The dark road that cut across the border between Pacifica and Santo Domingo.
Ji-hwan’s matte-black Arch Nazare was tearing down it with a savage exhaust note.
Kiiiiiik-!!
The hacking from the netrunner Pixel, hidden inside a van in the darkness, forcibly seized control of the bike’s systems.
The front and rear brakes on the motorcycle, which had been flying along at over 100 kilometers per hour, locked up without warning, and a screeching crack rang out.
As the tires slid and the heavy frame started to flip, Ji-hwan didn’t panic. Instead, he kicked hard against the bike and launched himself into the air.
He rolled out the impact in a tight tumble across the wet asphalt.
It was a trap, obvious to anyone. The moment the bike had stopped, Ji-hwan had already drawn every nerve in his body taut.
Just as he was using the momentum from the roll to push himself back up.
Swaaaash-!
A blue-white blade shot in from the blind spot behind him like lightning.
Kenshi, formerly of the Tyger Claws, had a razor-sharp draw cut. Feeling the cold brush of steel at the nape of his neck, Ji-hwan didn’t turn around. He trusted his instincts, twisted his upper body wide, and let the blade’s whoosh slip past him.
"…You dodged that?"
"Dodged what? It scraped me, asshole."
Just as Ji-hwan snapped back irritably, his old coat and shirt were torn open.
The skin over his chest was cut shallowly, and red blood began seeping out.
Kenshi’s jaw dropped in shock at having his ambush miss.
Before the bastard could even recover his stance, Ji-hwan ghosted straight into the empty space in front of him and sneered coldly.
"First time someone’s ever avoided your blade?"
The moment Ji-hwan started to drive a heavy fist toward the man’s skull.
"Move!!"
A shout rang out, and the heavy-weapons tank Dozer raised a massive tech shotgun from behind Kenshi.
Just before the shotgun could spit fire, Ji-hwan’s body clung to Kenshi’s back like a leech.
With a teammate in the line of fire, Dozer jerked the shotgun back onto his own shoulder in irritation.
Instead, he cranked up the output of the vicious Gorilla Arms implanted in both arms and lunged in like a beast, while Kenshi, having regained his footing, tightened his grip on his katana and charged as well.
Kenshi with the katana and Dozer with his iron fists—an unrelenting pincer attack. In the middle of that storm of merciless metal, Ji-hwan crushed their assault head-on with casual footwork.
Kakang-! Puk-!
Like he was dancing, Ji-hwan let the blade slide away, then slipped in the instant their rhythm broke as Dozer’s steel fist missed him.
He kicked Dozer aside and blocked Kenshi from reclaiming the blade.
The instant Ji-hwan’s fist was about to slam down on Kenshi’s exposed head.
Bagaaaak-!!! Taang!!!
A horrifying sound of something shattering rang out, followed by a thunderous gunshot.
It was Ghost’s long-range sniper shot from hundreds of meters away. A large-caliber armor-piercing round, one that could punch through concrete walls, slammed viciously into Ji-hwan’s forehead.
The moment the impact landed, he unconsciously bled off the rotational force with [Tempering] and nudged the trajectory off by a hair.
He avoided instant death by having his brain blown out, but the force that scraped through bone still shook his skull to the core.
"Ghk...!"
His vision flashed red, and his body collapsed limply onto the asphalt.
"Phew...! Got him! Nothing special!"
Dozer, certain the man had died, let out a relieved breath.
He raised a thick thumb toward Ghost, who was lying in ambush on a distant rooftop.
Just as he let his weapon hang and reached out to check Ji-hwan’s face, the lens of the leader, Viper, who was watching the situation through tactical optics from behind, twitched violently.
"Danger! Get away from him!!"
The leader’s frantic scream tore through the rain.
Ji-hwan’s heavy fist, the one everyone thought had gone dead, surged up viciously into Dozer’s blind spot.
"Wha—?!"
Stunned, Dozer reflexively crossed his Gorilla Arms to block.
Kwaaaang-!!
"Kuhk...!!"
The vibration felt like his arm bones were about to shatter. The impact rattled his organs, and Dozer’s massive body was blasted into the air.
The instant Ji-hwan realized this was a level of brute force far beyond the arena footage, he used the rebound from his own extended strike to kick off the ground hard.
He raised his foot high, ready to finish off Dozer’s defenseless throat as the man toppled backward.
Swaaaash-!
Leaving Dozer flying away on the shockwave, Kenshi charged in.
The red katana, hot with heat, slashed toward Ji-hwan’s throat like a beast’s fangs.
Kakang-!
