The members of the Chaotic Blade Association were probably stopped at a position over ten meters away, using cars as cover.
At this moment, the Pika truck, as a primary target, had already been riddled like a sieve by Kyoko and Lucy with their authentic rifles firing three-round burst armor-piercing bullets.
But apart from the Chaotic Blade member controlling the machine gun on the back of the Pika truck, only the driver was injured and took cover behind the vehicle.
The others remained unharmed.
Mercer's thrown hand grenade was blown back by a strong wind, ultimately exploding only four or five meters away, narrowly missing him.
The old cowboy had better luck; with unexpectedly impressive arm strength, he threw the grenade in front of a car, but it was blocked by the bulletproof vehicle, and the fragmentation grenade failed to penetrate the car body to cause effective damage.
"Fire! Fire!"
Members of the Chaotic Blade Association shouted and quickly organized a counterattack, with submachine guns, kinetic assault rifles, and even some firing randomly with shotguns from a distance.
The outside was chaotic, with gunfire flashing in the dim dust; fortunately, Kyoko had already highlighted the opponents in her prosthetic eye.
The prosthetic eye locked onto their signals and outlined their bodies, allowing even a group of battle novices to determine their positions in such conditions.
Mercer opted to use his Kenshin pistol instead of the authentic one.
It turned out his choice was right.
Because although the Kenshin pistol couldn't suppress fire, its tungsten-tipped bullet, fired after a one-second charge, precisely pierced through two bulletproof windows and went straight into the head of a Chaotic Blade member.
"Damn! I've been shot!"
"Shit, shot in the head and still not dead?"
Mercer cursed; the dust didn't just interfere with visibility, as the damn radiation dust in the air also disrupted network signals.
He had been trying to hack in from the start but failed to connect multiple times due to network fluctuations.
"These lunatics likely have metal parts in their bones; skulls are the easiest to reinforce. If you're not confident, aim for the body!
They can't afford heavy armor bio-organs!"
Cassidy shouted loudly.
[Lucy: They have bulletproof vests... Be careful! Mercer, I see them starting to encircle the house! Someone's holding a grenade!]
[Kyoko: I'm suppressing!]
[Lucy: Daichi! How much longer do you need!?]
[Tetsuya Daichi: Coming!!]
"Watch out! The Pika on the opposite side is coming over!"
Someone from the Chaotic Blade yelled, and from behind the building, a Pika truck burst through the sandstorm, with Daichi driving.
Leon was in the truck bed, straining his eyes and holding a light machine gun to provide suppressive fire from the flank—this time he did a great job!
Because all the Chaotic Blade members were hiding from the firing line at the front of the house, Tetsuya Daichi drove out from the side, leaving them nowhere to hide.
Dodging to the side would expose them to Mercer and the others at the front; staying put meant facing the light machine gun's fire directly!
"Damn it! Take care of that Pika! Hurry!"
The Chaotic Blade members yelled, but it was to no avail for the moment.
In the game, the enemies wield all sorts of high-end weapons, often flaunting Sianwistan or Frenzy Devices.
But in the real world, these scumbags who make a living by robbing and kidnapping in the wild didn't have such good prosthetics.
However, they weren't without heavy firepower.
"Fuck, wait till I give him a blast!"
One Chaotic Blade member cursed as he climbed into a vehicle, unexpectedly pulling a single-person rocket launcher from the trunk!
As the light machine gun paused for a reload, he then climbed out of the vehicle, hoisting the rocket launcher and aiming at Daichi's Pika truck.
Yet, before he could fire, two spinning tungsten-tipped bullets pierced through his neck—Mercer's Kenshin still shimmering with electromagnetic glows.
The tungsten-tipped bullets striking his neck caused his whole body to convulse from electric shock, and the rocket launcher was inadvertently triggered, shooting directly into the air and exploding somewhere on the open ground.
"Well done, Mercer!"
Leon shouted, but his movements to reload the machine gun were still not very smooth.
"No! We'll be ground down out here! We have to charge into the room and fight inside!"
Someone from the Chaotic Blade shouted, ready to rush inside. Mercer wanted to intercept them, but a few grenades spiraled down beside the door, exploding and keeping his head down.
