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The moment Karl vanished from view, Adam Smasher activated his Sandevistan. Against a fellow Sandevistan user, initiative was everything. Ev
The moment Karl vanished from view, Adam Smasher activated his Sandevistan.
Against a fellow Sandevistan user, initiative was everything. Even someone like Smasher—who usually disregarded ordinary attacks—recognized the importance of striking first.
In the slowed-down perception of time, the order of a single thought could decide the outcome.
As Smasher's single functioning eye scanned left, he spotted Karl exactly where he expected him to be—right in his blind spot.
Attacking from an opponent's visual dead zone was Combat 101. With half his vision lost, Smasher had to physically turn his head to regain a full field of view.
As he turned, Karl's knife had already been thrown.
A frontal throw could've been anticipated or deflected—but with his left eye gone, Smasher needed that moment to adjust. And in that window, Karl had already pressed the trigger.
It was the EMP knife—a rare and precious gift from Hanako Arasaka. Karl had never even given it a name, but he carried it at all times, right alongside Endoya.
In combat, this blade was indispensable.
In this era, an EMP knife—stealthy, razor-sharp, and nothing like a grenade—could accomplish things grenades couldn't. Even against Adam Smasher, it posed a genuine threat.
By the time he noticed it glinting through the air, it was already within four meters—its activation range.
Bzzzt—
A wave of electromagnetic energy exploded outward.
Smasher immediately felt a delay in his movements. Thanks to anti-EMP shielding stolen from Kang Tao by Arasaka's espionage division, he retained some mobility—but everything felt sluggish.
His right cyber-eye began glitching, skipping frames and flickering. His entire body felt dulled.
Then he recognized it.
That knife…
Wasn't this one of the only two EMP blades ever made? Both supposedly in Hanako's possession?
Why did he have one?
Smasher was more shocked than furious.
Could another corp have replicated the tech? But the resources, the R&D cost—just to outfit a single merc? It made no sense. Even Militech wouldn't build a dedicated lab just to equip one soldier.
Then… how?
Staring down at the knife lodged an inch deep into his chest, his artificial eye flickered. It was that same blade. No doubt about it.
"What the hell is Ken Ichiro doing?" he fumed. "His old man would've seen this coming."
Smasher had never expected to be hit with this kind of weapon. And now, after Karl's sequence of unpredictable moves, he found himself in genuine danger.
"When dealing with a beast," Karl thought, "never rush. The more savage it is, the more carefully you handle it."
The moment the EMP wave dissipated, Karl moved in. Another monowire slash—this time, targeting Smasher's remaining eye.
Karl's strategy had never changed: against a foe with near-impenetrable armor and overwhelming firepower, the only options were to go for mobility… or vision.
And since mobility was too well protected, vision it was.
Even for Adam Smasher, losing both eyes would severely reduce his combat performance. He might have smart targeting and thermal scanners, but no system was as fast as the human instinct that came with direct sight.
No matter how much he'd replaced, Smasher had been born human. And the legacy of flesh never truly left him.
Now blind, Smasher felt Karl withdraw the knife from his torso. A moment later, he sensed a stream of data creeping in—like thread slipping through a crack.
Normally, his military-grade ICE and counter-intrusion software would've stopped this cold. But now, the intrusion came through the damaged eye socket, piggybacking on the link created by the EMP.
His body locked up.
"Mobility disrupted."
But Karl wasn't the one doing the hacking.
He couldn't run a system override and activate his Sandevistan at the same time.
But he wasn't fighting alone.
Their crew had T-BUG—one of Night City's sharpest netrunners. And all she needed was a single crack in the system to slip through.
"Nice work, T-BUG."
Far away, on a high ridge, Oliver had just completed the charge cycle on his Nekomata sniper rifle.
The battle had moved too fast—even with Sandevistan, he hadn't been able to keep up with Smasher's movement. But now, with the cyborg frozen in place?
No excuses. No misses.
This was Oliver's moment.
"This is a team fight, Adam Smasher."
He lined up the shot and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The bullet left the chamber just as time returned to normal—striking Smasher square in the skull.
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