Chapter 456 - 428: Brain Demon (Part 1)

Perhaps such a scene had a hint of romance for the parties involved.

For another batch of parties, it was quite horrific!

The Scavengers were cornered in the alley, unable to get out and reluctant to retreat, their only option was to shout for their comrades to open fire—

Now they regretted it, why did they have to covet the small advantages offered by the Brain Demon Gang!

In the surveillance footage, explosions were continuous, and that massive armor was no less agile than a regular person, powerful engines actually provided above-average mobility, bouncing up and down the narrow alley.

They had hoped to rely on the complex spaces and terrain of the alley, and although the enemy was the notorious Burger King Superman, this was the Brain Demon Gang’s territory.

Ambushing them should have been a breeze, right?

Little did they expect, the big brother directly involved the NCPD and Mox to take over the place!

All street gang members feared powerful people, for most of the gangsters had experienced that feeling:

The feeling of being cornered with no one to respond to their calls for help, neither heaven nor earth...

The sense of powerlessness when the opponent could crush them with just a flick of their finger, and yet they couldn’t inflict any harm in return!

99% of gang members were greedy cowards tamed by fear, and now that fear had taken shape.

"Aaaaahhhhh!"

Turning to look, his brother-in-arms tried to overcome his fear with a loud scream, his whole body shaking uncontrollably under the control of the Skill Chip, NCPD bullets grazed off his recently replaced head, sparking metal fireworks!

The Scavenger fiercely psyched himself up: "They have Iron Armor, we have iron heads..."

Boom!

A large hand smashed through the cover, the fiery knuckles from multiple firings even emitted a faint red glow, and the heat and force instantly turned the "iron head" into jelly, leaving nothing but liquid and remnants a second later...

"...We run fast, the iron clunkers can’t catch up!"

Bang!

The Scavenger had just started to run when the bullets in the fist smashed his head to pieces, splattering chunks all over the wall.

The heavy XS-1 type armor took steps towards the depths of the apartment building, a group of maimed and defeated soldiers moaned among the ruins.

Jostar walked in, calling names one by one.

"Wait... are you Vortex Gang?!"

Just as Jostar was about to finish off another Scavenger, this guy with half his face smashed in raised his hands in panic, staring at the Eyes of Golden Flame on Jostar’s head.

Jostar paused for a moment, but did not turn the gun away.

"What’s up?"

"Damn, I’m your strategic partner!" the Scavenger’s trembling hand rose, "You wanted me to catch a few shooting Black Superdreams, but when I got there I couldn’t find any cutting Superdreams..."

"What the hell..." Jostar didn’t remember any Superdream business in the gang, but soon thought of something, "Hold on, who sent you to cut?"

"Uh..." The Scavenger hesitated, then cautiously said, "Brick?"

Bang!

"Thieving scum, spouting nonsense..."

Brick reloaded and peered out from behind the wall—

That was close, almost had a misunderstanding with the good guys.

This scene was captured by a hidden camera.

The optical interference of ultraviolet and red light from the Eyes of Golden Flame made Jostar’s image blurry on camera, but it didn’t matter...

They had captured a member of the Vortex Gang.

Doom Doom, dismembered, was tied to the wall, with all prosthetics dismantled, barely alive—

He was still breathing.

This allowed the monitoring room to compare an encrypted Eyes of Golden Flame with an unencrypted one, and reverse-engineer Jostar’s appearance from it.

"It wasn’t Brick..."

Three individuals wearing gigantic head enhancement helmets sat in front of the monitoring screens, their bodies nearly identical except for slightly different voices and uniquely colored coatings.

They each wore a tiny coin around their necks, bathed in electronic light that illuminated the emblem on its face:

An abstract human brain.

Each brain-enhancing helmet was connected to several cables as thick as a normal person’s arm, with high-voltage electricity occasionally sparking arcs.

