Enforcer Manual
Chapter 245: Let the Bullets Fly_1

Chapter 245: Chapter 245: Let the Bullets Fly_1

The street thug’s pupils were dilated, frozen in place by this sudden turn of events.

Before the second sniper shot could come, a dark figure crashed into him, toppling them both over a distance of three to four meters. Almost instantly, an armor-piercing bullet hit the ground next to them, leaving a deep crater in its wake.

Lu Xiang rolled on the concrete floor, grabbing the street thug by the collar and dragging him toward the nearest building to the entrance.

The moment she determined the direction of the bullet, she deployed her standby mechanical Horn Bug troops.

The third bullet came just as the two of them rushed into the security room.

The bullet pierced through the security room’s wall. Despite her immediate attempt to push away the street thug, she was a moment too late. The armor-piercing bullet grazed the thug’s right hand, snapping three of his fingers instantly.

Military-grade cybernetic eyes.

Lu Xiang quickly inferred that the bullet had been aimed at the street thug’s head. Had she not pushed him, his head might have burst into innumerable pieces like that of his friend.

This indicated that even from behind cover, the sniper still had them in their line of sight, most likely through a marking system of military-grade cybernetic eyes.

Her heart was pounding furiously; seldom did criminals in District 17 exert such immense pressure on her.

Lu Xiang glanced at the street thug sprawled on the floor, whose reaction lagged far behind. After lying there for a while, as if just realizing the pain, he began to roll on the ground screaming.

"Shh, be quiet," she hushed the thug, then muttered to herself, "’Cyber Star TR-3000,’ standard load is three rounds, and the bullets are likely modified, much more powerful than ordinary armor-piercing rounds..."

Given the street thug’s current state on the ground and the distance between them, he was as good as dead when the fourth bullet arrived.

The security room’s walls couldn’t provide effective cover. In the sniper’s eyes, he might as well have been exposed in an open field.

Definitely a cyber-madman.

Before the fourth round could arrive, the mechanical Horn Bug troops brought good news. Following the bullet’s trajectory, they successfully located the sniper’s position in a high-rise building four kilometers away.

A person wearing a gray hoodie with the hood pulled over the face, standing at approximately 1.5 meters tall.

As they reported, the mechanical Horn Bug troops already sprang into action, as a needle charged with electric current silently inserted itself into the back of her neck.

The current was strong enough to render any adult unconscious, yet after being struck, the sniper merely twitched, without turning around or making any extraneous movements. They immediately stood up, shouldering a sniper rifle almost as tall as themselves, took a couple of steps, and then leapt from the roof of the sixty-plus-story building.

During the fall, their legs kicked in defiance of physical laws for a secondary jump.

This leap altered their trajectory, crashing them through the glass of one of the floors, and they tumbled into the building.

The mechanical Horn Bug troops followed close behind but, as they flew through the breach into the building, they were engulfed in bursting electric arcs, which temporarily severed their communication with Lu Xiang.

Enhanced tendons and EMP bombs.

Not only the prosthesis but even the weapons were military-grade.

Unlike those amateurs who haphazardly implanted prostheses, the ones Lu Xiang transplanted and the weapons equipped were all high-end goods tailored to their own tactical needs.

The fourth bullet did not come again, and five minutes later, members of the special operations team took the nearly shock-stricken street thug onto the armored floating car.

Having gone through all this, Lu Xiang had to believe the reality before her eyes.

There was an unidentified Cyber maniac, implanted with military-grade prosthetic parts, wandering around District 17, whose hobby seemed to be treating gang members’ heads like balloons to target.

Facing such an armed-to-the-teeth Cyber maniac, these gang members had no room to resist at all.

Yet, this attack led her to some other discoveries.

Unlike those Cyber maniacs who were terminally ill and crazily hacking at people on the streets, this person still managed to maintain some rationality, and this remaining sanity made them even more dangerous.

Lu Xiang did not think this was a random event, a chance encounter with a street thug meeting a friend at the abandoned factory.

It was more likely that these people had been targeted by the Law Enforcers department, or even earlier.

After confirming the whereabouts of the street thug, they calmly found an excellent sniping position and blew his head off with a shot before the contact could spill any valuable information.

They had planned before taking action, and judging from the response when detected by the mechanical Horn Bugs, the Cyber maniac had already thought out the escape route. The way they withdrew was originally designed to counter the encirclement of armored floating cars and drones. An EMP bomb could effectively tie up the pursuing drones, it just so happened that the pursuit route of the mechanical Horn Bug forces coincided with that of the drones.

And the electric shock that could stun an adult only caused them a momentary stiffness, which suggests that the neural feedback system had likely also undergone Prosthesis Modification.

This meant that from the beginning, the Cyber maniac had considered the Law Enforcers as hypothetical adversaries and had prepared countermeasures accordingly.

The moment Lu Xiang returned to the Law Enforcement Manor, she convened an emergency meeting with the special operations team and the criminal analysis department. If this Cyber maniac turned their gun on the Law Enforcers, each of them would be in danger. To ensure the safety of the Law Enforcers first, Lu Xiang dispatched all of the mechanical Horn Bug forces to continuously search 24/7 for any potential sniper spots aimed at the Law Enforcers department.

At least three military-grade prostheses, along with military-grade equipment, and the EMP bombs which were quite rare even on the black market, significantly narrowed their investigation scope.

The prosthesis modifications in District 17 were not capable of performing surgeries of such caliber, especially major ones involving the neural feedback system—only professional hospitals under large corporations could potentially complete them.

If this Cyber maniac had the surgery done in District 17, then there would definitely be corresponding records left behind.

And in District 17, there was only one military-industrial enterprise equipped with a professional hospital.

"’Unified Tech’ is the next key focus of our investigation, but remember, our target is a Cyber maniac with more than three military-grade prosthetic parts. All operations need to be reported in advance," Lu Xiang emphasized to the Law Enforcers. "Although the target’s combat style favors sniping, we cannot rule out that they have transplanted close-combat prostheses like a Mantis knife. Chief Snick, go gather all the gang shoot-outs from the past month and send them to me."

"Understood."

After the meeting ended, Lu Xiang began recording every single detail she had experienced that day. She suspected the Cyber maniac might have targeted these street thugs even before they did.

No matter when, these half-mad Cyber maniacs were the trickiest.

They had clear objectives, meticulous plans, and were not even remotely comparable to those crazies who impulsively took to the streets swinging blades.