On the outer perimeter of the Pacifica Combat Zone, Terminal 7 of the abandoned logistics yard.
This was a stronghold of the Black Tide smuggling ring, protected by corrupt NCPD officials.
Thanks to their symbiotic relationship, they were able to stay somewhat cut off from the gunfire and screams that never stopped in Pacifica’s night streets, and prepare to move their cargo with relative peace of mind.
At an outer guard post by the warehouse, one gang member was perched on a stack of crates, checking the huge payout marked on a data shard and snickering.
"Heh... once we unload this shipment, we can leave stinking Pacifica behind and head for the center of Night City."
Ssshhk-.
Then, a shadow slipped out of the darkness and fell silently behind him.
The moment he flinched at the cold chill crawling up his spine and tried to turn his head, his vision filled with a goblin mask shimmering with blue hologram light.
"Huh..."
With that dazed sound,
Thud-!
his consciousness sank into a deep sleep.
And after some time had passed.
At the loading bay of Terminal 7, the gang members were cursing as they loaded boxes full of something onto trucks.
"Move it! We have to get everything out before the NCPD patrol blackout ends!"
Then a sharp curse came from the man who had gone between the containers to fetch more cargo.
"Fxx! Intruder!"
A frantic shout tore through the dark.
One of the gang members, sensing that the outer perimeter had been breached without a single shot fired, slapped at the comm chip by his ear.
"Entrance! Respond! Get your asses over here now!"
What came back was only a chilling, dead silence.
In that stillness, he realized the situation was spiraling into the worst possible shape, and cold sweat poured down his forehead.
"I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’ve got the wrong address! There’s nothing worth taking here! All we’ve got is a little Medsdoc and a few cheap medical supplies!"
Even with that desperate attempt to kill the intruder’s interest and make him turn away, no answer came from the darkness.
Ji-hwan was simply doing what he had come to do, tightening his grip around another gang member’s throat from behind.
"Ghk, krrk..."
The man’s airway cut off as he clawed at Ji-hwan’s worn coat sleeve, his eyes bloodshot and bulging.
Without a single reply or hint of hesitation, Ji-hwan carefully adjusted the pressure in his hand and completely cut off the blood flow to the man’s brain.
Ssshhk.
Before long, the body went limp, and Ji-hwan silently laid the unconscious man on the floor before turning his gaze toward the next prey, who was shouting into the dark.
At the shout, the others switched on lights mounted on their gun barrels and swept the darkness with beams. On the floor they illuminated, nearly half the warehouse’s waiting crew were already sprawled out unconscious.
"Where the hell are you hiding? Get out here!"
The panicked men fumbled for their triggers, but all they could make out was the figure of a scavenger in a worn coat, charging out of the dark with a hologram mask flashing on his face.
Thud-! Kwaang!*
One by one, they dropped to a single punch and the dagger that shot out from his hand.
"Move, you bastards!"
While the small fry collapsed around him, a huge man burst out from the center of the group, his mechanical joints roaring loudly.
He was a former Maelstrom executive who had been exiled long ago.
Cranking up the output of the combat implants covering his entire body, he lunged at Ji-hwan.
Steel pistons screamed as the man’s heavy fists came barreling toward Ji-hwan’s face and chest in rapid succession.
Thud, thud-!
The dull impacts echoed through the narrow armory.
The man was certain his steel fist had landed squarely on the scavenger in front of him.
The satisfying feel of bones shattering under the blow. But the sensation at the end of his fist was empty.
At the last instant, Ji-hwan’s body flowed away along the strike like running water, scattering all that brute kinetic force into the air.
The red optical eye of the man who had been pouring out a fierce combo twitched grotesquely.
A cold sense of danger crawled up his spine. Seized by instinctive fear, he staggered as if his legs had tangled on purpose, then violently kicked off the ground and retreated to open distance.
Tsssh, clack-!
The moment the gap opened, the armored plates on his thick forearms split up and down, revealing the blue muzzle of a projectile launcher built into the bones beneath, aimed straight at Ji-hwan’s heart.
"Die!"
For a split second, just as the trigger was about to be pulled.
Ji-hwan’s hand shot out like a snake and brutally seized the launcher’s opening on the forearm.
Crunch-!
With the sound of steel buckling, Ji-hwan twisted the man’s arm upward toward the ceiling.
Kwaaang-!
The point-blank shotgun blast sprayed uselessly into the warehouse ceiling instead of Ji-hwan’s abdomen.