Lille, deviating from his usual tactics, had not taken any network access, contesting them in cyberspace, which somewhat surprised the Brain Demon Gang’s trio.

Because based on past experience, the Burger King would have tried to deal with problems through the network...

This time their prepared traps were useless.

Ellen Street was littered with minuscule transmitters they had planted, which in theory would put anyone entering on a hardware disadvantage—

These mini-transmitters were all military-grade from the corporation.

If someone carelessly connected to the net domain and exposed their transmission frequency band, their wireless Cyber Modulator could get overloaded in seconds.

The situation was extremely awkward, awkward as those encounters their unseen veteran predecessors had:

The enemy didn’t care about their network at all; a Power Armor broke through their front!

[Sophie: We can’t hold the front! These Scavengers are all useless.]

[Raymond: Don’t say that, they really tried...]

[Sophie: You’re useless too, you damn help them by talking on their behalf?]

[Sophie: What’s the situation with the mainframe? Did you find the problem?]

[Raymond: Uh... no problems found on the surface. The mainframe is still performing surgery on the guys from the Slaughterhouse. Checking the deep code might trigger anomalies.]

[Sophie: Damn it, Elio! How much longer for the surgery!]

[Elio: Almost done, just flashing the firmware, two minutes.]

[Elio: These things are badass. With the combat data from their last encounter with the Terrorist Mobile Team, I’ve reoptimized the detail components, drive modes...]

[Sophie: Idiot! Stop blabbering! Hurry up and complete the final municipal hack for me!]

Sophie stared at the monitor images, images locked onto Jack, the place with small Bombs automatically defending against explosives and bullets.

"Such badass stuff... If only we had it too..."

Boom!

The building shook violently, dust falling, flickering lights in the server room.

...

"What did you say? Speak up; I can’t hear you!"

"Can you be a little nicer!"

"What??"

With a flick of the Octopus Arm, V and Lille swung into the apartment building.

V landed gracefully and moved forward coolly.

But because he was moving fast, V let go of Lille’s arm a bit too early. Lille nearly lost his balance and almost fell, but Little Octopus reacted quickly, two Octopus Arms smashing to the ground to stabilize him—

Completely hiding the fact that he almost face-planted.

Lille looked up at V, completely clueless about what had just happened.

Looking back outside the building, the perimeter had been cleared, a total of one hundred and twenty Scavengers, grenades, Rocket Launchers, explosives, Hand Grenades, machine guns...

They had everything, and with the advantageous terrain, this was the worst kind of street fight—

You never knew when a Hand Grenade might get thrown out from a dark corner, when a deadly high-caliber sniper bullet might shoot out from an inconspicuous place, or a machine gun might suddenly appear above your head while you were out on the street, tearing you and your teammates to shreds in a few shots.

But a heavy unit like the XS-1 could make street fighting much simpler.

Of course, the Lizard Serum built-in to Jack wasn’t something everyone had, and the standard mass-produced XS-1 would also be adjusted for a second time based on the strength of the Atlas Artificial Muscle.

The original model’s data was all recorded, which could help Power Armor quickly enter the mass production phase.

The path to the underground was illuminated by only a cold light.

The Brain Demon Gang... really weren’t worth much.

Fighting against the odds was usual for Lille, so he felt somewhat out of place.

But for a gang that just resurfaced, one not proficient in combat, this kind of scenario wasn’t too surprising.

The only surprise was that these Brain Demon Gang members somehow scammed a hundred or so Scavengers to be here...

Bang!

The Octopus Arm smashed down on the shoulder of a Scavenger lying on the floor, the three strong claws used for gripping walls seizing his chest, his ribs crackling under the immense pressure.

"Ha—"

The air in his lungs escaped as one side of his lung ruptured, and the Scavenger looked at Lille in terror.

"What are you guys doing here?"

"Buying... ha... ha—"

"Forget it."

Bang!

The body slammed down heavily.

Lille received a new message from Reaver.

[Reaver: These scumbags...]

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