Inside the hangar, where not a single ray of light was allowed to enter, only the flashing lights drifting in from every direction swirled around in a dizzying haze. Ji-hwan kept his mouth shut and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.
And then. Far ahead, a strange light, swaying oddly as it gradually grew brighter.
That eerie sense of déjà vu made the fine hairs on his skin stand on end. Ji-hwan kicked off the ground and hurled himself violently to the side.
Wheeeing—! Kwaaang—!!
With the heavy roar of a motor, Centaur’s dual-core machine guns spat fire and savagely ripped up the dirt floor.
"Fuck!"
As the barrage chewed through the spot he’d been standing in a moment ago and kept tightening its aim along his escape route, a rough curse burst from between Ji-hwan’s lips.
"Die!"
Vice’s desperate shout.
Just before the rain of lead tore into his skin, Ji-hwan’s whole body swelled as if it would burst, and a scarlet haze flared violently over his skin.
Full-body enhancement, unleashed to the limit.
On this razor-thin line where even the slightest lapse meant death, Ji-hwan kept slipping through the storm of bullets by a hair’s breadth, continuing his frantic evasive maneuvers.
Before long, his vision had fully merged with the darkness, and the machine-gun barrels were whirling uselessly through empty air, unable to keep up with Ji-hwan’s explosive acceleration. Seizing that opening, he charged viciously toward the machine.
But what came out of the narrowed blind spot was a straight-line flash that seared the air as it fired.
"No, fuck— it’s a laser!"
Ji-hwan yanked his upper body hard to the side in alarm, and his body rolled across the ground.
Ssshhhkk—!
The sickening stench of skin burning. The beam grazed his right arm, blackening the flesh and sending a fresh wave of pain lancing through him.
But he didn’t even have time to chew on the pain.
As Ji-hwan sprang back up, the line of light kept twisting after him, carving through the dirt floor like a welding torch.
'One second, two seconds, three.'
He bit down hard on his lip and repeatedly slipped past the relentlessly pursuing flash by the width of a sheet of paper.
At last, the three-second count ended, and the laser cannon’s output cut off abruptly in midair.
Where the thick, acrid smoke drifted away, the machine’s full shape finally emerged from the darkness in all its massive presence.
Militech’s large military exosuit, Centaur.
Ji-hwan’s brow furrowed deeply at the sight of that overwhelming silhouette.
This wasn’t the shabby hunk of scrap that would get smashed to pieces like junk by the mercenary V ten years later, in Night City of ’77.
Layer upon layer of viciously thick reactive armor covered its front. A dual-core machine gun with merciless caliber. And behind the thick bulletproof glass that blocked out all external attacks, there was Vice himself, the Maelstrom boss, crouched inside the cockpit and flashing those grotesque skull-like lenses.
A walking fortress armed with overwhelming firepower and ironclad defense.
Ji-hwan looked up at that absurd mountain of steel and clicked his tongue.
'So this really is the Centaur I know.'
There was no way a sloppy knife or a few punches could even scratch that over-armored shell.
Just as Vice, beyond the glass, let out a vicious mechanical snarl and locked Centaur’s main optic on Ji-hwan, Ji-hwan’s gaze dropped to the heavy debris scattered across the floor.
Sssshhh—!
Steam hissed violently from the laser barrel that had been heating the air white-hot. The overheated core cycled its cooling system, and he could hear something reloading inside.
Clack.
Even through the billowing steam, though, the dual-core machine guns on both arms kept spinning with a hungry mechanical whine, ready to fire at any moment.
Ji-hwan’s right arm, which had taken the sudden ambush, was already beginning to recover. Dark red smoke seeped up through the gap, regenerating the shattered muscle fibers in real time.
He gave the visibly healing arm a light shake, then turned his gaze toward the one Maelstrom member crouched inside that giant steel shell beyond the thick bulletproof glass.
"You Vice?"
At the dry question, Vice in the cockpit couldn’t answer right away.
The price of being directly linked to a weapon weighing several tons was that the pressure felt like his brain vessels were about to burst, brutally crushing his skull.
Ssshhk—.
