Reed's brief appearance was like a blurry yet sharp lens, reflecting his past self in his mind, while also highlighting his current predicament more clearly.
He was no longer a soldier who could fight for some grand ideal—whether true or false—nor was he a mercenary who fought for survival and eurodollars in the streets and alleys.
So now, what exactly was he?
A sharper weapon in his boss' hand?
Or a trapped beast, even with superhuman strength, still caught in the eternal cycle of war?
Before the fog of his thoughts could clear, several twinkling lights suddenly appeared on the distant horizon, followed by a dull and dense roar of engines, brutally interrupting his introspection.
"Attention! Enemy units detected! Frontal direction!" In the comms channel, the Wraiths front-line observer's voice suddenly rose, carrying an urgent warning.
All distractions were instantly cleared.
Maine's crimson optical lens focused sharply, locking onto the distant threat.
In his vision, dozens of crudely modified armed vehicles, like rabid dogs unleashed, kicked up towering dust and charged towards the defense line with an unreserved ferocity.
Arasaka's emblem was roughly spray-painted or etched on their bodies, and some vehicles were clearly rigged with bulky explosives.
The personnel on board were haphazardly equipped; some wore tattered corporate uniforms, others were even in civilian clothes, but a uniform expression of madness mixed with desperation was etched on their faces. They opened their mouths in silence, as if letting out a soundless battle cry, their weapons already spewing chaotic bullet rain towards the defense line.
"They're here!" Maine growled, the synthetic skin on his left arm sliding open as the refined plasma cannon began to gather a faint blue glow: "Rebecca, suppress the front! Dorio, watch the flanks! Pilar, burn those who get too close!"
The battle ignited instantly.
On the Wraiths' position, light and heavy firepower simultaneously erupted, weaving into a deadly barrage.
The first few Arasaka vehicles in the vanguard were almost immediately torn apart by the dense hail of bullets, turning into burning wreckage.
However, the subsequent vehicles did not slow down at all; instead, they charged even more frantically, accelerating over the wreckage of their comrades.
Rebecca's heavy bolter roared chillingly, each boom accompanied by the complete disintegration of an assault vehicle, sending metal fragments and human tissue flying everywhere.
Dorio stood like a rock on the front line of the defense, her tremor generator operating at full power, sending visible shockwaves that uprooted vehicles attempting to ram them and slammed them back to the ground.
Pilar's flamethrower continuously spewed viscous, eerie blue promethium flames, forming a wall of death in front of the position, turning any enemy attempting to cross into screaming charcoals.
Maine's movements were precise and efficient; each low hum of his left arm's plasma cannon sent out a dazzling azure orb of light, instantly vaporizing a huge, molten-edged hole in the target vehicle.
He was like a perfect killing machine, but deep inside, the scene before him constantly overlapped and intertwined with fragments of past war memories.
It was the same charge and death, only the enemies before him had abandoned all tactics, leaving only the most primitive madness.
Just then, a distinctly different, heavy roar came from the flank of the position.
Two "assault squad - type vii" power armor suits belonging to Lazarus Squad finally activated.
Their nearly three-meter-tall steel bodies stomped the ground under the drive of hydraulic systems, and the auxiliary thrusters on their backs erupted in short blue flames, carrying them with a swiftness unsuited to their massive size, like two heavy hammers smashing into the scattered flank of the Arasaka remnants.
Their movements were simple, brutal, and efficient.
The automated turret on one power armor's shoulder briefly whined, its precise bursts tearing apart several Arasaka soldiers who had just peeked out from behind burning vehicle wreckage, along with their cover.
The other was even more direct, its massive metal feet trampling mercilessly, crushing an enemy screaming and charging, laden with explosives, along with the detonator in his arms, into a bloody pulp.
Against these steel giants, the small-caliber weapons in the hands of the Arasaka remnants seemed ridiculous.
Bullets striking the composite armor only sparked sporadically, unable to even delay them for half a step.
A rapid volley from the multi-barreled grenade launcher at the end of one power armor's mechanical arm, and the smoke cloud of explosions instantly engulfed seven or eight enemies clustered together.
The other wielded a heavy power claw, tearing a an armed pickup truck attempting to turn and ram, along with its occupants in the cab, in half as if a hot knife through butter.
The brief charge of these two power armor suits into the enemy ranks was like boulders rolling into an ant colony; in just over ten seconds, they completely crushed an Arasaka assault squad of a dozen people on the flank, leaving behind a ground littered with mingled flesh and metal wreckage.
"They're crazy!" Pilar shouted in the channel, maintaining his flamethrower, his voice a mix of combat exhilaration and a hint of bewilderment at such a suicidal charge.
"They're committing suicide," Maine calmly replied, his plasma cannon humming again, directly vaporizing the front end of a truck attempting to ram a power armor's base model, "for some twisted concept of loyalty."
The battle was brutal and short.
The fanatical assault of the Arasaka suicide squad quickly disintegrated under the Wraiths' dense firepower, Maine's crew's extraordinary strikes, and Lazarus power armor's dimensional crushing.
Like surging waves crashing against an indestructible reef, they were utterly shattered.
When the last Arasaka vehicle was precisely blown up by Rebecca's shot in the distance, turning into an expanding fireball, the battlefield finally gradually fell silent.
Only the crackling of burning wreckage remained, along with the faint, fading moans of scattered wounded.
Maine stood behind cover, looking at the hellish scene before him, and slowly retracted his plasma cannon arm.
The air was thick with a nauseating mixture of gunpowder, ozone, burning rubber, and charred flesh.
A Wraiths sergeant major strode over, his face streaked with sweat-carved furrows in the dust, his eyes a mix of post-combat exhilaration and a subtle, unnoticeable trepidation.
"Good fight, Mr. Maine! You really helped a lot!" His voice was half a tone higher than usual, trembling from the recent life-and-death struggle.
Maine merely nodded almost imperceptibly in response.
His gaze swept past the still burning, crackling wreckage before him, towards the blurry skyline of Night City, and further out to the dark sea where the white whale might be lurking.
This was merely a prelude.
A reconnaissance-in-force, wrapped in despair and fanaticism, a cold attrition.
Arasaka's true main force—those well-trained soldiers and genuine steel beasts—remained hidden behind the scenes, yet to make their appearance.
And he, his squad, everyone here, had been mercilessly drawn into this vast vortex woven from corporate ambition, long-standing hatred, and deeper conspiracies.
War never changes.
And he, it seemed, had never truly escaped this killing field.
Solomon Reed's words, mocking fate, "Take care of yourself, old man," still seemed to whisper in his ears.
He unconsciously clenched his fist, his metal knuckles making a faint yet clear grinding sound in the silence.
No matter for what, no matter where he was, survival was the only and eternal truth at this moment.