Warhammer: The Time Traveler

Chapter 48 Clouds move in all directions
The neon lights of the city at night, like the city's never-ending pulse, weave together in the humid air to form a dazzling and complex web of light.

As the "Fringe Walkers" team gained increasing fame, discussions about them began to circulate quietly in specific circles, spreading both online and offline.

The corner of the Laisheng Bar is always occupied by a kind of textured noise.

The heavy metal music acts like an invisible barrier, dividing each booth into a relatively independent space.

The air is perpetually filled with a mixture of carefully blended synthetic alcohol, the heat emanating from active molecules, and the faint scent of coolant emanating from the high-performance prosthetics, creating an atmosphere unique to this place.

"Damn it, have those guys Mann's been on a roll lately? The quality of the jobs they're getting is completely different now." A mercenary with a hoarse voice took a swig of synthetic whiskey and whispered to his companion.

"It's more than just lucky, it's downright bizarre!" His companion, a burly man with fresh scars on his face, leaned closer, his eyes filled with a mixture of jealousy and wariness. "That biotech deal last week was tough; I heard the security level was quite high."

Guess what? Mann and his crew used some kind of weird contraption, and they melted a hole in that armored vehicle! A beam of blue light hit it, and the composite armor was like paper!

"It's not the kind of thing you see on the market... The noise it made was a bit like those old, outdated legends about plasma contraptions made in company labs..." the first mercenary mused, his fingers tapping the table unconsciously.

"And that Dorio, she was already fierce enough before, but now she's simply... damn, inhuman! It feels like she could tear the door off an armored vehicle with her bare hands and use it as a shield! This kind of strength isn't something you can get by taking some drugs or installing two prosthetics."

“There must be a powerful figure behind this. They’ve probably hooked up with some unscrupulous black market doctor or weapons craftsman who’s willing to do anything ruthless,” the scarred, muscular man asserted. “We need to find out who they are. Either we can get a piece of the pie, or… we’ll have to be careful when we run into them in the future.”

These discussions quietly spread through the streets and alleys of Night City, in mercenary enclaves, and in the black market network.

Several powerful middlemen, small gang leaders, and even some independent top "lone wolves" began to secretly cast their scrutinizing glances.

The recent surge in mission completion and significant changes in equipment by Mann's team are signals that cannot be ignored.

Some want to cooperate, some want to explore the root causes, while many more are calmly assessing the potential impact of this rising new force.

In contrast, the response at the corporate level was slow and bureaucratic.

In a bright and clean office on a high floor of Arasaka Tower, a section chief was quickly browsing through a briefing attachment submitted by a subordinate analysis department, which contained information about the characteristics of an unusual energy weapon recorded during a street conflict.

The report concludes briefly: "The relevant characteristics do not match any known standard weapons in the database, suggesting it is a non-standard modification from a small workshop or unknown source, and the current threat level is assessed as low."

The section chief casually marked the report as "low priority" and commented: "Non-standardized technology, suspected of having high risk. Maintain routine monitoring, and do not allocate additional resources for the time being."

Within his cognitive framework, the emergence of novel weapons in Night City every day, and the use of unconventional equipment by a few mercenaries, are just common phenomena in the city's ecosystem. As long as they do not affect the company's core interests or cause regional problems, they are not worth mobilizing the precious departmental budget.

The situation within military technology is quite similar.

A report about a slight abnormal energy fluctuation detected in the Flinttown area was sent to the terminal of a supervisor in the Relics Cleanup Department.

He still remembered that area; it was related to a "small Beidou project" that the company had terminated years ago and had long been archived and sealed away.

“The signal source is weak, and there are many possibilities: it could be the activity of scavengers, geological phenomena, or even the periodic error of the sensor itself.” He muttered to himself, casually putting the report into the electronic archive of “to be further verified (low priority)”.

"The Seventh Outpost? That's a legacy issue. Perhaps we'll consider it when there's an additional budget in the next fiscal year." In the vast list of priorities for military technology, this faint anomaly was far from being prioritized. Despite the lukewarm response at the company level, the Mann team certainly felt the increasing attention from the streets.

Peer scrutiny became more direct, sometimes even probing.

In the cases they take on, they occasionally detect hidden motives for investigation; when moving around the city, they also need to be constantly aware of whether they are being followed by unprofessional or more experienced informants.

There have even been instances of radical street groups attempting to ambush them along their equipment transport routes, hoping to obtain the rumoredly powerful weapons.

On one occasion, the team was returning from a supplies collection mission when they passed through a narrow passage on the edge of an abandoned industrial area.

The night was deep, with only the faint glow of distant neon lights illuminating the rusted pipes and broken pavement.

"Damn, something feels off," Mann muttered to himself inside the car, his finger already subtly pressing the weapon activation button.

Before the words were finished, several sharp whistling sounds pierced the silence!
Several armor-piercing warheads struck the vehicle's temporary energy shield with precision, creating ripples that spread outwards.

"Damn! An ambush! Three o'clock, on the roof!" Mann's low growl rang out on the car's communication channel.

Almost simultaneously, Dorio darted out of the side door like a cheetah.

She cursed under her breath and, instead of seeking cover, charged headlong into the direction of the gunfire.

The enhanced muscles unleashed astonishing power, allowing her to leap vertically up the wall to a platform several meters high in just a few steps.

Exclamations, chaotic gunfire, and the piercing noise of metal being forcibly twisted immediately erupted from the rooftop.

A moment later, Dorio reappeared on the edge of the roof, carrying the wreckage of a broken automatic turret, which she casually tossed off the building with a heavy thud.

"Cleanup complete." Her voice came through the communicator, steady yet tinged with a hint of coldness.

At the same time, several attackers with haphazard equipment but wielding heavy firepower sprang out from the shadows on the other side.

Rebecca immediately raised the rumored plasma pistol that shimmered with blue light. A concentrated burst of high-energy plasma shot out instantly. It didn't cause an explosion, but instead melted through the thick steel plate used as cover by the attackers with extremely high efficiency, instantly destroying the weapon positions behind it.

The battle ended within minutes.

The team's seamless cooperation and the overwhelming performance of the new equipment turned this encounter into a highly efficient practical test.

They quickly cleared away any evidence that might identify them at the scene, then drove away into the deeper darkness of the night.

While these persistent harassments did not pose a fatal threat, they undoubtedly increased the cost and complexity of the operation.

The team therefore became more vigilant and adopted a more low-profile approach to their actions.

(End of this chapter)