Honestly, Li Pan never imagined that isekai life would mean taking two nukes to the face.
Two!
And surviving both? This genre has gotten way too competitive…
Whatever—he lived, though this one was razor-thin.
Truth be told, it was all thanks to the little brother. If Duan Kecheng hadn't thrown away even the Blood Son to shield him, Li Pan would've been toast—no, ashes.
Maybe even Duan Kecheng didn't expect that a dignified blood infant could be outright snuffed by a nuclear blast.
Either way, the debt stands: he saved Li Pan.
The Blood Son soaked most of the damage; the shockwave punted Li Pan to the bottom of the crater. The rainwater pooled there flashed to steam and boiled him like a prawn.
Good thing the company rolled him back in time.
Come on—this was the fourth nuclear detonation in Night City. Big ol' mushroom cloud and all.
Of course they slam the emergency global rollback.
Groggy, Li Pan crawled up through radioactive dust and looked overhead.
In a way, the sky had cleared.
The acid-rain deck was blown off by thermal winds; only the colossal mushroom climbed toward the stratosphere.
He lowered his gaze to the jade tablet in his left hand.
Not some trinket: it ate a nuke without a scratch and even seemed to drink the radiation, "charging up." The mutton-fat jade now ran with bluish light; a crisp golden sigil pulsed on its face, blinking sea-green like an LED badge.
It wasn't a sect token or a spatial stash-treasure by the look of it.
He flicked it—nothing. Fed it dao breath, probed with mind, tried to trigger the sigil—no response.
He shelved it. Also: he was butt-naked—the blast had vaporized his clothes—so nowhere to hide it. He kept it in hand, trickling breath into it.
His right palm clenched… slag.
The last of Saint Catherine's Sword—just a fused grip. However ancient, it was still mortal steel: it melted.
Even qi-warding hadn't helped; if he himself only stood up thanks to rollback, the blade never stood a chance.
He sighed. K probably hadn't fared much better…
No time to mope—boom behind him.
The prison ruins blew, and Shiranui Kiriko, also full-reset, burst from an emergency passage. She flared into Great Tengu, spread two raven wings, clutched the Holy Grail, and cradled a withered-dry Kōga Asaji. Using the nuke-cleared field, she shot skyward into the radioactive dust to escape.
She didn't reach the cloud. A high-energy beam swept by like a long knife and sheared her wings.
Kiriko screamed and fell; she twisted mid-air to cushion Asaji, avoiding pulping her.
But Asaji still lay unresponsive—at death's door.
A corp dog hauled itself out of the rubble: both arms were barrels. The left, red-hot, elbow peeled open to show an ion accelerator track, dumped white steam—post-shot cooldown. He raised the right and, mercilessly, zzzmm—another sweep.
Kiriko tried to slip it. Failed: the ray carved off half her body, taking the Grail hand and a leg. The wounds stank like burnt meat. She could only clutch Asaji and moan.
The cyborg smiled and strode for the Grail—then froze, snapping his right arm to aim at Li Pan.
"Whoa, whoa," Li Pan said. "We surrender. You win. Take the Grail. I'm out. Ceasefire."
The beam-dog said nothing, but Shiranui did, howling,
"Li! Kill him!"
Li Pan rolled his eyes.
"I'm TheM's manager. My word holds. I say ceasefire, it's ceasefire. You can bank on that."
"You?" The cyborg looked him over like a mutant. "Bio-chimera? Rad-spawn?"
Empty-handed, Li Pan swallowed and kept talking:
"Leave us a way out; we'll meet again right. We're all employees—job's done, why the overkill?
"Call this your win. We break here. Maybe we do business later.
"I'll tip you thirty million personally, and we stop. Deal?"
Beam-dog wavered.
"Fifty a head. You two; we're three…"
Shiranui, wolf-mad, shrieked:
"Kill—him! He's out of ammo!"
Tch. Loudmouth…
Beam-dog realized both cannons were cooling, and Li Pan's chatter was a stalling play. His face iced over.