On the second floor, Lucy and Kyoko could still fire, but with the Chaotic Blade members suppressing fire while running, they could only shoot roughly with faith, unable to ensure accuracy.
Leon finally reloaded, the light machine gun fired again, but by then, the Chaotic Blade members had already moved the vehicle, charging straight towards the house.
"Old cowboy, move back!"
Mercer remained extremely calm, without a hint of panic, and he flipped himself directly toward the stairwell to retreat.
Cassidy, meanwhile, ducked into the kitchen, using the bar counter as cover: "You can pull a grenade pin."
"Good idea!"
Mercer did exactly that. When the members of the Chaotic Blade Association kicked open the door and smashed the glass to enter, attracted by Cassidy in the kitchen, a hand grenade rolled from the stairs to the door in an instant.
"Grenade!"
The members of the Chaotic Blade Association screamed in terror, but the grenade had been held by Mercer for an extra second, detonating faster than they anticipated!
"Boom!"
Two members of the Chaotic Blade Association were blown to shreds by the fragmentation grenade, wailing while still barely alive.
Yet the remaining three members charged in despite Cassidy's bullets—only these three were left.
"Damn it! I'm going to skin you alive!"
The leader of the Chaotic Blade Association roared, wildly firing a shotgun at Mercer's position, while the two behind him wielded their modified rifles, shooting wildly at the kitchen.
However, Mercer displayed a cold smile.
Coming inside?
That means you won't have that damned nuclear dust to disrupt the network signal anymore!
He squinted, and the moment he peered out, his prosthetic eye flickered with a golden light, rapidly capturing and locating their subnet before sending the program.
When the quick hack program was sent to their subnet, the deadly program had already started loading.
The quick hack program doesn't even require Mercer to first hack into their subnet; just locating their signal and sending the program is sufficient.
The quick hack program itself contains the 'Icebreaker Program' to breach their subnet and ICE. When the program breaches their subnet and ICE, the virus is uploaded successfully.
Although it's much slower compared to hacking into their subnet first and then transmitting the virus, because the program has to handle hacking and uploading the virus all by itself.
But the advantage of this quick hack is that when using a stored quick hack against an enemy, Mercer doesn't need to do anything else.
Just a thought to execute the program, and the rest is handled by him providing computational power to the program.
Meanwhile, as he was simultaneously running three programs to crack their network, he even had the capacity to observe their situation.
The three members of the Chaotic Blade Association started shouting.
"There's a hacker!"
"Ah! Ahhh!"
"Cut the network! Hurry, cut the..."
Six consecutive quick hacks were uploaded one after another, first causing their prosthetics to malfunction, cutting off their mobility, then synaptic fusion frying their brains.
Mercer let out a deep breath, peeking out to confirm that the heads of those members of the Chaotic Blade Association were completely fried before he emerged, raising his gun to aim directly at a member blown to the ground by the grenade.
This time, Mercer didn't hold back; he briefly pressed the trigger. Despite the reduced power of an uncharged double tungsten-tipped shot, it was still enough at close range.
The tungsten-tipped rounds shot out, and with a scream, the man was utterly lifeless.
The network signal is so obvious, still trying to play dead? Do you really think my prosthetic eye is just for show?
[Mercer: Beautiful fight, secure the area.]
[Lucy: Nobody got hurt, right!?]
[Daichi: Leon took a bullet!]
[Leon: I'm okay, lucky shot, hit my shoulder, the bullet went through, and it didn't hit the bone.]
[Cassidy: I saw you bleeding earlier, Mercer, you should check yourself.]
Mercer looked down only to feel the pain—his adrenaline had been through the roof earlier, and he hadn't felt the injury at all.
[Mercer: I don't see any serious wounds; it must be from the grenade.]
[Kyoko: We've got a medkit with sutures and drugs in the gear, I'll go get it for you guys!]
[Tetsuya Daichi: No need, I've got a pack in my Pika, I'll bring it over in a bit.]
Mercer kicked a corpse whose head was on fire, begrudgingly bending down to grab its leg and drag it out: "If you're not hurt, lend a hand... How did these Chaotic Blade guys find us here?"
He seemed to ask casually.
However, his eyes, inadvertently, scrutinized Cassidy closely.