"This is absolutely impossible!!"
Dorisk's eyes bulged as he stared at Kodo's decapitated corpse. One second his most loyal subordinate was alive—roaring threats and firing bullets—and the next, his head was gone, neatly severed, his lifeless body collapsing like a broken puppet.
Shock seized Dorisk's heart like a vice. A tidal wave of disbelief surged through him, followed closely by an intense, soul-consuming rage.
Fear twisted within his gut.
**Fear—**that unfamiliar, long-forgotten sensation—gripped him tighter than the strongest cybernetic prosthetics ever could.
"You bastard! You're going straight to hell!!"
With a snarl, Dorisk yanked his smart pistol from its holster and began firing wildly.
DA-DA-DA—!
DA-DA-DA—!!
Flames erupted from the muzzle of his gun. His prosthetic-enhanced vision tracked movement, but it was useless. Pyrrha's silhouette was like smoke in the wind, disappearing and reappearing in the blood mist with ghost-like grace.
As the boss of the Scavengers, Dorisk hadn't fought with his own hands in years. He commanded, ordered, punished—but rarely ever fired a weapon himself.
Until now.
Until Pyrrha arrived.
Now, the reaper had come knocking on his door.
And Dorisk truly felt it—the looming presence of death.
Pyrrha moved like liquid shadow, the [Source Plan: Destruction] armor enhancing his every movement. Even as bullets whizzed past him and impacts shattered walls around him, he danced.
Yes, danced—
A macabre ballet performed in gunfire and gore. He flowed through the battlefield, dodging bullets, carving through limbs, and striking with the precision of a surgeon.
Every step was accompanied by the screams of dying scavengers.
Every turn of his blade was the punctuation to a death rattle.
Gunfire erupted across the scavenger base, a cacophony of panic and desperation. But no matter how hard they fought, nothing could stop Pyrrha.
To the surviving scavengers, he was no longer a man.
He was a ghost. A god of death.
And they were nothing but corpses waiting to fall.
Dorisk, teeth gritted and chest heaving, emptied his clip without thinking. His hand trembled. His breaths were sharp and uneven. But he refused to die here. Not like this.
Not by this freak's hand!
Growling, he turned and sprinted to the weapons wall. His eyes scanned the arsenal until they landed on the X-APD Heavy Infrared Cannon.
Without hesitation, he yanked it from the rack.
"I refuse to believe I can't hit you, you freak!!"
He took a knee, braced the gun against his shoulder, and activated the smart-targeting module.
The X-APD wasn't your average heavy weapon—it was designed for urban combat and tracking cyber-enhanced threats.
With dynamic heat-signature locking and reinforced recoil absorption, it didn't miss.
Beep—beep—BEEP—!!
As the weapon locked onto the faint life-signs concealed in the blood mist, a warning ping echoed through the room.
Target acquired.
Pyrrha had been found.
BOOOOM!!!
Dorisk pulled the trigger.
A blinding flash erupted from the cannon, and a high-velocity explosive shell tore through the air with a deafening roar.
The blast wave shattered furniture, cracked walls, and knocked other scavengers to the ground.
At the center of the explosion—a flash of red metal.
The projectile hit dead on.
Or so it seemed.
"Tch."
From the smoking crater emerged Pyrrha, crimson armor scratched but still functional. A bone-forged combat blade had been braced across his chest, absorbing the brunt of the impact.
Even so, the sheer force sent him skidding back.
He planted his feet, grinding into the concrete floor, and stared at Dorisk through his cross-shaped visor.
"You really think that would be enough to kill me?"
His voice was cold. Even, despite the impact.
"You just pissed me off."
Up until now, Pyrrha had held back—testing the limits of the armor that David had crafted for him.
But now?
Now he was done playing.
"You soulless animals," he muttered, eyes glowing behind the mask. "No emotion, no thought. Just violence and noise. I'm done toying with you."
His tone dropped. His body crouched low.
And then—he vanished.
The room dropped ten degrees colder.
Even the blood mist seemed to thicken, as if responding to Pyrrha's shift in mood.
Dorisk tried to reload, hands fumbling with the next shell. But before he could, a gust of air behind him knocked the breath from his lungs.
Too late.
SLASH!
Pyrrha's blade tore into his back.
Armor plates split apart like paper. Synthetic tissue and mechanical muscle were flayed in a single stroke.
Dorisk cried out, falling forward, but Pyrrha grabbed his collar and yanked him up.
"You like screaming, huh?" he hissed. "Let me hear more."
With a flick of his wrist, he drove the hilt of his blade into Dorisk's knee, shattering it.
"AAAAGHH!!"
Another slam—elbow to the gut.
Another cry of agony.
And then—
BAM!!
He threw Dorisk into a stack of crates like a broken doll. The scavenger boss coughed blood, barely conscious.
Pyrrha stood over him, blade poised.
"David told me to send a message."
"Here it is."
He raised his weapon.
"Never mess with us again."
SWIPE—!!
The blade came down.
But just before it landed, Pyrrha twisted it and slammed it into the ground next to Dorisk's face.
The scavenger flinched.
He looked up, eyes wide, lips trembling.
"W-Why didn't you kill me…?"
Pyrrha leaned down close, his helmet inches away from Dorisk's bloodied face.
"Because corpses don't spread stories."
"You, on the other hand… will be the one who warns them."
He stood and turned, stepping away as the remaining scavengers watched him in paralyzed silence.
Not a single one dared to move.
The armor flickered briefly as Pyrrha activated the cloak again, blending into the shadows.
But before he disappeared entirely, his voice echoed through the base:
"Tell them—"
"The Source Plan has begun."
"And Death is already walking among them."
Meanwhile…
Far from the blood-drenched chaos of the scavenger base, David stood atop a rooftop, watching a drone feed from Pyrrha's armor.
He watched the carnage unfold—the precision, the efficiency.
And then he smiled.
"Flawless."
The [Source Plan] had proven itself.
What he had engineered wasn't just a suit—it was a weaponized ghost, a human storm born from steel and vengeance.
David turned off the feed and tapped into the secure comm line.
"Pyrrha," he said calmly. "Job's done. Clean sweep. Report to Nexus Point."
A few seconds later, Pyrrha's voice replied through static.
"Roger that. Returning to base."
David took a breath, eyes narrowing as he looked toward the distant skyline of Night City.
The world was watching other wars.
No one knew the real storm had just started.
And Pyrrha—the God of Death cloaked in crimson—was leading the way
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