilometer.
As for his Spirit of 7, when he concentrated, his senses became so sharp that he felt as if time itself were slowing down.
Each of his four core attributes was now at the absolute peak of human potential from his old world.
Lin Ke refused to believe he couldn’t take down two cyberpunks with malfunctioning cyberware.
Sprinting a hundred meters past the abandoned factory, he could already see the dark-skinned, burly man standing by the pickup truck forty meters away.
At this close distance, the burly man spotted him as well.
The expression on his face turned from surprise to sheer terror.
[Roy Soma Lopez] Mexican-American Age: 36 Affiliation: Wraith, Raffen Shiv grunt Cyberware Coverage: 35% Description: Human organ trafficking, drug smuggling, assaulting police officers, kidnapping and extortion, first-degree murder, cannibalism.
[NCPD Bounty: 300 eddies] Status: Cybernetic arm overloaded, recovery time (2 minutes 21 seconds) Note: Scumbag.
Authorized to eliminate with impunity.
Lopez had wanted to get out and retrieve his weapon, but he never expected someone to charge out of this airport that had been abandoned for years.
What’s more, the intruder was clearly rushing them with hostile intent.
“You’re dead!”
Roy reached for the pistol at his waist, but his cybernetic arm was malfunctioning.
His fingers refused to obey his commands.
He tried twice but failed to draw the pistol from its holster.
In combat, a cyberware malfunction was fatal.
“That damn woman!
Fuck, this kid is fast.”
Watching the figure charging straight at him, Roy had no time to complain.
He could only cross his arms in front of his chest.
He was confident that his subdermal armor combined with his cybernetic iron arms could completely block the incoming impact.
“Once my arms recover, I’m going to rip your head off.”
Before Roy’s ferocious, bloodthirsty expression could fully form, he froze.
Lin Ke, still in mid-sprint, made a grasping motion in front of his chest, and a heavy, solid iron round shield materialized in his hands.
Pressing the shield against his chest, Lin Ke covered five or six meters with every stride over the final twenty meters.
On his fourth step, he unleashed his full strength.
The muscles in his right leg swelled, and the fabric of his trousers tore with a sharp ripping sound.
*Thud—*
Stomping heavily onto the ground, he closed the remaining three meters.
A hard, 51-jin shield, combined with Lin Ke’s robust 150-jin frame, slammed into Lopez with the full, devastating momentum of a hundred-meter sprint.
For someone with no formal combat experience, a tackle was the most effective attack method.
Massive weight combined with extreme speed yielded absolute destructive power.
*Crash!
Clang!*
A deafening boom, like two great bronze bells colliding, rang out.
Under the terrifying impact, the two-hundred-plus-jin brute was sent flying seven or eight meters.
A normal person would have been killed instantly by such a collision.
But for a cybernetically modified human, that wasn’t necessarily the case.
Subdermal armor, synthetic lungs, blood pumps—without these life-saving cybernetics, one couldn’t make a living in the Badlands.
But against an impact that had easily crossed the metric-ton threshold, Roy’s defenses were still sorely lacking.
He lay sprawled on the ground.
His cybernetic eyes bulged from their sockets due to the immense force.
His steel cybernetic arms were twisted and shattered, and the subdermal armor over his chest had completely caved in.
His sternum was undoubtedly broken.
Roy tried to get up, but the moment he moved, he found he couldn’t breathe—his implanted synthetic lungs were damaged.
Lin Ke didn’t feel great after sending the dark-skinned brute flying, either.
Swallowing the copper taste of blood in his throat, he rushed to where the man had landed.
Giving him no chance to resist, he brought the shield crashing down hard onto his forehead.
With a wet cracking sound, red blood, white brains, and other unidentified fluids smeared across the surface of the shield.
“One down, one to go.”
Lin Ke turned his gaze toward the light-skinned driver who was frantically rummaging inside the truck.
[Saburo Inashita] Japanese Age: 30 Affiliation: Wraith, Raffen Shiv grunt Cyberware Coverage: 21% Description: Human organ trafficking, illicit drug smuggling, rape.
[NCPD Bounty: 150 eddies] Status: Cyber-eye rebooting, recovery time (1 minute 59 seconds) Note: Kill this bastard.
In the darkness of his rebooting vision, Saburo Inashita had heard his boss’s angry roar and realized they were under attack.
The assailant didn’t seem to have firearms, but after a brief, heavy collision, everything went silent.
He pretended to panic to lower the unknown enemy’s guard, but his ears were strained, listening intently.
One hand had already drawn the pistol from his waist and flipped off the safety.
The moment he heard a sound, he would empty the magazine in that direction.
*Whoosh—*
Here it comes!
“Got you!”
*Thud.*
Before Saburo could even raise his pistol, he felt a sudden numbness spread across his face, and then…
nothingness.
Lin Ke shook out his wrist.
The concrete chunk he had just picked up had certainly come in handy.
Although he didn’t have the Throw skill yet, it was still a direct hit on his first attempt.
Knocking the Japanese grunt out cold.
Lin Ke threw two more rocks through the rolled-down passenger window, hitting the driver.
Seeing that the man truly wasn’t moving, he still cautiously walked over, holding his shield up to his chest.
He opened the door and hauled the unconscious driver out with one hand.
Just to be safe, he slammed his shield down hard onto the driver’s bloodied forehead.
With a wet crunch, the man’s limbs twitched twice before he went completely still.
Another life claimed by the shield.
In just one short minute, he had taken out two Wraiths.
Looking down at the two lifeless corpses on the ground, a strange emotion surged in Lin Ke’s heart.
Only now did he truly realize that this was the real world, not the game *Cyberpunk 2077*.
*Did I just kill someone?*
Game and reality clashed.
But Lin Ke quickly convinced himself otherwise.
*If you didn’t kill them, they would have killed you.
Lin Ke, you were just acting in self-defense.*
It was an emergency self-preservation measure!
This was a dog-eat-dog world.
Lin Ke spent a minute calming his nerves.
Next, it was time to unwrap his newbie gift pack.
He carefully searched the corpses.
Two identical pistols, four frag grenades, some ammunition, a roll of paper bills, and three canisters.
Walking about fifty meters ahead, he also picked up an assault rifle.
[D5 Copperhead] Kinetic Assault Rifle Quality: Rare Description: From Arasaka to Zimbabwe, a versatile weapon for versatile combat.
Effective range: 1100 meters.
Muzzle energy: 4200 Joules.
Note: Heavy recoil.
Recoil control is not easy.
[DR5 Nova] Kinetic Revolver Quality: Common Description: Retro design, six-round capacity.
Effective range: 150 meters.
Muzzle energy: 420 Joules.
Note: A cowboy’s favorite.
[F-GX Frag Grenade] Quality: Common Description: 15 grams of TNT payload.
Fragmentation damage radius: 6 meters.
Description: Single-use item.
Throw far away when using.
[Eurodollars] Universal Currency Quality: Common Description: Buying and selling, people can’t live without it.
Note: Everyone loves me.
[Dumbo] Pneumatic Inhaler Quality: Common Description: Relieves pain, sedates, affects internal secretions, numbs nerves, and induces euphoria.
Take a puff of Dumbo and soar to the heavens without a care.
Note: Good kids should stay far away from this.