Samsara Space: They're all begging me to heal them one more time.

The colonel, his eyes bloodshot, grabbed the vial of blue sedative. Instead of injecting it, he crushed it in his hand, letting the sharp shards of glass pierce his palm.

pain!

But this pain, ironically, gave him a morbid sense of pleasure.

happy!!

Rationality? Tactics? Stop-loss? ?

Fuck it!

I'm done playing!

"Withdraw all defenses! Withdraw all scouts!"

The colonel turned around and stared intently at the massive, steel-like War Fortress in the hangar behind him.

It was a super-heavy hover tank, fifty meters long, equipped with electromagnetic railguns and countless floating turrets.

"No more infiltration. No more assassinations."

"Since they want to play..."

The colonel strode up into the cockpit of the mech.

He pulled out the [Original Sin - Wrath] chip, which emitted a terrifying red light, from the pocket inside his chest.

Instead of inserting the chip into the mech's regular control slot, he abruptly ripped open his combat suit, revealing the nerve junction at his heart.

"Sir! What are you doing?! That thing will burn your nerves!" the adjutant shouted in terror from below.

"Shut up!"

Without hesitation, the colonel plunged the original sin chip, which was constantly spewing demonic whispers, directly into the interface of his heart!

Human-machine integration! Forced overload!

Buzz—! ! !

A violent, red energy storm instantly swept across the entire underground base.

The "War Fortress," which originally required 12 hours to fully charge, instantly reached 150% overload due to the chip's forced catalysis and the colonel's sacrifice of his life force.

All the indicator lights changed from green to red, and finally turned into a glaring black and red.

The enormous steel monster let out a deafening roar and slowly rose into the air.

"All troops, listen to my command!"

The colonel's voice, amplified through the loudspeakers, echoed throughout the Badlands; it was no longer a human voice, but a frenzied roar filled with the scraping of metal.

"Target: Sunset Hotel!"

"No prisoners needed! No spoils of war needed!"

"I'm going to raze that place to the ground! I'm going to burn every inch of that land into glass!"

"I'll show them... what true rage is!!!"

Rumbling--

The heavy blast-proof doors of the base were flung open with a loud crash.

Led by the colonel's War Fortress, dozens of heavy mechs, hundreds of armored vehicles, and a swarm of drones that blotted out the sun converged into an unstoppable torrent of steel, roaring into the sandstorm of the wasteland.

That night, the wanderers of the Badlands witnessed the gates of hell being pushed open completely.

-----------------

Badlands, Sunset Motel.

The darkness before dawn is the thickest.

On the distant horizon, billowing dust surged in like a tsunami, accompanied by muffled tremors from deep within the earth.

That was the Blue Team Colonel's "Iron Torrent".

Dozens of heavy mechs led the way, followed closely by hundreds of armored vehicles, while a dense swarm of drones in the sky obscured the starlight.

At the very center of the formation stood the fifty-meter-tall War Fortress, carrying an electromagnetic railgun, resembling a moving demon of destruction.

"Energy readings...this is practically cheating."

On the hotel rooftop, V put down his binoculars, his face somewhat pale.

Despite the support of Zhang Yuan's "big cake" and medicine, individual bravery seemed so insignificant in the face of a general offensive of the regular army level.

"Boss, is this the 'guest' you're supposed to meet?"

Ah Qiang swallowed hard and released the safety on the Gatling gun. "The customer traffic is a bit too high. I'm afraid our little shop can't handle it."

"There is simply no room for it."

Zhang Yuan stood on the edge of the rooftop, his cloak fluttering in the strong wind.

He gazed at the unstoppable mechanical army, yet his voice beneath the mask remained remarkably calm:

"so……"

"We're not taking the call."

"Huh?" A-Qiang and V were both stunned.

"So...we're not fighting anymore?"

Panan, who had just set up his sniper rifle, looked completely bewildered. "Didn't we already set up the minefield? Rogge's men are in position too."

"We can't beat them."

Zhang Yuan turned around, his tone so matter-of-fact that it made you want to punch him:

"That's unlimited firepower powered by the [Rage] chip, and an army that stretches as far as the eye can see... Only someone with muscle in their brain would go head-to-head with such heavy firepower lunatics in the open wilderness."

