Chapter Ninety-One: Dramatic Developments

Thanks to Xing'er, 69, and ANR for their generous tips, and to the brothers for their likes. Half-Immortal will keep working hard!

A figure suddenly rose from the brush and charged after the fleeing convoy, a rifle in hand. Had she not moved, her body, cloaked in camouflage from head to toe, would never have been noticed.

The sudden ambush scattered the motorcycle squad at once. They thundered toward the highway. The one who sprang from the grass was Ryoko Mikura. She rushed ahead, yanked away the camouflaging mat, and revealed an off-road vehicle beneath.

Get in, start the engine, give chase—everything happened in one fluid motion.

From the passenger seat she snatched up the assault rifle, loaded the magazine with practiced ease using one hand, and pursued the motorcycles.

She could drive and shoot at the same time. This girl was truly fierce.

Three riders in the rear were struck and sent flying with their machines. The ones ahead noticed and began to turn back, firing in retaliation, but most of them were armed only with pistols and shotguns, making their shots far less likely to hit; and even when they did, the car’s body offered some protection.

Bang, bang, bang—another two were dropped by the sustained fire.

“Turn around! Turn around, damn it—bring the car down!” Diego, their leader, shouted the order, waving his pistol toward the rear. “Shoot the car, damn it! We take her first.”

It was no easy thing for the motorcycle column to stop at once. Still, they were disciplined enough to manage it. Once halted, they barely managed to regroup and open fire on the car.

Bullets rattled against the bodywork with a metallic clatter.

After the motorcycles stopped, Ryoko Mikura surged past them, but then the vehicle began to wobble violently, veered hard, and slammed into a boulder at the roadside. The front tire had been shot and burst.

Thud. The car struck, stalled, and came to a stop. She rolled out from the opposite side, taking the weapons bag from the car as she went. Using the vehicle as cover, she returned fire at the Cobras, who had abandoned their motorcycles and were shooting at her.

Her main weapons in the counterattack were the assault rifle, the sniper rifle, and the pistol.

But the enemy was simply too numerous. Fortunately, they had neglected to use their motorcycles as a means of pressing the attack. If they had all charged at once on their bikes, Ryoko Mikura would likely have been under far greater pressure.

Bang, bang, bang. The rounds hammered the car body, and Ryoko Mikura felt a twinge of regret at her own recklessness.

Amid the exchange, another man was hit and let out a shrill scream.

“Get on the motorcycles! Get on the motorcycles!” Juan shouted, brandishing his pistol. “We rush her together and kill that bitch, now!”

At last the others reacted. They realized that charging the woman on motorcycles gave them a very high chance of success. Juan was the first to see the advantage in it.

Ryoko Mikura raised the sniper rifle and fired at him.

But the shot came too hastily and missed Juan, instead striking his motorcycle. The bike staggered on for a short distance before toppling sideways. Rider and machine split apart, and with a roll he ducked behind the others.

Juan knew how to cover himself. By then many of them had mounted up, started their engines, and were about to charge toward Ryoko Mikura. The roar of the bikes and the crack of gunfire tangled together.

“Damn it!” Ryoko Mikura cursed. She could see that she was in extreme danger.

No matter how fierce the firepower, it could not stop a scattered motorcycle charge. And their firepower was not weak either; so many guns combined into a dense barrage, leaving her few openings to return fire.

“This is bad.” Ryoko Mikura drew a deep breath and looked at the motorcycle line drawing ever closer. At last she felt fear and despair rising in her chest, and regretted the hurried assault she had made.

She should have pursued from behind, not rushed ahead to intercept them.

Whoooosh—the sound of a motorcycle swept past her ear. Instinctively she turned her head and fired.

Bang. A motorcycle suddenly overturned and slammed to the ground, throwing its rider far away. He lay motionless, dead or alive impossible to tell.

Then came one assault after another against her car line.

Bang. Ryoko Mikura’s body jolted backward; she had been hit in the shoulder. The pistol in her left hand fell to the ground, but she immediately rolled and answered with the assault rifle in her right, striking the attacker.

