Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 682, 96. The Fatal Blow
The roar of the Malorian 3516 echoed through the night, proving that even after half a century, this legendary firearm still stands at the pinnacle of weapon design.

The moment Carl pulled the trigger, the violent recoil made even his prosthetic hand tremble, and the flash of the gun briefly illuminated his cold face.

A brass cartridge case spun out, while the bullet, which left the barrel, was so fast it almost tore through the air, tracing a deadly trajectory in the cold night wind as it hurtled straight toward ACPA's head.

Karl's target was extremely precise—it was the crack he had previously torn open with the neurotoxin dagger. The seams of the armor had already cracked, exposing the fragile pipes and circuits inside. The toxin had already seeped in, and now, with just one final strike, that crack would spread like a spider web, turning the tiny flaw into a devastating fatal wound.

The instant the bullet pierced the gap, a series of blinding sparks erupted from inside ACPA's entire skull, like the final spasm of a dying beast.

A fatal blow?
Carl hoped so, but when he saw the sword calmly adjusting its angle amidst the smoke, he knew—things were not so simple after all.

Beneath the ruptured head armor, there was only a twisted mechanical skeleton and an empty circuitry compartment; there was no cockpit, no flesh and blood, and not even a drop of lubricant had seeped out.

Carl had disassembled ACPAs and was familiar with their construction. The standard ACPA model followed the principle of 'minimum necessary design'—redundant structures would reduce mobility, so their heads should have been the pilot's last line of defense. However, this mech in front of him had clearly deviated from the 'standard' category.

Echo is a madman.

This war hero transformed his ACPA into a complete heresy.

Traditional humanoid mechs have always been controversial: bipedal structures are far less stable than tracked structures, and their joint transmission efficiency is not as good as wheeled chassis. But the significance of ACPA has never been to compete with tanks in firepower, but to maintain absolute freedom of movement on the human battlefield—it can climb stairs, crawl through alleys, and crawl forward like a living person in collapsed ruins.

The transformation of Echo took this concept to its extreme.

The cockpit of this ACPA is not in the head at all. Its skeletal structure is inspired by the segmented design of arthropods, and its hydraulic tendons are three times thicker than those of the regular model. The shoulder armor hides a second cooling system, and the knee joints can even bend in the opposite direction. Most deadly of all, it disperses the core control system into explosion-proof compartments in the chest and pelvis, as if it has cut the brain into pieces and hidden them in the whole body.

The cleaver vibrated at a high frequency, its blade leaving a blue afterimage in the air—its power did not diminish at all, but instead changed direction in an instant, aiming straight for Karl's waist with a piercing whistling sound, determined to cut him in two!

Karl's gaze, however, was fixed on the damaged head armor.

Delivery pipe.

Pale green neurotoxins were seeping from the twisted and deformed hydraulic pipes—the dagger he had stabbed earlier had indeed worked, but he hadn't expected that Echo, that madman, would actually transform the head space of the cockpit, where the standard ACPA was placed, into the central hub of the liquid circulation system.

"clever."

The toxin did indeed affect the mech's movements, giving Karl an advantage, but it also caused him to misjudge the location of the fatal point. However—

The exposed orientation of these delivery pipes actually betrays the true core location.

Besides, how big can an ACPA be? Even if the head isn't a fatal area, so what?
Malorian 3516 roared again, and Karl's figure moved rapidly through the gunfire.

Since damaging the head isn't enough—

Then dismantle its body!

Tear its arms apart!

Crush its legs!

Until this pile of scrap metal can no longer stand up! Karl kept firing, and the roar that Malorian emitted in his hands was no less than the sound of the Arasaka Tower more than fifty years ago. However, compared to Johnny Silverhand, who relied on brute force to kill his opponents, Karl's attacks were quite accurate, even though his arm was constantly trembling due to the recoil.

ACPA's armor plates groaned in agony under the hail of bullets.

The steel behemoth piloted by Echo, which had been fitted with composite armor capable of withstanding rocket-propelled grenades, now resembled a broken gong in a storm.

Each bullet exploded into a cluster of blinding blue-white sparks as it fell, and flying metal fragments scattered like peeled scales. The hissing sound of hydraulic pipes bursting and the crackling sound of short circuits intertwined, and the red alarm light in the cockpit made the distorted face of the echo look like a demon.

"So this is KK? She's really got some skills!"

Karl twisted and rolled violently, the cleaver whistling with a piercing electric current as it slashed past his body.

The high-voltage arc leaping on the blade merely grazed him, causing the hairs on his exposed skin to stand on end, and the electric sparks that exploded in the air crackled like a swarm of dancing fireflies.

A burning and numbing sensation, like a venomous snake, slithered up his spine along his nerves, and Karl unconsciously frowned—but his rolling trajectory remained perfectly undisturbed, as if the pain were merely insignificant background noise.

Just as he was about to lose his balance, he used the momentum to push off the ground. While supporting himself with his left hand, he raised the Malorian with his right hand. The muzzle flash of the gun accurately bit into the seam of the ACPA shoulder armor. With a sharp whistling sound of metal tearing, another fragment sprayed out of the wound like pieces of flesh.

As Carl felt the pain, a question suddenly popped into his head.

This ACPA pilot has thick armor, strong firepower, and has undergone extensive modifications. It already has the defense and firepower of a heavy ACPA, but its agility is like that of a light ACPA. However, judging from its size, it is a medium ACPA. Has the ACPA evolved to this extent? Or is it just the pilot's modifications?
It has flaws, but you just haven't found them yet?
Carl fired again, but this time he aimed not at the armor seams, but at the hydraulic lines on the legs.

The gunshot rang out, and high-pressure hydraulic oil gushed out like arterial blood, causing ACPA's right leg to freeze instantly.

Karl's eyes lit up.

Good courage.

He genuinely admired the driver in front of him.

Traditionally, the ACPA's power is considered very important and needs to be strictly protected. Therefore, in combat, few people would specifically attack the ACPA's joints, because those areas are obviously reinforced and even more heavily protected than weak points. However, this driver in front of me actually relied on people's subconscious thinking and abandoned the protection of the power.

The fact that his previous intrusion into the pipeline immediately affected him was not accidental; rather, it was because his mech had inherent flaws. He openly exposed his weaknesses, only making some seemingly thicker concealments, but in reality, he used this to strengthen other aspects of his defenses.

Now that we know where the real weakness is, it's much easier to deal with.

Carl swung out the EMP knife he had drawn earlier, hitting ACPA precisely in the joint.

Those sophisticated modifications have now become a burden—distributed control systems require perfect synchronization rates, and EMP has caused microsecond-level timing discrepancies in their timing.

The cleaver continued its downward trajectory, but the sluggish movement caused by the power failure was far too slow. Carl had already dodged to the side, and he launched a monomolecular beam, precisely aiming at an inconspicuous access port on ACPA's back—where Echo's true cockpit was hidden.

Amidst the sound of metal tearing, Karl heard a human cough.

That was the fatal blow.

(End of this chapter)