Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

I eyed the end location of the ring. Realistically, the last ring would be one massive boxing match between all of the survivors. 32, by Luna’s count. More survived the collapsing tower than I would’ve thought. I didn’t think I’d get a ton of kills, but I figured the chaos would’ve been the ideal opportunity to hunt stragglers.

The ring was closing on the base of the devastated tower, just as everyone suspected. Although Luna and I hadn’t gotten into how the Node collapsed very much given our limited time, the rest of these guys studied it till they could perfectly guess the end location from just the first couple rings.

Not like it’d matter, though. As soon as the Node collapsed to that final ring, Luna and I’s ace would be in play. I just needed to survive long enough to see it. That was easier said than done. Our plan was to focus purely on me for the first half of the battle royale to take advantage of the face I wasn’t handicapped too bad by being here. The latter half, now, was all up to Luna now that everyone was back to 100%. The Operators had been playing with their hands close to their chest, but the time to hold back was long fading.

Already, I could hear the fireworks starting without me. An explosion lit up the snowstorm, and a concussive wave rippled over my head. Windows, those few ones that remained after the collapsing tower, all along the streets instantly shattered. Sharp debris scattered across my coat, and plinked harmlessly to the ground.

The ground beneath me trembled fiercely, and I grabbed onto a street lamp barely peeking up through the snow to hold myself steady. “The hell was that?”

Luna appeared next to me, and looked out toward the city. Snowflakes drifted right through her avatar. “Looks like… Rustek Graviton Bomb. Its the Graviton Bolt’s bigger brother.”

“It would've been nice to snag one of those.” I brushed a hand along my sniper. If I realized the projectiles were better than the actual weapon, then the Rustek researchers also must’ve realized the same thing.

”Five people were just knocked out by it,” Luna said casually.

“What were they doing so close? Teaming?” It wouldn’t be the first of it I’d seen. Hopefully, I wouldn’t see any more of it.

“The bomb wiped out an entire building and your other spider tank.” An image of a devastated building popped up into my HUD. “I hope it was the last of those he had.”

”Who was it?” I eyed the building. Unlike the tower I brought down, there was a clear sphere-shaped void where the building used to be.

The image slowly faded away. Even just being near that thing could be catastrophic. ”Reverent.”

“Never heard of him.” To be fair, I hadn’t heard of most of the people in this thing. It being a global event made it pretty unlikely I’d recognize anyone.

There was about ten minutes till the Node started to collapse into the final ring. That was more than enough time to get somewhere cozy to watch it all go down. Or I could get somewhere with sightlines to snipe from. Either sit around for a while, or go for more points… like that was even a question.

I scanned the map once more, and settled on a familiar building that’d make an excellent sniper post. “How up to date is the map info?”

“About a minute old.” Luna glanced at me and walked off. After a few steps, she vanished into particles once more. “I’ll ping the server again.”

”Chek.” Until then, I needed to make my move. Sitting around here wasn’t a good idea. ‘Sides, the ring would devour the fringes of the city before too long. I couldn’t stay out here.

I worked through the snow covered streets slowly and methodically. Although I intentionally took routes that avoided people for now, I could never be too safe. I’d see from Luna how easy it was for a skilled runner to spoof their location. The last thing I needed was to run into a lone Operator unprepared ‘cause I thought I knew everything.

The snowstorm started to lighten up as I moved in toward my target building. For the first time since this started, I finally saw the edge of the Node. A black wall of twisting shadows and dark-red lightning writhed against the perimeter of the Node. For a moment, the sensation of being watched filled me and the lightning twisted into a face. It vanished before I could double check if it was real or a trick of my imagination.

So that’s the unprotected DarkNet, huh? A shiver went down my spine as I rubbed at my arms. Even without Insight warning me, an incredibly bad feeling welled up from within. Survival instincts, maybe.

With that cheery image stuck in my head, I worked across the city. The building in question was the same one I got set up in earlier. It was close enough to the tower that I could cross through a few back alleys on the rim of the collapsing Node without any issue. I already had some solid defenses set up inside of it as well.

I jumped the laser-primed claymores and worked my way through the place while avoiding my previously set up traps. It’d be incredibly stupid to take myself out with a trap I’d forgotten about. The legend of Nightshade might as well just end right there.

On the second level, I found an eviscerated Operator. Hundreds of small divots and holes in the walls surrounded the corpse, leaving no room to doubt what they got hit by. Those claymores were incredibly deadly. I looted some more ammo as well as three more hologram pucks. Nothing else was worth taking.

I returned back to the original apartment I sniped out of earlier. It had a perfect line of sight onto the base of the tower, which was where I expected the rest of the lobby to gather. Although the building was mostly gone, it was still a solid point to get set up in. Better than having to run across the streets to get into safety once the final circle collapsed.

I ensured all the lights were out so nothing would backlight me, and then moved around to set the hologram pucks up. They did wonders for keeping me alive earlier. Hopefully they’d be just as effective now.

I put one right in front of the window, one back on a kitchen counter, and the third in the bathroom on the toilet. My actual sniping spot was on top of a shelf with my Graviton Bolt mounted on a TV. I, ‘course, opened the window. It let cold air into the place, but my equipment had long surpassed the level of freezing to death from exposure thanks to all my looting.