Witnessing his hidden trump card completely shut down, the exiled Maelstrom member’s eyes went wide with shock.
But before he could even scream, Ji-hwan’s other fist tore through the air and drove straight into his face.
Thwack-!
A dull, skull-rattling crack. The man’s body was launched like a cannonball, slamming into a steel container behind him before vomiting blood and collapsing unconscious.
He hadn’t been careless, but the opponent’s reflexes were better than expected, so Ji-hwan had put a little real force into that strike.
"Huh? Dead?"
Ji-hwan approached the man sprawled beneath the dented container.
The blood-soaked chest was rising and falling faintly, breathing raggedly.
Confirming he was still alive, Ji-hwan clicked his tongue.
"Looks like you had some pretty tough steel bones in there."
Passing over the unconscious man, Ji-hwan scanned the area and rolled his shoulders lightly.
He sized up the men lying on the floor.
The ones he had just fought were mostly low-tier trash.
A few who had reacted tactically and resisted were around mid-tier, and the last one who had tried to fire the shotgun was only slightly above that, still nowhere near top-tier.
'Good. None of them have any really nasty combat power...'
Confirming the situation was over, Ji-hwan rummaged through the pocket of his worn coat.
His fingers found the small comm device Sasha, the netrunner, had practically forced on him not long ago.
Beep.
He powered it on and contacted the allies waiting nearby.
"Situation’s over. Come in."
The moment the message went out, loud engine noise roared from the entrance to the abandoned logistics yard, and several old vans and trucks slid into the warehouse.
It was Boris and the scavengers.
[ Ah, seriously! Are you crazy, old man?! ]
At the same time, Sasha’s sharp scolding exploded through the earpiece in Ji-hwan’s ear like thunder.
[ I told you to wait quietly until I shut down every single surveillance camera before you moved in! ]
Under the original plan, Sasha was supposed to cut the security network and CCTV completely before they entered.
But Ji-hwan had sized up the enemy, said it would be fine, and charged into the warehouse before she’d even finished backing him up.
[ Because you barged in like a damn bulldozer, I almost fried my brain forcing my way through the firewall and spinning the camera lenses at the last second! You chrome-brained idiot! ]
Still riding the aftereffects of her hacking dive, Sasha panted through the comms and unloaded a string of sharp curses and complaints at Ji-hwan.
"Still ended cleanly, didn’t it?"
Ji-hwan let out a snort at Sasha’s nagging in his ear.
With a roar of engines, Boris’s trucks and the scavengers’ vehicles poured into the warehouse loading bay.
After checking the small fry writhing on the floor, Boris swallowed a breath and headed toward the heavy iron door they’d been guarding so carefully.
"You lot move the cargo. The NCPD will catch on soon."
Boris shoved open the heavy iron door to the deepest storage room.
All that met his eyes was pitch-black darkness.
Thinking it was just an empty space, Boris started to step inside to collect the goods, but Ji-hwan’s hand suddenly shot out and blocked him.
Startled, Boris turned and looked at him.
Ji-hwan raised one thumb and pressed it to his lips.
"I’ll handle this part. Come in a little later."
A cold shiver crawled up Boris’s back.
He had realized there was danger lurking in that empty-looking darkness, something he himself couldn’t handle.
With a stiff nod, Boris stepped back, and Ji-hwan sent him outside before walking alone into the storage room.
Kreeeak, bang-.
The heavy iron door shut, cutting off the outside light. Inside the sealed warehouse, Ji-hwan’s heavy combat boots struck the concrete floor and shattered the silence.
In that instant, a vicious killing intent, hidden in the thick shadow at the corner of the ceiling, poured down toward Ji-hwan’s crown.
A high-tier solo merc, waiting for the intruder to arrive. Blue Mantis Blades deployed from both arms came down like lightning, aiming to pierce Ji-hwan’s body.
A short sigh slipped between Ji-hwan’s lips as he faced the cold blade wind.
"So that’s why it felt too easy!!"
Ji-hwan planted his feet and took a defensive stance.
Kaaang-!
The dull clash of steel against bone rang through the narrow storage room.
In the darkness, a fierce exchange erupted. Ji-hwan twisted the path of the incoming blades and drove his fist in.
Sharp blade tips grazed his shoulder and forearm, spraying blood into the air.
At the same time, Ji-hwan’s short, heavy [Instant Strike] punched cleanly into the merc’s abdomen.
