Li Pan rode with Chengzi in her grocery-hauling GALENA G240 toward the Peace District, watching the lights flash past in the underground expressway tunnel.
"You know why they call it the Peace District?"
Chengzi glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
"…Because it was planned along the Pacific coast?"
"Heh. They say when Magellan circumnavigated the globe and crossed the ocean, he spent three whole months without a single storm. When they reached Luzon, the crew cheered—this really was one hell of a 'peaceful' ocean.
…But looking at it now, maybe they were just lucky. Most people aren't that lucky."
"They teach you ancient history like that in the military academy?"
Li Pan shook his head and forwarded Chengzi the message from the priest.
"Name, home address, and social security number. Please help me look it up."
Chengzi nodded. "Your girlfriend?"
Li Pan: "A friend's family."
Chengzi: "I'll have some colleagues keep an eye out. Don't take it too hard—things like this don't just stop."
"A dogfight?"
"Mm. The old industrial district is completely dead. Takamagahara has been operating there for years; they've got too many remnants and their asking price is too high—no deal was ever going to happen.
"Since the Ye Corporation wouldn't compromise and accept their terms, they've decided to start fresh and build a new production base. This isn't just some bargaining-table threat. The Peace District's planning offered all kinds of incentives to attract skilled workers and settlers—even I was tempted.
"But this kind of move is like slipping a noose around your own neck. The Old Capital's corporate clans won't just sit and watch. Tonight's 'Red Hound Unleashed' riot is probably just the opening act."
Li Pan listened in silence, gazing out at the sea beyond the cross-sea bridge.
Thanks to heavy pollution, the Pacific had long been split apart by massive trash continents and stretches of crimson algae. Only the waters near the central city—and the private resort islands—were fenced off by the conglomerates with high-polymer membranes, using offworld-colony tech to create artificial ecosystems. The elite could still enjoy sun, sand, and blue seas on this rotting planet.
For everyone else, what awaited them was what now spread before Li Pan's eyes as Chengzi's G240 emerged from the expressway tunnel: beneath the deep blackness lay a blood-colored, stinking sea of rot.
From afar, it looked like a slum sprawling to the horizon—a mire of industrial wastewater and fuel sludge, topped with a blanket of plastic debris, stretching unbroken along the port coast into an endless trash continent.
The tax bureau did levy pollution fines, but the corporations had crunched the numbers—paying fines was cheaper than upgrading facilities. Some even hired gangs to "steal" the toxic waste, so long as they weren't caught. Where it ended up wasn't their problem.
And now, with Zone 0791 desperate for economic recovery and jobs, the police didn't enforce too strictly. In a world this polarized between rich and poor, few people still cared about environmental issues.
Far off, Li Pan saw a line of flames at the edge of the trash island. Not torches—an oil refinery burning bright. The fireline stretched across the horizon, thick smoke blotting out the sky.
A warzone. The Peace District's war had already begun.
Chengzi's pupils flickered; she frowned and sent Li Pan the NCHC data.
"Not good. My colleague says there's still scattered fighting in the Peace District. Your friend's address is in the warzone. We can't get in to clear it right now."
Li Pan nodded. "It's fine. As long as I have the map, I'll go in myself and bring back their remains."
Chengzi tried to dissuade him. "You really won't wait until daylight? Once it's declared a warzone, the local security systems and IoT all go offline. The Cerberus troops can use heavy weapons on civilians without it ever being recorded! You don't understand—there's a level-seven soldier in that unit!"
Li Pan shrugged, unclipping the nametag from his collar.
"Even better. I may just be there to collect a body, but I don't mind killing a couple of people along the way."
Seeing he wouldn't be swayed, Chengzi sighed.
"Just… be careful."
At the border, the useless NCPA had shut down the highway exits and huddled at their checkpoint. NCHC rescue convoys had to set up temporary camps at the service area, waiting for clearance.
