The Raffen Shiv mbers had stopped about a dozen ters away, using their vehicles as cover.
By now, the pickup truck, being the primary target, had been riddled with holes by Kyoko and Lucy’s Masamune rifles firing three-round bursts of Armor-Piercing Ammunition.
Aside from the Raffen Shiv mber manning the machine gun in the truck bed, only the driver was wounded and had taken cover behind the vehicle.
The rest remained unhard.
Because the grenade rcer threw was blown back a considerable distance by the fierce wind, it exploded only four or five ters away, nearly blowing him to pieces.
Cassidy fared slightly better. With surprisingly strong arm strength, he managed to toss a grenade in front of a car, but it was still blocked by the bulletproof vehicle, and the fragntation grenade failed to penetrate the body to cause effective damage.
"Open fire! Open fire!"
The Raffen Shiv mbers shouted, quickly organizing a counterattack with their submachine guns, kinetic assault rifles, and even soone wildly firing a shotgun from a distance.
Chaos erupted outside, with muzzle flashes flickering in the dim sandstorm. Fortunately, Kyoko had pre-highlighted the enemies in her cybereye.
The cybereye locked onto their signals, outlining their figures, allowing even the inexperienced shooters to pinpoint their positions under such conditions.
rcer didn’t use the Masamune; instead, he opted for his Kenshin pistol.
His choice proved wise.
Although the Kenshin couldn’t provide suppressive fire, the tungsten-tipped rounds, charged for a second before firing with a zipping sound, accurately pierced through two layers of bulletproof glass and struck a Raffen Shiv mber right in the head.
"Shit! I’m hit!"
"Damn, he’s still alive after a headshot?"
rcer cursed. The sandstorm wasn’t just reducing visibility; the damn radioactive dust floating in the air was interfering with the network signals.
He had been trying to hack from the start but failed repeatedly due to network fluctuations.
"These maniacs probably have tal implants in their bones, and the skull is the easiest to reinforce. If you’re not sure, aim for the body! They can’t afford heavy armor or bio-organs!" Cassidy yelled.
[Lucy: They have bulletproof vests, be careful! rcer, I see them flanking the house! Soone’s priming a grenade!]
[Kyoko: I’m suppressing them!]
[Lucy: Daichi! How much longer!?]
[Daichi: Coming!!]
"Watch out! Their pickup’s charging over!"
Soone from the Raffen Shiv shouted, and from behind the house a pickup truck burst through the sandstorm, with Daichi at the wheel.
Leon was in the truck bed, straining to keep his eyes open as he wielded a light machine gun, laying down suppressive fire from the flank; this ti, he made a huge contribution!
Since all the Raffen Shiv mbers were hiding behind their vehicles to avoid the frontal fire from the house, Daichi’s sudden charge from the side left them with nowhere to hide.
Moving to the side would expose them to rcer and the others upfront; staying put ant facing the machine-gun fire head-on.
"Shit! Take out that pickup! Now!"
A Raffen Shiv mber yelled, but for the mont it was futile. In the ga, enemies wield all sorts of top-tier weapons, frequently activating Sandevistan or Berserk implants.
But in the real world, these scum who make a living through robbery and kidnapping in the wild don’t have access to such high-end cyberware.
That said, they aren’t completely lacking in heavy firepower.
"Dammit, just wait till I blast him to hell!"
A Raffen Shiv mber cursed as he climbed into a vehicle and actually pulled a rocket launcher from the back.
During the brief lull while Leon reloaded his light machine gun, the man erged, hoisted the rocket launcher, and aid it at Daichi’s pickup truck.
But before he could fire, two spiraling tungsten-tipped rounds pierced through his neck, rcer’s Kenshin still glowing with electromagnetic energy.
The rounds struck the man’s throat, and after passing through, the electric surge sent his entire body convulsing. The rocket launcher accidentally discharged, firing into empty air and exploding sowhere in the distance.
"Nice shot, rcer!"
Leon shouted, though his reloading of the light machine gun remained sowhat clumsy.
"No good! We’ll get worn down out here! Rush into the building! Get inside and fight!"
A Raffen Shiv mber yelled, charging toward the house. rcer tried to intercept, but several grenades landed spinning near the entrance, exploding and pinning him down completely.
