"Hey, old man is talking, hic... you... didn’t hear ?"
A young man from an underground gang hiccupped from the beer and tossed away the can, looking displeased at the middle-aged woman by the trash heap.
"Are you... talking to ?"
Only then did the woman, overwheld by the strong sll of alcohol, realize that the guy was actually calling her...
At first, the woman was a bit scared.
After all, the gang mber’s aggressive tone easily made one think he must have so formidable background.
Nest City is full of hidden talents; being cautious is an instinctual lesson ingrained in ordinary residents.
However, that cautious feeling disappeared without a trace when the woman saw the gang emblem on the young man’s chest.
What replaced it was visible contempt.
"Oh... I thought it was so big shot declaring their grand opinion."
"Turns out, it’s just a third-rate lackey from a second-rate gang."
"Do you know who I am?"
The middle-aged woman proudly raised the purse in her hand and smiled, "I’m a formal employee at an Upper District club, the lover of the Deputy Captain of the Zone G Security Team..."
"Bang—!"
Suddenly, the young gang man’s lips parted, whispering the word "Die"... and then the middle-aged woman’s right eye exploded, bursting into a spray of blood...
Her electronic contact lens had exploded!
"Ah...!"
The pain of having her eyeball torn instantly surged into the woman’s brain, causing her to collapse to the ground and scream, clutching her eye.
This heart-wrenching scream and explosion naturally grabbed the attention of most present.
People stared blankly at the woman with blood all over her face, then looked at the young man, seemingly realizing who the perpetrator was.
But the young man didn’t care about the suspicious gazes from the crowd.
He let out two cold laughs, lifted his chin, and revealed his neck.
On his rough neck was a blue-green chip...
This thing was deeply embedded in his skin, threading through muscle, lodged in his vocal cords, with only a tiny part still exposed outside... emitting a faint glow.
"A semi-embedded Hacker Chip... that’s prosthetic equipnt!"
Yun You squinted slightly, recognizing the origin of the chip.
"No wonder this guy could ’stare’ and blow up that lady’s electronic contact lens... Electronics produced in small workshops can’t withstand the invasion of prosthetics."
"Sigh... I wish I had that thing."
The girl thought silently, unable to stop herself from daydreaming again.
The so-called prosthetic equipnt refers to those electronic devices installed on people.
They co in various forms, from wearable equipnt like chas or exoskeletons to parts implanted internally for modifying the human’s frail body, representing the most distinctive tech products of this era.
Prosthetic equipnt functions vary widely, from enhancing physical abilities allowing one to lift objects thousands of tis their weight to hacking into a bank’s network with a finger twitch, stealing more in seconds than one could earn in a lifeti.
Yun You even heard that in the secret underground market, there’s a class of dangerous [Combat Prosthetic], implanted in people who can even contend with powerful Apprentice Death Gods.
Of course, the girl wanted such prosthetic, dread of it...
But the problem is, products from companies always reflect their price.
No one would give away such products for free just because she is pitiful.
Capitalism would never do sothing so shaful.
As for saving up to buy one... that’s even more unrealistic.
The cheapest second-hand prosthetics in the black market sell for sky-high prices in the tens of thousands, even if Yun You worked half her life, she wouldn’t be able to afford any useful prosthetic.
That’s why she never considered owning such things in the past, only secretly browsing online at night just to quench her thirst.
Now, being able to see prosthetic equipnt used up close was quite a rare opportunity.
She lowered her breathing, continuing to observe the cocky gang youth from afar.
"I don’t care who you are, whose damn girlfriend you are..."
The young man sneered, jabbing his thumb at the gang emblem on his chest, his arrogance boundless.
"Here, in the territory of the ’Jackal’, second-in-command of the Witch Demon Gang, a cop without even a position... amounts to nothing!"
He audaciously declared his na.
"Stupid won like you are truly rare..."
With that, the young man called Jackal leaped down from the trash heap, stepping over the arms and legs of several discarded robots, and slowly walked up to the woman.
He scrutinized the person lying in a pool of blood, his gaze flickering, finally lingering on the woman’s chest and lower abdon for a mont, his murky eyes revealing a hint of amusent.
"Hmm..."
Jackal seed to have noticed sothing.
"Interesting... you emptied half of your intestines and replaced them with heated electronic silicone. Your cop lover has quite the kink..."
With that, Jackal suddenly curled his lips into a sowhat dangerous smile.
"Hey, stinky woman."
"Say... if I hacked into your electronic silicone now and detonated it from the inside out... would that lover of yours still like you?"
"He probably would, right? Given his weird fetish, the more holes you have, he’d probably accept them all?"
Jackal spoke these chilling words with a light-hearted tone.
"Mmm... mmm...!"
The woman, long pained beyond speech, could only clutch her face, trembling on the ground.
She believed Jackal would actually do it!
In the Bottom City of Nest City, law and order rarely constrain these gang hoodlums.
Bloody fights and endless shootouts are the norms here.
She had spent so long in the glamorous Upper District that she had forgotten how cheap life was in this wretched place.
One or two deaths were just "entertainnt" here.
Fear engulfed the woman’s senses.
She struggled to turn her head, looking towards other people trapped in the alley, seeking help.
But Jackal just glanced at them lightly, making these bottom-level citizens lower their heads, not daring to speak a word.
How could ordinary people dare offend gang mbers with prosthetic equipnt?
It’s only natural.
And Yun You also saw Jackal’s intentions.
This guy was "establishing authority."
When gang mbers arrive in unfamiliar places, they like to pick an unlucky fool from the crowd to beat up, thus establishing their authority and making others hail them as leaders.
Jackal was doing just that now.
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