Sensing the convulsing heartbeat, the hormone injector in his spine forcibly dumped sedatives into his system. Vice’s bloodshot red lenses, drugged to the gills, flickered grotesquely toward Ji-hwan.
That was the obvious reason Vice had hidden this giant weapon deep inside the base, kept it tuned by grinding up technicians nonstop, and avoided climbing into it until the very end.
Militech Centaur. This absurd, off-the-scale mass was a mad tool that would accelerate the onset of cyberpsychosis at a ferocious rate if a human tried to control it through their spine and nervous system.
On top of that, the power consumption was monstrous. The one-shot energy round used for the laser he’d just fired was already down to a few left in storage, and charging and firing even a single shot devoured an obscene amount of electricity.
The reason the lights around them, and even the factory’s entire power supply, had suddenly cut out and left the place in pitch-black darkness was because all that massive electricity had been dumped into this steel beast. Hanging behind Centaur’s hulking back like a grotesque umbilical cord were dozens of thick high-voltage cables directly connected to the factory’s main generator, and that was proof enough.
Beyond those thick, cord-like cables, Vice’s bizarre multi-LED lenses trembled at an abnormal speed.
Overload in the nervous system linked to overwhelming mass. The onset of cyberpsychosis, slowly gnawing away at his sanity.
"Heh... heh-heh-heh... because of you..."
A hoarse laugh mixed with mechanical noise filled the narrow cockpit with a damp, rotten feeling. As the lunatic laughed himself hoarse, the lenses over his face suddenly flared with a vicious red light.
"Now none of that matters!! I’m gonna kill that Zetatech bastard, and every last one of you who defies me here!!"
With a scream of desperate rage, the machine gun spun up.
The unexpected carpet of gunfire savagely tore up the spot where Ji-hwan had been standing, but when the dust rose there, the target was already gone.
Dodging the hail of bullets, Ji-hwan’s hand had grabbed a heavy piece of construction debris he’d just snatched from the dirt floor.
Then his whole body swelled as if it would burst, and a scarlet haze flared violently over his skin. Explosive rotational force ran from his toes through his waist and up to his shoulders. Ji-hwan bent his upper body back like a bowstring, as if he were throwing a spear, and hurled the compressed weight of the steel pillar straight into the air.
Kaaang—!!
The heavy fragment tore through the air and struck Centaur, making the several-ton weapon stagger violently backward from the impact.
"Graaah!"
But the machine’s shape emerged through the roiling dust. Even after taking a direct hit from a steel fragment weighing over 100 kilograms and reeling hard, Centaur’s layered reactive armor plates were still intact.
Ji-hwan clicked his tongue briefly at the sight.
"Tch."
Even so, he didn’t waste the opening in the bastard’s broken stance. Reaching for another steel fragment rolling across the floor, he started to move—only for a straight flash to lance through the air, heating it white. Even while stumbling off balance, Vice had fired the laser cannon in a frenzy.
Ji-hwan let go of the fragment without hesitation and twisted his upper body down until it nearly touched the dirt floor, barely slipping past the beam.
Ssshhhk—!
Vicious heat that melted the thick concrete floor in an instant.
Rolling across the ground and using the momentum to spring back up, Ji-hwan narrowed his eyes.
If he didn’t find a way to deal with that horrifying laser first, closing the distance would be impossible.
As he kept dodging the laser that pursued him relentlessly, Ji-hwan’s gaze began to sweep sharply over Centaur’s heavy armament and the ugly tangle of high-voltage cables connected behind it.
Thick reactive armor that wouldn’t even show a scratch from ordinary hits. The absurd power consumption needed to move that overwhelming mass and fire the laser.
Ssshhiiing—!
The flash aimed at Ji-hwan’s face suddenly cut out and vanished into the air.
Just as expected, the core had hit its limit and entered forced cooling. In that tiny window, Ji-hwan’s hand moved without delay to his waist.
Paaang—!
The smoke grenade left his hand, struck the dirt floor, and burst, and acrid gray smoke violently swallowed the darkness of the abandoned factory, which had not allowed even a single ray of light inside.
"F-fuck...!"
Clack.
Above the grinding sound of the core cooling and reloading, Vice’s startled mechanical voice burst out.
