"Satellite hits the planet!"
A gigantic pure-tungsten hammer slammed into the Legendary Mackinaw's armor at a linear speed exceeding 800 kilometers per hour!
Terrifying kinetic energy detonated at the point of impact. Two radically different materials heated at explosive speed—the collision zone's temperature spiked instantly to an extreme 2,800°C.
Tungsten and Croni-Titanium.
The former has nearly four times the density of the latter, but in terms of hardness, Croni-Titanium should actually be slightly harder than pure tungsten.
Yet the result of this collision contradicted that expectation.
Micro-fractures spread across the Hi-Hammer's surface, while the Croni-Titanium armor showed faint but unmistakable scarring.
This wasn't the Hi-Hammer those so-called "gear experts" thought they knew. Its material wasn't pure tungsten at all, but a specialized tungsten carbide alloy.
Two materials, each exceeding 3000 HV on the Vickers hardness scale, colliding head-on.
Sparks and shockwaves were visible to the naked eye.
With strength essentially equal, the force was almost evenly distributed—
but the Legendary Mackinaw was a vehicle, while the hammer wielder was still just a person.
The massive force fed back along the path of hammerhead → shaft → arms → torso, cascading through the body and instantly hard-locking the entire cybernetic system.
Compared to Leo, who still needed a moment to recover, Big Mac had already seen the hammer wielder closing in from behind. At the instant of impact, the vehicle executed its disengagement protocol.
The moment collision occurred, Big Mac completed the breakaway maneuver. The Mackinaw burst off the flattened sports car beneath it, rear armor snapping open in sequence.
The hammer wielder—now without leverage and pinned by residual force—slammed awkwardly into the pavement, his mind completely blank.
The impact was simply too much.
Frankly, this level of hammer strike had already exceeded the Hi-Hammer's design envelope. As always, it was the user who pushed the weapon past what engineers ever intended.
"A stunning hit! From BeatDance Corporation's Hi-Hammer! According to calculations, impact velocity reached 823 km/h, and peak collision temperature hit 2811°C!"
"This hammer user—uh, this gentleman with the hammer—has shown us the true meaning of a suicidal strike!"
"A suicidal strike isn't just welding the accelerator down or strapping a backpack bomb to yourself—you only need one thing: a full-body cyberware suite from International Electronic Corporation (IEC)!"
"Yes, IEC—the former global giant from fifty years ago—returns to the market with their flagship full-conversion cyberware: the Alpha Enhanced Series!"
"Call now and order—"
"Security!"
The media broadcast instantly devolved into chaos. Sales reps physically rushed the live studio. Several channels had their signals hijacked.
Warriors fight wars.
Salespeople fight their own.
That's division of labor.
A fearless salesman shoved into frame, clutching a briefcase in front of his face. The case actually did stop bullets—briefly. Then rounds tore into his body and legs, and he yanked the camera down.
"Alpha Enhanced—your one and only choice!!!"
His face twisted feral as he exposed his cyberware from the neck down.
"And before your suicidal strike, don't forget to buy—EuroBank Life In—SUR—ANCE!"
BOOM!
A television station building in Night City erupted in fire. The "miracle briefcase" detonated.
And it wasn't the only explosion.
Up to this point, people had just been watching through Militech drones.
Now everyone joined the riot.
Night City truly exploded.
Neon light pollution was overpainted with fire and smoke.
The hammer wielder's brain rebooted amid the chaos.
The Legend pulled away—but its rear armor snapped open.
Jackie leapt out, fists raised.
This moment was captured by the hammer wielder's remaining sensors. He knew he should counterattack, but his brain was still frozen.
The hit had been too heavy.
Then—
a skill chip triggered.
His thoughts were sludge, but his body moved.
The Hi-Hammer, already released, reignited.
The rocket hammer's restart was thunderous, and it was obvious—despite the short distance—its terminal velocity would still be absurd. Almost impossible to evade.
Jackie's pupils contracted sharply.
This was like boxing. A veteran can read an opponent's posture at the instant of a punch and try to slip it.
But if you read wrong—
it's K.O.
Jackie locked onto the hammer and grinned.
He didn't dodge.
The boosters in his Gorilla Arms elbow joints ignited. His body angled slightly.
At this distance, once that weapon's momentum was fully established, it would be nearly impossible to block.
So Jackie chose a crossing attack—offsetting the hammer's swing path and striking straight in.
BANG!
A shot fired.
In a microsecond exchange, Jackie pulled the neural trigger purely on instinct. The integrated firearm inside his Gorilla Arms discharged mid-punch, altering his strike trajectory at the exact instant both hammer and fist hit peak speed.
First exchange.
Hammer and fist crossed.
The hammerhead missed its target, slicing past Jackie's head at an angle; his punch rode along the hammer's shaft and smashed toward the wielder's face.
But the hammer wielder twisted—
Alpha-grade full-body cyberware moving in a way that should have been impossible. Using the hammer's missed momentum, he spun, lower body lifting into a high-speed sacrificial sweep, wrapping around Jackie's punch line.
Jackie had no Sandevistan.
He perceived it only vaguely.
The killing blow came in.
Adrenaline surged. The reptilian overdrive module in Jackie's body maxed out instantly. The remaining eleven 14mm caseless rounds in his arm magazine fired in a single burst.
The massive recoil slammed into an unstable posture, crushing exoskeleton and bone alike. The fist's forward speed plummeted, but the recoil let Jackie wrench his body clear.
Bullets scraped past the hammer wielder.
The sweeping strike missed Jackie by inches.
Second exchange.
Even.
But it only looked even.
Jackie still had one hand free.
This wasn't a melee duel.
This was cyber combat.
Jackie's right fist—held in a standard guard—suddenly erupted in flame.
BOOM!
There was no third exchange.
Night City's audience was transfixed. The echo of the hammer strike was still ringing in their heads when the next moment arrived.
They saw the hammer wielder smash the Mackinaw's armor, the truck tilt and drive off, and then the man fall away.
The armor opened in a flash.
Jackie surged forward with blazing Gorilla Arms.
At near-zero distance, the two executed micro-adjustments no human eye could track.
What the crowd saw was this:
The hammer wielder's swing turned into a sweeping kick.
Jackie had already judged the spacing. The kick skimmed past his face.
Three gunshots.
One shredded a storefront's roll-down shutter.
One detonated a garbage truck.
The last blew the hammer wielder's head apart.
The Hi-Hammer lost control, rocketing straight down into another Gudra Type-66, cleaving the sports car clean in half.
Jackie shook out his arm, sprinted back, leapt, and vaulted into the Legendary Mackinaw as it accelerated toward the race's main stage.
The overpass continued collapsing behind them.
Two Gudra Type-66s lay wrecked.
One headless corpse lay still.
A nearby wall finally gave out, chunks sloughing away.
"Good thing we've got the best security money can buy."
"And who exactly is supposed to stop these three seed contenders now?"
"Oh—by the way, that collision data was analyzed by ZetaTech's XDR-8 reconnaissance drone."