Up on the second floor, Lucy and Kyoko could still fire, but the Raffen Shiv mbers suppressed them with covering fire as they ran, forcing the two to resort to spray-and-pray shooting with little accuracy.
Leon finally finished reloading, and the light machine gun roared back to life, but the Raffen Shiv mbers had already started their vehicles, charging straight toward the house.
"Old cowboy, fall back!"
rcer, however, remained utterly calm and unflustered. He rolled back and retreated toward the staircase.
Cassidy ducked into the kitchen, using the bar counter as cover. "You could cook a grenade."
"Good idea!"
rcer did exactly that. As the Raffen Shiv mbers kicked the door open, shattered the windows, and stord in, distracted by Cassidy in the kitchen, a grenade rolled smoothly down the stairs and stopped right by the entrance.
"Grenade!"
A Raffen Shiv mber scread in panic, but rcer had held the grenade for a second longer before throwing it, so the fuse burned faster than expected.
BOOM!
Two Raffen Shiv mbers were shredded by the fragntation grenade, still screaming in agony though not yet dead.
The remaining three mbers, now the only ones left, pushed through Cassidy’s gunfire and charged inside.
"Goddammit! I’ll skin you alive!"
The lead Raffen Shiv mber roared, firing his shotgun wildly toward rcer’s position. The two behind him sprayed haphazardly with heavily modified rifles whose original models were unrecognizable.
But rcer only smirked coldly.
Coming inside?
Now you don’t have that damn radioactive dust to jam the network signals.
Squinting, he peeked out briefly, his cybereye flashing gold as it quickly locked onto and located the enemy’s subnet, then sent the program.
The mont the quickhack was dispatched to their subnet, the program symbolizing death began loading.
The quickhack didn’t even require rcer to first breach their subnet, all he needed was to locate their signal and send the program. The Quickhack program itself includes an "ICEbreaker" designed to breach the target’s subnet and ICE. The mont the subnet and ICE are compromised, it ans the virus has also been successfully uploaded.
Although slower than first netrunning into the subnet and then uploading the virus, since the program must handle both the subnet intrusion and virus upload on its own, the advantage of this Quickhack is that if using a pre-stored hack against an enemy, rcer doesn’t need to do anything else.
All it takes is a ntal command to execute the program, and the rest relies on him providing the brainpower for its operation.
And he, while simultaneously driving three programs with his mind to crack their network, even had the spare capacity to monitor their status.
The three Raffen Shiv mbers were already screaming.
"There’s a netrunner!"
"Ah! Aah! Aaah!"
"Cut the connection! Now!"
Six Quickhacks were uploaded in rapid succession, one after another yet overlapping: first, Cyberware Malfunction to disable their mobility, followed by Synapse Burnout to fry their brains.
rcer let out a long sigh, peered out briefly to confirm the Raffen Shiv mbers’ heads were thoroughly cooked, then stepped out and aid his gun directly at one of them who’d been knocked down by a grenade.
This ti, rcer didn’t charge the shot. A short trigger pull sent two tungsten-tipped rounds flying. Though less powerful without charging, they were more than enough for a close-range finish.
The rounds struck; the man scread once, then fell completely still.
With a net signal that obvious, did they really think they could play dead? As if my cybereye is just for show.
[rcer: Clean fight. Ti to sweep the area.]
[Lucy: Is everyone unhurt!?]
[Daichi: Leon’s been shot!]
[Leon: I’m fine. Got lucky, took a round to the shoulder, but it went straight through. Didn’t hit bone.]
[Cassidy: I saw you bleeding earlier, rcer. Check yourself.]
rcer looked down and only then felt the pain, his adrenaline had been off the charts earlier, numbing any sensation of injury.
[rcer: I don’t see anything serious. Probably got hit by shrapnel from the grenade.]
[Kyoko: Our field dkit has sutures and ds. I’ll bring it down right away!]
[Daichi: Don’t bother. I’ve got a kit in my pickup; I’ll bring it over in a bit.]
rcer nudged a corpse with its head still smoldering, then bent down reluctantly to grab its leg and drag it away. "If you’re not injured, lend a hand. How did these Raffen Shiv even find this place?"
He made it sound like a casual question.
But his eyes, almost imperceptibly, were studying Cassidy carefully.
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