Amid the roaring flames, Riku stood unfazed, his fire-resistant coating shrugging off the heat like it was nothing.
Swish!
He burst through the fire, swinging his katana. The flames parted like water, trailing the blade's edge.
Clang!
The Maelstrom goon with the flamethrower went down hard, the fire sputtering out as he hit the ground.
"Damn! This guy's cyberware is stacked! Fire-resistant coating too?!" another Maelstrom thug shouted, charging forward with two others. Their crimson cyber-eyes burned with madness, devoid of reason.
To be fair, these Maelstrom goons weren't slow. Their strength and combat skills were well above average, thanks to their combat cyberlimbs and gear. But these guys? They were clearly the bottom rung of Maelstrom—stuck with low-end cyberware.
Against regular folks, their mods were more than enough. But against a beast like Riku? They were out of their league.
Riku effortlessly sidestepped a baseball bat swung at him, then landed a brutal kick on another thug. The guy flew backward, crashing into his buddies, who dodged with quick reflexes.
Before they could return fire, a storm of bullets rained down on them.
"Die, you scum!" V shouted, unloading her freshly reloaded Ajax. With Riku drawing all the attention, she had free rein to let loose.
V and Jack Welles were crack shots, and Riku was like a walking taunt, pulling every enemy's focus and giving them open season to fire.
Lucy was no slouch either. With Riku tanking, she had plenty of room to work her magic, tossing daemons into the network. Sparks flew from the Maelstrom goons' cyberware as their systems glitched out.
What's a hacker's worst nightmare? Getting rushed in a fight. Most hackers shine in cyberspace, not close combat. Even street-savvy hackers like Lucy had some self-defense skills, but they couldn't compare to a dedicated fighter.
With Riku soaking up all the aggro like a human shield, Lucy felt safer than ever.
Zzt! Zzt! Bang!
One Maelstrom thug's head exploded in a puff of black smoke under Lucy's hack—his network defenses completely fried, his brain cooked.
Riku surged forward, closing in on the scattered goons. V's gunfire forced them to dive for cover, but they still didn't back down.
One thug raised his arm, revealing a projectile launcher system. Click! A high-explosive round locked into place.
Zzt! Zzt!
Before he could fire, his arm sparked and smoked. Lucy had cut the launcher's connection, frying the cyberware.
Clang!
Riku's katana flashed, slicing clean through the thug's neck. The guy collapsed, his head twisted at an unnatural angle.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Jack Welles and V kept the pressure on, pinning down the last two Maelstrom goons. The thugs took a few armor-piercing rounds but barely flinched—their subdermal armor holding up. Not for long, though. Riku closed in, his katana flashing as he took them down with precise neck strikes.
Riku's blade wasn't the sharpest—it couldn't cut through subdermal armor easily—but his raw strength made up for it. Every swing was a neck-chopper, true to the essence of his Breathing Style swordsmanship. In Demon Slayer fashion, if you're fighting a demon, you aim for the neck. Anything else is a waste of time.
Even with subdermal armor, a direct hit to the neck was brutal. The two unlucky goons' necks snapped, their cervical spines shattered. For those still twitching, Riku delivered a few extra slashes for good measure.
"This subdermal armor's tough as hell," Riku remarked while finishing the job. Without it, heads would've been rolling.
"You need a better blade. That thing's trash," Lucy said, stepping closer. She flicked out her Kendachi monomolecular wire.
The monowire was a sneaky, lethal weapon—a blade so thin it was practically invisible, just a molecular thread. Don't let its looks fool you; it could handle 1,360 kilos of force and cut through armored weave like butter.
"You're right. Time for an upgrade," Riku agreed, nodding. His current katana, praised to the skies by Tanjiro's mentor Sakonji Urokodaki, was basically a flea-market reject in this world.
But good blades weren't cheap. Lucy's Kendachi monowire? You'd need tens of thousands of eurodollars to even dream of it.
"Forget Kendachi blades for now. You could start with a Kendachi flamethrower," V said, already scavenging. While Riku was busy finishing off enemies, she was picking through their gear—a solid habit.
She hefted the flamethrower the Maelstrom thug had been using, her face lighting up. "This thing's Kendachi-made!"
"Jackpot," Riku said, eyes gleaming. A Kendachi flamethrower could fetch a nice price—maybe even more than their payout for this job.
Kendachi, full name Kendajiri-Adachi Armaments, was a Japanese megacorp formed by the merger of the Kendajiri clan and Adachi Industries. They specialized in high-end melee weapons and, for some reason, flamethrowers. The Kendajiri family had been master bladesmiths for generations, but their flamethrowers somehow sold just as well.
"Total score!" V laughed, grinning ear to ear. This was the thrill of scavenging—stick with it, and you might just strike gold.
"Quit yapping and help out. We gotta move this guy," Jack Welles called, pulling up in their Thorton. He slung a big bag over his shoulder and headed toward a victim tied to a wooden cross.
"Damn, how do we even start with this?" Jack cursed, eyeing the gruesome scene.
"For the eddies, man," Riku said, swallowing hard and stepping up to help.
Lucy clearly wanted no part of it, pretending not to hear, while V, the money-grubber, was too busy fawning over her new flamethrower.
"This job's payout does not match the danger," Jack grumbled as he stuffed intestines back into the victim's body. "Most crews would've wiped on this."
"No kidding," Riku agreed. This Maelstrom crew wasn't your average street trash. The experience points he'd racked up proved it.
[Ding! Experience +105.]
[Ding! Experience bar full. Level up to Lv4. Current experience: 69/400.]
[Gained 1 attribute point.]
[Gained 1 skill optimization point.]
Ah~~~
(End of Chapter)