Chapter 357: Chapter 199: Farewell

Angelica playfully teased John with a familiar tone, her voice gradually fading.

Sometimes John couldn’t figure it out either.

Was it just physical need or spiritual solace between them? And was there something more hidden in the desolate look after each encounter?

“…”

John helped her adjust her sleeping posture.

“Don’t avoid the fact that we’ve shared a bed. It did happen, but that’s not the only reason I’m here.”

John caressed her cheek, giving a gentle farewell kiss.

“Get some sleep. When you wake up, it’ll be a new beginning.”

Angelica didn’t open her eyes, but for the first time, she seemed uneasy.

Half an hour later.

Silver Rider 577 left the Safikar Rescue Center.

John, feeling unsettled, gripped the steering wheel with one hand, the engine roaring. A corpse wrapped in a white sheet lay on the passenger seat.

A surveillance drone flew overhead.

Nearby, vehicles quietly followed.

[Mission Objective Updated]

[Shake off the pursuers and head to the dock’s container area. (Not Achieved)]

Silver Rider 577 approached the bypass checkpoint.

John’s scattered attention finally refocused as he saw several ECPD armored vehicles blocking the road in front of the metal archway.

A few modified cars with red and yellow graffiti queued for inspection at the gate.

John’s cybernetic eye contracted, quickly noticing that the officers kept glancing in his direction, while those seemingly “normal” vehicles had their windows closed in the sweltering afternoon.

The air brewed a severe atmosphere.

A massive-tired off-road vehicle pulled up alongside Silver Rider 577.

John gave it a glance, withdrew his gaze, and seemed to prepare to roll up the window by pulling back his rested arm.

Suddenly!

The window of the Eisenberg supercar dropped instantly.

John raised a large-caliber assault rifle and fired to the side, bullets mixed with gunpowder smoke flooding the other’s car.

[Weapon: Hercules MAX]

[Module: Overload Combustion, Advanced Armor-Piercing]

The off-road vehicle shook in place, its chunky tires heated to the point of smoke, the open driver’s seat a bloody mess.

Whoosh——

John floored the accelerator and put away the Hercules.

If he had fired a moment later, he would have been the one attacked—the waiting vehicles, the on-duty officers at the checkpoint, and the farther trailing street racing gang all had issues.

These people were converging from all directions of the bypass, seemingly by chance, but in fact, they were lying in wait for John.

Angelica was the daughter of the Speaker of the Black Gold Gang.

This kind of leverage would make gang wars delicate. Even Eisenberg, who controlled the West District, would need something on Vito Russell.

Hawthorne was right.

The mission was far from over.

Silver Rider 577 revved up, accompanied by the sound of tires burning and faint smoke, forcefully rushing out before the barricade rose.

The vehicles around the checkpoint revealed their true intentions as well.

The screech of burning tires turned into a chaotic mess.

They spun their steering wheels hard, attempting to block the road ahead.

As one modified car barely veered its front end, Silver Rider 577 roared past, capitalizing on its acceleration advantage.

All checkpoint warning lights turned red.

Drones launched from the platform, alarms blaring piercingly.

John couldn’t tell if the ECPD was operating normally or if some faction had bribed them to help encircle him.

Ratatat.

Some pursuers caught up.

Several gunmen leaned out of windows and fired wildly at the supercar, bullets landing near the taillights with a distinctive friction sound.

Silver Rider 577’s armor had been fully upgraded.

The urban camo components and bulletproof layers left it virtually unscathed, the scratches incurred would only require minor post-battle maintenance.

John constantly increased the car’s speed.

He swerved from the checkpoint onto the overpass, officially entering the urban area, where traffic gradually thickened. Billboards dominating the view and the deafening commercial ads melded with the engine roar and sharp braking.

The streets became convoluted and winding.

Only two motorcycles managed to keep up with Silver Rider 577.

[Vehicle: Glaive]

[Manufacturer: Raqi Group]

John took one look and knew they were the dogs of the Eastern people.

The motorcycle assassins no longer hid their intentions, accelerating as they ducked low, firing the submachine guns from their weapon slots, bending low to drift nearly off the ground.

The thick-spinning tires sliced through the dust.

