Infinite Progress, Starting with Arasaka

Compared to her subordinates in Night City, her combat effectiveness and practical experience were much lower.

Vera thought silently, then she moved.

"Gotcha!"

With a deafening bang!

Using her exaggerated leg strength and body coordination, Vera bent her knees and lunged forward from the edge of the hovercar's open hatch, flipping down. The moment her body rotated 180 degrees towards the ground, she straightened her legs, activating her reinforced tendons, strengthened ankles, and charged her legs. Push!

Accompanied by a sonic roar that pushed the air aside, even the armored hovercar tilted instantly. Her light gold hair fluttered, and her dark, elegant figure shot out like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Just then, whoosh!

From a dark, chaotic urban corner alley, flames flickered, and a guided rocket launched, tracing a curved trajectory into the sky. It coiled like a serpent, biting at the flying vehicle, and perfectly intersected with the falling figure.

"It's that Night City bitch!"

In an instant, the Militech infiltration team, hidden in the city's nooks and crannies, waiting to obstruct enemies and create chaos, discovered Vera falling.

"Quick, detonate it directly!"

Beside the man operating the portable anti-aircraft missile, his partner, holding a rangefinder, said in a deep voice, but there was no response. He turned around and was shocked to see the red data streams flashing rapidly in the operator's cybernetic eye, sparks flying from the interface behind his ear and the crystal chip, his electronic countermeasures unit clearly compromised.

At this moment, Vera, still in mid-air, reached out and touched the missile body, gently nudging it. Push. The guidance program failed, and the terminal correction was unresponsive. The missile crashed into the surrounding buildings, and with a boom! it erupted in a fierce burst of fire.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye. He had just raised his gun when Vera, holding a large-caliber shotgun like a javelin, was already terrifyingly close.

"Sometimes, high intelligence is easier to crack than mechanical countdowns."

Vera's cold voice shot through their psychological defenses like a bullet.

Physically, too.

Clang—Boom!

Metal struck metal, and the ground of the entire dark alley shattered. The old concrete exterior walls of the buildings cracked open in response, dust flying everywhere. Even the metal trash can in the corner was shaken into leaping up. A mist of blood mixed with dust and debris rose high, obscuring the vision of the surrounding hidden personnel.

"Ken?! You guys..."

Splattered gravel rained down, and the surrounding personnel responsible for guarding immediately widened their eyes. In the dust, a slender figure, dark with streaks of gold, slowly straightened up.

With a cold expression, Vera pulled her foot out of the slightly viscous landing.

Squish.

She looked down at a bent and broken missile launcher, the minced meat of various damaged cybernetic implants, a person whose lower body was gone and merged with the blood pool, their upper body a bloody mess, artificial muscle and subcutaneous armor torn open, exposing severed ribs and a beating organ.

Hum. Vera's pupils continued to flash orange-red light.

Hack, rapid crack, target acquired.

Flesh ripped apart, and the ground, cracked like a spiderweb, was now dotted with more than a dozen shell holes reeking of pungent gunpowder. Vera shifted her gaze. "8 left, standard combat squad. Heh, you guys found trouble all the way from North America to South Africa. I'm truly flattered..."

Militech, old rivals. She rose to prominence in Night City, North America. It could be said that more than half of her achievements were made by stepping on Militech.

"Bastard! Arasaka's bi-"

In the corner of the alley, a burly black man carrying an MA70HB light machine gun fired his first shot. His cybernetic eye was immediately hacked. It didn't need to be completely disabled; a moment's disorientation was enough. Thump! He spun and slammed hard into the cracked wall, his back of the head exploding in a bloody mess.

Wiping her palm, Vera, with her other hand, chambered a round and pulled the trigger, her killing proximity firing into his upper body. Bang! Another spray of shredded meat.

"Ahhh... Pfft—!"

Then, with a casual punch, she smashed through the subcutaneous armor and organs of a guy who had deployed two mantis blades. Vera, like the scythe wielded by the Grim Reaper, plunged into the infiltrating agents who had reacted, bringing a silence of torn flesh and blood amidst curses and screams.

Sizzle...

Less than half a minute.

"Johannesburg branch, this is Vera Adelheid. The coordinates of some attackers have been cracked and uploaded. Ignore the explosion points, don't let them lead you around. Pursue their infiltration teams, inflict maximum casualties, and absolutely do not let the enemy retreat easily after a single strike... Counter-terrorism riot control unit, proceed with me to the industrial park."

Chapter 056: Resident Evil, but Cyberpunk 2075

Arasaka Industrial Park, Johannesburg.

The continuous roar of high-energy automatic weapons echoed, and the increasingly urgent explosions shook the buildings in the biological research experimental zone.

Glass curtain walls shattered with a piercing screech, factory equipment warped, pillars and walls collapsed, metal doors twisted, and automated combat mechs were destroyed...

