Only then did the gunshot from the "Cat Mat" Tech Sniper Rifle drift over.
Almost everyone in the room was shocked.
The reason I said almost was that Su Xiao and Jack had suddenly erupted the instant that Sixth Street Gang member was blasted away.
Su Xiao kicked the calf of the man standing behind him, forcing him to drop to his knees.
Then he drove his knee up hard, smashing it into the man's face.
As the man clutched his face and screamed, Su Xiao drew the pistol from his holster and fired twice, sending him to the afterlife.
On the other side, Jack attacked at the same time.
He slammed an elbow into another Sixth Street Gang member's head. While the man's mind was still reeling, Jack grabbed his head with both hands and twisted hard.
There was a crisp crack—the sound of a bone breaking.
Malmer quickly reacted.
He raised his gun and aimed at Su Xiao.
But before he could pull the trigger,
V's covering fire arrived first.
It blew open a spray of blood from his palm.
Blood, scraps of flesh, and shattered pistol parts flew everywhere.
Su Xiao pounced like a cheetah.
The Power Gauntlet slammed into Malmer's chest.
It sent him flying.
The bones in Malmer's chest were probably almost all shattered.
But he was a retired veteran with Military-grade cyberware implanted in his body, making him far tougher than an ordinary person.
An ordinary person couldn't have survived a punch from the Power Gauntlet, yet Malmer still managed to stand and even attempted to fight back.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Su Xiao crossed both arms in front of himself and charged with his head lowered.
Bullets struck the Power Gauntlet, sending sparks flying.
Without his dominant hand, Malmer's marksmanship had suffered badly.
Su Xiao stepped forward and kicked Malmer's pistol away.
Then the Power Gauntlet seized his head and hoisted him off the ground.
It pressed him against the wall, then dragged him forcefully to the side.
A deep groove was ground into the wall, its bottom covered in horrifying bloodstains.
Su Xiao let go.
Malmer's corpse slid down the wall and collapsed to the floor, long since lifeless.
The Sixth Street Gang reinforcements stationed near the black motel also heard the gunshots.
But before they could react,
a dense rain of bullets suddenly became a metallic torrent, punching through the walls and sweeping in from every direction.
The Sixth Street Gang was caught completely off guard.
Earlier, when Su Xiao and Jack had gone to the black motel, they had used the Tactical Goggles to scan the Sixth Street Gang's personnel deployment and shared the footage with Padre's men.
Padre's men had quietly set up an ambush nearby.
When V opened fire to cover Su Xiao and Jack, they launched their attack at the same time.
When Padre received the Tech Weapons from Su Xiao, he had put most of them on the market, keeping a small number to upgrade his men's weapons.
They were all equipped with Tech Weapons, or Smart Weapons bought from major corporations at high prices.
Tech Weapons could easily penetrate obstacles such as walls.
Although Smart Weapons couldn't shoot through walls, they could automatically track enemies.
With the scanned footage provided by Su Xiao, countless bullets instantly swallowed the Sixth Street Gang's ranks.
They had planned while the enemy was unprepared. The Sixth Street Gang suffered heavy casualties and fell into total chaos.
Malmer had once said that the Sixth Street Gang was made up of retired veterans, former NCPD members who had lost heart, fired corporate security guards, and civilians who had undergone crash-course combat training.
In reality, the first three groups were few in number. The last group formed the bulk of their ranks.
Otherwise, the Sixth Street Gang would have conquered Night City long ago. They wouldn't have been unable to even take The Glen.
These civilians had only received combat training. They were just like the minutemen during the American Revolutionary War.
They held out in the hail of bullets for about a minute before their morale collapsed and they were routed completely.
Aside from a tiny number of lucky ones who managed to escape, the rest were all killed.
Yet, by some miracle, not one of Padre's men died. Only a few were grazed by stray bullets.
It was nothing short of an epic victory.
After the battle outside ended, Su Xiao and Jack also dealt with Malmer's remaining men.
The two found Fidel still alive upstairs in the black motel.
They gave him emergency treatment.
Then Jack carried him out of the black motel.
They met up with Padre's men and handed Fidel over to them.
After expressing their thanks, they left with Fidel.
Su Xiao, V, and Jack headed to the Wolf Bar together.
They celebrated properly and eased the exhaustion of the day.
The next day, Su Xiao received Padre's gratitude:
—Twenty thousand eurodollars each for him, V, and Jack.
Only a few days after the battle ended,
the Sixth Street Gang members who had escaped spread the full story of the battle.
At first, no one paid much attention.
Street shootouts were commonplace in Night City. What was there to care about?
They soon realized they had been wrong.
The clash between the Sixth Street Gang and Padre's men had been anything but ordinary.
The Sixth Street Gang had more than eighty people, but only a few escaped.
Everyone else had been left behind.
Not a single one of Padre's men had died.
According to an insider who refused to reveal his name, Padre's men had such formidable combat power because they had upgraded their weapons.
And all of it was thanks to Padre's cooperation with a certain gunsmith.
In just a few days, the rumor spread throughout Night City.
All the city's gangs began to covet that gunsmith.
They started plotting to get their hands on him.
But those thoughts were quickly extinguished.
When Padre returned the Sixth Street Gang's corpses to them, some busybody recorded it as a braindance and spread it around.
Malmer, one of the Sixth Street Gang's officers, had died an especially gruesome death. His head looked as though it had been rubbed against the ground.
More terrifyingly, it hadn't been done by Padre's men.
It had been done by that gunsmith.
They heard that the gunsmith hadn't even lost a strand of hair.
The gangs that had been plotting immediately fell silent.
They were scared stiff.
Of course, those Corp Dogs who had sold out Padre's men didn't meet a good end either.
One morning, a certain cleaner suddenly discovered that they had been stuffed into sacks and thrown into trash cans.
By the time they were found, their corpses had long since gone cold.
Chapter Forty-Four: Lucy, Yo
The next day.
Through the windows of the high-speed skytrain, Su Xiao could see torrential rain pouring outside.
The world was shrouded in gray.
There were far fewer cars and pedestrians on the roads below.
"Choosing to take the skytrain really was the right call."
When he got up that morning, Su Xiao had immediately seen that something was wrong with the weather.
He hadn't chosen to drive to the Wolf Bar himself.
Instead, he had taken the skytrain.
As it turned out, not long after the skytrain started moving, a downpour came crashing down.
It washed over Night City.
Night City's skytrains didn't have many carriages, only three.
There were all kinds of people aboard, because compared with taxis, the skytrain was much cheaper.
At this hour, however, most of the passengers were Corp Dogs rushing to work.
Out of a mercenary's professional habit, he instinctively surveyed his surroundings.
Just as he withdrew his gaze, he happened to spot a familiar face aboard the skytrain.
Lucy stood behind a suited man who was gripping a handrail and facing the window.
She casually tucked her hair behind her ear.
At the same time, she took the chip that had popped out from the back of the suited man's neck.
One strike, and she had it.
Then Lucy set her sights on her next target.
It was a Corp Dog standing in front of the doors leading outside.
He carried a briefcase in one hand and held a phone in the other.
Who knew what was on the phone that had him so engrossed?
He didn't notice Lucy approaching from behind at all.
Lucy walked over beside him.
She pretended to be studying the skytrain route map on the Smart Display.
Then she acted as though she were passing by the Corp Dog without a care.
Using the same trick, she quickly snatched the chip that popped out.
And so, using the same method, Lucy stole from the rearmost third carriage all the way to the foremost first carriage.
Before you continue