The blue muzzle flash of smart weapons spread over the car body, unable to penetrate the glass.

The two assassins responded swiftly, retracting weapons to shift gears and accelerating full throttle, tossing a magnetic grenade after closing in on the supercar.

John’s vision, linked with the car’s system, observed their movements.

Whoosh——

Silver Rider 577 suddenly braked hard.

Smoke erupted around the tires.

John sharply turned the steering wheel, his cybernetic eye flickering as he switched all driving modes to manual intervention.

The entire car spun in place, doing a U-turn.

Fierce wind rushed in through the window, and the corpse in the passenger seat shook violently, restrained by the seatbelt.

The bomb narrowly missed the supercar and attached itself to the guardrail.

Bang!

Explosions resonated around the overpass.

The directional shockwave didn’t cause effective damage to the supercar.

Motorcycle assassins nearby were consumed by flames and thick smoke; their vehicles overturned, sparks and traces of blood scattering in the collision.

John put away his firearm and glanced sideways, switching cameras.

Silver Rider 577 didn’t lose control due to the chaos, instead, it drifted in reverse, using inertia to back into the ramp.

John sharply turned the steering wheel again, retracting the passenger seat’s seatbelt.

The supercar’s scissor doors lifted upwards!

The “long-struggling” corpse was finally freed, ejected from the passenger seat and collided with another motorcycle clinging to the side, sending the assassin over the guardrail.

Buzz—

Swoosh—

John drifted once more, straightening the car’s body.

His expression didn’t change much as he observed the surroundings; all suspected pursuers were gone, and those further away sensibly backed off upon seeing the ECPD’s force.

Silver Rider 577 continued to accelerate.

Police sirens echoed on the city streets.

The sunlight was pale, dust swirling in the air.

Black and white police cars closed in on the supercar, lights flashing blue and red.

John drove extremely fast, deliberately choosing narrow lanes meant for single vehicles to speed up.

No one could keep up with him.

[Warning, this is ECPD officer on duty, you have violated…]

A mechanical voice came from the car’s speakers.

High-speed drones darted between shanties and skyscrapers, using electronic interference to communicate.

[Hack detected, vehicle control/rejected]

ECPD had advanced road privileges.

Vehicles equipped with smart systems would be remotely interfered with.

This was a common enforcement tactic.

The special operations team was the best at using it.

When they controlled an area or combated cyberpsychosis, they would use the “road privilege” program to lock down streets, and nearby vehicles would receive similar alert information, while smart vehicles might even be commandeered on the spot.

Just like now.

John raised his head, his gaze sweeping from the overpass to the commercial street.

Smart vehicles faced varying degrees of control, performing sudden stops and pulling over.

But this meant nothing to Black Light.

Silver Rider 577 didn’t slow down at all.

The municipal system’s control codes only flickered for half a second in his cybernetic eye.

The vehicle systems managed by Black Light couldn’t even be breached by direct network monitoring.

John continued to race through the complex roads, the paused vehicles around him instead giving him opportunities.

Silver Rider 577 dove into a tunnel, switching its urban camouflage color scheme as it sped past the series of wall lights.

Gaping cracks spread over.

The engine hood and rear wing shape transformed accordingly.

Buzz—

The tunnel compressed the engine’s roar to the extreme, as if about to tear through the concrete dome.

The supercar, black with a glossy glaze and red taillights, roared out, while the drone above fell into a brief delay after scanning.

[Report update, suspect is currently registered as a modified Silver Rider 577, black paint, repeat, black paint…]

Buzz—

John heard the police alert on the car radio.

By the time the patrolling drone reacted again, he had already dashed into another tunnel and changed colors once more.

The supercar circled the outskirts of the city, completely distancing itself from the overpass.

Moments later.

The skyscraper-lined East District Factory Avenue.

Concrete-colored skyscrapers bore buildings of sprawling growth, intertwined giant pipelines and wires connected together.

Whoosh—

Whoosh—

Two black and blue flying craft swept past the glass curtain wall.

Hovercars and urban railways snaked overhead.

John slowly emerged from the shadows of the district in the supercar, scanning around to find no trace of pursuers or police.

Not wasting any time, he headed towards the correct address.

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