"Phew—mission accomplished."
Luo Qi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, pretending to be relaxed, and whistled cheerfully.
Are all members of the terrorist squad so terrifying?
No wonder they're one-shot kills after reaching four stars.
He thought about this as he moved his sore body.
The battle just now had been too hasty, and the enemy was quite difficult to deal with, nearly causing a disaster.
But fortunately, everything seemed to be under control...
*Crack...*
A spine-chilling sound came from behind him.
He spun around abruptly, just in time to see a streak of light flashing.
"Clang—!!!"
Luo Qi felt like he'd been hit by a truck, his flesh and bones almost separating as he was thrown and slammed onto the rough, cold ground.
His katana flew out of his hand, skidding five or six meters away with a series of clangs.
Hitting his head on the hard ground was not a pleasant experience.
What's worse, it felt like every bone in his body was creaking and about to fall apart.
Through his blurry vision, he saw a figure shrouded in black smoke slowly approaching.
Luo Qi squinted with effort.
The blasted helmet, the scorched hair, the shattered armor, and the tattered terrorist squad uniform.
The person looked like they'd been thrown into a popcorn maker and then dumped out, a pitiful sight.
Even though Luo Qi was in danger, he couldn't help but want to laugh out loud.
"Hahaha..."
Well, he accidentally laughed out loud.
Then he saw the person's expressionless face turn hostile, with a hint of anger born of humiliation.
"Bang...!!!"
The concrete road surface was smashed to pieces, debris flying everywhere.
She stomped down hard, leaving countless cracks where Luo Qi had just been standing.
Luo Qi got up awkwardly, rolling and crawling.
It seemed that the other party had no intention of wasting words with him, attacking with killing moves right from the start.
"You want to kill me, and I want to kill you. We're even," Luo Qi flexed his wrist, picked up his katana, and said, "So come on, it seems one of us has to lie down here today."
"Clang!!"
She expressed her thoughts through her actions.
Luo Qi brandished his sword and fought back, fearless.
"Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Sparks flew from the clashing blades, like fleeting meteors in the sky.
In just a few seconds, they had exchanged more than a dozen blows, each one a fierce struggle.
To onlookers, the two seemed to be fighting in a flurry of sword and blade lights.
Barely parrying a strike aimed at his throat one moment, attacking the opponent's weak point the next, this wasn't a simple back-and-forth. If they couldn't gain enough advantage, they might be overwhelmed by a snowballing momentum, their defenses collapsing, and die on the streets amidst a storm of assaults.
The mantis blade was slippery and sharp.
It was like those venomous snakes lurking in the shadows, waiting for their prey to pass by—there was no shortage of careless prey buried in the jungle.
Perhaps skilled hunters could avoid such dangers, but what if they had to face a swift and deadly cheetah-like snake?
She wanted to not only deliver a fatal blow but also to snap your neck with her teeth and then tear you apart.
Luo Qi had never seen such an enemy before.
This wasn't just a tough opponent; it was dangerous, so dangerous that any misstep could cost him his head.
She shook off her half-remaining prosthetic eye, tore off the cumbersome armored vest, and charged at him without dodging, screaming.
"Clang—!"
With both hands, Luo Qi swung his sword, barely managing to repel the incoming blade.
Each head-on collision felt like he was clashing against a machine, and his hands began to tremble with fatigue.
This wasn't going to work! If he continued like this, the frenzied enemy would show no signs of exhaustion, and he would be the first to fall...
*Splurt...!*
The willow-leaf-shaped katana flipped in the air, its blade alternating between light and shadow, finally landing on the ground.
Luo Qi's hands remained in the position of gripping the hilt, his fingertips trembling slightly.
He opened his mouth, muttering, wanting to say something, but in the end, a crimson trail flowed from the corner of his mouth.
An icy sting pierced his chest and abdomen, chilling him to the bone.
"Shh...!!!"
She pulled out the bloodstained mantis blade.
Blood scattered like maple leaves in the wind, staining the ground.
Luo Qi hunched over, slowly knelt down, and then fell to the ground with a thud.
"Can you feel it? Can you feel life leaving your body?" She put away her mantis blade, not caring that it was still covered in blood. "The blood is still flowing, but life is gradually being extinguished."
The night was long, just like this rain, drizzling down from dusk to midnight.
The rainwater flowing along the road washed away her filth and bloodstains.
Beneath the tattered clothes, it didn't seem like skin, but rather battle-scarred armor.
She leaned against the roadside, gazing at the lights of countless homes and the dense, bustling high-rises. At this moment, after the scalding madness of life had faded, everything seemed pale.
This was a worthy opponent, not a good enemy.
She recalled that brief yet seemingly endless battle, feeling a slight resurgence of warmth in her chest.
She was like a poisoned insect grasping at medicine, a doomed person trapped in a quagmire clutching at an unknown straw, or a moth stumbling headfirst into a flame.
In the city of night, she had lost everything.
She slowly walked back, looking at Luo Qi lying silently on the ground, her eyes showing a different shade of emotion.
It was the first time someone could still smile after seeing her enraged. It wasn't mockery, nor a bitter smile, nor even a cold one, but a pure, barely restrained grin.
In the city of night, he could still smile.
Under her blade, he still had the mood to smile.
What an... unreasonable person.
"Plip."
A pneumatic injector was tossed onto the ground next to his ear.
"…Target lost, I repeat, target lost."
…
Finally, she left. Finally, she left. Finally, she freaking left!
Luo Qi's face, with an expression like he had eaten feces, finally broke down, unable to maintain the appearance of serenity and weakness.
In fact, he wasn't dead at all!
Although that woman's blow was big, hard, long, and thick, and he couldn't handle it in one go...
But!!
He was Luo Qi, after all. How could he die so easily?
This was called sensing danger and quickly devising a clever plan to deceive and escape, following Sun Tzu's Art of War's 1551st technique—playing dead.
He didn't expect that every member of the terrorist response team was a monster, and she saw through his ruse in an instant.
But why did she toss a bottle of medicine to him?
Luo Qi slowly moved up from the ground, "Aiyo" he slumped by the roadside, wailing in pain.
Is that person sick or what?
Stabbing first, then giving a bottle of medicine?
Is this the "hit with a stick and then give a date" ultimate evolved version, exclusively supplied by the Night City terrorist response team?
Looking at the greenish "Effort Cure" in his hand, Luo Qi thought for a moment and pocketed it.
Fortunately, V and the others left early; otherwise, if they encountered this crazy woman, even Moyle wouldn't last a few rounds against her.
"Hisss... The ground is so freaking cold."
Soaked all over and stained with various shades of blood, Luo Qi looked like a survivor who crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, miserable beyond belief.
The wound in the middle of his stomach still hurt badly, but his constitution was astonishing. This "small injury" didn't even require him to find Old Wei; he could just rest at home, and it would heal by tomorrow morning. Although he had been lying on the ground for a long time, he hadn't lost much blood.
That's right, this was the reason Luo Qi dared to fight life and death in Night City.
Without the protagonist's halo, one's fate in Night City would be to serve as equipment fodder for others (criticizing all major gangs). Otherwise, where would the negative 29.24% population growth rate come from?
When he escaped from the Indigo Blue Building earlier, he even considered taking a bullet for Jack. Fortunately, in the end, it wasn't necessary, and everyone was happy.
As for what to do now...