"…This time it's just an arm, consider it a warning, Hammersmith. Next time, it won't be so simple."
In front of the door, Hammersmith's left arm was still in a punching posture, and the lingering echo of the mysterious figure's last words still reverberated.
"You bastard, I'll kill you next time we meet!"
Looking at his right arm, which had been severed at the forearm, Hammersmith scoffed at the harsh words left by that person.
The instant he could clearly see the opponent's movements, Hammersmith quickly swung a counter-punch, but the guy vanished like the wind, commonly known as fleeing.
Only Hammersmith, without an enemy, remained in place.
Of course, Berry was pretending to be profound, as if she could have killed Hammersmith but chose to spare him.
However, that was not the case.
Berry almost crashed and burned just now.
Sandevistan is a cyberware that greatly enhances an organism's neural reaction speed. It is a human operating system involving the brain's central nervous system and secondary nervous system—using artificial nerve fibers to replace original flesh fibers, allowing the organism to operate at a superhuman speed for a short period. From the user's perspective, "time" slows down in their eyes.
But this act, which almost breaks physiological limits, cannot be sustained for long. Both the energy demands and the pressure on the cranial nerves are unprecedented. Only the top individuals among humans in terms of reaction speed and physical strength can use the most cutting-edge advanced Sandevistan, which are designed to explore human limits.
However, this only applies to biological organisms. The same theory cannot be applied to purely mechanical creations, as mechanical creations do not have a brain or nervous system. Instead, the control terminal that drives a mechanical body is its CPU, or Central Processing Unit.
The CPU, as the computing and control core of a mechanical system, is the ultimate execution unit for information processing and program execution. Every action must go through a unified CPU process before it is reflected in the end-body, similar to the human nervous system.
Sandevistan's function is to enhance human neural reaction speed, benefiting from its excellent neural conduction module, which can drive the human body almost at the unimpeded speed of a superconductor. This technology, after being modified by Berry's miraculous manufacturing ability, can also be applied to mechanical bodies.
The Sandevistan installed in Mitsuhide's mechanical body, after Berry's modifications, was vastly different from its original form. It had become a kind of overclocking component for the mechanical body's CPU. Unlike humans, a mechanical body can surpass limits and simultaneously install two Sandevistans, equivalent to having dual graphics card drivers.
When two Sandevistans are activated simultaneously, the mechanical body's energy and physical load reach an extremely terrifying limit. For it, time almost comes to a complete halt.
In this situation where time was almost frozen, Berry's own neural speed was far from keeping up with her body. She could only issue commands for Mitsuhide to attack. As for the outcome of the attack, she couldn't clearly see what happened in that instant.
Moreover, the range of Mitsuhide's near-time-stop, achieved by almost exhausting all energy, was only infinitely close to one-thousandth of a second—for Mitsuhide, it was barely enough time to swing a single strike.
It was only in this near-time-stopping effect that Mitsuhide could unleash one strike. After that strike, regardless of whether the enemy died or not, Mitsuhide could not activate the second stage Sandevistan again until her energy was fully replenished.
Therefore, upon realizing that one move wasn't enough to take down Hammersmith, Berry, controlling the almost energy-depleted Mitsuhide, decisively fled.
Mitsuhide was not yet a match for Hammersmith.
To run when outmatched is also the style of a samurai.
After all, the mission to impede Hammersmith's pursuit had been accomplished. All in all, it was a small victory.
Meanwhile, on the other side, in the car speeding down the highway, Berry's main body and Jackie were still in a life-or-death escape.
"Jackie! Drive faster!" Berry, in the back seat, ignored her bleeding wounds and looked anxiously at V, who was nearly unconscious in the front seat.
V, V had lost too much blood in the previous battle. Even though Berry had immediately used medical gel to plug the wound on her abdomen and bandaged it to temporarily stop the bleeding, V's face was still as white as paper, frighteningly pale.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Jackie replied, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the road ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel without daring to let go.
The accelerator was pressed to the floor; the car was now exceeding Night City's "speeding" traffic regulations by more than ten times. Rather than driving, it was flying.
And Jackie, the driver, dared not relax for a second, staring intently at the road conditions, spinning the steering wheel, narrowly swerving past car after car.
"V, use some of this, you'll feel better!" Berry frantically searched the car compartment, pulling out a bottle of "Re-Gen" and placing it near V's nose.
"Inhale deeply." An anxious Berry pressed the switch, and the medicine bottle released a cloud of white mist. The disoriented V could only barely muster the strength to inhale the cool white mist, coughing a few times, her facial pain slightly easing.
"Re-Gen" and "MaxDoc" were popular wartime medical supplies in Night City. The difference was that one was inhaled and the other injected.
In the game, both were healing items, but unfortunately, there were no health bars in reality, and these two did not possess the miraculous effects seen in the game.
They were a mixture of anesthetics and stimulants. When used, they could make patients mentally excited and reduce pain, allowing them to alleviate suffering after injury.
But the cruel irony was that after these two products entered the market, the death rate in street gunfights soared fivefold—many people who used this stuff forgot they were injured and kept pulling the trigger on the front lines until they died from massive bleeding or fatal bullets from enemies.
"Berry! Drones are coming from behind!" Jackie's shout startled Berry, who was shedding tears and talking to V to prevent her from falling into a coma.
"Damn it! Arasaka!" Hearing Jackie's words, Berry's sadness turned into boundless rage. Wiping away her tears with her sleeve, she picked up her dual pistols.
"Jackie! Just drive, I'll handle what's behind us!" Berry gritted her teeth, her eyes bloodshot. She opened the sliding door and leaned her body out.
