Chapter 703 - 674 Death (1)

Hans hid in a fleeing car, watching the nuclear explosion occur.

As a former corporate employee, not just an ordinary one, he knew too well what the dazzling net that lit up the sky and the current mushroom cloud signified.

Originally certain that Arasaka wanted to blow up Taiping State, it ended up being Arasaka itself that exploded.

The company troops that had just occupied Taiping Street suddenly disappeared, as if the company had voluntarily conceded...

"Daddy." His daughter beside him suddenly pointed at the mushroom cloud on the horizon, "What is that?"

"A... new era."

Hans was extremely bitter.

Who would have thought that it was the Kujira that got hit in the end?

He didn’t know what Burger King did; he only knew that a nuclear missile broke through the interceptor system of that carrier.

Today, Night City was incredibly silent, billboards were off, speakers closed, and the streets were empty except for flickering flames and dim lights.

No matter what happened in between, or what the truth was, the strength of this "NCPD outsourced" team had been proven, and soon, with Hansen selling his stockpile of weapons to Night City, a legitimate City Defense Army could form.

And Hans also knew that even if Arasaka, Military Technology, Biotechnology... These big corporations chose to sanction Night City, Night City could still have other choices—

He had long known that Burger King had been urging Adkaduo to expand southwards to Mexico, and if the city chose to bow to Europe, who’s to say it couldn’t live even better...

In any case, this city had taken the hardest step, changing from a "Free City" at others’ mercy to a city... with a real future.

He surprisingly did not board that ship leading to a different future.

Yes, Hans could actually understand everything Burger King did; he was just afraid and terrified.

He appeared to be strategic, calm, and adept in dealing with matters, but deep down, he was very fearful of the corporations. Even after leaving his original company, all he thought about was playing both sides, contacting different corporations, acting as a middleman between them—

Seriously resisting the corporations?

Never thought about it.

He succumbed to fear, or rather, as an experienced employee, he was used to surviving under fear, a habit almost impossible to change.

Mr. Hans cradled his daughter’s head, gently stroking it:

"Truly... defeated by fear, defeated by myself."

Thinking himself rational, he had long been a captive of fear, and what seemed rational decisions were made under a state of fear.

Szz—

The vehicle stopped, Hans prepared to continue fleeing with his daughter, escaping to Mexico, continuing to fight for a path for himself.

The driver quickly approached the trunk, but as soon as he opened the car door, a samurai sword completely ended his life!

Silently, Takemura Goro crawled out from the trunk, taking a gun from the driver’s leg...

Hans was unaware of all this; he just squatted with his daughter by the shore, sighing face to face, "Daddy chose wrong again..."

Bang! Bang!

Two gunshots rang out, two bodies fell to the shore.

Takemura Goro, dragging his half-wounded body, got into the car—

Eliminating this middleman who knew some secrets about them at the right time was probably the only smooth thing that happened today.

No time to watch him; he still had to go back to protect Arasaka Saburo.

....

Szz—

Intense current violently surged through the military-grade circuits of Arasaka Tower, thoroughly destroyed by the nuclear electromagnetic pulse brought about by the nuclear explosion!

Arasaka Tower caught fire!

Before the attack, David’s team’s biggest question was, how would they retreat after finishing their task?

After all, according to the plan, they needed to hold critical nodes for a while after attacking Arasaka Tower, just those few minutes kept them on edge...

But now, they found this was the least of their worries.

Arasaka Tower was completely burned, the Kujira was devoured by a massive explosion, a mushroom cloud blotted out the sun, and the storm swept Night City—

Arasaka’s troops were even more shocked than they were!

These troops were well-trained and highly loyal to the top, but at such times, their command system was utterly chaotic; who knew what to do?

There were almost no corporate dogs on the streets: it was a foregone conclusion that Arasaka would deploy the Kujira when things got out of hand, so when they saw the attack on Arasaka Tower, they withdrew all their employees and activated nuclear attack protection protocols.

However...

The nuclear attack didn’t occur in Taiping State or Night City, it happened on the Kujira!

The spectacle of ballistic missiles breaking through Arasaka’s defense system was magnificent, the subsequent explosion equally as grand, impossible to ignore.

After attacks on the Black Wall, Lark’s betrayal, the fall of Arasaka Tower, and now the electromagnetic pulse, Night City’s network was like a ragged cloth.

No one wanted to connect to it, hardly any messages could be transmitted over it, everything was happening slowly...

Retreating was as simple as breathing.

David and the others drove the Mackinaw Mammoth down the steps in front of Arasaka Tower; this vehicle, full of bullet holes, wobbled as it moved, but it managed to keep going.

Rumble—

A motorcycle suddenly sped by from the highway opposite Company Square...

Aiming... for Arasaka Seaside?

The motorcycle seemed incredibly high-performance, but the person on it wore attire reminiscent of high-end Tiger Claw Gang members, a blend of corporate dog preferences and old Japanese street thug style shirts and suits.

A long flag was affixed to the back of the motorcycle, and only David saw the emblem on it clearly:

It looked like a long, slender monster...

Having a metallic sheen.

"What is that?" David transmitted what he saw to Lucy.

"That is..." Lucy, who had been surfing the internet since childhood, immediately recognized it, "Looks like Eastern dragon."

"Shall we follow and see?" David suddenly said, "It seems quite like Tiger Claw Gang’s style."

...

A submarine surfaced at Arasaka Seaside’s Arasaka port.

The Kujira was already paralyzed.

The ballistic missile indeed didn’t hit the carrier, but the nuclear explosion of 20 kilograms of high-concentration uranium was fully sufficient to blow a hole through the carrier’s port side, warping or even obliterating much of the hull structure.

The Kujira was indeed large, as Arasaka’s flagship military unit, a single ship was equivalent to a small naval military base, capable of being deployed across the oceans—

Even if a quarter of the hull structure was completely gone, the rest was largely damaged; it still hadn’t sunk.

Just almost became scrap metal.

The carrier was barely maintaining its station in the turbulent sea, but Arasaka Saburo could not:

The moment the explosion occurred, the command room he was in rapidly activated safety measures, sending him from the bottom of the carrier into a small submarine to begin his escape...

The glow of the nuclear explosion was deeply imprinted in the old man’s mind, his flight all the more humiliating—

But he was still thinking, thinking about how that missile breached the impenetrable defenses of the Kujira.

"Master San Lang!"

Several Arasaka employees trembled as they busied themselves, deploying a ladder for him to come ashore.

Doctors and technology experts became extremely tense, there were untold numbers of Arasaka Ninjas in the shadows, and the remaining troops completely surrounded this Arasaka Seaside estate like a sieve.

But what caught everyone off guard was, a ninja suddenly sprang from the shadows.

No one knew when he had been waiting there—

Takemura Goro.

"I sincerely apologize, Master Arasaka..."