“I don’t know if this is smart, Shiro,” Luna said as I started to get set up to start siping away at the competition. “There’s a couple trained snipers left. Not to mention Shadowshot. I don’t think we can live if we catch his eye.”

“It’ll be fine. These guys should help. As soon as one is shot, I’ll back away and hide till the final ring. Deal?” I patted the hologram on the shoulder—only for my hand to go right through the projection. Honestly, these things were surprisingly useful. I should make some back in the city.

”Still…” She grumbled softly, though didn’t continue to pressure me to give up getting some extra kills before the DarkNet Battle Royale ended.

I shook my head and looked out the open window for my first prey—and spotted someone almost immediately. The rubble formed what looked like a hill of twisted metal and broken concrete in the middle of the city. Movement near the top drew my eye to a heavily fortified location.

At some point, someone had started to set up a heavily defended zone on top of the tower. Metal barricades had formed at some point, and gave cover to the Operator up there. Through a few gaps in the metal barricades, I spotted several sentry turrets.

I adjusted my scope, and tried to find a good gap to catch the person on guard. I found one a minute later. One of the barricades hadn’t properly settled into the debris, and a small crack looked in toward the interior of the defenses and the Operator standing within.

Through the crack, I watched a woman raise a chromed hand. Blue light flowed out around her hand and formed into a falcon perched on her finger. Without even pausing to watch the spectacle, she flicked up her hand and the eagle soared into the air. Said falcon immediately flew out into the city to hunt for survivors.

”That’s cool,” I muttered to myself as I loaded a Graviton Bolt into my gun.

”Mystek Falconier, I think.” Luna pinged the bird as it flew toward a distant gunfight. “That thing explodes on contact with double the force of a frag grenade.”

”Damn.” I let out a low whistle. Mystek was in here too? How’d they even manage to swing that? Wasn’t Mystek magical equipment for the most part?

Why didn’t I get anything cool like that? I looked down at my ThunderGod Greaves, Graviton Bolt, and Warhost’s Unstoppable Saber. Okay, okay, I did get some cool stuff. That would’ve been really nice for attacking from a safe location, though.

With the woman distracted by her falcon, I pulled the trigger. My gun flashed, and a purple bolt sped across the city. It wasn’t too fast, nor too slow. Under the effects of Dexterity, it looked even slower as it danced through the sky toward the distracted woman.

Just before the projectile could impact—

Pwing!

A sniper shot whizzed right over my sniper decoys and came straight for me. In slow motion, I watched it shatter the window and arc toward me. The metal of the massive bullet gleamed in the light with deadly intensity.

Just before it could hit, a firewall of ghastly blue flames erupted to life and caught the bullet. Before the sniper could get a second shot off, I Burst Stepped into cover. I slid around the corner just as another slammed into the wall behind me.

“Fuck.” I hugged my Graviton Bolt to my chest and tried not to think about how close I’d been to death. “Nice save.”

“Told you it was a bad idea.” Luna didn’t even wait for me to calm down before rubbing her previous word into my face.

“Chek… chek, it was.” The holographic decoys had been totally useless. How had the sniper seen through them so easily? Maybe it was just a matter of experience?

As for how they knew where I was, it was pretty simple. If the sniper had a line of sight on me, then they definitely had a line of sight on the falconer in the metal bunker. The only reason the other sniper wouldn’t have shot her was to use her as bait to catch out other Operators.

For the briefest of moments, I thought about peeking again to try to catch the person who counter sniped me. That stupid thought passed quickly, and I instead moved back through the halls to get posted up in the building.

Right, no more risky maneuvers. I had a surefire way to win this. How about I just stay here where it's safe until then? I was never much for upfront combat. I pounded my palm against my skull lightly. I’d been hyper aggressive since this was just a game, but that wouldn’t still work out. I needed to play it safe like this was real life.

Not to mention this was the closing moments of Monarch’s DarkNet Battle Royale. Everyone still alive was here for a reason. Loot had been freely taken, and the Operators were once more dangerous with all of their gear. I was operating at 100%, but so was everyone else now. I definitely couldn’t keep competing with people who did this kind of thing all of their life.

I moved back down through the floors, and set up inside of a random apartment to camp out the rest of the time. “Hey, Luna, can you pull up Saint’s stream?”

”Is now really the best time for that kind of thing?” Her avatar appeared just next to me, and popped the door closed behind us.

”You got a better time waster?” ‘Sides, I’d rather not just sit around and do nothing. At least this way I’d be able to keep an eye on the larger situation. “Just until the final collapse.”

”… fine.” She sighed, and flopped onto her side. The TV in the room miraculously turned on despite the rest of the city not having any power, and displayed the stream in question.

I secured the apartment one more time, set up a claymore in the hallway, and then sat back on the apartment’s couch to watch the Battle Royale from an outside perspective.

— — —

AN: Okay, I’ve been doing chapter titles for a couple weeks now. What do you guys think? I know it was a long-time request of quite a few of you to start doing it. A couple of you have pointed out that they’re kinda spoiler-y and don’t like them. I could also just swap it up and start doing stuff like “Chapter - DNBR(3)” and then “Chapter - DNBR(4)”. That seems a bit boring, though? Honestly, I’d rather just not have chapter titles in that case. But what do you guys think?