He struggled to stay clear-headed, yet inexplicably felt exhilarated.

"WTF?"

The fluorescent graffiti layered all over the walls suddenly became vivid.

Most of it featured themes of demons and prosthetic worship, the rest was just meaningless profanity and splattered color blocks.

Bang!

The muffled gunshots erupted one after another, making his heart go numb.

Out of the corner of his eye, John caught a black spot suddenly appearing on the wall, followed by a second and third, like black tattoos blooming in succession until the splattering rubble and dust stung the corner of his eye, only then did he suddenly realize:

This is a f*cking ambush!

Someone is shooting at me!

John turned and rolled to the side, taking cover behind a rock, his head regaining some semblance of rationality amidst the frantic movement.

[Subdermal Armor: 87%]

He had taken at least two bullets in the back just now.

Lucky him, had a bullet drifted to the back of his head, John's brief mercenary career would probably have ended here.

"F*cking hell, b*tch!"

Da-da-da!

The terror and rage of surviving the attack detonated inside him.

John suddenly rose, roaring as he frantically swept with his Krakes, the numbness and heat expanding from his heart to his limbs, blasting away the chaos and numbness, only to be engulfed by an invisible inferno of rage.

Whoosh—

Empty magazines rained around him.

They fell "silently" to the ground, tails of smoke drawing intersecting arcs.

John's finger seemed welded to the trigger, the shooting-specific finger tendon in his prosthetic hand twitching like a spring gone haywire.

Members of the Rift Party had advanced close, all wide-eyed as he burst forth, followed by a barrage of bullets.

John plunged into the thick mist wielding his "meat grinder".

Smoke poured from the Rift Party's metal spikes and synthetic leather seams, dark red blood wantonly splattered across the ground.

Arcs of electricity, screams, and sporadic flames intermingled, occasionally disturbing the purplish-red haze when a body fell.

Yet John felt increasingly calm.

An indistinct ringing in his ears became apparent, and by the time he noticed it, he could no longer hear the deafening gunfire and screams.

John glanced down to find the gun barrel's trembling had slowed, his arm barely feeling the recoil anymore.

Sianweistan had been activated.

John felt as if his thought processes had slowed down immensely, his body moving on subconscious impulse in a world caught in time, yet his mind couldn't keep up.

Slash—

A Mantis Blade grazed his cheek.

His flesh seared with burning pain.

This jolted John into fleeting clarity, locking eyes with a drooling maniac whose eye sockets had been modified into red electronic instruments.

Black spikes jutted out from beside his nostrils, two vampire-like metal fangs awkwardly protruded from a mouthful of yellow teeth.

The scarlet embedded faceplate resembled a red spider.

John sidestepped to dodge, watching as the assailant's Mantis Blade slightly embedded in the stone wall, attempting to pivot with the other hand, then he became mincemeat.

John tasted a hint of rust in his mouth.

It was only when he came back to his senses that he realized he'd pulled the trigger, and when he glanced back up...

The wall in front of him was smeared with splattered gore.

The neon-painted graffiti, soaked in blood, became a mess amidst the endless flow of crimson, the lines of the murals animatedly so.

The next moment.

The demon pattern burst into a roaring laughter.

"Damn, I must be going mad."

John muttered to himself.

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