"Where’d you go!!"
Inside the cockpit, veins bulging, he was thrashing the heavy steel frame irritably, trying to track the prey that had vanished into the gray smoke while his multi-LED lenses flickered grotesquely.
Those thick high-voltage cables hanging off Centaur’s back. Cutting the cable itself, woven from tough steel wire, with a thin knife was impossible. In that case, he’d tear the entire socket section connected directly to the machine’s armor off by force.
A dull silhouette rippled inside the smoke.
The moment Vice’s red lenses caught that tiny movement as he scanned the area irritably, the dual-core machine guns on both arms spat fire.
Tatatatang—!!
The carpet bombing of lead savagely ripped up the dirt floor.
But what was shredded into a sieve in midair was only the fragment of optical camo cloak Ji-hwan had thrown out as bait.
"Wh-what is this...?"
The instant Vice’s mechanical voice wavered with confusion, Ji-hwan had already twisted his route and slipped tight behind Centaur’s back. His thick hand grabbed the grotesque cable junction supplying power.
Vice finally sensed that horrifying approach through the rear sensors and screamed.
"N-no!!"
"Yes!!"
At the rough reply, Ji-hwan’s whole body swelled again as if it would burst, and a scarlet haze flared violently over his skin.
The explosive output of [Body Enhancement], drawn all the way from his legs to his shoulders and fingertips.
Krrrk—!!
Dozens of thick high-voltage cables couldn’t withstand the overwhelming brute force and were ripped clean off the machine as blue sparks burst everywhere from the torn junction, dumping vicious currents into the air.
Kzzzt—! Kzzzt!
Giiiiiing— thud.
The threatening motor hum of Centaur faded ominously, and the heavy steel weapon, now stripped of its massive power supply, came to a dead stop on the dirt floor.
A lump of steel robbed of motion.
"Is it over...?"
For a split second, as Ji-hwan looked at the immobilized hunk of metal, he let his guard down.
"No way it ends this pathetically...?"
The moment his senses screamed a warning and he tried to snap into a defensive stance, a ghastly red light—not blue—erupted through the gaps in Centaur’s armor.
Emergency power, fully unleashed.
At the same instant the light flashed, a giant steel arm tore through the air.
Ji-hwan reflexively crossed both arms to raise a guard, but his reaction was too late to fully absorb the overwhelming mass behind the blow, a strike carrying several tons of force.
Puuuuuk—!!
That heavy shockwave sent Ji-hwan’s body flying through the air, slamming him violently into a pile of old concrete rubble far away.
"Khuk...!"
"You thought that was the end?!"
Before he could even wipe the dark blood spilling from between his lips, Vice’s frantic mechanical voice slammed into his eardrums.
Thud—! Bang—!
With his red lenses flickering grotesquely, Vice was charging hard toward Ji-hwan, grinding the dirt floor beneath Centaur’s massive legs.
Tok tok tok.
Ji-hwan, buried in the rubble, shook out his aching arms and pushed himself upright.
"Ptooey."
He spat the metallic blood pooling in his mouth onto the dirt floor, and his dark eyes quickly scanned the battlefield.
The machine was running on spare power. Proof of that was the vicious laser barrel that had been heating the air white-hot a moment ago to turn him into charcoal—now it emitted no light, no heat at all.
A cornered struggle, with every last watt dumped into mobility and brute force.
"That’s enough."
Taat—!
Tatatatang—!!
The dual-core machine guns spun violently, tearing through the air.
The carpet of lead savagely ripped up the dirt floor, but Ji-hwan broke through the gaps in that vicious field of fire and leaped straight into the enemy’s embrace.
He closed the distance while enduring the hot friction heat brushing his skin, and Ji-hwan’s thick hand casually pulled the pin from the high-performance breaching grenade he’d been holding inside his chest.
Paaang—!
Without a single millimeter of error, he shoved the grenade, now stripped of its safety pin, directly into the mouth of the roaring machine gun barrel.
Kwaaaang—!!
A vicious chain explosion detonated from inside the blocked muzzle.
Unable to withstand the blast pressure, the machine gun’s feed mechanism and thick barrel shattered with a terrifying crack and scattered in all directions.
