The intense sound of explosions constantly reverberated around Panshing Street. Whether it was the NCPD or Tiger Claw, Vortex Gang, or even mercenaries and citizens helping to fight the fire, everyone tactically steered clear of there, leaving the battlefield to Huang Ban and the players.
Huang Ban wisely did not escalate the battle, after all, once it’s over, everything can be attributed to the fire, but if it spills outside, it would incur greater marketing costs.
Perhaps everyone despises the company and clearly understands the outcome if Huang Ban wins, but no one is willing to face Huang Ban’s wrath directly.
They once dared to hijack corporate trucks and murder corporate middle-level employees, mostly with the intention of making quick gains, and then possibly achieving fame through resistance. Now, if they cause trouble for Huang Ban, they won’t earn a cent and will likely get taken out by the fiercely raging Huang Ban forces. It’s a loss of Grandma’s house.
A shell shot straight into the outer wall of a residential building, engulfing every corner inside with a loud bang, reducing it to ruins.
Wildman crawled out from the rubble, his hair and face turned grayish-white by the cement dust.
But he didn’t dare to linger for a moment, hurriedly got up and ran towards the stairway.
Sure enough, the next second several military drones hovered at the breach, madly strafing the ruins inside, with hot brass shells raining down like raindrops onto the ground.
Hiding in the stairwell, Wildman leaned against the wall, gulping for breath. After resting for a few seconds, he said in the channel,
"This won’t do, we need to change our tactics."
On the high-rise not far from him, the Giants and Potato were wielding their grenade launchers and machine guns to suppress the Huang Ban convoy on the street, having a blast.
"What do you mean, this is too awesome, man!"
As the player level rises, ordinary gangsters rarely pose a challenge anymore; high-level players can kick them to death with ease.
After all, the monster levels in this game don’t improve alongside players; only doing battle with the company instills that dire sense of impending confrontation.
In the channel, Giant shouted, "Whoa, drones incoming, run fast!"
Those drones up there were exceedingly annoying, flying high and hard to hit, often swooping with a burst of fire, and when one was shot down, a swarm appeared. Spotting you means Huang Ban forces are probably already aiming at you.
Wildman: "The problem is, do you know what the victory condition for this instance is?"
Potato: "Isn’t it to fight the fire?" Dıscover more novels at novel·fire·net
He still couldn’t fathom why, when fighting the fire, they suddenly started clashing with Huang Ban.
After defeating the Izumo team, they immediately rushed to the front lines for support, without pondering the reason for the battle. Just fight, that’s it, all or nothing!
Brother Ni joined the comms at this point, "Yeah, theoretically speaking, as long as we persist until the fire is out, the instance should conclude."
"The problem is, this damn fire is probably not going out."
Wildman took advantage of this brief moment to recover his stamina, then continued,
"Huang Ban continually arranges people to ignite fire, as soon as one side is pressed down, another springs up. Without identifying the key to breaking this deadlock, the battle won’t end even if it drags on till tomorrow."
Giants: "No way, this game setting is quite realistic. Every NPC exists independently. How many people can Huang Ban have in Night City? Just kill everyone from top to bottom in Huang Ban Tower."
Only players could so casually utter such terrifying words.
Wildman shook his head:
"You’re not viewing this from within the game background. All these mobs we’ve killed here, each one, is cannon fodder. Even if you slay a thousand or two thousand of them, Huang Ban wouldn’t bat an eye. When have they ever cared about lives?"
"The drones, armored cars, even power armors are consumables. With the game world’s productivity, there’s an endless supply, and this certainly isn’t Huang Ban’s full force. In the end, if we exhaust all our lives here, we may still not achieve instance victory."
Brother Ni instantly agreed, "I think what Wildman said makes sense. To fight, we must target the company’s pain points, attack its weak spot."
"I think we should open a channel, get some players in, discuss where the breakthrough point for this instance is."
Everyone agreed that Brother Ni made a good point: brainstorming, right? The subjective initiative of players is probably one of the strongest among all, aside from those always pondering how to exploit legal loopholes for profit.
And everyone soon reached a consensus.
To make the capitalists back down, the only way is to make them lose money, or make them determine that this plan would lose money.
Once capital’s growth is hindered or even incurs losses, they’ll flee faster than anyone.
In Night City, neither the government nor public opinion works, and players can’t execute peer pressure tactics, so there’s only one last resort.
Make them lose so much they have no option but to abandon it.
Jianxue: "Otherwise, let’s go and blow up Huang Ban Tower."
Brother Ni: "It’s feasible, just practically a bit challenging. Where are we going to find a nuclear bomb? Jianxue, can you manually craft uranium 235?"
After Huang Ban Tower was blown up with a nuclear bomb last time, it was certainly reinforced during reconstruction, meaning Jianxue has to acquire one even more powerful than the one Silverhand found.
Jianxue: "I don’t have a nuke, but we could mimic 911, hijack a plane and crash into it."
"I think those few skyscrapers look quite like flags, it would also fill the world’s regret of not having 911."