The second group was smarter; they didn't just drive in for a head-on fight. Instead, they set up a positional ambush along the desert road. They laid out several M31 heavy machine guns on the ground, which unleashed a torrent of large-caliber bullets.
This high-density fire forced the lead Arasaka SUV to swerve in an S-pattern. The bulletproof glass of the vehicle began to shatter, causing panic among the Arasaka soldiers inside.
This led to small-scale rear-end collisions among the following vehicles, and the entire Arasaka convoy's speed noticeably dropped.
Nomads on both sides of the road stood up and charged, while Arasaka's heavily armored soldiers dismounted and returned fire. It was a hail of bullets, but the disparity was clear: one side had light armor and weapons, while the other was equipped with heavy armor and large-caliber guns.
The fight was one-sided. Arasaka suffered only minor casualties, while all the Nomads from the second group lay dead in pools of blood. Many of them were still not completely gone, twitching with scattered body parts, and no one was coming to save them.
Through Heather's eyes, Doggo watched the tragic scene unfold and commented, "This man-eating Night City… it's all high-tech, low-life. Regular people have no way out. Corporate dogs work 16 hours a day, and people are still desperate for those jobs.
If you want to make it on the streets, you have to risk your life. If the street gangs are too tough, you can only leave the city and become a Nomad. There's less day-to-day danger, but you can't always go hungry. Just look at these two groups of Nomads; they've been turned into meat paste."
The Arasaka heavy armored team retreated to their vehicles and continued on their way. Maine spoke up in the group chat, "Everyone, it's our turn! Stick to the original plan! All positions!" The phrase "All positions" was actually redundant; everyone had already taken their places and were lying in wait.
Dorio had long since gripped the thick yellow chain, which blended in perfectly with the yellow sand. She waited for the convoy to approach. Dorio was located behind a large mound that could hide several people.
Even with her incredible strength, she couldn't possibly hold the chain by hand to stop the convoy. She had already driven steel pillars into the ground and secured the chain with fasteners.
Kiwi's voice came over the comms, "Dorio, now!" The chain was pulled taut and locked firmly in place. The front bumpers of the first two Arasaka SUVs slammed into the chain. The impact caused their rear ends to lift high, their front ends scraping the ground, and their entire bodies became perpendicular to the road.
It was a sight that sent shivers down one's spine. The vehicles then continued to flip forward, both landing tires up. Their roofs scraped against the yellow sandy road with a sizzling sound, as they slid forward, while the vehicles behind them braked sharply.
Maine's voice was firm. "Use the vehicles as cover to surround them! Don't fight individually! Focus fire to eliminate them one by one!" These tactics had been discussed by everyone the night before and had just been reviewed, so everyone was clear on the plan.
In front, the heavily armored soldiers painstakingly climbing out of the overturned vehicles were the first to die. Rebecca, wielding a Widow Maker shotgun, got right in their faces, delivering point-blank headshots one by one.
"That crazy woman!" Doggo exclaimed.
Heather and Kiwi simultaneously launched hacking attacks, but unfortunately, the opponents all had ICE, causing both women's brains to short-circuit, giving them a severe headache from the automatic counterattack.
"Holy shit, that's disgusting, I feel like I'm going to throw up!" Doggo said.
"Good thing we were prepared, otherwise that would have killed us," Kiwi replied.
Heather was also in pain; she didn't complain because her mother must have been involved in the development of this Arasaka ICE.
"Miss A, we can't use direct hacking attacks," Kiwi said. "Both of us need to pick the same target and break through it first."
Rebecca wasn't truly reckless. Seeing the increasing number of Arasaka heavily armored soldiers around the other vehicles, she used the overturned vehicles as cover and began to fight more carefully.
"Maine, hold steady," Dorio warned. "You don't need to use the Sandevistan yet." This was completely pointless to say; even as she was cautioning him, Maine had already activated his Sandevistan.
His entire nervous system was operating at many times its original capacity. Enhanced signals spread like lightning from the Sandevistan in his thoracic spine throughout his body. In Maine's eyes, the entire world slowed down drastically.
He could even clearly see the trajectories of the bullets fired from the Arasaka soldiers' gun barrels.
It wasn't that the world slowed down; it was his perception ability that exploded. This is like how a boxer can clearly see an opponent's punches at close range; intense concentration makes oneself faster.
And this military-grade Sandevistan amplifies this highly concentrated effect many times over. It wasn't just his perception that was stimulated; Maine's muscles were too. This was a temporary gain of superhuman, abnormal speed at the cost of his own life.
Maine directly moved to the side of a heavily armored soldier, pressing the barrel of his Ninetails rifle against the opponent's face, angling the muzzle upwards, and firing.
This was equivalent to a bullet entering through the cheek, directly hitting the brain, turning it to mush. His movements were fluid and seamless; in the eyes of others, he was a phantom, leaving only corpses in his wake where he "teleported" through.
Five corpses! Only the Arasaka soldiers were terrified; his own people were long used to it and knew that Maine would throw up as soon as he stopped. Sure enough, Maine moved behind a car and, in front of Dorio, vomited a mouthful of puke with a splat.
Dorio was patting his back. Maine's eyeballs darted around, his speech slurred, and there was still foul stuff in his mouth. "I'm, I'm fine.
Although I haven't quite lived up to the boast I made half a year ago, being able to use it three times in one day is still pretty good." Dorio didn't answer him.
Instead, she directly plunged her hand into Maine's pocket, pulled out an inhibitor, and without any hesitation, jabbed it into his trapezius muscle. Maine's eyes quickly returned to normal.
"Sandevistan is truly awesome, never gets old," Doggo said. "Heather, you should get one too?"
Heather had just recovered from the previous hacker counterattack. "One moment you tell me not to get more cyberware, the next you tell me to get one. Men are so fussy!"
"No, Maine needs to rest, it's my turn!" Doggo said. At that moment, an Arasaka soldier's head sprayed electricity, and he fell to the ground; it was Kiwi's doing.
Blue-eyed Heather quickly moved behind the next vehicle, closer to the enemy lines. Of course, heavily armored soldiers shot at her, but their gun barrels couldn't keep up.
Now the controller was Doggo. He changed direction, peeked out a little, looked, and then pulled back. This brief exposure attracted another burst of gunfire.
The technical precision rifle in his hand (this gun's nickname is Widow Maker) charged up, capable of directly penetrating vehicles and hitting heavily armored soldiers. Moreover, Doggo was aiming blindly at the opponent's head.
To say 'aiming' isn't quite right. He glanced at the position, then flashed back, charged the technical weapon to shoot through the vehicle and hit the enemy's head, a 'wall-piercing' headshot. The Widow Maker also had a multi-shot spread mode.
This mode combined the advantage of a shotgun's wide spread, making it easy to hit targets, while simultaneously shrinking the spread range to be very small. The hit density was also high, making it the king of rifles for medium to close ranges.
The person hit in the head by a cluster of bullets that penetrated the vehicle's metal had their entire head blown off, or rather, obliterated... The headless corpse still held its gun and was still firing, then it fell...