Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

Chapter 222

I staggered back, shuddering as I felt yet another bullet tear through my thigh as I failed to dodge. They’d swapped to live rounds after their attempt to flush me out. Unfortunately, it looked like they were finally starting to see me as an actual opponent. Or so the several flesh wounds all over my body told me.

I flew through open space, using the shadows to my advantage as I repositioned away from the shots once more. Mid-move, I pulled a handful of knives and through them up. To a casual observer, it might’ve looked like they were just carelessly thrown.

They weren’t.

Each knife flew up, hitting the anchor points of a freight crane built into the warehouse. They perfectly struck to snap the components holding a raised shipping container in the air. With a loud screech, the container dropped onto the squad shooting at me, sending debris and a cloud of dust everywhere to further hide my movements.

I ducked into an open shipping container, pressing on my wounds to the best of my abilities as I listened to the faint steps of the

“Lethal ish authorized.” The Inquisitor paused for a moment before nodding his head. "Command wantsh to make an example."

“Roger.” The two knights replied, spilling out of the APC with their Squires.

Inquisitor Ligh hopped out a moment later. “Persha, with me. Clean up any shtragglers and hunt for Zuku.”

They group poured out, sprinting off to take care of their roles. Hope followed a moment later, whistling to the Jaeger in the APC. It stood up, jumping out as it raised its nose into the air. A moment later, it bounded off for the warehouse.

Inquisitor Ligh took the lead as a wind blew through, luckily pushing the smoke out of the way. “Shtay close behind me.”

The first group they ran into consisted of three men in tactical gear. They were severely wounded, looking as though they’d been flung from the warehouse by the explosion. Two of them tried to shoot at the Inquisitor, their guns jamming almost immediately. The last guy’s gun exploded in his hand. The shrapnel ended his life.

The Squires took care of the two momentary survivors as Inquisitor Light moved forward without stopping for even a moment. This scene repeated several other times as they charged into the warehouse.

Not every enemy had their gun malfunction, but it was barely a fight. One guy was unlucky enough to be crushed by a falling section of the roof. Another slipped in oil and was skewered through the neck by a metal pole. A grenade bounce back even took out a whole squad.

The half that didn’t suffer from horrible accidents proved no match to the group. Most were still stunned or concussed by the explosion, making it as easy as cleaving through butter. Add in Persha’s combat capabilities and the support of Squires, and the inside of the warehouse was rapidly cleaned up.

Not that any of that mattered to the Inquisitor. He simply walked forward, following the Jaeger as though nothing could hurt him. And indeed, nothing did. There were a few close calls, but nothing so much as touched his clothes as the enemy missed every shot.

The drain started to catch up with the Inquisitor as he followed behind the metal hound. The Jaeger pawed at a shipping container that had been blown against a wall, whining sharply. Its metallic voice alerted the group that it had encountered an obstruction blocking its way.

“I got it.” Persha stepped forward, activating her sword. It started to vibrate as she lightly cut into the shipping container, tearing apart its wall as if it were paper.

Just as the wall crumbled, several shots rang out as someone inside the crate opened fire. The bullets veered around the Inquisitor, several of them deflecting off of luckily falling rubble as they hit cultists that were about to ambush the group.

The Inquisitor stood still, staring at the one shooting at him without a reaction. It took several seconds to even figure out what he was looking at, almost as if the person's shape refused to make sense in his head. A slight haze surrounded the downed girl.

Zuku lay up against the back wall, gun clicking as she pulled the trigger a few more times. She was in a horrible state, blood dripping from almost every part of her body. His Squire was riddled with bullet holes. Her clothes were tattered, with long serrations and burns peaking out.

Her face was stained with soot, and blood constantly leaked from behind a vacant eyelid. The blood cleared a trail down her face before dropping to mingle with the rest of her wounds. Not even her limbs were spared, with one leg facing the wrong direction, and an arm ending in a burned stump. The hand was simply gone.

Zuku’s remaining eye, glowing with a feral intensity, blinked a few times. The feral glow faded slightly into a more neutral tone, though it still seemed to have the wildness of an animal. A small, heavily wounded animal at that.

A weak smile sprang to her lips as her trembling hand dropped her pistol. A raspy cough made her whole body shake. “Oh, h-hey boss.”

The Inquisitor continued to look down at her for several long moments. No one knew what he was thinking, nor could anyone guess. The mask perfectly hid his face, making it impossible to even read his expression.

Later, though, after the fighting was over and the corpses were sent to the coroner's, they found something of note. About a quarter of the cultists in the surrounding area all mysteriously flatlined within a minute of each other.

The exact reason for such an event was up in the air, but the causes were everything from sudden cardiac arrest, asphyxiation as they unluckily choked on their tongues, to even multiple organ failures as if they were on heavy military stims. Tox reports came back clean.