Li Pan got out, intending to say goodbye to Chengzi and follow the map to collect the remains. But she stopped him.
"Someone can go in with you. Ever heard of the Cyberpunks?"
"That band of mercs?"
The infamous Cyberpunks—free mercenaries defying the system, the corps, and authority, living at society's edge. Survivors of corporate wars, failed entrepreneurs, street tech geniuses, lawless wanderers of the wild—legends who scorned authority and refused to bow to corporate rule.
Well… maybe they were talked up too much. In truth, they were mostly unaffiliated mercenaries—lone wolves or ad hoc crews—taking jobs from any faction's fixers, dealing with all corners of Night City.
Corps didn't like these strays, but tossed them bones from time to time to avoid direct clashes with each other or with the security bureau—preventing tensions from flaring into another all-out war.
These "Cyberpunks" were both the vanguard and the buffer zone of corporate war.
"I know some people in the scene—'Ghouls,' the scavenger type who go into warzones to collect bodies, weapons, and gear. They can take you part of the way. More people means more safety."
"Good. Thanks."
Through Chengzi's introduction, Li Pan met Wallenstein.
One glance was enough: a veteran who'd crawled through mountains of corpses. Artificial muscle fibers, ceramic ballistic armor, gorilla arms, high-explosive grenade launcher—a solid level-four merc.
The man gave Li Pan a single look, seemed to sense a kindred spirit, and nodded to Chengzi.
"…Have you killed before?" Chengzi asked curiously. "First time I've seen him treat a newcomer politely."
"I'll buy you a drink sometime," Li Pan replied with a grin, parting ways with Chengzi to join Wallenstein's team.
The Ghoul crew was about twenty people, thrown together on the spot to scavenge in a pack.
A dogfight in a Red Hound warzone always came with risk and reward. Odds were high you'd be wiped out by Cerberus mechs in a single blast—but if you scored level-four, -five, or even -seven weapons or gear, you'd hit the jackpot overnight.
The Cyberpunks had their own code, and veterans didn't waste words. Wallenstein sent the battle map straight over.
"Simple rule: finders keepers, no stealing. Break it and we settle it right here.
"I'll cover you for Chengzi's sake. Our coordinates are near Battlefield Three. I wait fifteen minutes—no more."
Since Li Pan had come in a hurry, he rented spare gear from them: a level-four military-alloy plate carrier, level-four helmet, gas mask, trauma kit, inhaler, pain inhibitors, multi-tool entrenching shovel—nearly 2,000 for the lot.
Yes—rented. Survive, and you return it.
Wallenstein also sold him a magazine of seven rounds—150 each, 1,050 total, knocked down to 1,200 cash for the set. Li Pan, being a military academy grad, knew it was worth it.
"These are my custom level-five AP imploders," Wallenstein explained. "Cerberus troops wear level-five SBS exosuits with shock-absorbing self-healing bio-undersuits. Only custom ammo does real damage. Aim for the head."
"No special rounds for Red Hounds?" Li Pan asked.
"No need. Red Hounds have limited supplies and usually avoid us.
"But they're mostly ex–Border Pest Control veterans—they clear the field when they act. They won't spare scavengers.
"If you see something too ugly in there, try not to puke in my mask."
Li Pan nodded. He knew what that meant.
The Border Pest Control Units were perhaps the deadliest infantry in human history—usually fighting extraterrestrials, but also alien civilizations, inhuman entities, lab-born biohazards, rogue mutant societies. Anything capable of threatening human survival was "pest" to be exterminated.
They weren't "defenders of humanity" though—they'd wiped out plenty of parallel Earths too.
Because "pest" was defined by the Public Safety Council of corporate giants. Anything profitable was a "beneficial species"; anything that could cause losses was "pest."
To a Cerberus frontliner, everything alive in the Peace District was vermin—vermin had no rank. See it, kill it.
