A heavy brute charges.
The Samson full-body cyberware monstrosity pries apart a wrecked car, wreathed in flames, and smashes straight into a building. An entire apartment block collapses under the impact.
Viewers in front of their screens leap to their feet, shouting praise—
This is way crazier than Gorilla Arms or mantis blades!
"Oh!"
The audience has barely covered their mouths in shock when, in the very next second, the brute explodes.
And not just one—multiple brutes, exploding one after another.
"Oh, honestly, this is a bit hard to take. You don't see cyberware of this tier doing urban demolition in Night City every day."
"But did you see that? These full-body rigs can self-detonate. No idea where they dug up that second-hand junk."
"If you want safety, I still recommend buying from legit corps. Second half of the year, Q4, Militech and Zetatech will jointly launch a brand-new cyberware bundle. Complete the set to unlock a full-body system. Become a loyal Zetatech customer—"
Of course, only people who actually need to work consider full-body swaps at scale.
Most viewers are staring at the autocannon mounted on the Mackinaw's roof. In just a short while, Militech's sales lines are basically melting.
You can really mount that on a light vehicle?
What kind of high-tech chassis is that?
Sales reps smile politely: buy it and you'll find out.
At the same time, Thorton gets hit by a hacking incident and abruptly drops into blackout mode. One second, execs are watching the stock spike and feeling their hearts race; the next second, the entire company goes dark. The whiplash nearly gives someone a heart attack on the spot.
NetWatch agents shift the drone feeds and begin sweeping the battlefield.
This fight includes greedy street punks, overseas mercs, and local gangs resurfacing from the shadows. The racers are a mixed bag, and the untraceable weapons almost certainly tie back to Muramasa.
Investigating them serves two purposes: hunting Muramasa, and tightening surveillance on Night City itself. Both are part of the job.
As the fighting escalates, the backstage grows more chaotic—
And slowly, the race approaches its most intense zone.
Once the bridge is crossed, the Legend enters Heywood.
This is the most complex terrain so far. Wooden shacks give way to reinforced concrete, then to high-rises. Pedestrian overpasses, light rail, and dense buildings create perfect ambush points.
Most importantly, the Badlands barely have a Net. Santo Domingo suffered a massive blackout not long ago; only a handful of servers are still running, making any wireless activity painfully obvious.
But from Heywood onward, dense urban networks come online. Signal noise skyrockets, and wireless intrusion becomes exponentially easier to hide.
From here on out, this isn't just a race anymore.
Especially since the Legendary Mackinaw has already burned through all its HEAP rounds. Its firepower advantage has taken a hit.
"Looks like our seeded favorite cleaned up Colorado Farm. That Six Street minefield was nasty—no idea how many they buried. Only a handful of cars made it through."
"Friendly reminder to Santo Domingo residents: watch your step tomorrow. Don't step on a landmine."
"Back to the riot—looks like the mid-race joiners have crossed the bridge. Honestly, I expected Six Street to set up a machine-gun nest here."
"Oh—wait. Cars have stopped on the other side of the bridge. What are they doing?"
Morton has switched to a Mackinaw, tailing Leo from behind. One arm rests on the console while the rookie in the passenger seat applies emergency bandages.
He barely survived. That woman almost blew him apart. Fifteen-millimeter cyborg ammo is no joke.
Four ribs on his right side are broken. The good news: besides his organic ribs, he's got two metal ones with stabilizers linking them to the rest of the cage.
The ribs are broken, but they didn't puncture the lung. The pain is brutal, but he's dosed with heavy analgesics.
Adan, doing the bandaging, swallows hard at the sight of the sedative.
Overhead, the Mackinaw's drone spots two Quadra Type-66 city racers stopped on the far side of the bridge. Scissor doors up, drivers flipping the bird.
Boom.
The ground shakes violently.
A massive fireball erupts on the bridge.
Not just this small bidirectional bridge—every route from Santo Domingo into Heywood detonates at the same time.
Shockwaves ripple outward. Rebar and concrete are blasted free. Every road shows a rupture nearly twenty meters wide.
As the smoke clears, exposed steel barely holds parts of the bridge together. Burning concrete sags, cracks, and drops away.
[Morton: Holy shit, that's big. What's the play?]
[Burger King: A twenty-meter gap? You don't think I can jump that, do you?]
[Morton: Heh. Then I'll give you a hand.]
"Oh!"
Stanley's voice cracks over the radio.
This is insane.
Night City's escalation just keeps getting worse. Watson chemical plants, Santo Domingo's EMP blackout—
Now they're openly blowing up public infrastructure.
"No question, this is a terrorist attack. What's the Legend going to do?"
"What are they planning to do?"
The Legendary Mackinaw doesn't slow down.
By the time the explosion hits, Leo is already on the planned elevated approach. The bridge into Heywood is a three-lane bidirectional overpass—now torn open by a roughly twenty-meter gap that's still widening.
To make sure Leo can't reroute easily, the attackers thoughtfully blew up the nearest alternate bridges, too.
Detouring is pointless.
The only answer is to go straight through.
And that's probably exactly what Muramasa wants.
Six Street trucks swarm in from all directions, hauling heavy plates scavenged from who knows where.
"Are they… fixing the bridge?"
"No—wait. They're building a ramp!"
"Hold on—are they planning to jump a ten-ton vehicle across the bridge?!"
Six Street members swarm the overpass like combat engineers, slamming materials into place, building a launch platform for the Mackinaw amid flames and smoke.
The ramp is anchored into the roadway.
The gap is about twenty meters, but the ramp has to sit on a structurally sound section of the bridge.
You can't place it right at the edge—gravity has already pulled that section downward. Launch from there and you'd splash into the river.
So the actual jump distance isn't twenty meters.
Under Leo's calculations, it comes out to forty-three meters.
"Are you really going to jump it?"
The Legend exits the ramp and then turns, driving the wrong way.