"Kraaaagh—!!"
A shriek like something being torn apart.
Vice, completely swallowed by the madness of cyberpsychosis, forcibly activated the [Sandevistan] implanted in him while still riding inside the several-ton Centaur.
Pzzzt—!! Ssshhhk—!
Self-destructive overload from forcing the weight of the steel machine through a human nervous system. Spitting blue sparks, the giant hunk of metal received an abnormal burst of acceleration and vanished from Ji-hwan’s sight before he could even finish taking a defensive stance.
An impossible speed for something that weighed several tons.
"Shit!!"
The warning made every hair on his body stand on end, and the instant he jerked his head up reflexively, the overwhelming silhouette of steel leaped high into the air, crushing the darkness of the abandoned factory completely.
Bang—!!
A tearing, explosive crack as the cement floor shattered to pieces.
The several tons of mass, accelerated by [Sandevistan], came crashing down violently onto Ji-hwan’s body before he could dodge.
Under that overwhelming weight, a red fluid burst from between Ji-hwan’s lips, wetting his mucous membranes.
"Kahahaha!! Die! Die, all of you!!"
Beyond the thick bulletproof glass, Vice in the cockpit laughed with his sanity completely gone.
The price of forcibly accelerating a machine of absurd weight through a human nervous system. The overload from [Sandevistan] surged back up his spine and was scorching through his brain nerves.
Vice, drooling dark spit from the corner of his mouth, trembled in the grip of cyberpsychosis. His red face lenses, covering his features, split and flickered wildly like dozens of separate eyes, the peak of his mechanical frenzy.
Completely swallowed by madness, he relied only on the instinct to destroy, lifting Centaur’s heavy steel foot off Ji-hwan and slamming it down again and again without mercy.
Kugugung—! Bang—! Kwaaang—!
The vibration shook the entire abandoned factory, and shattered concrete fragments flew in all directions.
And through the gaps in the ground being crushed by that several-ton mass, thick red steam began to seep out, swallowing the acrid air.
Thud—!
Once again the machine’s foot came crashing down, only to stop in midair in a grotesque position instead of hitting the ground. Ji-hwan was there, supporting the heavy steel sole with both hands and holding the pressure back.
Deep in his blood-smeared dark eyes, a vicious glint flashed.
As Ji-hwan’s bones and muscle fibers, compressed far beyond human physical limits, began to unleash explosive energy, the several-ton Centaur pressing down on him started to creak and slowly rise into the air.
"U-uh...?!"
Vice’s multi-lenses, once fully swallowed by cyberpsychosis, trembled violently. At the impossible sight unfolding before him—an organic body lifting several tons of overwhelming mass with bare hands—his scorched brain nerves were struck like lightning and forcibly dragged a shred of sanity back to the surface.
Kigigigik—!!
Centaur’s thick hydraulic cylinders groaned with tearing friction as they resisted.
But the moment Ji-hwan, exhaling red smoke, let out a scream-like battle cry and squeezed every ounce of power from his body—
"Kraaaah!!"
The steel machine could not withstand that explosive brute force and finally lurched backward, losing its balance.
Thud—! Bang!
A dull, cracking boom as those heavy steps were shoved back, grinding the dirt floor beneath them. Unable to tell whether what he was seeing was a hallucination or whether his nervous system had burned out completely and he’d truly gone insane, Vice screamed in desperate panic.
"Wh-what... what the hell are you?!"
Crushed by an incomprehensible, unknown terror, Vice’s pale, trembling fingers frantically slammed a switch hidden inside the cockpit.
Wheeeing—!! Pzzzt!
It was the forced charge switch for Centaur’s built-in high-energy laser cannon.
Because it was a weapon that demanded so much energy it could drain the entire factory’s power just to fire one shot, the hologram panels inside the cockpit all flashed red at once, spewing a mad storm of loud warnings about "battery depletion imminent" and "core overheating."
But Vice, whose rational judgment had already evaporated under the overload burning through his nerves, ignored the red warning windows filling his vision and forcibly scraped together every last spare watt left in the machine, stuffing it brutally into the vicious muzzle.