“I may die here.” Ryoko Mikura drew in a deep breath. The others no longer dared to rush blindly, because the first few who had charged had been hit; two were dead, and two were wounded and dragged back. Still, they remained eager, motorcycles weaving restlessly, waiting only for the final order.

“I’m giving you one last chance. Put down your gun...” Diego shouted from there.

He had not even finished speaking when a hand appeared above the car roof, and that hand made a gesture that drove him into a fury of humiliation.

It raised the middle finger.

Diego was enraged beyond measure. A man beside him said, “Boss, it’s a woman. I say we shouldn’t kill her. We can have some fun first.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind. Have insects eaten your brain?” Diego stared at him in disbelief. At a time like this, this idiot was still thinking about women. There was no such thing as men and women on the battlefield. Only life and death.

“You have ten seconds. Then we’ll swarm you, and I’ll make sure that even if they kill you, you’ll still be ashamed all the way down in hell. You know what we’ll do to you.” Diego issued his final ultimatum in a loud voice. “I know you’re the woman who wounded our two brothers... I’ll give you a decent death!”

His answer was gunfire. Ryoko Mikura lowered the assault rifle, picked up the fallen pistol with her right hand, and fired at Diego. But the shot went wide.

“Attack! Attack! Let that bitch die in disgrace!” Diego roared, feeling humiliated. “We charge together. That woman is wounded—she won’t hold out much longer.”

At once the motorcycles began to rumble louder and louder, every man preparing for the final rush.

Ryoko Mikura knew these scum would surely do it. If she miraculously survived, they would humiliate her until death, and might not even spare her corpse. As a Japanese woman, she felt a fierce shame in the face of such a fate. Her face burning red, she picked up the pistol, shoved the barrel into her mouth, and, trembling, prepared to pull the trigger.

Suddenly Diego, who had been shouting orders and preparing to charge, lurched backward. Man and bike fell together. His skull burst open, blood splashing the face of the man beside him, who screamed in terror.

Then a pickup truck roared in from behind. The vehicle swerved broadside, and from the bed a rifle emerged, spraying the group with automatic fire. Another man rolled off the truck, braced himself against the cargo bed, lifted a rifle, and began picking them off with careful shots.

In just a few minutes, before the group could even react, six of them had been shot dead.

The whole band was stunned.

When they finally came to themselves, an attack suddenly broke out from the front as well. Ryoko Mikura seized the chance with sharp instinct and returned fire, lifting the assault rifle with one hand and picking them off. The pincer attack left the gang completely off balance, especially after their leader Diego was shot dead, leaving them momentarily leaderless.

“Fall back! We’re pulling out!”

At the crucial moment Juan stepped up. He shouted at the top of his lungs, firing wildly toward Ryoko Mikura while driving his motorcycle through the gap beside her on the road.

Bang. Another shot.

Juan felt his thigh slammed hard by the impact, and he tumbled to the ground. He thought he was surely done for, but a motorcycle stopped, yanked him up onto the seat, and sped away.

By the time they fled beyond sight, many bodies were already lying on the ground.

From a force that had numbered more than twenty, only four escaped.

Juan looked back and, seeing no one in pursuit, let the tension flood out of him. Then, all at once, he felt a wave of sorrow.

To think that the notorious Cobras, once so feared for sweeping through the borderlands, had become a pack of stray dogs. Destroyed by one woman and three men.

“Boss, what do we do now?” said the man driving the motorcycle with him.

“What did you just call me?” Juan asked, surprised.

“Boss...” The man did not look back, only said, “From now on, you’re our boss. Diego is dead, and most of the brothers are dead too. Only four of us are left. You’re our boss.”

Juan said nothing. After quite a while, he finally replied, “Find a place to stop. I need to bandage my wounds and take out the bullet.”

“Yes, Boss!” The man steered off the road and drove some distance over the wasteland before stopping.

“Remember, the Cobras are dead...” Juan said.

“Boss...” The man grew anxious, watching as Juan limped toward a spot and sat down.

“But... we’ll have a new organization. One that belongs only to me!” In Juan’s eyes burned only fire. Yes, the age of the Cobras was over. It was time for something new to take its place.