Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 683. Death
The body that broke free from the steel shell of the ACPA power armor was frighteningly thin.

That gaunt body looked as if the war had drained the last bit of flesh and blood from it. The jagged ribs were clearly visible under the pale skin, and the vertebrae of the spine protruded like beads. The hero who was once encased in armor now looked like a homeless child suffering from long-term malnutrition, and even his body was trembling slightly.

He felt the rear armor being torn apart, so he lifted his scarred face and turned his head to the side. There was an old scar below his right eye that extended to the corner of his mouth, and a shrapnel abrasion that had not fully healed on his left cheek. In his sunken eye sockets, those eyes that once struck fear into the hearts of enemies were now bloodshot. His chapped lips were pressed into a thin line, and his messy stubble was still stained with nutrient fluid from the armor's internal circulation system and traces of saliva that had unconsciously spilled from his mouth.

If he were to stand in front of the newly arrived privates in the new United States looking like this, no one would believe that this was the legendary war hero 'Echo'.

The images repeatedly shown in recruitment propaganda films, depicting steel giants driving ACPA armored vehicles like mobile fortresses crushing the battlefield, present a stark contrast to the empty shell of this man before me, whose exposed body is shockingly thin, as if it could be crushed by the heavy battle at any moment.

'Is this the opponent who just fought me to the death and put me under immense pressure?'

This was Karl's first thought when he saw Echo's frail body.

It was so thin and frail that it looked like a bamboo pole inserted into ACPA's steel body, acting as the spine to drive ACPA's movements.

With his small, thin frame, it's no wonder he was able to modify his head into a non-lethal organ within ACPA; for him, his body simply didn't need that much space.
Karl felt a moment of disorientation, as if the whole world had frozen in an eerie stillness for a fleeting instant.

He gripped his gun, the sights fixed on the hunched figure—the body curled up in the wreckage of the ACPA looked like a specimen crawled out of a field hospital morgue. The loose skin on the old man's neck trembled with each breath, and a centipede-shaped old surgical scar could be seen on the exposed trachea.

The echo, turning its head, saw KK. He raised his eyes, and his prosthetic eyes were still frighteningly bright. He used his cracked fingernails to dig into the cracks in his armor. As he tried to prop himself up, his shoulder blades jutted out sharp outlines against his thin vest. Karl saw the bionic interface on his left arm—a neural connection model that had been phased out long ago. Around that old model, the skin was already festering and purple.

Just how many battles has he been through, and how long has he been piloting the ACPA?

A sigh crossed Karl's mind, but his finger remained as steady as a rock as he pulled the trigger, his movements almost instinctive.

He saw it clearly—

A dangerous glint flashed beside the old man's withered hand.

'Do you still want to make one last desperate attempt?'

That spot is clearly the button to activate the mech's energy overload.

The explosive force of the forced overload was enough to allow this broken body to complete one last fatal move.

But Carl, who had personally dismantled ACPA, wouldn't give him that chance.

"Boom! Boom!"

Two clean, crisp gunshots rang out, and Echo's battered, emaciated body was severed at the waist. Karl did not point his gun at the head, which he usually preferred to aim at, and he couldn't explain why.

Perhaps it's to pay due respect to this opponent who makes him feel threatened;

Or perhaps it was the lingering smoke of gunpowder in the wrinkles on the old man's face that made him feel that as a veteran, even his appearance shouldn't be ruined.

In short, Carl gave his opponent a death that could be described as 'gentle'—

At least that weathered face still retained its complete ferocity.

People severed in the middle rarely survive—unless they are lucky enough to be blessed by fate or have been modified with expensive military-grade cybernetic implants. Echo was neither. His entire body was adapted for piloting the ACPA; his own cybernetic implants lacked life-sustaining mechanisms. Being severed in the middle was a fatal blow for Echo. He stared wide-eyed at Karl, the life force in his eyes rapidly fading, but Karl saw something different in those eyes.

The emotions contained within were like a thank you to Karl for so gently preserving his face, or a mockery of Karl's naivety for allowing his mind to linger for a moment longer, or perhaps it was merely a fleeting thought before death. But in any case, he had accomplished what he truly needed to do.

The ACPA mech energy overload activation button that you touch is fake.

How could someone who has made radical modifications to their mech possibly stick to the original button in a conventional way?

The actual start-up was completed before he even showed any intention of reaching for the overload start button.

Hands are merely decorative; it is the movements of the feet that truly trigger energy overload.

While Karl stared at his right hand, which he pretended to press the start button, the real switch had already been quietly activated by tapping his toes.

ACPA pilots are the "brains" of this steel behemoth—their nerves are directly connected to the body's control system, their consciousness flows within the cold alloy skeleton, and every tactical movement is as precise as an extension of their own limbs.

Even after the pilot died, ACPA's remains could still twitch and struggle, like a decapitated snake, able to make a final spasm with the remaining nerve currents after death.

And now, the same is true for this crimson ACPA in front of us. Its cockpit has been torn open by Karl's monomolecular line, and the person inside, the frail old man who doesn't look like a warrior, has already stopped breathing, but the machine is still moving.

Its right arm twitched and rose, its knuckles groaning with metallic fatigue, as if trying to grasp something. Hydraulic oil gushed from the broken pipe, splashing glaring marks on the snow like blood.

The soul is dead, but the steel body continues to carry out its final inertia.

Carl noticed the slightly delayed movement and decisively withdrew and retreated.

Regardless of whether the final command for this ACPA is self-destruction or a sword strike, retreating is always the safest option—its damaged body is already beyond repair, and the pilot probably only has one command left to input. Carl only needs to deal with this final counterattack.

He tensed all his muscles, ready to dodge, but froze the moment he took a step.

Due to severe damage to its leg joints, the ACPA triggered the system's protection mechanism as it turned around, and with a piercing metallic scraping sound, it crashed to its knees in front of Karl.

The twisted metal fingers stubbornly stretched forward, opening and closing, as if trying to grab the cleaver that was about to slip from their grasp, or as if trying to touch a comrade who was no longer there, or a goal that could never be reached.

With a crisp crack of metal breaking due to fatigue, its movement was frozen in that position forever. The steel shell finally ceased functioning, becoming yet another silent wreck on the earth.

"Boom."

ACPA crashed heavily to the ground, but until the very last moment, that hand still reached out to Carl.

The soul has long since departed, but the machine still clings to its last obsession.

Echo, a hero of New America, a legendary pilot, and captain of the White Hawk ACPA squad.
death.

(End of this chapter)