The fla-colored sunset couldn’t penetrate the gray and hazy sky.
The giant pipelines and omnipresent cent walls in the industrial area beca the only scenery on the street.
Ordinary good citizens wouldn’t dare approach this road before the street racing gang and gang mbers started to act.
John stepped on an oil drum, attempting to climb over the enclosing wall.
The mont he leapt up, he noticed a red dot in the distance and imdiately kicked back down to the ground, almost being discovered by the motion detector.
ssiah’s Eye initiated scanning.
He saw overlapping red data streams connecting various CCTV caras and anti-theft devices.
"Doesn’t look like it’s up for sale, does it?"
He lifted his head to observe the large warehouse in front of him and finally reached the adjacent building.
He ran and leapt, jumping the gap between the two buildings, landing in a moss-covered muddy alley.
He avoided the infrared on the enclosing wall.
As John approached the front, he imdiately drew back, changed angles, and scanned again.
[Device: Household Energy Cannon Guardian]
[Manufacturer: Kanr]
[Module: Motion Monitoring, Ballistics Calculation, Secondary Clip [Type 150]... ]
"That bastard installed a chanical bodyguard."
John reported the situation to Oulos while looking for a fire escape and climbing points around the building.
Oulos’s voice ca through the headphones.
[Expected, it’s also good news.]
Legizamon doesn’t want his twisted hobbies to be known, used a fake identity for dealings with the Ghoul, and regular updates on illegal websites.
He doesn’t bring bodyguards when he goes out for fun.
Oulos had John cut into the shared channel to begin hacking operations from the outside.
In just a few seconds, surveillance devices all over were marked out.
John climbed up to the second floor along a sewer pipe and into an abandoned warehouse covered in white sheets.
Most of it was fake turf and decorations, exuding a suffocating industrial sll.
There were also leftover materials from the renovation.
And robot repair parts, various replacent heads, a small amount of firearms and trigger-based grenades.
John took so with him.
Maybe it was a street ntality – not knowing if he’d get a chance to return, he felt it would be a loss not to take anything.
The hallway was covered by caras all around.
[Device Managent: Oulos [Logged In]]
The red data stream was cut off.
Oulos hacked into the closed-circuit system but couldn’t disable those chanical turrets scattered everywhere.
Remote signals were all connected to the ssiah server, and any device offline or change in administrator permissions would cause a disturbance.
John crouched and weaved through obstacles.
He followed the cent steps to the basent and found that it was much larger than expected.
Legizamon either illegally expanded it, or bought an abandoned maintenance station from the subway tunnel!
[Chaotic cart tracks]
John collected intelligence in auxiliary analysis mode.
The basent had a complete supply inlet.
Legizamon regularly transported supplies via underwater routes or city subway channels, and after he left, had the Ghoul co to take away bodies and trash.
[Mission Objective Updated]
[Find Legizamon. (Not Achieved)]
[Search the Basent. (Optional)]
John searched the labyrinthine basent, hearing the sound of rushing water coming from behind the cent walls, and every so often, a passing subway train caused the pipeline lights to flicker.
Perhaps the train equipnt interfered with the line operations.
John suddenly slled a fragrance.
Industrial deodorizer.
He followed the water-stained floor, finding a clean area, even with a robotic vacuum working.
This was a cloakroom.
After confirming the caras were turned off, he walked in, seeing rows of cabinets on each wall, like lockers for basketball players.
Containing a large number of clothes of varying styles.
Showing signs of being worn, presumably taken off a living person, since many had grown mold from prolonged lack of cleaning.
Next to it was the washing area.
John switched to night vision mode to peek inside.
It was decorated like a slaughterhouse or prison, partitions not even knee-high, leaving no privacy for those showering, with shackles embedded into the walls, aside from sprays, there was a hose rolled up and gurgling water out.
It seems that soone was rinsed out here not long ago.
John followed the muddy footprints back to the locker room and found many personal items for won.
