Can't Pierce Through

Chapter 15 15. Impenetrable

The Copperhead assault rifle, with a rate of fire of up to 640 rounds per minute, was wielded with remarkable precision and lethality in Karl's hands. Every bullet spewed from its barrel found the guest it was intended to entertain.

One to the head, one to the heart. Each of the seven Maelstrom members was treated to a pair of bullets. In two seconds, not a single Maelstrom member in front of Karl and his companions was capable of standing again.

"Damn, mano (brother), your marksmanship is insane!"

Jack, completely disregarding his still-bleeding gunshot wound, even intended to get up and check if any Maelstrom members were still alive to finish them off.

"Jack, you should rest first."

Oliver stopped Jack, examining his injuries. He breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that neither bullet had hit anything vital. "At this rate, you'll run out of lives to waste, Jack."

"I'm fine, aren't I?"

Jack laughed. "Besides, it's all good as long as the result is good. You were the one hyping up Karl's marksmanship the whole way, so I figured I could trust you guys' abilities."

"Bullshit abilities."

Karl could only say that this was the first time he'd seen someone who could laugh after taking two bullets. "If their aim had been any better, you'd be dead, Jack."

"Relax, relax, KK. I know what I'm doing. I protected my head the moment I dove, and I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. If I wasn't confident, I wouldn't risk my life, would I?"

"I think after this job is done, even if we have to pool our money, we need to get you some subdermal armor first."

Oliver said helplessly, also feeling a bit ashamed that he couldn't help much earlier. "I need to get some implants for myself too. I have to be able to help somehow. Otherwise, I'll feel bad about taking a cut of the money if I'm just watching you guys do everything."

"Your shooting is good, Oliver. You can try getting a sniper rifle and some auxiliary implants to support us from a distance."

"But my shooting isn't as good as yours, KK."

"That's why I'm telling you to use a sniper rifle."

Karl shook the Copperhead in his hand. "I'm better suited to quickly taking people out with this kind of thing."

"I think Oliver could try being our medic."

Jack watched as Oliver tended to his wounds with practiced skill while talking to Karl. Such proficiency was rare.

"My sister's a Ripperdoc, after all. I've learned a thing or two."

Not thinking much of it, Oliver scanned the surroundings and spotted the security cameras. "We need to move quickly. This place is full of cameras. The other Maelstrom members in the factory will react and surround us soon."

"Let's take out a few more groups, and when there are enough, we'll leave one alive to ask where the thing is."

Karl walked over to the Maelstrom members and picked up a few grenades. "I need to learn hacking or find a way to hire a hacker. If we had a hacker for this mission, we wouldn't even need to leave anyone alive. We could just disable the cameras, fight our way to the employer's crate, throw a grenade in, and take a picture as proof. Easy peasy."

"So, you're just thinking about this to make it easier to go in guns blazing?"

Oliver felt that he was probably the only somewhat normal person in this team. He supported the injured Jack, who was having trouble moving, and raised his pistol with his other hand, shooting out the security cameras.

But regardless, these two were his companions now. Might as well go along with it.

When the Maelstrom boss arrived at the location she saw on the monitors, nothing remained except the corpses of seven Maelstrom members.

"Worthless trash, couldn't even stall for a few minutes?"

The boss really wanted to put another bullet in the heads of those lying on the ground.

"Boss, there's blood here."

One of the Maelstrom members beside her spotted a pool of blood on the ground not far from the corpses.

"It's this way!"

Looking at the traces of blood appearing every few steps, the Maelstrom members raised their guns and looked at the boss, awaiting her instructions.

"Looks like they managed to do something."

Filled with hatred, the boss didn't think much before leading her people to follow the trail of blood.

A few seconds later, as they turned a corner in a factory passageway...

"Boom!"

In the explosion of the grenade, the Maelstrom members at the front were engulfed in flames, while those slightly further away were blown away by the shockwave, landing with missing limbs in front of the boss in the middle.

"Damn, it's a trap!"

"They fell for a trap."

Hearing the explosion behind him, Karl immediately turned around, gripping the Lexington pistol, which was more useful in this narrow passageway, and slowly walked backward.

Jack's injuries had been properly bandaged by Oliver earlier, so it was impossible for him to leave a trail of blood. The blood was all from Karl, who had torn off a piece of cloth while grabbing grenades from the Maelstrom members and soaked it in blood. He squeezed the cloth every few steps, letting the blood drip down.

The trap was set by Oliver. Being from the Sixth Street Gang, he knew a thing or two about making simple booby traps with grenades for military use.

"Oliver, protect Jack. I'll go check on the Maelstrom members behind us."

Karl, not knowing how many people were still in the factory, originally only intended to stall, but when he turned the corner, he found that there were only a few people left in front of him.

The boss was just a small-time leader in Maelstrom, with only about twenty people under her command. Some of them had gone out to party and rob, seven had been taken out by Karl in the previous firefight, and the rest had been crippled or killed by the grenade trap while walking through the passageway. Now, including herself, there were only four people left with the boss.

Karl's gun was fast. By the time he realized he should leave someone alive, the gun had already taken out three people. The reason the last one was left alive wasn't that Karl's gun didn't hit her head, but that the bullet hitting her head made a 'clang' sound of metal colliding, and it didn't penetrate.

Damn, just like that guy I met yesterday who had metal eyes in the front and a metal skull in the back.

Karl thought it would be difficult to capture this person alive, so he quickly fired another shot, but this shot, aimed at what should have been the connection point between the front and back metal plates, was still deflected with a 'clang'.

The sound made the Maelstrom member regain her senses. As her red-glowing eyes looked at Karl, a sentence Jack had said flashed through Karl's mind.

The Lexington, this gun can't even penetrate the shittiest subdermal armor with a direct shot.