"Scared the hell out of me."
Emperor Ragnar's armored car sped away from the battlefield, and Holt finally let out a breath of relief.
It wasn't that he was a coward, but a cyberpsycho ramming an AV in a suicide attack? That wasn't something you saw every day.
Should've taken an AV himself.
But reality stood on his side—the side of the rich. His wise investments had once again proven their worth.
That lunatic, whoever he was, might've had guts—but what good was that?
A rich man's life was tougher. Woolley was proof of his embezzling power.
The more he skimmed, the more money he had; the more money, the stronger his goons; the stronger the goons, the harder his life was to snuff out.
Wipe the sweat, light a smoke, relax.
ROOOAR—
The savage roar of a Mackinaw engine tore through the air, sounding like it would explode at any second. From the empty street, a Mackinaw suddenly burst forth!
The driver's heart clenched.
The Mackinaw had that kind of presence—whoever saw it tensed up.
Not fear—just the car's raw menace.
The armored vehicle swerved hard, barely dodging as the beastly Mackinaw barreled past—heading straight for Woolley!
BAM!
The crash was deafening. The Mackinaw's hood caved in, and the hundred-kilo Woolley was sent flying again!
The Mackinaw, too, was part of reality.
Bystanders were dumbstruck. From what they'd just seen, nobody thought Kaneck could've survived.
But reality was different—the one thrown was Woolley, the one who had the upper hand!
As he flew, Woolley's face twisted with pain. But before he even hit the ground, his high-grade cyberware auto-corrected.
His legs dug in, carving a line across the pavement as he landed. The pain only drove him further into rage. His mind drowned under the torment of his chrome. With frightening speed, he pulled a weapon from the subdermal compartment in his abdomen—
David had just opened the Mackinaw's door, hauling Kaneck's powered-down body inside.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Leo finally got a look at the weapon—the one that had blown apart an entire building.
One glance told him it was no ordinary firearm. This was a heavy fixed weapon, usually mounted on vehicles or tripods—
It fired 40mm high-velocity grenades. Not the usual 25mm.
The design had been completely overhauled—from frame to ammo-belt system—just so it could be carried, hidden, and deployed in an urban environment.
Woolley, crazed, swung the gun around. At the last second, Leo triggered his Sandevistan, brute-forcing through Woolley's ICE. His arm locked mid-motion—
That unlucky pause redirected the weapon's wrath—straight at Arasaka Realty across the street!
The posted guards never stood a chance.
This automatic grenade launcher spat rounds at 15 per second, with an effective range of 1,600 meters!
At barely 100 meters, they had no time to react.
Woolley's eyes blazed crimson. He didn't even notice his arm hitch. He just wanted to dump every last round, erase these people and their cars from existence.
Sometimes, destruction didn't need spectacle.
An AV exploding mid-air was impressive, like fireworks—but it hadn't killed anyone. That was just a clean intercept.
But Woolley's automatic grenade launcher was something else.
This custom monster was linked directly to the special ammo belt stored under his skin.
Just a few adjustments, load the right software, and his body itself became part of the weapon's feed system. His chrome muscles and servos supplied the power.
It was an ingenious design—fully exploiting his cybernetic frame.
But physics still mattered. Ammo was finite. Luckily.
He had hidden 30 grenades inside himself—emptied in just two seconds. Without that limit, the carnage would've been unthinkable.
These weren't standard 40mm—they were high-velocity, high-explosive grenades. Bigger. Deadlier.
Two seconds of sudden bombardment.
BOOM—
Each detonation blossomed into a massive fireball. Fireballs layered upon each other, swallowing Arasaka's guards, their heat and flame forming a miniature mushroom cloud.
Soldiers and mech-suits were shredded, and worse—rounds smashed into the warehouse gates!
The bombardment tore a gap open. Woolley had provoked Arasaka directly!
In the next instant, the backup blast doors slammed shut, crushing unlucky half-dead employees in between without hesitation.
AVs scrambled into the sky, sirens screaming across the entire Arasaka Waterfront.
Terror attacks could happen anywhere—except on corporate turf.
Inside the Mackinaw, Maine's face was pale, and Leo's wasn't much better. This weapon was absurd.
"We're fucked—what do we do?!" Maine blurted, panicked, turning to Leo.
That was always his problem—before the shooting, corporations were nothing.
After, when corps pressed back, he panicked—especially when Leo was there to take charge.
The heat fins on Leo's back snapped open, a plume of vapor bursting out.
Data streamed through his head. He roared back, making the bigger Maine flinch:
"Quit whining! Pedal down, strap in—someone's covering us!!"
The last part was aimed at David.
Without explaining, Leo stayed in Sandevistan mode, diving into cyberspace against Woolley's already breached ICE.
He linked up with Lucy and Kiwi in the other van.
[Leo: No time to explain—deep dive, bridge the net. Help me rip something out of this psycho's head!]
As the Mackinaw roared away, everyone in it finally realized what he meant.
They hadn't grasped how terrifying this weapon truly was.
Meanwhile, Holt—who hadn't gotten far—was just as pale.
This area had few cars, no cover. Even from a full kilometer away, he could see the Arasaka warehouse being blasted apart.
And the attacker was his merc, Woolley Crowley!
His mind screamed only one thing: I'm screwed.
He fumbled through his briefcase, pulling out a small control pad. All of Woolley's gear had been supplied by him—of course he'd left backdoors in the chrome.
Except—
[Implant not found. Please check signal transmission and receiver units.]
Every backdoor had failed!
Worse still, with his enhanced optics, he saw the Mackinaw fleeing—and Woolley turning toward his own car.
Woolley yanked out another belt of grenades!
Glitched chrome? Cyberpsycho meltdown? Hacker interference? Holt didn't know.
All he knew was Woolley was locking in the belt, aiming at everything in sight—
Arasaka AVs.
Holt clutched his head. He regretted ever investing in this mercenary.
[TN: This is what happens when you hire a cyberpsycho}
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
With the belt fully linked, the weapon unleashed its full nightmare.
Grenades fired like rifle rounds. AVs in the sky wobbled and crashed. The street became a battleground of grenades and gunfire.
To an outsider, it looked like a corporate war.
The firefight didn't last long. Woolley's launcher overheated, his chrome even starting to melt. He was overwhelmed by a hail of bullets and micro-missiles.
The only relief for Holt—at least the troublemaker was finally dead.
He'd lost a powerful enforcer, but at least this brat wouldn't leak any secrets.
He sighed with relief—
Then a grenade slammed into his car.
BOOM!