He pointed to the transport plane behind him:

"Everyone, retreat!"

"Withdraw?!" Ah Qiang's eyes widened. "Withdraw now? What about our previous arrangements...?"

"Those landmines and traps were the 'gifts' left for them."

Zhang Yuan interrupted him, "As for us, let's go back to Night City. There's air conditioning, red wine, and even stronger city walls there."

"Remember, we're here to make money, not to become martyrs."

"But... what about the badlands?" Panan asked, somewhat unwilling. "If we just leave like this, military technology will level this place."

Zhang Yuan walked up to Panan and gently patted her shoulder:

"If you save people but lose land, you can gain both people and land; if you save land but lose people, you can lose both people and land."

"As long as you live, and as long as I live, the badlands will always be the badlands of the wanderers. Let that colonel blast the sand; anger will consume his sanity, and time... is on our side."

Ten minutes later.

As dawn broke, several transport planes, fully loaded with core members of the Red Team, silently took off from behind the hotel, flew low over the ground, and disappeared in the direction of Night City.

……

Half an hour later.

Rumbling--

The steel torrent finally arrived at the Sunset Hotel.

"Fire!!!"

The colonel sat in the cockpit of the War Fortress, his eyes bloodshot, the Wrath chip connected to his heart pumping energy wildly.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The electromagnetic railgun roared, and its blue beam instantly pierced through the dilapidated motel.

Immediately afterwards, hundreds of machine guns opened fire simultaneously, and the dense barrage turned the entire building into a sieve.

Just one volley.

The Sunset Hotel was reduced to a burning ruin.

"Have you broken in?! Have you captured anyone alive?!" the colonel roared into the communications channel.

"Reporting...reporting to the commander..."

The voice of the frontline scout trembled slightly:

"There's no one inside."

"Nobody here?!"

"Yes, there are only some holographic projection devices... and one more..."

"What?!"

"A... phonograph."

The colonel piloted the massive mech, striding across the ruins to the location indicated by the scout.

Sure enough, on a perfectly intact table, there was an old-fashioned phonograph that was still spinning.

Next to the phonograph stood a huge holographic projection board.

Above is Zhang Yuan's iconic smiling face with a fox mask, and a line of huge, neon-lit text:

"The sandstorms here are terrible; I'm going to town for a cup of tea. Colonel, the sand here... please enjoy it if you don't mind."

"puff--!"

The colonel felt a sweet taste in his throat and spat a mouthful of blood directly onto the inside of his tactical helmet.

That was because she was angry.

He gathered all his forces, used his ultimate weapon, and even sacrificed his own life force to overload the mech, charging in with great momentum... only to blow up a bunch of empty houses?

This feeling is like punching cotton after a long time of preparation; not only did it fail to injure the enemy, but it also strained your own back.

"Aaaaaaah!!!"

The colonel let out a fierce roar, maneuvering his mech to stomp on the phonograph until it was crushed into a pile of atoms.

"Zhang Yuan!! I'm going to kill you! I will definitely kill you!!!"

"Sir, what do we do now?" the adjutant asked cautiously. "We've already taken over the Badlands, but..."

"But what?!"

"But our supply lines are still being constantly harassed by the nomads. Although the main force has captured the strongholds, those guerrillas, like flies, are still everywhere."

"Moreover... maintaining such a massive mechanical army requires an astronomical amount of energy every day."

The colonel was breathing heavily, his red eyes flashing erratically.

Did he win?

Tactically speaking, he did capture the objective.

Strategically, however, he lost miserably.

He was given a worthless wasteland, but burdened with a heavy logistical load.

Meanwhile, that damned Red Team member is hiding in the fortified Night City, drinking red wine and watching him make a fool of himself.

"We can't stop...we can't stop..."

The colonel stared intently in the direction of Night City, where dazzling lights shone—that was Arasaka's territory.

[Rage] The chip is telling him: Only by destroying the source will the suffering end.

"Reorganize the troops! Replenish energy!"

The colonel's voice was chilling, as if it came from hell:

"Since he's waiting for me in the city... then I'll go to the city to find him."

"Launching the final offensive in three days."

"I will bring the flames of war to the foot of Arasaka Tower! I will make the entire Night City pay for its arrogance!!"