As he approached the corner, Jackie instantly sped up and vanished into the darkness.
Joseph, who was chasing him, grinned ferociously at this and accelerated his pursuit.
Jackie stayed behind that corner, quietly listening to the gradually approaching sound. He had no intention of launching a surprise attack.
The next moment, he raised his hand to block in front of himself.
As he expected, Joseph wasn't a complete idiot. He threw a punch directly at the corner where Jackie was, as a preemptive strike.
A muffled thud rang out. Jackie might not be able to go head-to-head with this modified monster, but he could certainly take a punch from him.
You should know that at the Devil Boxing Club, even those Animals gang's drug-enhanced monsters had to be wary of his fists.
Parrying the incoming punch, Jackie shifted his body to absorb the force.
Then, he ducked down and quickly closed in on the opponent's body, lowering his shoulder and ramming it fiercely into the guy's chest.
Joseph had been chasing all the way, and his stance wasn't stable. Jackie's powerful collision directly knocked him to the ground.
What greeted him was a clean and precise roundhouse kick from Jackie, striking him on the head just as he landed.
The damage wasn't great, but the effect was excellent.
"It seems that even among boars, you're the less intelligent one."
Dropping that line, Jackie turned back the way he came.
"Ah! Ah!
You bastard, don't let me catch you.
I'm going to twist your head off and shove it up your ass."
Joseph, his mind clouded by rage, roared, and plunged his bionic arm directly into the nearby wall, pulling himself up.
But Jackie's escape speed clearly slowed down this time. He clutched one of his arms, stumbling forward.
Joseph noticed that it was that very arm that had just blocked his punch.
Grinning ferociously, he quickly gave chase.
Jackie was naturally not injured by that punch from his opponent.
In fact, due to absorbing the force, there was no pain in his arm anymore.
He did this for two reasons: first, to buy Arthur more time, and second, he had to make the guy behind him believe that he was desperate and had no choice but to hide in that room.
Upon reaching the room, Jackie leaned against the wall next to the broken hole, looking pained, and groaned in agony.
Grinning, Joseph approached and punched Jackie into the room.
Jackie "fully" raised his arm, barely managing to block it.
He flew backward, crashing into a pile of debris, which also masked the strange sizzling sound in the darkness.
Taking two large strides inside, Joseph suppressed the excitement in his heart and once again opened his raspy, gong-like voice.
"Are you ready, you bastard? Are you ready to have your head twisted off?"
For him, killing was inherently a pleasurable act, let alone killing this rat that had been constantly jumping around in front of him.
Standing in front of the little rat, Joseph raised both of his arms high, intending to smash the head of the guy in front of him.
"Oh, by the way, where's that other rat, even smaller than you, next to you? Did he abandon you and run off?"
Perhaps feeling that he hadn't mocked him enough, he opened his mouth again.
However, this attack was truly a bit weak.
Arthur, hidden in the ruins above, had a strange look on his face, watching the opponent's hands, which were almost extended in front of him. Was he looking for him?
Arthur swept aside the clothes covering the top of the cable and directly placed the sparking wire into the opponent's palm.
A hoarse voice sounded in Joseph's ear.
"I heard you were looking for me."
Before he could react, something was shoved into his bionic arm.
The next moment, he knew nothing else.
Seeing the opponent fall straight down, with matching sparks appearing on both of his bionic arms, Arthur quickly dodged to the side.
He still held the insulation of this cable in his hand, pulling its "tip" back from the "straight man's" hand on the ground, making it suspended again.
Drawing the prelude from his waist, Arthur fired three shots at the guy stiff at his feet, each bullet hitting his forehead, splattering three bursts of blood.
Then he looked up at the sky, found the root of the cable in his hand, and used the remaining three shots to sever it.
The cable in Arthur's hand fell limply to the ground, and sparks reappeared overhead.
"Jackie, are you alright?"
With everything settled, Arthur walked towards Jackie, who was off to the side.
But his words received no response.
His heart skipped a beat, and the relaxed smile that had just been on Arthur's face instantly vanished. He rushed over to check on the situation.