"Ghk!"
"Hk."
With rough groans, the distance between them widened.
"You’re no ordinary bastard..."
"Then you should back off while you still can."
As the merc retreated and panted, Ji-hwan flicked blood from the back of his hand and tossed out the words casually.
But the merc gave no answer.
He roughly shook out the pain throbbing deep in his abdomen from Ji-hwan’s [Instant Strike].
Then he set his feet and settled into stance.
Crack-!
In an instant, blue sparks flashed and the merc’s body vanished from sight, leaving only a thick afterimage behind. Ji-hwan cursed.
"Sandevistan?... Damn it...!"
The enemy had plunged into a hyper-accelerated state. Beyond the crude scavenger mask, Ji-hwan’s dark eyes flared with a savage red light.
Using the opponent’s Sandevistan acceleration and the tight space to the fullest, the merc moved in three dimensions. Ji-hwan failed to fully evade the storm of strikes, and blue blades skimmed across his shoulders and forearms. Small cuts bloomed, flinging droplets of blood into the air.
Beyond the scattering blood, his reddened pupils, [Thought Acceleration] burning hot, doggedly chased the merc’s afterimage.
Kaaang-!
The dull crash of steel and bone. Ji-hwan twisted the merc’s trajectory and kept countering, but the man’s durability and precise movement were nothing like some random street merc’s.
The merc himself was swallowing the pain throbbing from deep in his abdomen, the aftereffect of that first [Instant Strike].
He was extremely wary of Ji-hwan’s heavy fist.
He kept darting in and out with high-speed movement, using only the advantage of Sandevistan acceleration.
The fierce exchange continued without pause.
Every time the blue blade wind brushed past, more blood-red wounds accumulated across Ji-hwan’s body.
Dozens of seconds of tense bloodshed passed.
Ji-hwan realized that countering while limiting his body wasn’t going to solve this, and at the moment the enemy’s combo came surging in, he violently kicked off the floor and pulled back to widen the distance.
The instant the gap opened, Ji-hwan lowered his voice into the earpiece at his ear.
"The cameras?"
Sasha, who had been busy punching through the firewall, was startled by the sudden question and answered in a hurry.
[ Uh... huh? Ah! They’re all down!! ]
Confirming the visual feed to the outside had been cut, Ji-hwan replied briefly.
"Okay."
Then he acknowledged the high-tier solo merc’s skill and murmured quietly.
"Let’s get a little... serious."
The moment Ji-hwan’s breathing stopped, his muscles compressed to their limit and blood flow inside his body accelerated explosively.
The first stage of output opened. A fierce red aura rose up, but Ji-hwan controlled it and suppressed it so not even a wisp leaked beyond the worn coat.
The tide of battle reversed in an instant.
The solo merc’s eyes widened grotesquely as he charged again.
The man who had been pushing him back and taking wounds a moment ago had suddenly become so much faster and heavier that there was no comparison.
'What... is this?'
Instinctively sensing danger, the merc realized there was no reason to stake his life on this fight.
He clicked his tongue harshly, turned on his heel, and desperately ran for the storage room entrance.
But Ji-hwan, with his ability fully open, had no intention of letting him go.
Ji-hwan closed the distance in an instant, seized the fleeing merc by the nape of the neck, and slammed him into the floor.
Thud-!
"Aaaagh!"
Before the scream could fully burst out, Ji-hwan drove a heavy fist into his face.
Thwack-!
With a dull, skull-rattling crack, the unconscious man’s body collapsed onto the floor.
Ji-hwan tossed the broken merc aside and shook blood from his hand.
Tsssss-.
With a faint hiss of steam, the small cuts on his shoulders and forearms from earlier began healing in real time.
Then, after throwing the unconscious man aside, Ji-hwan shook his bloodied hand, steadied his breathing, and focused his senses inward.
Tsssss-.
At a much faster rate than usual, the torn flesh on his shoulders and forearms knit back together and healed.
Ji-hwan brushed a hand over his smoothly regrown shoulder, rolled the joint once, and was scanning the surroundings when he froze.
The man’s body, which should have been lying there, had vanished without a trace.
All that remained was a long trail of blood leading deep into the pitch-black darkness at the back of the storage room.
"Ah..."
A short, surprised breath slipped from Ji-hwan’s lips as he stared at the empty floor.
[ Old man, is it over inside? ]
Then Sasha’s voice came through the earpiece.
Thud, clank.
