1 Chapter 1
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"Is it finally burnt to ashes..."
"My head hurts so much..."
Tang Yu clutched his forehead, struggling to open his eyes again.
Just a moment ago, he was at the epicenter of a nuclear blast.
He found that all the brutal fighting and killing around him had been swallowed up and disappeared by an extremely blinding white light.
Air, sound, vision—everything came to a halt.
"That bastard Johnny..."
"Not bad at all..."
"After all, it was the nuclear bomb that successfully blew up Arasaka Tower..."
"Huh?!"
Tang Yu sensed something wasn't quite right.
He quickly spread his hands in front of his eyes and repeatedly checked his palms and the backs of his hands.
The ballistic co-processing unit and smart link that had been installed were nowhere to be seen.
Instead, he had a pair of ordinary, clean palms.
He hurriedly unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, rolling up both sleeves.
The legendary Mantis Blades would no longer pop out of his arms at will.
He looked around him with slight confusion.
Somehow, he found himself sitting in a business sedan cruising along a highway.
Soon, Tang Yu looked up.
On the electronic screen of the front seat, he saw a symbol that he could never forget.
A line extended upward with three branches.
At the top of each branch, there were three circular blocks.
Arasaka!
Seeing this symbol jolted Tang Yu awake.
He quickly looked out of the car window.
The vehicle was cruising steadily on an overpass.
Not far on either side were various high-rises.
Countless neon projections and advertisement billboards clung to them.
He could even see vehicles floating and weaving between the buildings.
Ethereal and hazy.
Familiar yet foreign.
Such a bustling scene of Night City existed only in the depths of his memory.
Because.
He had once joined forces with Yorinobu Arasaka.
They detained Hanako, his main competitor for the company's inheritance.
And in the end, helped Yorinobu seize ultimate control of Arasaka Corporation.
With Saburo's death, they launched the Fourth Corporate War.
In one night.
Major capital companies like Militech and Kang Tao were all dragged into the quagmire of war.
A century-warfare had turned much of Night City to ashes.
However.
Even as Night City lay in ruins.
The Arasaka Tower still stood unscathed.
Saburo, returning through a digital soul, together with Hanako, regained control of the Arasaka Corporation.
As the only surviving son of Saburo.
Yorinobu became the vessel for Saburo's return to the world!
Therefore.
Tang Yu had to regroup legends like Johnny Silverhand and Rogue once more.
They fought their way back to Arasaka Tower.
With a nuclear bomb, they ended all legendary tales.
Thinking of everything that had happened.
His comrades who had fought courageously side by side.
All were ultimately buried in the ashes of Night City.
Truly.
It was difficult to come to terms with.
Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Tang Yu straightened his cuffs.
He retrieved a portable communicator from an inner pocket and placed it over his left eye.
The portable communicator resembled a combination of a monocell eyepiece and earpiece.
It was a prototype communication device produced by Arasaka.
Designed specifically for company employees who had not yet undergone cyberware implantation.
Leaning back in the leather seat, Tang Yu began to check the information.
[Tang Yu]
[Date Time: 2077/6/14; 11:42]
[Employee Number: NC770416]
[Employee Level: M9]
[Department Position: Deputy Head of Counterintelligence]
[Message Alert: Arthur Jenkins is waiting for you in the office // Report to Arasaka Tower immediately after completing the task at the border]
...
2076?
Tang Yu immediately realized.
"It seems I have been reborn back into the past."
"Now I am still a corporate dog working for Arasaka Corporation."
"I remember that I had just returned from a mission at the border, ready to undergo full-body cyberware implantation."
"I also met Jackie Wells who was a mercenary at the border."
"This guy saved my life."
"But I couldn't..." Tang Yu's brow furrowed.The lines on his face creased deeply, his fists clenched tight.
The scene at his good friend Jackie's funeral still vivid in his mind.
Though he was reborn now, the vortex of Night City still swept everyone into its midst.
The outlook was anything but optimistic.
Because by next year, Tang Yu's boss, arasaka's Counter-Intelligence Division Chief, Arthur Jenkins, would be taken out by Arasaka Special Operations Director Susan Abernathy.
And Tang Yu himself would be fired from Arasaka Corporation.
Jobless and with nowhere to go, Tang Yu, along with Jackie, turned to cyberpunk life.
He made his way into Arasaka Tower and stole the relic chip that released Johnny Silverhand.
He also met a street-hustling woman called V.
Straightened out the curved path of Judy.
And embarked on a life-and-death chase with the nomad Panam across the wasteland.
This legendary Night City career, ultimately came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the Fifth Corporate War.
Saburo Arasaka's digital spirit returned to the world.
Yorinobu Arasaka became the new vessel for Saburo Arasaka's digital spirit.
Even in the final moments, Johnny set off a nuclear bomb that took out Arasaka Tower.
But the many regrets and discontent in Tang Yu's heart were still choking him.
Unable to be resolved.
Digital spirit?
Engram?
All of a sudden, Tang Yu wasn't entirely sure if he was truly reborn.
If at some point, he had been subjected to Arasaka's Soulkiller technology, his consciousness uploaded and digitized into an engram.
Then this so-called rebirth might very well be a trap set by Arasaka.
The only reliable evidence to confirm his rebirth was one thing:
The system attribute panel he carried with him when he first crossed over.
Tang Yu was a traverser from Earth, and that was a secret he guarded closely.
Unknown to anyone but himself.
It was also the secret to how Tang Yu managed to become a legend in Night City in just a few short years.
Tang Yu tried to regain composure, not to let others see any strangeness.
In his mind, he summoned the system attribute panel.
[Attribute Panel]
[Name: Tang Yu]
[Level: 1]
[Body: 3]
[Reflex: 3]
[Intelligence: 3]
[Technical Ability: 3]
[Cool: 3]
[Attribute Points: 7]
"The system attribute panel still exists!"
"Now I can be completely sure that it's a real rebirth!"
"The distribution of attribute points is consistent with that at the beginning of my crossover."
At this moment, Tang Yu noticed that the system attribute panel suddenly started to update on its own.
[Ding! Host rebirth detected]
[Ding! The host has not undergone cyberware implantation]
[Ding! System attribute panel is now updating automatically]
[Attribute Panel]
[Name: Tang Yu]
[Life Path: 0]（Details）
[Integration Ability: None]（Details）
Tang Yu didn't expect the system to update.
He remembered back when he first crossed over to Night City, the attribute panel he carried was that of the game Cyberpunk 2077.
Leveled up to a cap of 50.
Back then, he chose the safe path of a netrunner, because he knew better than anyone the chaos of Night City and the darkness of Arasaka.
He hoped to become a top-tier netrunner who controlled everything from the shadows, disintegrating Arasaka's rival states in the net.
However, things didn't go as planned.
And Arasaka retaliated fiercely.
For the last hope, Tang Yu had to join hands with Yorinobu Arasaka, to launch the Fifth Corporate War.
Yet, Tang Yu still underestimated the dominion of corporations in this world.
The Fifth Corporate War didn't bring down Arasaka completely, and the reconstructed Johnny opted to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Arasaka Tower again.
In the end, he too perished amid the ashes of Night City.
"This ending is so very cyberpunk..."
Tang Yu's gaze couldn't help but fall outside the window.
Steel forests stood layer upon layer, and neon lights extended to the sky.
It was as if everywhere was telling him, "Welcome to Night City!"