"What's that hand behind your back!"
Show's over. Li Pan dipped, burst forward, and flung the silver slag to draw the eye.
Beam-dog sidestepped and brought up his left barrel to center Li Pan.
At that instant a blood hand sprang from Li Pan and clutched the cyborg's face.
Yes—Li Pan had traced a sect blood-spell on his back for the Soul-Snatch Palm. But with his "heretic" power in the main body, he couldn't rip the soul; he only dazed him a heartbeat. The beam still fired—wildly off.
Enough.
Li Pan dove through, slipped the ray, and drove a Nine-Yin True Dragon Super Punch point-blank. Boom. Head gone. Solo kill.
No celebration: he twisted in air, ferret-rolled, and scrambled away under a hail.
Because metal storm and artillery wash had spun up.
The other two dogs—Storm and Artillery—slowed by cave-ins, saw their mate drop and didn't flinch: one covered, one reloaded, coldly interleaving streams to saturate the field.
Li Pan found no gap to close. With protective qi he sprint-zigzagged; dragon scales flew off in flakes; his belly, newly patched, reopened in holes.
Yeah… all fear begins with insufficient firepower. Tiger or dragon, under this density you lie flat.
Luckily, they'd dumped half their magazines on the ninjas below, and radiation jittered their targeting. Before he got mulched, Li Pan managed to open space.
At his tightest moment, the guns stuttered one beat—and a demonic pressure geysered up.
What now…?
He glanced back: Shiranui Kiriko was chugging from the Grail.
Inside: her own blood and flesh.
"AAAAHH—!"
Call it demonize, rampage, loss of control: she stopped being human.
From her stump of wing, arm, and leg sprouted human heads; faces warped; the body cracked and stretched; smooth skin ruptured; black down and feathers burst everywhere…
Storm and Artillery traded a look, slewed barrels, and roared:
"Ratatatat—BOOM!"
They turned demon-Kiriko into mince; smoke and dust whited out the field.
But Li Pan felt it.
Bullets no longer mattered.
He sensed the power swelling—bigger, meaner, madder.
The Great Tengu was descending.
Not just that: there was fox in it. Likely Kiriko had swallowed Asaji.
Two presences entangled. A chorus of faces in the pulp. A grand detonation.
KRAKOOM.
The wave tossed him again. He spat blood, staggered up, and saw: in the haze, something of clotted flesh was forming.
Storm and Artillery hadn't let off, but that thing lived under saturation; it shattered and grew at once, rolling, screaming, plunging through ruins. In seconds it engulfed the beaten zone; the thunder dwindled until only a weeping echoed through steel canyons.
Li Pan crouched and waited it out. When the haze thinned, he peeked.
Storm and Artillery were gone. Around the nuke crater: silence; from the prison fissures: a distant keening, like a host of women crying in the dark.
No way—if even that fire level can't check it… what now?
"—It really is you! Unbelievable you're alive…"
"Huh?"
An aircar decloaked. Chen Tan—"Uncle Chen" of Section Three—in full NBC, hopped down.
They found him buying a soda… For shadow-watching, Security stays king.
"Oh, Uncle Chen. Cool-GorillA?"
Chen glared; he jabbed at the flower blooming over Chiyoda.
"You have time to drink? What do you plan to do about that?"
Li Pan looked back. "What do I plan?"
"That's your job, TheM manager.
"And this mess is yours.
"Own it."
"…Fair."
He chugged the can, crushed it, tossed it.
"Fine. I'll handle it. Lend me a phone—and, uh, a pair of shorts."
Chen waved. Agent T dropped from the car, handed Li Pan a military comm, a Security Ops uniform, and a basic med kit. The team lifted off, clearing the hot zone and leaving the nightmare to the professionals.
Li Pan sighed and dialed company.
"Yeah, whoever—first, roll me. Then route a support team to my coordinates. We're doing overtime.
"And bring the shredder."
.
.
.
⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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