"She's already on the move. Our delaying and intercepting teams have been wiped out... Update, two groups have been wiped out."

Rat-tat-tat! Bullets splashed gravel against the wall pillars. Two soldiers, wearing tank tops and heavy combat suits, sat on a destroyed Arasaka combat robot, reloading their magazines, exchanging brief words.

"Bitch. No wonder they say Adam Smasher, that cybernetic monster, praised her during combat. That monster actually praises people? Turns out he praises another monster! A monster with breasts and no real hardware down there."

As they spoke, data streams flashed in their tactical goggles.

It was from the partial combat footage of their deceased comrades, captured by their hacker. In the first-person view, which was like a braindance experience, their comrades were almost crushed unilaterally. Whenever that woman flashed in front of them, the screen would lag, followed by splashing blood, and scattered limbs.

"Hiss..." A veteran agent from Militech's African office exclaimed.

He was not stationed in Militech's North American faction, and Vera Adelheid Russell of Arasaka's rise was a recent event, not too long ago. He hadn't been transferred to the Americas or the Pacific Rim for missions yet. This mission to seize or destroy the "Solaris Staircase Project" was his first time facing Vera.

Facing the pressure of being killed by her within ten minutes, even with his experience in African affairs, he felt his scalp tingle.

"Fuck, she's gotten stronger again..." This was the murmur of a Militech field agent from North America.

His words made his colleagues from the African region exchange confused glances. What the hell?

"Her computational power and reaction speed have become even more exaggerated."

As an elite agent who understood the opponent's fighting style and had watched recordings of her battles multiple times, he knew very well that Vera's coordination and reflexes during a South American field mission over half a year ago were nowhere near as strong as they were now!

Vera Adelheid's fighting style was completely different from Adam Smasher's.

If the latter represented the ultimate brutal beauty of cybernetics crudely piled on, then the former was subtle, embodying the perfect fusion of human biotechnology and cybernetic technology, a beautiful and elegant restrained beauty.

And equally deadly.

He loaded the magazine. "There's no time left! Everyone, storm the position! If we can't get it within the last 7 minutes, we'll blow up the lab!" His voice was deep, his fist clenched, revealing the nano-fiber plating and subdermal armor implants on his thick arms without any pretense.

"Hacking team, this is Assault 1. Focus on the Puppet Virus. I need you to disable those Arasaka dogs' turrets... uh, wait for my signal."

Creak, he rotated his thick neck, hefted the VST-37 Scorched Earth from Russian High-Tech Military Industries, chambered a round with the charging handle, then grabbed the loaded High-Tech Military Industries T40 Hurricane rocket launcher. The next moment, he decisively moved forward...

"Attack!"

The moment his foot stepped out from behind cover, he pulled the trigger of the rocket launcher.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

The Arasaka turrets, which responded with a burst of flames, sputtered and seized up as if their turning gears were poorly lubricated, creating an immediate gap in the firing net.

Rumble, rumble, rumble! A series of shaped charges tore through the Arasaka defensive line, instantly turning several heavy soldiers near the turrets into bloody mist before they softly collapsed.

Although the Arasaka counter-fire had weakened, it still wove a dense net of fire with heavy machine guns and smart fragmentation shells, knocking down several Militech soldiers in an instant. Even Assault 1, the assault commander, took a few hits.

The firepower here was not like mosquito bites from street brawls; these were armor-piercing heavy rounds. Combat suits were torn open, leather armor buckled, titanium ribs collapsed, and chunks of electrified artificial flesh were ripped away.

In the smoke, bullets and shells rained down, flesh was torn apart, cybernetic limbs carrying sweet-smelling fluids flew through the air, and everything became a blur.

And on the secret communication channel, unknown to the grunts fighting desperately on the front lines, the commander of the hacker attack team, acting as reserve support, was engaged in a heated argument with his superiors.

["'South African Bird' calling 'Nest'. Requesting withdrawal. The situation is rapidly deteriorating, intelligence is inaccurate. Besides the local garrisons, the Arasaka industrial park is also stationed with Arasaka security forces. The infiltration turned into a frontal assault, the operation has failed."]

["Denied. Continue the mission, hold on for five more minutes. Vera Adelheid's personal execution, the desperate disclosure from overseas friends, coupled with Arasaka's additional security forces with such high secrecy, all of this proves the importance of the 'Solaris Staircase Project'. Either get it or destroy it. The scale of investment from above must yield corresponding returns!"]

["But... we don't have the individual combat power to deal with Vera Adelheid..."]

["No 'buts', execute the order! You have five minutes before she returns to the industrial park! Within five minutes, either get the Sun Stairflower or destroy it!"]

The bloody exchange had already lasted a minute and a half.