Ji-hwan had no choice but to pull back the foot he’d been about to bring down and open the distance. The mask that protected him from blades had been torn apart by the sniper shot a moment ago.
Blood poured from the deep wound in his forehead, the cut so deep it looked like bone might be showing, and it covered his left eye.
Instead of groaning in pain, Ji-hwan licked the sticky, hot blood as it dripped down to his chin.
"Damn... this is a pretty bad loss."
He spat the complaint out irritably.
Severe dizziness and nausea. He needed just a very short moment to catch his breath.
Ji-hwan deliberately asked the question with a relaxed tone.
"Why’d you bastards attack me?"
But Viper didn’t fall for the cheap stall tactic.
The man walked forward slowly and spelled out Ji-hwan’s identity in a clear voice.
"Don’t waste time. I already know you’re a bounty target from the data."
NCPD three-star level. Assassination of a Biotechnica executive and a facility terror attack. A top-priority wanted man in Night City.
Viper aimed the muzzle of his loaded smart submachine gun precisely at Ji-hwan’s heart.
"You can surrender here and be taken alive, or you can die. Choose."
Cornered from all sides, Ji-hwan touched his bloodied chin for a moment as if thinking it over. Then he let out a small snort of ridicule and answered very lightly.
"Yeah, no."
At that dry refusal, Viper also sneered coldly.
"Thought so. Well, thanks for buying my people time to regroup."
Just as Ji-hwan had been stalling to recover, Viper had also deliberately played along so his scattered team could surround him.
"Shred him!!"
Tatatatang-!!
At the command, a hail of live rounds poured over Ji-hwan.
When the bullet curtain swept the spot where he’d been standing, Ji-hwan was already charging through the path the bullets had just crossed, leaving only an afterimage behind.
"The hell?!"
Ji-hwan closed in on Viper’s face in an instant.
Wiiiiing-!
Viper activated the Sandevistan in his spine with extreme calm.
Time slowed as if raindrops had frozen in the air. He widened the distance and pulled the trigger at the same time.
But the bullets only pierced Ji-hwan’s afterimage.
From the start, he had never intended to attack Viper.
Having set the feint, Ji-hwan used the instant Viper pulled back to sharply twist the direction of his bent lower body.
"Blind spot! The target isn’t me!"
By the time Viper shouted too late, Ji-hwan’s real target was Ghost, the sniper.
He kicked off the lower wall of a ruined three-story building and shot upward toward the rooftop in one burst.
But the sniper Ghost had already slipped away in secret.
He’d left a trap waiting for Ji-hwan at the landing point.
Tidi-dik!
The moment Ji-hwan’s foot touched the rooftop floor, a recon grenade detonated with a violent roar.
"Son of a—!!!"
Kwaang-!!
A filthy curse burst out as red flames and thick smoke swallowed the entire third-floor rooftop.
Swoosh...
Ji-hwan emerged from the smoke, his whole body scorched, and walked forward step by step.
He had twisted his trajectory just before the blast and avoided a fatal wound, but his body was a wreck, with fragments lodged in him and blood dripping down. When Ji-hwan looked over the rooftop railing, he saw Ghost’s back as the sniper moved to regroup.
A thick vein twitched on Ji-hwan’s forehead as he watched that thoroughly prepared little setup.
Wiiiiing-!
The recon drone of Pixel, the netrunner watching the situation from the van in back, silently swooped in from behind.
Ji-hwan didn’t even turn around. He swung a careless fist as if swatting away an annoying bug.
Puuuuuk-!! Kkwajik!
The instant Ji-hwan’s heavy punch landed, the special-alloy drone crumpled horribly and shattered.
The twisted hunk of metal was hurled into a back alley and exploded in a burst of blue sparks.
Pixel, watching from the safety of the van, swallowed hard.
Meanwhile, a strange change was taking place in Ji-hwan’s body on the rooftop.
After the life-or-death struggle in the lab, his regeneration, which had been at rock bottom, was slowly beginning to recover, boiling back to life in the middle of the fierce battle.
Chiiiiiiik-!
A faint red smoke began to rise from the deep wound in his forehead.
"These bastards... none of them are special individually, but... they work well together."
Ji-hwan acknowledged the Viper Crew in front of him as true fighters.
Enemies that couldn’t be broken with any half-hearted restraint. Enemies he had to go all out against. Looking down, he saw Viper on the rain-puddled asphalt, sending him a taunting stare.
Without hesitation, Ji-hwan vaulted over the rooftop railing and hurled himself into the vast emptiness below.
Thuk-.
After landing on the ground, Ji-hwan straightened his back and slowly rose, red smoke pouring from his entire body.
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