At the same time, Boris, who had been waiting outside, came into the storage room with heavy footsteps.
Finding the long smear of blood on the floor, Boris’s ugly swollen face stiffened in confusion.
"B-boss. That blood trail is..."
Ji-hwan gave a light shake of his head.
"He was a quick one."
The fleeing man was a concern.
But he hadn’t seen Ji-hwan’s face, and there was no reason to waste precious time hunting through the dark after him.
Crack-.
In that instant, sparks jumped from the crude scavenger hologram mask that had been grazed by the enemy’s sharp blade.
With a crackling noise, the blue goblin shape covering Ji-hwan’s face faded for a moment.
In the darkness, Ji-hwan’s half-exposed dark face was faintly reflected on the surface of the surveillance camera lens hanging from the ceiling.
Ji-hwan sensed something and looked up at the black lens, but since Sasha had said she’d taken down the entire communications network and camera system, he dismissed it and turned away.
But inside the black surveillance camera lens that should have been powered off, a tiny mechanical whir was sounding in a way that felt deeply wrong.
Whirr-.
Inside the storage room, boxes of medical supplies mixed with low- and mid-tier stock were piled high and came into Boris and his men’s view like a flood.
A broad grin spread across Boris’s face.
The scavenger underlings let out cheers of delight and began frantically loading boxes and bundles of cash into the truck bed.
Just as the cargo bed was filling up with heavy weight.
Sasha’s urgent warning rang through the earpiece in Ji-hwan’s ear.
[ Old man! Because the comm network’s down, the NCPD outer patrol drones have shifted course toward here. Get out fast before they arrive! ]
The moment the warning dropped, Ji-hwan slammed the truck bed’s iron door shut.
Boris and his men hurried into their vehicles. Leaving the groaning small fry sprawled on the floor, Ji-hwan climbed into the driver’s seat of the old sedan.
Vroooom-!
Loaded with a huge haul, Boris’s truck and Ji-hwan’s old sedan sped out of Terminal 7, cutting through the pouring acid rain.
The heavy rain hammered the old sedan’s windows.
Between the squeal of the wipers pushing water aside, Sasha’s voice drifted through the earpiece, finally catching her breath.
[ Old man, tell me the truth. You’re not actually chrome-free, are you? ]
Ji-hwan’s gaze stayed fixed on the rain-slick road as he drove.
Sasha’s pointed interrogation continued.
[ That noise I heard inside the storage room earlier... that was basically MaxTac level. Are you from some secret special forces unit or something? ]
But he dodged the question with a short laugh.
"I got lucky. Quit saying useless stuff and check the cargo we secured this time."
[ Ugh, seriously! You always try to brush it off! ]
Sasha’s grumbling filled the earpiece.
The tension of the fight seemed to be easing, but the strange noise he’d heard from the storage room ceiling still wouldn’t leave Ji-hwan’s mind.
That eerie mechanical whir, even with the power cut. Ji-hwan tightened his grip on the wheel and asked quietly.
"Sasha."
[ Yeah? ]
"About the surveillance camera inside the storage room earlier. Are you sure you shut down the whole system?"
At the sudden serious question, the sound of light typing came from beyond the comms. A moment later, Sasha answered with confidence.
[ Of course I’m sure! I cut everything, from the main network to the physical lines. Not a single byte leaked out. You don’t trust my skills? ]
After hearing Sasha’s answer, Ji-hwan’s brow furrowed deeply.
A nasty sense of wrongness, like he’d stepped into a spiderweb, crawled up the back of his neck.
Had someone dug deeper without even Sasha noticing, and been watching him?
Frowning, Ji-hwan glanced at the empty road in the rain through the rearview mirror.
"Got it. Good work."
He shoved the unpleasant question into a corner of his chest and pressed the accelerator, sending the old sedan deeper into Pacifica’s darkness.
The two vehicles receded through the mud, the old sedan and the cargo truck loaded to the brim. Their red taillights slowly blurred and faded beyond the pouring acid rain.
That was Terminal 7, where they had just left behind a storm of blood. On top of the massive concrete structure, at the highest rooftop.
A single silhouette stood on the edge of the precarious railing, the hem of a worn coat fluttering in the wind. It was a female netrunner with the lower half of her face covered by a red cyber mask.
Beyond the red mask dripping with rain, her gaze was fixed downward.
She watched the old sedan vanish from sight. A deep flicker of interest rippled through her eyes as she looked down at its end.
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