053: Close-Quarters Combat
[West District – Electronic Vein Bar]
This place fell within the influence of the Borago Club, right next to the busiest commercial street.
The fighters especially liked this venue.
[Mission Update]
[Locate Hoffman’s booth. (Optional)]
John had a feeling of déjà vu; this scene reminded him of a job at the Nocturne Bar. The difference was that back then, he only had a silenced pistol, and the security level at Electronic Vein was far superior to Nocturne’s.
The bar was two stories.
At the center was a large dance floor, where the restless men and women of Eden City swayed together, the sound system blasting loud enough to rupture synthetic eardrums.
The bar’s security had activated ocular scanners.
Two glowing eyes shimmered in the dim corners like distant headlights on the horizon.
John pulled up his hood.
He followed the wall to find the stairs leading upward.
The second floor was a circular corridor, with railings overlooking the dance floor below.
Against the walls, booths were partitioned off; the dim space filled with laughter and chatter from flirtatious voices.
John weaved past dancers and guards to a massive private room.
It even had two layers: an outer ring of booths and a more secluded, soundproof inner chamber.
John activated his scanner.
Suddenly, he spotted several names from his list and stopped, positioning his body to block the laser beams cutting across the dance floor, silencing the revelry inside.
Crash—
A bottle smashed against the wall.
“Fuck off, get lost!”
“You dumbass!”
Several burly men sat in the booth, their arms cybernetically enhanced, hair cropped short, skin covered with extravagant tattoos.
Snap—
A metal sliding door closed.
The booth became a sealed-off area.
“Shit, what’s wrong with you?”
“I’m gonna twist this bastard’s arm off!”
“You…”
They dropped their companions and rose fiercely; then urgent gunshots rang out.
Two fighters dropped instantly.
One lay sprawled on the floor; the other crashed into a table, scattering bottles and inhalers, prompting screams from the women inside, who scrambled into corners, curling up.
A large man burst out carrying a table.
John fired relentlessly; bullets shattered the glass, but couldn’t land a headshot. The shots only drew blood as they struck his body, and he closed the distance for close-quarters combat.
The glass table was already shattered.
The giant tore it in half, wielding the pieces like weapons, sparks flying as they scraped against the metal walls.
John dodged, pushing his gun forward, pressing the scope against the man’s throat.
“Cough, cough, ugh~”
The man’s eyes widened.
John kicked him over, then lowered his gun to blast his head.
The room was now chaos:
Red emergency lights flared up, dimly illuminating several mangled corpses and spreading pools of black blood.
Mr. Vito’s list was long.
Several lay here, but the primary target was absent.
“Where’s Hoffman?”
A girl with a nose ring pointed deeper into the suite.
John grabbed the Croc rifle and left the room. The bar erupted into turmoil; the dance floor flooded outward, singers and DJs retreating.
Armed guards were closing in from all directions on the second floor.
John moved inward immediately.
Guards fired at him from the second floor; bullets ricocheted off railings and the floor.
He raised his gun, crouched forward, and took precise shots at exposed heads.
The second-floor sofas were riddled with bullet holes; things broke with every hit.
Just as John eliminated a guard blocking his path, two figures dashed past, slashing with blades that severed the metal railing.
He barely dodged and instinctively drew his gun to fire back.
The Croc’s rounds tore into one attacker’s chest; it took six or seven shots to finally stop one.
John kicked over the fallen body, knocking down the other.
He raised his gun and blew a hole in the second’s head.
Both thugs wore floral shirts, their chests adorned with ukiyo-e tattoos; their melee weapons were the common straight blades from Sakura Cross Street.
“Fuck.”
John stormed into the booth where the thugs had emerged.
Inside were two sharply dressed men, seemingly on calls.
[Faction: Crow Town Gang]
[Profile: Japanese origin, underground fight scout, newly recruited by the Tetsuya group…]
They raised their guns.
John, already locked in aggressive advance mode, reacted and pulled the trigger faster, emptying several magazines into them.
Bang!
The booth door was kicked open; smoke and electric arcs flickered, the junction between the slide and metal door heavily deformed.
John instinctively lowered his center of gravity just as something flew overhead.
Turning, he felt a massive shadow above his face; his Croc rifle was kicked away by immense force.
He was grabbed and swung around midair.
John drew his silenced pistol and fired repeatedly.
Due to the angle, he couldn’t hit the jaw, and the opponent’s subdermal armor was as tough as iron; each bullet pierced through but couldn’t slow his advance.
John’s mind blared alarm bells:
He’d met his match.
He went all out, raising his gun toward his own chest and shooting at the assailant’s wrist.
One shot missed.
One struck a cybernetic joint.
The bullet tore through synthetic leather but hit a hard metal structure beneath, failing to penetrate at close range.
John executed it all in a split second.
The attacker slowed slightly.
John was slammed hard against the wall but ignored the pain in his back, curling his legs to kick the giant off his face.
[Name: Hoffman]
[Faction: Black Gold Gang]
[Scan: Heavy subdermal armor, alloy skeleton, Isaac Military muscle fiber bundles, etc.]
[Wanted for: violent assault, illegal smuggling, assaulting police, and more.]
Hoffman was over two meters tall, bald, with synthetic muscles enveloping massive prosthetic limbs, looking even fiercer than the photos on wanted posters.
John fired as he landed.
Hoffman grabbed his wrist, forcibly redirected the bullet’s trajectory toward the floor, then slapped away John’s silencer.
Bang, bang!
John wrapped his other arm around Hoffman, driving his knee hard into his ribs.
They separated again.
The damned brute charged once more, blood streaming from bullet wounds, yet his reaction speed was monstrous.
The small room felt like an octagonal cage.
John retreated, dodging a lightning-fast uppercut.
Hoffman produced a straight blade about the length of a forearm as if by magic.
The sharp edge had just grazed John’s jacket during the punch, tearing through the bulletproof vest’s fiber layers. Fortunately, the new reinforced inserts saved him from injury.
Without hesitation, John drew his gambler’s knife.
His rifle and sidearms had been confiscated; the melee weapon was precisely for this moment.
In the cramped space, only their heavy breathing filled the air.
They tested each other’s moves, clashing metal several times; both bore fresh cuts on their faces and limbs.
Blood began to soak their clothes.
John surrendered his body to instinct, letting the Ronin chip from Fusaki Industries take over; his tense muscles squeezed out every last ounce of strength.
His heart pounded wildly, his scalp tingled; he barely felt the pain.
John didn’t recall if he blocked Hoffman’s blade, only that at one moment he abandoned the Ronin stance and switched to a CQC combo, reversing his grip on the knife handle to wrench open the giant’s neck.
Blood sprayed.
Hoffman grabbed John in a bear hug and charged out of the room, both drenched in blood, their skin unnaturally flushed.
They crashed through two flower beds in the corridor and fell through a gap in the metal railing, slamming hard beside the dance floor on the first floor.
Bang!
The glass floor tiles shattered.