"Die, you monster!!"
With that desperate scream, a blinding flash erupted before Ji-hwan’s eyes, heating the air white-hot.
The high-temperature laser beam that left the muzzle swallowed Ji-hwan’s upper body, which had been bracing Centaur’s heavy foot with all his strength. Plasma flame in the thousands of degrees. The moment the explosive heat hit, Ji-hwan reflexively crossed his arms tightly and desperately shielded the most vital part of his body.
One second.
As his vision evaporated into white, the moisture in his blood and body boiled instantly, tearing through his mucous membranes and bursting out.
'Hold on...!!'
Ji-hwan clenched his teeth until they nearly shattered and gave a desperate command to his burning body.
Amid the nauseating smell of muscle fibers over his bones blackening and burning away, thick red steam poured out like mad as his charred flesh began to fight back, no matter what it took.
Two seconds.
As the pressure of the heat dug deeper and deeper, as if it would melt straight into his bones, the speed of recovery that had been surging violently began to slow noticeably.
When the rate of destruction outpaced the rate of regeneration, his body was falling apart in a life-or-death crisis. Through the searing pain that was carving up his entire body, fragmented memories flashed through Ji-hwan’s mind like sparks.
The corpses of his family strewn horribly across Dakota’s garage lot. Elena, kidnapped by Maelstrom and used as a test subject before being dumped like trash. And the faces of an old couple and a child, sobbing in a rain-soaked back alley while clutching an old credit chip.
'Just a little longer...!!'
He couldn’t break here to these garbage bastards.
Ji-hwan squeezed out every last drop of life in him, as if pouring more fuel onto a dying flame.
Three seconds.
The muscles in both arms melted away, white bone joints were exposed, and the horrifying sensation of his body’s shape itself collapsing came over him.
'Just a little... more!!'
The final second stretched into eternity. With both feet planted firmly on the ground, Ji-hwan endured the energy of annihilation with nothing but the debt he owed to others and the ferocious will to crush those rotten bastards.
At last, the count reached its limit and ended.
Sssshhhiiing—!
The flash heating the air white-hot cut off abruptly in midair.
Thick acrid gunpowder smoke and the smell of burned blood drifted through the air.
Beyond it stood the silhouette of a man, his entire body charred like a lump of charcoal and brutally crushed, yet still refusing to kneel.
"Y-you monster...!"
Facing that astonishing vitality, which had swallowed even his last desperate struggle, Vice in the cockpit spat out a grotesque metallic cry in utter disbelief.
The man in front of him was a horrific sight, with half his upper body blackened by fire, but he was still standing on both legs.
Between the charcoal-black wounds, boiling red blood kept seeping and clinging nonstop, an abnormal regeneration that stubbornly stitched destroyed cells back together.
Meanwhile, Centaur, which had squeezed out every last watt of power while ignoring its limits, had finally run completely dry.
Sssshhhiiing—.
The fierce flash heating the air white-hot flickered out in vain.
Gii-i-i-ing...
Even the majestic motor hum of the machine came to a complete stop, ending in a sinister grinding noise.
The total silence of overwhelming mass.
In front of the several-ton hunk of scrap that had gone dead for lack of power, Ji-hwan, half burned and covered in blood, let out a ragged breath.
"Khuk, khuk...!"
Maybe because his lungs had been damaged by the superheated blast, a nauseating sensation like his insides were boiling over came with it, and dark blood wetting his mucous membranes gushed out of his mouth.
Wiping the red liquid from the floor with the back of his hand, Ji-hwan let out a short, humorless breath.
'How many times have I coughed up blood now?'
Swallowing the pain in his aching bones, Ji-hwan forced his cracked lips open toward Vice, who was trembling behind the bulletproof glass.
"Is... that... your... trump card?"
Dry mockery dragged out through his torn vocal cords. At that terrifying proof of survival, Vice’s flimsy reason shattered to pieces.
"You... you crazy bastard!! Die! Die, I said!!"
Terrified, Vice screamed like a madman and slammed the cockpit joystick and panels over and over. But the several-ton steel fortress, now out of power, didn’t move a hair’s breadth.
