Chapter 134: Damn It, You're Really Something!
As Panam and Jack sneaked into the main room of the camp, the leader of the Maelstrom gang, Nash, unexpectedly walked out—alone.
To their surprise, there wasn't a single guard by his side.
"Nash!"
Enemies meeting face-to-face naturally made tempers flare. The moment Panam saw Nash, she shouted angrily and prepared to shoot him down.
However, before Panam, fueled by rage, could pull the trigger, Jack swiftly stepped forward and delivered a crushing punch to Nash's face.
The next moment, a dull thud echoed as Jack's iron fist slammed into Nash's facial muscles. The punch was so powerful that it broke Nash's nose, knocking him unconscious on the spot.
"Holy crap… Jack!"
Panam was pleasantly surprised by the scene. She hadn't expected Jack, who looked somewhat clumsy, to have such incredible combat skills.
One punch was all it took to knock out Nash, a man weighing over 180 pounds. It was as if Jack was born to be a boxing prodigy.
"Well done!!"
Panam couldn't help but give Jack a thumbs-up.
"Hah! This guy's pretty fragile. Even old Vik could probably take him out with one punch," Jack said with a chuckle, shaking his head. He had been training in boxing regularly, and his strength was nothing to scoff at.
In Night City, there were few who could withstand a punch from him. Even Viktor, the boxing expert, had praised Jack's punching technique.
"Jack, we need to hurry. Check if he has the car keys on him. I'm worried V won't last much longer out there!"
Panam didn't waste any more time chatting. Every second spent searching for the car keys was another second of danger for V at the camp's gate.
"Got it!"
Without delay, Panam and Jack searched Nash's unconscious body. They quickly found the keys to Panam's car, as well as the kinetic handgun V had given her.
"We've got everything. I'll go start the car, and you head to the main gate to back up V."
Just as Panam finished speaking, she suddenly heard a familiar sound coming from inside the main room.
"There seems to be movement in there. I'll check it out. Wait for me here."
After giving Jack a quick instruction, Panam unlocked the safety of the Overwatch, gripped the gun with both hands, and cautiously entered the room.
The next second, in a corner of the room, Panam saw a man with a scruffy beard, badly beaten and covered in injuries.
Judging by his nomadic attire and his faint cries for help, Panam was almost certain that this man was Saul Bright, the leader of her Aldecaldo clan division.
"Saul, how did you end up being captured by the Maelstrom?"
Panam was full of questions, but there was no time to dwell on them. Getting Saul out of there was her top priority.
She quickly helped the severely injured Saul to his feet and guided him out of the room. Gritting his teeth through the pain, Saul muttered in a voice filled with regret:
"I… I was wrong. Please forgive me, Panam."
With those words, the weakened Saul passed out completely.
When Jack saw Saul, beaten beyond recognition, he couldn't help but curse:
"Holy crap! Panam, where'd you drag this poor bastard from? He's been beaten worse than a sack of crap. I don't think he's gonna make it."
"Shut up and stop wasting time!" Panam snapped, glaring at Jack. "Keep an eye on these two, especially Nash. I'm going to get the car."
With that, she dumped the heavy Saul onto Jack and ran toward the camp's parking lot.
There, her beloved red-and-brown Rayfield Caliburn GA10XT Viper Off-Road stood out among the other vehicles.
She inserted the key and started the engine. Everything seemed fine, though the car felt oddly heavy. However, Panam didn't have time to ponder this subtle change.
She had to drive to Jack's location, load everyone into the car, and escape the Maelstrom camp as quickly as possible.
"Panam, listen… the gunfire seems to have stopped."
Jack's voice carried a sense of unease. Could V have been captured by the Maelstrom? Or worse?
Hearing this, Panam felt a surge of anxiety and pressed harder on the gas pedal. The tires screeched against the dry, cracked ground as the car accelerated.
'V, you'd better hold on!'
Panam silently prayed as she turned the wheel, heading toward the camp's main gate. She was already planning her next move to break through the Maelstrom defenses.
However, when Panam arrived near the gate, she was met with an unexpected sight: scattered corpses, bullet casings, and faint wisps of smoke.
"What the hell… what's going on here? Why are all these bastards dead? Where's V?"
Jack, sitting in the passenger seat, looked around and soon spotted V in an open area. V was leaning casually against a wrecked car, smoking a cigarette.
"You really pulled it off," Johnny Silverhand remarked as he suddenly appeared. "Not bad, kid. No loose ends, not even a single rat left to warn the others."
"V, you're a goddamn genius."
The sensation of satisfaction from smoking was transmitted to Johnny through the neural matrix, and he couldn't help but express his admiration.
'Just a natural talent,' V thought with a confident smile. He flicked the half-smoked cigarette to the ground. In truth, V didn't enjoy smoking; he only lit one occasionally for Johnny's sake.
Jack stepped out of the car, staring at V in disbelief.
"You're telling me this wasn't a distraction tactic? You actually wiped out the entire gang by yourself?"
"How about you guys? Everything went smoothly on your end?" V asked with a smile as he approached.
"It went fine, but V… how the hell did you do this? Did you really kill them all by yourself?"
Jack looked around at the dead Maelstrom members. Most had had their throats slit with surgical precision.
How the hell does someone dodge two mounted machine guns and a hail of bullets while taking down this many people? This was insane!
"I got lucky. Just a blind cat stumbling across a dead rat," V replied nonchalantly.
Jack shook his head, clicking his tongue. He wasn't buying it. Someone with V's skills would've become a legendary lone wolf in Night City by now.
He couldn't help but wonder if V had secretly enrolled in some elite assassin training program. Otherwise, how could he have become this unstoppable overnight?
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