Cyberpunk Maniac

Indeed, as soon as he exited the subway station, Li Pan familiarly made his way to the warehouse district, only to find that the Whirlpool Gang's maniacs had already blocked off the road and started their operation.

It wasn't even dark yet, and the Whirlpool Gang had already trashed three police cars. These highly recognizable gang members, with their bodies full of metal modifications, mainly equipped with parts dismantled from junkyards and old factories, exuded a strong wasteland punk aroma. Combined with distinctive hairstyles like Mohawks and Mouri horns, they could attract the attention of any man with seven moles on his chest just by standing there.

Due to various crimes such as robbery, murder, theft, vandalism, and disturbing the public order, they were long on the public security network's red list. To avoid being targeted by security system scans and having their identities locked and their accounts frozen, the Whirlpool scum liked to slash their faces, pierce and tattoo themselves, and thread various spiked prosthetic components through their skins. Of course, their most striking feature was eyeball removal.

This was a technology Whirlpool Gang prided themselves on developing in-house—they would dig out their eyeballs to sell to the organ black market for startup funds, then remove inferior infrared sensors from factory equipment and robots to assemble a bunch of fake eyes on their heads. Crowded like a swarm of spiders, this was to evade the public security network's iris scans and mental health assessments.

At first glance, they looked like evil ghosts that had crawled up from hell, and naturally, the tasks they were carrying out were equally savage.

Some of them were now hanging the mutilated pieces of police officers on meat hooks attached to motorcycles, dragging them back and forth on the streets, creating a bloody demarcation line. Others were performing surgery on the spot, instantly removing internal organs from victims to keep them fresh in coolers. The emptied husks were left dangling from the intestines on the street lamps as a warning.

Still others were using burning vehicles and smart mines to block intersections, while setting up remote-controlled machine guns. Any passerby's car seen from a distance would be met with a rat-a-tat spray of bullets, causing deaths and explosions regardless—it was there they guffawed maniacally.

Perhaps, to get to their point in life and watch the world burn, it was indeed quite fun...

In such a hellish situation, employees of the NCPA, though they took the company's money, truly dared not come. After all, which suburban precinct could expect armed support from Cerberus? Those officers with connections and backgrounds who dropped in from police academies were all sitting in offices in the Downtown District. The ones out patrolling, risking life and limb, were those without permanent positions, forced to sign unbalanced contracts as auxiliary police. Some couldn't even get overtime pay and kill bounties; the pittance they earned wasn't likely at par with a regular corporate intern.

So it comes back to that saying, "For two thousand a month, why would you risk your life?"

However, the Whirlpool Gang was playing big today, weren't they? Several dozen lookouts at one intersection? That must be multiple families working together, possibly even a warband-scale operation. It seemed they wouldn't rest until they emptied Warehouse No. 7, huh?

Li Pan reloaded his bullets, raised his pistol from a distance, aimed, and after estimating the bullet trajectory, felt it was about right—he lifted his hand and fired a shot.

The motorcycle dragging a corpse 500 meters away crashed to the ground at the sound, swerving fiercely into a fire, igniting flames. The blast wave flayed the Knight's flesh from his body, leaving a burning skeleton behind. His prosthetic eyes surged with reverse currents, shining red like the arrival of the Ghost Rider!

"Damn, that was quite the artistic shot."

Taking advantage of the enemy's confusion, Li Pan rubbed his shoulder and quickly raised his hand, fired another shot—down went the second.

"Yay, I need to conserve ammo—bullets for the pistol cost fifty cents each."

"A good gunman is nurtured with bullets."

"A gun god, on the other hand, is a good gunman plus a bit of experience and a touch of luck."

"This bit of experience and touch of luck is called 'gun feel.'

Of course, Li wasn't bragging that he was a gun god. He knew all too well that his skills, by any definition, couldn't be called 'gun feel,' much less a cheat; at most, it was just a hand-eye coordination honed by playing too many games.

So if he didn't install a ballistic processor set to his comfort zone from the games, he probably wouldn't hit a single shot.

But with it installed, it was a different story.

"Bang!"

"Ah!"

"There's a sniper!"

"Bang!"

"Ah!"

"Where?!"

"Bang!"

"Ah!"

"He's on the rooftop!"

"Shit! This nutjob's wearing a suit! He's a corporate dog! A corporate dog!"

"Bang!"

"Take him down!"

"Fuck! The angle on the machine gun isn't enough! Who's the moron who assembled this crap?"

"Bang!"

"RPG! RPG!"

"Holy shit! RPG!"

"Boom!"

Li Pan ducked and scurried, diving off the rooftop just in time to avoid being blasted to death.

"Kill him!" "Ratatat!" "Charge, charge, charge!" "Pop, pop, pop!"

"Damn, these lunatics have some heavy firepower."

Li Pan had no choice; if he had ballistic clothing, he'd go out now and have a shootout to kill all these losers.

But he didn't have one, and his sliding stop had even ripped the pants of his 'dead man's suit,' scraping his leg bloody.

So there was nothing Li Pan could do, a 'gun—god!' who could headshot from 500 meters away, after tagging just a few minions, he found himself chased and overrun by a horde of Cyber Lunatics wielding submachine guns, carrying RPGs, and charging on motorcycles, unable to even keep his head up...

Sigh, life, such are its tremendous ups and downs...

If only I had the money for a sniper rifle, but honestly, even if I did, I couldn't buy one.