Cutting off Vice’s frantic screams, Ji-hwan reached out with his blood-soaked, thick hand and planted it on Centaur’s armor plate.
Then, driving all the explosive force that had climbed from his toes up through his waist, he shoved his weight hard into the frozen lump of steel.
Kigigigik—!
A chilling grinding sound as steel joints tore apart.
The giant fortress, robbed of power and thrown off balance, couldn’t withstand the overwhelming push of an organic body and lurched backward hard. In the next instant, tens of tons of mass tore through the air and collapsed helplessly.
Kwaaang---!!!!
With a deafening roar that shook the earth, the several-ton mass crashed miserably onto the concrete floor and spewed thick dust, while beyond the cloud of debris, Vice’s terrified, desperate scream ripped through the abandoned factory from the overturned cockpit.
"Y-you crazy bastard...! Your flesh is burning off, and you’re not even hot?!"
At that scream, Ji-hwan felt his body recovering as boiling blood seeped through the charred skin, and he took a staggering step forward.
He looked like he might collapse at any second, but deep in those dark eyes, a fierce venom was blazing.
"Not hot?"
The hoarse voice scraped out through his torn vocal cords.
"It’s fucking hot, you bastard."
At the silhouette of that overwhelming reaper limping closer, Vice’s face went pale behind the thick bulletproof glass as he shouted.
"Stay back..!! You monster!!"
But Ji-hwan ignored the scream and climbed straight up onto the overturned Centaur cockpit, carrying burns that would take him at least several days to fully recover from.
Then Ji-hwan held his breath and sent a [Instant Strike] into the cockpit glass.
Kaaang—!!
A sharp metallic shriek tore through the air.
And yet, despite the impact, the thick military bulletproof glass remained completely intact, without a single scratch.
Once Vice, who had been crouching and trembling below as if afraid the glass might break, confirmed that it was still whole, a vile laugh filled the cockpit.
"Ha... hahahaha!! You idiot, did you really think this would break that easily?!"
Hearing that mocking laughter, Ji-hwan lightly tapped the unmarked glass a few times with his fist.
A structure that dispersed heavy impacts. After confirming that brute force alone wouldn’t solve it, Ji-hwan’s thick hand grabbed one edge of the glass seam without a shred of hesitation.
The moment he did, dark red smoke burst out violently and Ji-hwan’s body was explosively reinforced. Vice’s smug, taunting metallic voice cut off in an instant.
"Ha, like that’ll—?!"
Grrrrrkk—!!
The glass had shrugged off strong impacts, but against absurd force, it couldn’t hold out. The seam itself began to twist apart.
"Huh...?"
Kraack—!!
As Vice stared in stunned disbelief, the thick bulletproof glass, torn out with its steel frame intact, was flung into the air. The sealed cockpit was forcibly exposed to the outside, and Vice was thrown bouncing to the floor, screaming.
"Kraaaah!"
As the bastard flailed to escape, Ji-hwan’s heavy combat boot came down mercilessly on his wrist.
Crack!
"Aaaagh!!"
He crawled along the floor and met Ji-hwan’s gaze, looking down at him clearly from above.
"W-wait! Just a second! Money! You need eurodollars, right?! I’ll give you as much as you want! An amount you’ll never even see in your whole life!!"
As Ji-hwan looked down at that filthy mouth, faces drifted through his mind.
Elena, killed by Maelstrom’s little games and dumped like trash. And the old couple, sobbing in a rainy alley while clutching a worn credit chip.
No excuse in the world could turn Ji-hwan’s heart.
So he grabbed the bastard’s arms and legs, and pulled.
Ppakak—!! Kraack!!
"Aaaaaaaagh---!!!"
The sound of bones crushing as mechanical joints and artificial nerve bundles were ripped out all at once.
Ji-hwan tore the limbs off with nothing but grip strength, then seized the screaming bastard by the neck, lifting him up as blue sparks and artificial coolant poured from the severed ends. Looking straight into Vice’s face as he convulsed, tears and snot streaming down, Ji-hwan muttered in a low voice.
"So tell me. Up until now, when the people you killed begged you to let them live... did you ever spare even one of them?"
Illustration
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