The earthshaking roar of motorcycles rose and fell in the distance. The entire city trembled before it, and even the ground seemed to fear those vicious, wolfish demons.
Special Assault Team—the most elite armed force of the Ghostfire Syndicate, commanding more than a thousand motorcycles and tens of thousands of gang members.
Even the strongest Mobile Response Unit in the city had never managed to completely eradicate these pests.
They were locusts, medieval pirates, Huns sweeping across the grasslands.
They lived by plunder. There was no evil they would not commit. They did whatever they pleased.
What made them even more troublesome was that they lived on their motorcycles, remaining with them almost twenty-four hours a day. They could leave at a moment's notice, making it virtually impossible for anyone else to intercept them.
They could attack others, yet no one could catch them.
This was the Ghostfire Syndicate—a gang of rampaging lunatics.
At the head of the charge was a pack of mechanical hounds equipped with corporate AI.
These hounds were extremely agile. They could move freely through all manner of hostile environments and carry out a wide variety of complex missions.
In addition, the mechanical hounds possessed extraordinary adaptability and learning capabilities, allowing them to adjust their strategies according to changes in the environment.
Without human weaknesses or emotions, the mechanical hounds could focus entirely on pursuing their targets, making them extremely difficult to counter or subdue.
Even combat mechs would struggle to gain the upper hand against these "wolf packs" on a frontal battlefield.
Once they locked onto someone, not a single person could escape. Their inevitable fate was to be torn apart by the mechanical hounds' razor-sharp blades and claws.
The nearby residents turned deathly pale. They hurriedly shut their windows, and some even used cabinets and other furniture to completely barricade their doors.
But this was clearly useless. The Ghostfire Syndicate members blasted open their doors with the autocannons mounted on their motorcycles, after which the hounds swarmed into their homes.
Against mechanical hounds equipped with thermal-sensing noses, even hiding in a cellar was pointless. The hounds would simply drag the homeowner out and maul them to death.
Following close behind the hounds were the "vanguard bikes." Loudspeakers had been mounted on the front of every motorcycle, repeatedly broadcasting their "core message": "The people before you are provoking trouble against the corporation, while we are acting in self-defense to protect corporate interests."
Racing along the flanks of the vanguard bikes were literal members of the bosozoku.
They did not ride motorcycles. Instead, they relied entirely on their modified mechanical legs to "run wild" across the ground.
Massive speakers rested on their thick, solid shoulders, endlessly broadcasting the same core message: "These people are pests of the corporation. They refuse to purchase corporate services while occupying corporate public resources. They have harmed the corporation's interests and must be eliminated!"
Naturally, none of this referred to the Ghostfire Syndicate members themselves.
The members of the Ghostfire Syndicate had no intention whatsoever of becoming corporate dogs.
The only reason they played this background noise was that the Ghostfire Syndicate had brought along mechanical hounds "leased" from the "corporation." The "core message" repeatedly broadcast through the speakers was a technique for taming and brainwashing those AI hounds.
The first half of the message was meant to protect themselves, preventing the AI hounds from suddenly turning on them. The second half was intended to stimulate their aggression.
The fundamental logic of these hounds' programming was to protect the "corporation's" interests. Thus, as long as they were made to believe that the people before them were harming corporate interests, they would automatically attack and eliminate those obstacles.
The one thing Dusk City never lacked was large groups of homeless people.
They did not even spare the penniless vagrants lying beside the road.
The mechanical bosozoku turned into the alleys and indiscriminately opened fire on the homeless people inside, caring nothing for whether innocent people were caught in the crossfire.
The homeless people shouted, "Lords of the Mobile Response Unit, we weren't provoking trouble! We didn't do anything!"
Clearly, these homeless people had yet to realize the severity of the situation. They thought this was the same as before, when patrol officers from the Mobile Response Unit, who disliked their presence, merely came to drive them away.
"You're blocking our path in the middle of the street! Isn't that provoking trouble against the corporation?!"
The charge of provoking trouble against the corporation genuinely existed. Its original purpose had been to punish hooligans who caused unreasonable disturbances for the corporation, but the regulation was so broad that its scope of application was difficult to define.
Even humans struggled to determine its scope, let alone the AI of the mechanical hounds.
And so, the Ghostfire Syndicate exploited it as a means of controlling the mechanical hounds' AI.
Although the "corporation" acted without reason, it still carefully weighed matters involving human lives. Under normal circumstances, killing someone without first reporting it was forbidden.
What if that person owed the corporation a large debt?
Once they died, would that debt not become unrecoverable?
Naturally, these rules had also been entered into the mechanical hounds' programming.
However, one law allowed them to cross that boundary.
That law was self-defense.
As long as someone dared resist, the mechanical hounds, endlessly brainwashed by the self-defense broadcasts, could sink their teeth in without restraint.
Vrrr-vrrr-vrrr-vrrr.
"Kill them! Kill them all!"
For a time, screams and wails echoed throughout the entire district.
Some people hid behind corporate billboards on the rooftops, believing that if they stayed high above the ground, the crazed intelligent hounds and mechanical bosozoku would be unable to attack them.
However, motorcycles in this era had long since ceased to be machines capable of racing only across the ground.
Crash!
A heavy impact rang out.
A massive motorcycle flattened the rooftop billboard, and multicolored neon tubes exploded into the air alongside a spray of blood.
No one could escape these crazed locusts.
There was no road to heaven and no door into the earth.
...
The entrance to Taixu Hospital was likewise crowded with homeless people. The distant roar of engines filled them with an ominous sense of foreboding.
Vroom, vroom, vroom— The deafening racket of motorcycles drew steadily closer, and before long, they arrived at the open space before Taixu Hospital's main entrance.
At that moment, a number of homeless people remained in the clearing outside Taixu Hospital, having failed to evacuate in time.
They had only come because Taixu Hospital sounded lively, hoping they might find an opportunity to freeload.
They had never expected to run into something like this.
Before the Ghostfire Syndicate, they were nothing more than fish laid upon a chopping board.
"Wail! Weep!"
"Lament your own weakness! Hahahaha!"
One member of the bosozoku had not only replaced his feet with wheels, but fitted those wheels with countless blades. Anyone he "left footprints" upon was inevitably drenched in blood.
At that moment, a chain tipped with two lead balls came whistling through the air and wrapped around his legs, tripping him to the ground.
Su stood with his eyes closed and raised the Pink Bunny Triple-Barreled Capture Cannon in his hands.
"Commit no evil. Practice every virtue. Thus should you regard all things. All phenomena arise through causes. Should you refuse to leave, you will inevitably fall into the Three Evil Paths."
The mechanical bosozoku roared, "What the fuck kind of gibberish are you spouting? You think closing your eyes and wearing those ridiculous sunglasses will scare anyone?"
Streams of data flowed across the Pink Kitty-Ear Sunglasses on Su's face, and a trace of anger entered his voice. "Please leave... You are not welcome here."
"Otherwise... I cannot guarantee that you will leave alive."
Under Su's leadership, the Taixu Gang's counterattack began.