He saw Jackie lying stiffly on several filing cabinets, motionless, only his eyes rolling around ceaselessly.
Arthur's mouth twitched at this sight, and he finally couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Jackie must have been too close, causing the electricity to travel from the ground to him.
Fortunately, the problem wasn't serious; he was just stiff all over and needed to recover.
After a great deal of effort, Jackie finally got up from the ground, but his speech and movements were still clumsy.
After patting his shoulder, the two continued to search the next floor.
Fortunately, there was no city-wall-like dividing door between the first and second basements.
There wasn't even a door; just behind the strongman was a descending staircase.
The bright white light gradually replaced the darkness from before, indicating that the power here was independent of the entire factory building.
Several neatly dressed people in white lab coats were guarding the stairwell. These guys were unarmed, yet they all exuded an air of confidence.
The young man leading them stepped forward as Arthur and Jackie descended, saying in a strong voice,
"This is company territory. No unauthorized entry. I hope you don't bring trouble upon yourselves."
Arthur squinted at the guy in front of him, momentarily unsure—he couldn't figure out where this guy's confidence came from.
"Permission? Whose permission? Your permission?"
Pulling the prelude from his waist, Arthur looked at the guy in front of him with interest.
"Our general manager here, Dr. Bane. Only he has the authority to grant access."
The guy actually explained it in all seriousness.
Holding the gun halfway up, Arthur's heavy revolver spun rapidly between his fingers, like a butterfly fluttering in his hand.
His voice was neither warm nor cold.
"So, who gave you permission to hide here and conduct human experiments?
Did I permit it?"
As he spoke, the gun in his hand stopped as if braking, its dark muzzle pointing at the young man's forehead.
"You dare to kill me? I am an employee of Biotechnica, I..."
A gunshot interrupted his barking.
As for the company he trusted, for the sake of laboratory secrecy, they didn't even arrange a Trauma Team membership for him.
Looking at the remaining useless people who were finally panicked, Arthur didn't even bother to speak, sending them all to hell.
As if strolling leisurely, Arthur and Jackie searched room by room.
His hand on the gun became steadier and steadier, even turning angry.
The first laboratory's objective was to strip a complete human nervous system.
They used high-energy rays, chemical agents, and various other methods to tie the still-living people into instruments, stripping their flesh and blood while they were alive.
This was a delicate task, allowing no room for error.
But if one considered the test subjects, one could imagine what this precision truly represented.
In the subsequent laboratories, the level of depravity was no less than that of the first.
The shocking evil silenced both Arthur and Jackie.
It wasn't until they found the girl in the locked room that their heavy hearts could finally ease a little.
"Don't try to trick me, you bad guys! I'd rather die than open the door!"
The little girl's voice was tearful, and she adamantly refused to cooperate with the two people outside the door.
Arthur, with a helpless look on his face, patiently explained.
"Don't be anxious, we were really hired by your dad to find you."
"How can you prove it? Forget it, I don't believe you at all.
How could Dad have so much money to hire such capable Edgerunners?"
It seemed the little girl understood the outside situation to some extent.
However, since she was willing to communicate, it proved that she was actually hesitant, unsure whether to believe them or not.
This was good news, meaning the chance of a tragedy was smaller.
"Jessica, right? We know your name. Does that count as proof?"
In the darkness inside the room, the little girl shouted.
"No! Those bad guys stole my netrunner's access port, and they know my information too."
The next moment, she heard that hoarse voice outside again.
"Then there's nothing we can do. What do you suggest?"
Listening, she pouted and started to cry again.
Jessica couldn't forget the horrifying scream she heard when she was brought here.
But, what if it was true? She could reunite with her dad.
Biting her lip, she wiped away her tears and shouted again.
"Then, you step back! If you dare to come closer, I'll... I'll kill myself by crashing into the wall!"
She was actually editing an overclocking overheat hack in her brain-computer, preparing to end it all if the door was forced open.
Unfortunately, such a change happened before she finished it. There was nothing she could do. Although hitting the wall would hurt more, she couldn't give up this last hope.
Thinking this, she looked at the nearby wall again, her eyes welling up with tears.