Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 935, Section 145: Zalia Hughes
Karl had never been unfamiliar with the smell of blood. For someone like him who had been through countless battles, the smell of blood was nothing new. But at this moment, the smell of blood was particularly pungent.

According to Karl's experience, such a pungent smell meant there was a large amount of blood, and that the blood had not been out of the body for long.

Even if there were a few Vortex Gang members in this warehouse, there certainly wouldn't have been many, because the dust on the ground indicates that this place is not welcomed by the local Vortex Gang. So, does this mean that the blood came from the people Karl was tracking?
Could it be that!
Karl's expression changed slightly.

Was that pulse signal meant to kill these people, not to make them run?!
If you want to leave no trace, you naturally have to be more secretive about the dead than about the living, right?

Damn.

So decisive?
Just as Carl was about to follow the scent of blood, he heard a noise.

It was a vague sound, like the sound a person makes when slowly rising from a thick, fishy liquid.

And with that sound, the stench of blood in the air grew even stronger.

Carl heard footsteps, several heavy and disordered footsteps accompanied by the sound of someone getting up, coming from deep within the warehouse. He quickly slipped into the shadows.

Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of metal scraping against the ground, several members of the Vortex Gang staggered out in the dim light. The dense prosthetic eyes on their faces had all turned an ominous scarlet, their mechanical joints made discordant creaking sounds, and their faces were full of strange distortions.

Dr. Carl, who has extensive experience in treating cyberpsychosis, can make a decisive judgment that these are typical characteristics of a cyberpsychosis episode.

However, it's no longer strange or rare for the Vortex Gang to turn into cyberpsychotics.

just
Looking at the fact that almost all of these Vortex Gang members were covered in blood, yet there were no visible wounds on their bodies, Karl realized that he had made a mistake in his initial assumption.

That pulse signal was probably not meant for the people getting out of the car, but for the few members of the Vortex Gang in the warehouse.

Its purpose is likely to trigger cyberpsychosis.

As for the purpose of inducing cyberpsychosis, just look at their blood-soaked appearance.

Send messages to those incompetent members of SSI who are likely to run away; they might become chaotic. Send them to die; they probably won't listen anyway. So, let's just rely on the Vortex Gang, which is already easy to provoke, to deal with them.

Carl explained why they had ended up in the Vortex Gang's territory and in such a seemingly unused warehouse.

So it was a specially arranged execution ground that could be activated in case of a leak?

This is not good news.

A mobile AI is just a mobile AI; in terms of decisiveness, it really only calculates gains and losses and makes judgments quickly.

I've witnessed this decisiveness time and time again.

Carl heard the viscous sound approaching, accompanied by the sound of liquid dripping, and a figure emerged from the shadows behind these cyberpsychotics.

It was a woman who was almost completely naked, wearing only close-fitting clothes.

Wet blood covered her entire body like a second skin, dripping down her curves and blooming into dark flowers on the ground. Her arms hung at her sides, the front half of which were metal prosthetics, and on those prosthetics, two sharp mantis blades had been thrust out, the viscous blood on the tips of the blades slowly condensing and dripping.

On that face, two rows of blood-red prosthetic eyes gleamed, clearly indicating that he was also experiencing a cyberbullying episode.

Carl looked at the woman he had never seen before. Although she was covered in blood and somewhat unrecognizable, Carl quickly found her information by connecting to the NCPD's database: Zalia Hughes, a well-known figure active in the Vortex Gang.

The NCPD database has quite a few records about her: "desecration of a corpse", "illegal sale of stolen prosthetic bodies", "multiple acts of severe violence". Each of these is enough to send her to prison for the rest of her life.

Carl wasn't too concerned about helping the NCPD resolve, or rather, arrest, this Ms. Zalia, but...
The other party's behavior is strange.

She definitely had a cyberbullying episode, just like the people around her, but
Why are these cyberpsychotics able to stand together so peacefully?

It was almost like they were on patrol.

Carl, hidden in the shadows, stared at the group of 'human landmines' that seemed to have been pre-programmed, and a strong sense of unease rose in his heart.

Cyberpsychosis is not incompatible. In some cases, two cyberpsychotics who were originally on good terms can still manage to avoid harming each other to some extent even after both become cyberpsychotics. However, these are extremely rare cases and can be included in the research materials on cyberpsychosis.

With such a large number of people, including six cyberpsychotics who haven't fought each other, this is an unprecedented case.

However, Carl soon realized why this was the case.

He discerned something simply from the patrol-like glances of the six men.

'I see. ’

Carl said the reason why these irrational people don't fight each other when they're together is because, in their sight or 'sensory perception,' there are no other people around them besides themselves.

Carl observed the gazes of the six men, and in their sweeping glances, none of their eyes lingered on the other person.

Cyber ​​psychopaths are just a bunch of lunatics, but that doesn't mean they're bad at combat. In fact, if you disregard their beastly and instinctive fighting style, their sensitivity to threats can rival that of an excellent mercenary.

It seems the mastermind used some means to preemptively or in a triggered manner cut off their senses of their own kind, turning them into landmines that only target outsiders.

The methods were indeed effective, managing to forcibly maintain this fragile balance; the mastermind behind it clearly put in some effort.

But the only problem is
"So that's all there is to it. I was even observing it cautiously for two seconds."

Carl instantly felt that he was wasting his time.

He had initially been wary, wondering if these six unusual cyberpsychotics might have formed some kind of combat cooperation system, or even harbored sophisticated combined attack tactics.

But after fully understanding the reasons behind their calm, he felt only a sense of emptiness.

What would it be like if six cyberpsychotics who are completely unaware of each other's existence and are simply "arranged" together fought?

All Karl could say was—

"It's no different from dealing with six targets that are fighting their own battles."

(End of this chapter)