The high-speed vehicle swayed left and right on the road, swerving around cars. The continuous sharp turns made the car body shake uncontrollably. Berry had to brace her feet under the seat to ensure she wouldn't be thrown out of the car.
With the sliding door open, the howling wind rushed in, and the surrounding scenery and neon lights blurred into colorful streaks. Berry's hair danced in the wind, revealing her angry dark eyes.
Behind the car, four or five dark drones were chasing, spitting fire, and now, they opened fire.
"Da da da da~!!!"
The machine guns under the drones sparked, unleashing countless flashing bullets. The crisp sound of bullets hitting the car body and the road reached Berry's ears clearly, but it didn't make her flinch.
"Die! Damn Arasaka!"
Berry pulled the triggers of her two pistols, one purple and one blue, aiming at the drones behind her.
The deafening gunfire drowned out Berry's roar as bullets poured backward, rushing towards the agile drones circling in the air.
Driven by fourteen points of reaction, the aerial drones were all locked onto by Berry, unable to escape.
"BOOM!!! BOOM!!"
In the blink of an eye, two or three drones exploded into black smoke, scattering fragments that fell to the ground.
"Turn! Watch out! Berry!"
Just as Berry was reloading to fire again, Jackie's anxious shout carried on the wind, making Berry's heart race. She glanced out of the corner of her eye and suddenly saw two massive, towering trucks burst out from a side road at the intersection, almost completely obscuring her vision.
Seeing this horrifying scene, Berry's eyes widened, and she instinctively wanted to curse.
But the urgent honking of the large trucks shocked Berry's mind. She slammed her elbow against the car door, instantly retracting her head back into the car.
Jackie, driving in front, was sweating profusely, frantically twisting the steering wheel all the way to the left.
With the steering wheel fully turned, the rapidly charging vehicle suddenly swerved, its tires screeching on the ground. The car body took a sudden force, almost flinging its tail out, and Berry's body in the back was lifted directly into the air, nearly falling out of the car.
In her haste, she could clearly see the thick tires of the truck sparking past the car door, her mind went blank with a 'boom', only her heart pounding as if deprived of oxygen.
"Damn! I almost died!"
The car narrowly swerved at the most dangerous moment, avoiding a direct collision. Jackie, who had miraculously survived, was so scared that sweat was almost flowing into his eyes, his face still contorted, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, still shaken.
Berry was also terribly frightened, leaning against the back seat, holding her gun and panting wildly.
Only the semi-conscious V, tightly secured by the seatbelt, was completely unaware of that life-or-death moment.
"Boom! Boom!"
Another two explosions sounded, and Jackie, who had just felt safe, reflexively flinched and nearly jumped up.
Berry barely clung to the back seat, looking out the rear window, and only after seeing the drones behind, unable to turn in time, crash into the truck's iron-wall-like container and explode into pieces, did she finally let out a sigh of relief.
"Jackie, drive, keep going!"
Berry gasped, sitting precariously on the seat.
The sliding door had been torn off in the previous friction, and the cold wind and miscellaneous noises rushed in. Berry couldn't care less; after confirming V was alright, she leaned back in the seat, breathing with difficulty.
Her ears blocked out the noise, only the pounding of her heart remained.
Ring ring ring~~~ Ring ring ring~~~
They hadn't been driving safely for two minutes when Jackie, who was driving, received a call.
"Jackie Welles, why are you only answering now!" Jackie put the phone on speaker, and an angry voice came from it, clearly Dexter's.
"Do you know how much trouble you've caused?!" The fixer Dexter was furious, but Berry could also hear the fear behind his trembling voice; this guy must have been scared senseless. "Damn it, half the city is talking about it now, Saburo Arasaka is dead. I told you to steal a chip, what a huge mess you've made!"
"You killed an emperor! A god!"
"Hey, Dexter, what the hell are you talking about! We didn't kill Saburo Arasaka!" Jackie was driving anxiously, and hearing Dexter's curses, he cursed back, annoyed.
"Don't you understand yet?!" But Dexter on the other end of the phone was enraged by Jackie's retort, immediately raising his voice. "Who killed Saburo doesn't matter anymore! What matters is, no matter who it is, anyone connected to this will die!"
"...Damn!" Jackie couldn't refute, gritting his teeth and cursing.
The other end of the phone gasped a few times, and Dexter slightly suppressed his anger. "Now, stop with the nonsense, where are you? Get to the motel, we need to prepare to escape Night City!"
"Don't trust him! Jackie!" Before Dexter could finish speaking, Berry anxiously interrupted.
Others might not know, but she knew what bad intentions this big, black fat man had.
He wasn't trying to help them escape at all; that cowardly guy wanted to sell them to Arasaka for a chance to live. V in the game was shamelessly tricked by this guy.
Berry would not fall for it again.
"He's a damn liar! He wants to sell us out!"
"Berry?" Hearing Berry's sudden words, Jackie also looked very surprised.
"What is that little bitch saying!? Stop talking nonsense, Jackie Welles, bring the relic chip, and we'll escape Night City. You'll get your money!"
"This bastard wants to sell us out to Arasaka! Don't listen to him! Jackie!" Hearing that bastard Dexter trying to sow discord, Berry anxiously spoke out. Although she was sure that guy wanted to betray them, that was in the game after all, and Berry couldn't produce any evidence in her haste, making her very anxious.
Berry's anxious face in the rearview mirror, Dexter's voice on the phone, and Jackie, who was driving at the moment, also gritted his teeth and frowned, a strange look in his eyes, agitated and unsure of what to choose.
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