Chapter2

Outside Smuggler Starport 37, the Apex Megacorporation's regular riot legion had formed an ironclad blockade.

Three hundred fully armed tactical soldiers holding electromagnetic rifles formed a semi-circle around the only exit gate. Behind the formation, the barrels of two "Minotaur" class hovering electromagnetic main battle tanks glowed with a faint blue charging light, enough to blast half a building into dust in an instant.

"Listen up, rats inside! This is the Apex Megacorp security force!" the commander's arrogant voice blared through the megaphone. "Give up your pointless resistance, disarm and surrender immediately. You are completely—"

His words were cut short.

Because a terrifying roar, like an ancient behemoth howling in the abyss, suddenly erupted from the starport's underground. The alloy grid plates of the entire ground began to vibrate violently.

Behind the door, Layton didn't look for sewers or ventilation ducts to sneak through like a conventional agent.

Long before stepping out of the starport, he had plugged his wrist data cable directly into the main control terminal of the underground fusion nuclear reactor, not only shutting down the coolant circulation but pushing the reaction threshold straight to a critical point of one hundred and twenty percent!

Boom—Crack!

The massive blast door wasn't opened; it was violently kicked flying from the inside, tearing off its hinges! The multi-ton solid steel plate smashed into the crowd like a cannonball, instantly crushing seven or eight riot soldiers in the front row into meat paste.

Firelight pierced the darkness. Layton strode out, looking like a demon god bathed in fire.

In his left hand, he held a half-slab of high-density armor plate torn forcefully from a chainsaw boss, using it as a makeshift shield. His right arm single-handedly supported a "Vulcan" six-barrel heavy rotary cannon, a weapon that normally required a heavy mount.

"Fire! Fire, tear him to shreds!" the commander screamed hysterically.

The barrels of the electromagnetic tanks suddenly spat fire.

Hum—! A faint blue electromagnetic beam as thick as a barrel tore through the air and viciously slammed into the armor plate in front of Layton.

The intense light of the explosion temporarily blinded everyone, and the terrifying kinetic energy forced Layton back three meters. The surface of the armored shield was instantly melted by the horrific heat into flowing dark red liquid iron, dropping onto the ground and emitting white smoke.

But he did not fall.

"Is that all the heat you've got?"

A gleam of brutal coldness flashed in Layton's eyes. His Neural Overclock hit its absolute peak, and the Vulcan cannon in his right hand let out a deafening roar.

Six thousand depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds per minute poured into the enemy ranks like water. Wherever they passed, body armor was torn apart like wet paper. Flesh and blood flew, and the screams were completely drowned out by the massive gunfire.

But this was just the appetizer.

The moment the pressure gauge of the underground fusion reactor completely maxed out, Layton violently pressed a detonation button on his left arm terminal.

Rumble—!!

A man-made magnitude eight earthquake erupted violently right beneath the riot legion's feet! The crust cracked, and high-pressure plasma flames shot up into the sky from the underground pipes like a volcanic eruption, turning into over a dozen pillars of fire that scorched the heavens.

"Ahhh! Help!"

"My legs are melting!"

The indestructible riot position collapsed instantly. Hundreds of soldiers, along with the two bulky electromagnetic tanks, were burned alive into charcoal in the cracking fissures and spewing plasma sea of fire. The sickening smell of burning flesh instantly filled the air.

Layton didn't even look back at this living hell. Stepping on the still-twitching charred corpses, he strode toward a corporate twin-engine military assault craft parked on the apron. He blasted the head off the pilot who tried to resist, kicked the body out, and sat in the cockpit himself.

The engines spat azure exhaust flames. The assault craft smashed directly through the starport's outer power grid, soaring into the acid-rain-filled night sky, heading straight for the cyber black market in the lower city.

Fifteen minutes later. Lower city, the dim "Circuit Breaker" underground bar.

Buck, a retired half-cyborg veteran, was hiding behind the counter repairing a mechanical dog when the door was kicked open. Layton walked in, carrying a strong stench of blood.

Buck's red mechanical prosthetic eye zoomed in and out frantically, his hands trembling. "God... Layton? They said you died in the Black Zone. You're either a ghost or a massive problem."

"Connect me to Cloud City's public holographic network. All channels. Highest clearance." Layton slapped the bloody data cable onto the bar, skipping any nostalgic greetings. His tone was an unquestionable command.

Buck saw the dead silence in Layton's eyes. It was the look veterans of the Abyss Mines feared the most—when Layton had that look, it meant he was ready to drag everyone to hell with him.

The old hacker swallowed hard, his ten fingers flying across the virtual keyboard. "Apex Megacorp's network has eight layers of military-grade firewalls. A forced hack will hold for ten seconds tops... Done! We're in!"

At the same time, thousands of meters in the sky, suspended in a sea of neon lights, was the megacorp's oasis—"Cloud City."

Tens of millions of citizens were watching the massive and gorgeous holographic projections on the exterior walls of the skyscrapers, which were originally broadcasting Victor's monopoly speech.

Suddenly, all screens emitted harsh static noise, and the images instantly turned red.

A ten-second forced holographic broadcast.

There was no warm-up on the screen; it directly threw up the holographic scans of twelve bloody heads. They were the twelve death-row mercenaries Layton had crushed with his bare hands at the starport. The gruesome deaths of the twelve heads caused countless screams to erupt throughout Cloud City.

Then, Layton's cold, emotionless voice smashed into every speaker in the city like a sledgehammer:

"Victor."

"I don't do courts. I don't do laws."

"You have four hours to custom-order your titanium coffin. Wash your neck and wait for me."

Bzz—

Ten seconds were up, and the signal was forcibly cut off, the screens returning to commercials. But those short ten seconds, coupled with that almost tangible murderous intent, were enough to plunge the entire Cloud City into dead silence.

The top floor of Cloud City, the pinnacle of the Apex Megacorp tower.

Crash!

A priceless crystal goblet was smashed ruthlessly onto the floor, the red wine splattering on the pure white carpet like a pool of fresh blood.

Victor, wearing a perfectly tailored suit, stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows. His usually calm face was slightly distorted with fury and a deeply hidden trace of terror.

"Trash! A three-hundred-man riot unit plus twelve berserk death-row inmates couldn't even delay him for ten minutes!" Victor clenched his fists. He knew Layton too well; that man was an absolute war maniac.

The adjutant trembled on the side. "Boss, should we reinforce the building's defenses... or request military mediation?"

"Mediation my ass! He's seen those files. He came back to wipe us all out!"

Victor whipped his head around, his eyes bloodshot with madness, and roared: "Notify the heavy synthetic battalion in the wasteland. Don't wait until midnight! Open fire now, immediately! Burn Sector D-9, along with his crippled wife, to absolute ashes with napalm!"

"And..." Victor's eyes turned extremely vicious as he pointed to two massive shadows in the night sky outside the window. "Authorize the takeoff of our newly developed 'Leviathan' class mobile flying fortresses. Lockdown the airspace. I want Layton, that wild dog, crushed to dust while he's still in the sky!"