In the Badlands, on the ruins of a long-abandoned highway.
Li Wei and his special operations team were engaged in tactical resistance, using the rusted wrecks of several trucks half-buried in the sand as cover.
This six-person team was well-equipped with Kang Tao's latest smart firearms.
The miniature sensors integrated into their weapons were perfectly synchronized with the team members' enhanced neural links, granting them extraordinary shooting precision.
At this moment, several smart bullets arced subtly, precisely bypassing the edges of cover, tracking and locking onto enemies attempting to flank them.
However, facing more than fifteen experienced and heavily armed mercenaries suppressing them from the front and flanking them from the sides, even such advanced equipment struggled to completely overcome the absolute numerical disadvantage.
"Captain! Enemies are flanking on the right!" a team member shouted, his smart ammunition kicking up a precise spray of dust on the sand, forcing two approaching enemies to hastily retreat.
"Jiang, cover the right flank! Wang, prepare smoke grenades, we're moving to the scree slope behind us!" Li Wei's voice was as calm as ever.
No sooner had he spoken than a smart bullet from his assault rifle arced subtly through the air, precisely hitting a mercenary in the distance who had just shouldered a grenade launcher.
A bloodstain from flying shrapnel marred his forehead, but his gaze remained as sharp as a blade.
He knew that if they continued to stalemate, even if they weren't completely wiped out, they would inevitably suffer casualties, leading to the mission's complete failure.
The NC branch's interception plan this time was despicable, yet extraordinarily effective.
Just as he took a deep breath, preparing to order the smoke grenades to be thrown for a high-risk forced breakthrough, the battlefield situation suddenly changed.
A blurred figure, moving at a speed imperceptible to human eyes, abruptly cut into the flank of the battlefield—precisely the area with the densest mercenary firepower.
The figure was impossibly fast, like a phantom tearing through reality, so much so that most mercenaries didn't even perceive her arrival.
Until—
"Ugh!"
"What was that?!"
"My arm!"
Screams and exclamations erupted almost simultaneously. Three mercenaries on the flank had their gun-wielding arms severed at the shoulder before anyone could react.
The cuts were incredibly smooth; blood didn't even have time to spray before the figure had already swept past.
They only had time to feel a slight breeze, followed by agonizing pain.
"Enemy attack! It's a high-speed cybernetic!" The mercenary leader finally realized what had happened, yelling hoarsely as he frantically turned his gun.
But it was all too late.
Morris' figure flickered through the crowd; her Sandevistan System wasn't even running at full power, only maintaining a level sufficient to completely suppress these mercenaries' reaction speeds.
The low-frequency hum of the Sonic Blade as it unsheathed was almost inaudible, yet carried deadly precision.
Every one of her movements was optimally calculated: sometimes precisely severing the ammunition feed lines of enemy weapons, sometimes destroying critical joints of exoskeletons, sometimes stunning targets with just the right amount of force.
No wasted movements, no wasted energy; each strike ensured the target instantly lost combat capability.
This wasn't a battle; it was a precise dismantling operation.
"It's…it's her! The one who appeared at Arasaka Tower…" A Kang Tao team member recognized the distinctive fighting style, his voice filled with unconcealed shock.
Li Wei immediately made a decision: "Cease fire! Everyone stay alert, avoid friendly fire!"
The battlefield situation was completely reversed in a mere ten seconds.
The mercenaries, who had initially held an absolute advantage, were now more than halved in number.
The survivors were completely awed by this inhuman fighting style, hunkering down behind cover, losing even the courage to peek out and observe.
Morris stopped in the center of the battlefield, her crimson optical sensors calmly sweeping the area, confirming that remaining threats had been eliminated.
She turned towards Li Wei's team, her synthesized voice steady and emotionless: "By master's command, I am here to escort you to Wasteland Town. Please follow me."
Without any explanation or superfluous movements, she turned and walked towards Wasteland Town, as if everything that had just happened was merely routine cleanup.
Li Wei took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart, and quickly gave tactical hand signals: "Everyone follow, maintain formation!"
The team members immediately tightened their formation and followed closely.
As they passed the groaning mercenaries lying on the ground, everyone involuntarily held their breath—was this the power capable of destroying Arasaka Tower? A single person, in an instant, resolving a seemingly hopeless situation?
The scent of blood and gunpowder in the air, contrasted with the calm, almost cruel, figure walking away, left an indelible mark on their hearts.
—
Outside Wasteland Town's perimeter security zone, members of the Wraiths advance team had witnessed the brief but heart-stopping battle in its entirety through high-magnification binoculars and motion sensors.
A strange silence fell over the communication channel, broken only by the faint hum of equipment.
"My god…that speed…" a young soldier unconsciously muttered, his fingers tightening slightly on the observation device.
"Maintain channel discipline!" the captain immediately snapped in a low voice, though his own Adam's apple involuntarily bobbed.
He quickly connected to the encrypted dedicated line with Dogtown command.
"Colonel Hansen, this is Advance Team One. We just witnessed a…demonstration." The captain chose his words carefully, his voice carrying an uncalm tremor. "A high-speed combat unit appeared in the target area and dismantled a fifteen-person mercenary team in ten seconds."
He took a deep breath and continued his report, his tone becoming more serious: "According to our observations, the unit's speed performance completely exceeds known parameters. It's at least 30% faster than Militech's most advanced Sandevistan System, and the key is—"
The captain paused, as if confirming the conclusion he was about to state: "The key is its sustained combat time. From insertion to clear-out, the system consistently maintained peak output, showing no signs of the overload typical of conventional Sandevistan Systems. It looks…like it has no burden at all."
Silence hung on the other end of the channel for a moment before Hansen's voice returned, with clear gravity: "Confirm observation results?"
"Confirmed, Colonel. Sensor logs have been uploaded. This is not any cybernetic performance we recognize." The captain's gaze involuntarily returned to the now-still figure in the distance, "I completely understand now why NUSA chose to cooperate with them."
After ending the communication, the captain looked around at his team members.
Everyone was still immersed in the shock of what they had just witnessed.
They finally intuitively realized what kind of existence they were about to cooperate with—or rather, provide perimeter security services for.
That wasn't a simple technological advantage; it was a fundamental generational gap.