Infinity, progressing from Arasaka

boom--! ! !

With a loud bang, as the black shadow flashed by, the people and vehicles behind it were also engulfed in flames, the wreckage tumbling and sparking as it rolled away.

bang bang bang...

A series of rockets were launched from the intelligent control platform of the Arasaka Armored Aircraft, adding fuel to the fire in the already smoke-filled Vortex Gang factory.

Dozens of armed men who rushed out of the factory in a menacing manner were blown to bits before they could even finish shouting a single sentence.

In the corner, the man struggled to get up.

He also saw:

"Go to hell!"

It was a huge man, considered an extreme modification fanatic even within the Whirlpool Gang, roaring. The sound from his powerful synthetic lungs was like a thunderclap, heading towards the black-clad woman who was throwing the head in her hand to the Arasaka heavy infantryman.

boom!

With a powerful stomp of his leg, the big guy charged forward ten meters in an instant at an astonishing speed.

In a flash, the skin on the inside of both arms tore open from the inside, revealing heat dissipation channels. Two sickle-shaped limbs, still coated with the conditioning fluid, shot out like springs, stabbing straight at the woman like a hunting mantis.

But it disappeared.

Like a phantom, the woman vanished in an instant, and the big man's attack missed.

The man in the corner could only see these things clearly.

There was no time to think, because the figure of the woman in black reappeared in their field of vision.

She remained as elegant and unhurried as ever, holding a heat-powered katana behind her back, while in her other hand, she held a large shotgun against the back of the burly man, seemingly some kind of Kangtao-style weapon.

boom!

A terrifying kinetic energy impact erupted on the massive body, pulverizing both metal and flesh in that instant, tearing the massive creature apart with a deafening roar.

Like a water bag filled with red, white, and gray paint, it burst into a mess of blood and flesh.

Da da da--

The killing continues.

Arakasa's heavily armed soldiers wove a dense web of fire with machine guns and shotguns, covering the entire narrow block.

The woman continued.

Continue gracefully, fighting in a way quite different from the street kids, with the air of a dancer.

With perfectly timed knife swings, the rhythm of blade slashes and punches and kicks left the Whirlpool Gang thugs either decapitated, writhing in the street vomiting blood, or slamming them into obstacles, turning them into a pile of mangled flesh.

The evasive maneuvers, which involve not moving an inch more than a millimeter, are like a variant of dance.

To compose a bloody dance of slaughter.

……

Finally, the man's view was blocked by the heavily armed Arasaka soldier who was conducting the inspection. The dark muzzle of a gun blocked his entire line of sight. A flash of light appeared, and then, bang!

Colorful mosaic.

"Aaaaaaaahh ...

In the small room, on the old sofa with its worn-out leather cover, the boy let out a cry that was hard to tell whether it was from pain or ecstasy. His body was stiff, his hands were raised high, his legs involuntarily leaned forward, and he was pushing backward on his tiptoes, his whole body moving like a dehydrated fish.

After a long while, perhaps the effects had worn off, the boy took off the old-fashioned Mewtwo headband, flipped himself up in surprise, and exclaimed with shining eyes, "Awesome!"

The unprecedented sensory shock and the intense pain at the end of life that the participants experienced simultaneously created a peak sensory impact for many people in 2074 that was comparable to, or even surpassed, any drug or sex act.

The boy smoothed his dark mohawk hair, his brown eyes flashing with orange-red light.

He exclaimed in surprise as the content of the built-in virtual dialog box scrolled through.

"This feeling is amazing. Doctor, this is better than watching any movie! Your Braindance is incredible."

SuperDream, or Alternative Reality Process, is a virtual reality technology that uses devices implanted in the human body to record experience segments including images, sounds, sensations, and spatial information.

It is a popular form of entertainment, a form of abhorrent programming technology used for crime and a military simulator, and can even be used as a psychological therapy tool. How it is used is entirely up to the user.

Jingle Bell.

The prosthetic doctor said, "That's natural. What's amazing is JK, who edited this masterpiece. She used fresh memories extracted from the brains of the vortex gang, who had just died two hours earlier, to create Mewtwo."

"It's a pity it's not the complete version. The one you watched was just a Uzumaki Gang outpost who fled after discovering Arasaka's army, and ended up witnessing all of this from an outsider's perspective."

"He's probably the longest-lived grunt. JK used him as a promotional video for the movie."

"The Watson North Industrial Zone was bustling last night. The truly amazing ones were those crazy guys who fought against Arasaka's war machines. If their memories were edited into a Mewtwo, that would be awesome. But the price is another matter."

“Arasaka…” The boy’s mood immediately dropped when he mentioned Arasaka, and he looked very melancholy.