Li Pan donned his gear and followed Wallenstein's crew over the elevated roadway, slipping past minefields, turrets, and drone patrols into the Peace District's center.
The Ye Corporation's plan was for a mixed industrial–residential new city: factories, apartments, malls, streets, and overpasses forming a steel jungle—highly complex terrain.
Gunfire and explosions echoed in the burning city. To avoid PR disasters, Cerberus' riot suppression went unmonitored; upon entry, Li Pan's AI assistant disconnected from the Net. He had only offline maps and the Ghoul drones' subnet feeds to navigate.
This kind of dense urban combat without electronic support was every veteran's nightmare—a single burst from a hidden gun emplacement could wipe your squad. And you couldn't fly too many drones or risk attracting a mobile Cerberus team.
Carefully, slowly, they moved from cover to cover, clearing mines and gathering salvage. It took an hour to reach Battlefield Three.
"Sentinels on guard. Gather loot, then rest twenty minutes," Wallenstein ordered, nodding to Li Pan.
Li Pan split off toward the apartment rented by Big Bear's girlfriend.
Using the molecular blade on his entrenching tool, he hacked through the blast door, climbed to the sixth floor via the fire stairs, and found the unit.
It was carnage—urban warfare AP cluster rounds had been used, the main shell penetrating, then exploding into plasma submunitions that shredded the building into a honeycomb. Residents were obliterated in an instant—bodies burst like eggs in a microwave, flesh and viscera charred into a brown paste on the ceiling, bones scattered everywhere.
Li Pan collected tissue samples, confirmed the ID via dental and health records, and shoveled the remains into an NCHC containment canister. With conditions limited, mother and child went together—he'd ask the priest to place them, with what was left of Big Bear's cybernetics, in a single urn.
NCHC normally burned all collected remains; family could request a small portion for burial.
Li Pan could have asked Chengzi to come later—but he felt it was his duty to do it himself.
No one had asked him to. He just wanted to see.
See if Big Bear's family was truly gone.
See the final fate of most ordinary Night City residents.
He'd seen enough. Time to go.
Back at the rendezvous, he found Wallenstein chatting with a soldier in full black armor—so bulky and reinforced he looked like a robot—smoking a cigar.
Behind the soldier loomed a five-meter, four-legged, four-armed mech like a fat spider: the famed Spider All-Terrain Multipurpose Combat Drone.
As a military academy–trained engineer reservist, Li Pan knew these machines intimately—they were the army's workhorses, adaptable to any environment, mountable with all kinds of weapons to support infantry.
On both soldier and drone gleamed the glowing insignia of a three-headed dog—Cerberus.
As Li Pan stepped from the ruins, the spider drone's targeting laser locked on him, forcibly linking to his neural chip.
[ID confirmed: citizen, corporate employee, social security active.]
[Mental scan: Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue Blue, deviation value 0, safe.]
The drone's guns swung away toward the other Cyberpunks. The Cerberus soldier's cyber-eye swiveled toward Li Pan, then back to Wallenstein.
"Seventy–thirty split. I take seventy. Cash. Now."
Wallenstein shook his head.
"Too high. We still have to reassemble the cyberware before selling it on the black market. Forty at most."
The Cerberus soldier glared.
"You think I'm a corporate dog? Hm? You think I'm bargaining? Hm? Too many people—want me to kill a few right now? Hm?"
Li Pan walked up beside the spider drone, glanced at its spent missile pod, then hefted his entrenching tool, blade humming. One swing split the drone's armor and stabbed straight into its core processor—insta-kill.
As heads turned, "Bang!"—Li Pan drew the Black Kite and blew the soldier's head off.
He stepped forward, split the corpse open with his shovel, ripped out the heart, stuffed it into his dress pants pocket, and walked off with the containment canister on his back.
Wallenstein just stood there, face splattered with brain and blood, jaw slack, cigar falling from his mouth.
.
.
.
⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
🔗 patreon.com/DrManhattanEN