"Damn it, why aren't these Arasaka bastards dead yet! Fuck... Arasaka reinforcements are less than five minutes away... another squad just got wiped out, we don't have time to waste with them! Let's blow open the lab first!"

Before the words could even fall, boom—!

An exceptionally violent explosion shook the laboratory building, drowning out the continuous roar of gunfire in its sonic wave.

The intense shockwave spread out like ripples, and thick smoke and flames burst through the walls, filling the air with the acrid smell of burnt flesh and electronic components.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Blown to the ground by the heatwave, the collapsing wall and pillars formed a triangle that, instead, protected this Arasaka security agent squad leader.

He struggled to open his eyes and saw that the makeshift defensive line had been blown to pieces in the flames. His subordinates, along with the laboratory's basic security personnel, were now mixed in with the twisted, molten machine gun turrets.

"Damn it, how much controlled military hardware did those Militech bastards smuggle in... cough."

The scorching airflow made his eyes and reinforced respiratory tract extremely uncomfortable. He looked behind him; the laboratory door where the Sun Stairflower was stored had been melted through by the torrent of fire.

The scene was a mess. Cables with sparking wires dangled from the shattered ceiling, occasionally emitting small crackles. In a glass cage with damaged edges, several small white mice lay dead in the corner, killed by the shock, fire, or electricity.

Most critically, inside, a machine—his temporarily functional analysis plugin concluded—was a DNA analysis and synthesis instrument. It was severely damaged, and a viscous pale liquid began to ooze from a twisted metal opening...

"Sun Stairflower extraction sample... no, Lord Saburo, that belongs to Lord Saburo. We absolutely cannot let those Militech barbarians take it..."

Suppressing the shock and convulsive reactions from his body with a pain editor, he struggled to climb out of the wreckage and crawled towards the interior of the lab. Even though the twisted metal shards on the ground cut through his pants and tore his legs open, he still crawled inside.

"Lord Saburo..."

He was a member of the Arasaka Family Estate security forces. Since childhood, Arasaka had picked him out from the orphanage, trained him, and installed cybernetics for him free of charge, allowing him to frequent pleasure houses and become someone superior. Therefore, he had to repay Lord Saburo!

"As long as Supervisor Russell is still here, the experiment can be restarted..."

Approaching the instrument, he collapsed onto the dripping viscous liquid. Using the clean walls and floor of the laboratory, he saw his current appearance.

Reaching out, his hand, stained with the sample liquid, touched his half-bloody, mangled face. His helmet and faceplate had been partially shaved off by shrapnel, revealing his reinforced teeth and the bionic flesh and cybernetic structures beneath. Sparks crackled.

Bang! Bang!

At the same time, the screams of the remaining personnel at the outer defense line and the gradually thinning gunfire told him that to prevent the experimental results from falling into enemy hands, he had to destroy the sample. He pulled out the high-explosive grenade from his waist and was about to pull the pin.

A single electromagnetic steel needle round pierced his heart.

"Fuck, almost let this Arasaka dead dog succeed." The Militech agent, holding his broken arm, entered the laboratory and fired several more shots into its torso, then kicked away the corpse that was leaning against the instrument and no longer moving.

"Hoo..."

Looking at the dark red flower in the shattered culture tank, he let out a long sigh of relief.

"Take the flower, leave not a single speck for Arasaka. Collect the data, we have less than two minutes..." As he spoke, he walked to the control console. The technician who followed him immediately pulled out his personal connection cable and began to crack it.

"Sir, decryption takes time, and part of the control console's storage chip is damaged, causing data loss. I might only be able to identify, repair, and extract some of it from the backup chip..."

"Fuck, whatever you can identify, identify it. It's fine if you can't, we have the flower, so why worry about not being able to research it?" He walked to the damaged DNA synthesis instrument, squatted down, and looked at the liquid dripping from the opening, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Who brought a medical sealed container?"

As he called out, two more Militech agents entered the lab carrying briefcases. While they were intently transferring the Sun Stairflower and collecting the unknown liquid dripping from the instruments, a crisp sound like cracking bones echoed.

"This isn't the time to relax, you..."

He frowned and turned, only to see:

"Aaaah—!"

The Technician, who had been cracking the lab's console, was pounced on by an Arasaka soldier whose heart had been ripped open and whose torso bore several massive cavities. Gruesome sounds of gnawing and chewing filled the air.

"For... Lord Saburo..."

He raised his head, his eyes oozing blood, his face a bloody mess, his upper and lower jaws replaced by steel teeth stained with chunks of flesh and organs like bronchi.

He let out an inhuman howl, his body writhing unnaturally, then lunged towards the one-armed 'Assault One'.

But, BANG!!

Blood and flesh splattered as the headless corpse fell.

"Holy shit, that really scared me! What the hell is that thing?!"