Including earrings, necklaces, small wallets, scattered flyers, various brands of costics...
The largest locker was filled with unopened clothes.
John suddenly heard so strange noises — there seed to be soone in the farthest corridor of the shower room.
The only one who could move freely in this basent would probably be that pervert Legizamon.
John wasn’t in a hurry to go.
The mission prompted him to search the basent, and in this room, there were shallow dragging marks; the robot cleaner could clean blood stains but couldn’t disguise those fine scratches.
He found a secret door.
"Can it go further down? F*ck, what is that sll!"
John used a strip of cloth to pull the zipper. Just as he opened a crack, he was overwheld by all sorts of nauseating slls.
He slowly crawled inside and saw:
Under the dim yellow light were walls and tiles covered with gri, a ring-shaped groove encircled the room, with cages built upon it, imprisoning several kidnapped girls.
Most of them were unconscious.
The dark and twisted scene made John’s ears ring.
He leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths—the foul air filled his stomach, triggering stronger physiological reactions, and his cybernetic eye started to focus and defocus irregularly.
Spattered blood stains, dragging marks in front of the cages, bodies lying in pools of blood...
Each scene expanded and contracted.
The girl sitting in the cage opposite, hugging her knees, saw John clutching his head and suddenly started to struggle.
Her eyes and mouth opened wide simultaneously.
"Damn it!"
John instinctively raised his pistol.
In his mind, a million voices urged him to shoot, even his index finger began to twitch erratically.
[Threshold: 71%↑]
The symptoms of cyberpsychosis suddenly flared up, possibly because his emotions were stimulated by the violent images, causing abnormal hormonal activity in the prefrontal cortex, affecting the control over his implants.
John nearly pulled the trigger.
The other girl in the cage moved quicker than he did.
She covered her companion’s mouth, turned her body, and firmly suppressed the other beneath her, as they curled up together and crawled into the shadows, trying to hide...
Oulos’s voice ca through the team communication line.
[Go find Legizamon, and move quickly. Hacking activities have a chance of being detected.]
"What about these ones?"
[They have nothing to do with you. If any of them make a sound, shoot them. If you alert Legizamon ahead of ti, the mission is screwed up.]
"Mm-hmm."
John got a little closer, and aside from the two huddled figures right in front, there were no signs of life from the other girls in the cages.
Oulos cursed on the call.
[These are all newbies who smuggled into Eden City. They have no background or support. Legizamon has surely tampered with their implants and operating systems too; even if they were released, they’d be half-crippled.]
[Eden City is a hellhole that devours people. To this world, they’re just fodder to be chewed up. Don’t waste ti, or do them a favor and send them to a better reincarnation.]
John walked up to the cage.
They were the only two survivors.
[Release the victims. (Optional)]
John muted Oulos.
The cage had a traditional lock, simpler and more reliable, and strong enough for victims with no auxiliary implants. It wouldn’t be affected even if the building lost power.
John’s arm had an alloy skeleton; he aid his silenced gun at the welding point and fired swiftly, shooting it through.
He twisted the entire lock off.
John noticed the girl covering her companion’s mouth was trembling, and the other girl was terrified, whimpering when she heard the gunshot.
The hallway grew quiet; even the faint noise from upstairs had stopped.
Soon after, there were sounds again from deep in the darkness.
Legizamon seed to have listened intently for a while, then continued his business upon confirming there were no other disturbances.
John, wearing a ghost mask, crouched in front of the cage and patted her shoulder.
He still held a gun in his hand.
The scene was scary enough.
But the girl, with reddened eyes, bit her lip hard, not daring to make the slightest sound.
"You’re clever enough, so you’ve earned a chance."
John took out a grenade, pulled out the pin, and placed it steadily on the ground, then had the girl and her companion hold it down with their hands.
"No one talks, no one moves, and no one gets hurt."
He gestured for silence. "If you interfere with my work, it’s a dead end. But if you quietly wait for to finish, I’ll co back to take you out."
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