"Are they really that strong? That good?"

He thought of the fully armed Arasaka heavy infantrymen in Mewtwo, and the female commander Arasaka who viewed the vortex gang's madmen as mere chickens and dogs.

The cyborg doctor: "Pfft, who doesn't know how powerful Arasaka is? The number one super conglomerate in Night City, the 'emperor emeritus' above us commoners. But as for whether he's good or bad... hehe, that depends on how you look at it."

“Hey David, didn’t Mrs. Martinez want to send you to Arasaka Tower Academy? She even bought you a Mewtwo headband for studying, but you’ve been using it to look at these after-school gadgets instead.”

"Correct."

Ignoring the prosthetic doctor's teasing, the Mohican boy called David lay down on the sofa, his eyes darting around as he looked at the roof of the small house.

"But I really dislike the way they look at me. When I was signing up, they clearly looked down on me, so why did I still try to get close to them?"

The prosthetic doctor: "Ha, this is the road to becoming a corporate dog..."

Boom!

light is on.

"David!"

"Whoa!" David quickly hung up the call with the cyborg doctor, his eyes darting towards the door. The woman in yellow with red hair was glaring at him as she pushed open the door. "Mom," David called out, looking down.

"I bought you the Mewtwo headband not for you to use for entertainment."

David Martinez's mother, Gloria Martinez, entered the house with weary but excited steps. Seeing her son not wearing the Arasaka Tower Academy uniform, she sighed and couldn't help but lecture him.

"Hey, I know, sorry Mom..."

"No need for promises, just show me. Today is the freshman entrance ceremony at Arasaka Tower Academy. After working the night shift, the medical center gave me a rare day off... just because I'm attending Arasaka's ceremony. So, you absolutely have to become that kind of superior person."

Gloria placed the handbag on the coffee table and, while chattering away, carefully tidied David's appearance, unpacking his Arasaka Tower Academy uniform and gesturing expectantly for him to put it on.

"I...Mom..."

David took the uniform from his mother, his emotions a jumbled mess.

"Go get dressed up nicely. We can't be late for the freshman orientation ceremony."

Gloria said gently that she would turn on the home projector TV after David took the clothes, so that she could watch the news about the Arasaka Tower Academy freshman ceremony.

Good morning, Night City!

Stanley's signature passionate voice, the Night City radio host, immediately rang out.

They are old friends who are as familiar as can be.

Just as Gloria was about to change the channel.

"Hey hey hey, guess how many people won yesterday's dead man's lottery? Was it thirty? Fifty? Or a hundred? None of those!"

It's also thanks to the Whirlpool Gang's crazy modification of their high aspirations and low abilities. Of all the people they could rob, they robbed Arasaka's. Last night alone, hundreds of people were killed in the old Watson industrial area! And that's only after piecing together complete corpses.

As we all know, there's an old saying, "A new broom sweeps clean." Didn't Arasaka's security department recently have a new high-ranking official appointed? And now, the Uzumaki Gang has decided to target Arasaka's goods—isn't that a slap in the face?

At times like this, who cares if the cost of action isn't proportional to the reward? The Uzumaki Gang, on the other hand, was used as a scapegoat by our newly appointed Arasaka-sama—crack, slaughtered. What a tragedy!

……

Gloria didn't listen carefully to Stanley's loudspeaker, but she did hear one sentence: "Hundreds of people have died in the old Watson industrial area alone."

David needs a lot of money to go to school, which is barely enough for her to make ends meet by working eighteen hours a day. If... she could scavenge in the vortex gang territory after the raid on Watson and Arasaka, after such a huge battle that killed so many people, she should be able to make some money even if she had to dig through the garbage dump.

"mom."

"mom?"

"mom!"

"Ah! David..."

Awakened by her son's call, Gloria looked at David, who was dressed in his school uniform. She had to admit that clothes make the man, and no matter what Arasaka was like, his aesthetic sense was still on point. David looked quite handsome in his uniform.

"Mom, what are you thinking about? You seem so focused..."

“It’s nothing. I was just thinking about how to reward my son after the ceremony.” Gloria didn’t want to talk about this anymore. She patted David on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll take you to the academy.”

......

2074/6/1，7/50

Westbrook, Corporate Community, 414 Russell House Apartments.

"Ha~"

Having vented her frustrations and slept well the night before, Vera stepped out of her house, stretched, yawned lazily, and twisted her neck before slowly making her way to the landing pad of her hovercraft.

"Destination: Arasaka Tower Academy."

------

P.S.: It's not appropriate to split this chapter into two, so I'm posting it as one.

Chapter 016 Aftermath

"Destination: Arasaka Tower Academy."