cyberpunk : Ganic all the way

Paris – The Crypt Below the Altar .....

Moments after the others fled, luring the AI's swarm away

Golden light flickered off ancient stone as M's boots hit the final rung of the spiral staircase. The crypt beneath the Cathedral trembled, groaning like a sleeping god. The air was thick with ionized static, stale blood, and scorched metal.

The vaulted ceiling opened above him into a massive underground chamber, a digital sanctum fused with bone. Pillars of stacked skulls stood between monolithic server cores thrumming with cursed data.

The deeper he looked, the more the ancient stone began to twist, fused with chrome, glistening with memory residue and machine oil.

He landed softly, boots skidding across smooth obsidian tile.

The crypt spread out before him like a forgotten cathedral carved beneath Hell. Towering server obelisks spiraled upward like stained-glass mockeries, each one flickering with red glyphs and corrupted Arasaka protocols. Below them: movement.

Hundreds of them.

Militech Minotaurs rose from charging cradles in the walls, a towering, bipedal assault mech, remotely operated, heavily armored, and brutally efficient. Armed with a rotating arsenal of smart-linked machine guns, grenade pods, or rocket launchers, it could wipe out enemy squads before they even saw it coming. Its sensor-studded head fed live combat data to its controller, while its pistoned legs thundered across urban warzones like an iron colossus. No pilot. No fear. Just cold, corporate firepower, marching on two legs.

Militech Chimeras was a six-legged war machine the size of a dropship hangar — all steel, hydraulics, and murder. Built for frontline warfare, it boasted adaptive AI, near-impenetrable armor, and a plasma cannon capable of vaporizing armored convoys in a single blast. Its autonomous systems made it unpredictable, deadly, and impossible to hack. Despite its bulk, it moved with eerie precision, each step echoing like a tank battalion on legs. No pilot. No mercy. No weakness.

M took one long breath. His muscles shifted beneath his shirt like coiled steel cables.

"No time to hesitate."

He activated Hyperfocus.

The golden hum of his blade sang like a cathedral bell.

In the blink of an eye, M vanished.

The first Minotaur's turrets roared, charging with thunderous steps. M blurred. A golden afterimage lingered as he ducked under the first punch, countered with a brutal uppercut to its neck joint, and twisted. Metal screamed. Sparks erupted. The head came off with a wrenching tear.

A Chimera came next,

M was already in the air.

His blade flashed, golden, lethal, cutting through its body in one sweep. He landed in a crouch, turned, and moved again. Every step erupted into motion, each action a ballet of death.

His skills worked in harmony. Hyperfocus bent time, Ghost in the Smoke rendered him a mirage. Living Fortress absorbed blows that would have destroyed tanks. Edge of Eternity made his strikes absolute, when his sword moved, it obeyed only his will.

Ten. Twenty. Forty machines. Still, they came.

Still, he stood.

What followed was an orchestra of destruction.

He weaved through laser fire like a ghost, afterimages trailing behind him like divine ribbons. Every slash was surgical, every movement an echo of war-god precision. Minotaurs fell with their heads cleaved in two. Chimeras had their legs dismembered mid-swing. One round shattered against M's shoulder, the kinetic force absorbed entirely by his supernatural flesh.

A Chimera tried flanking him from above, only for M to leap, flip mid-air, and slice it in half vertically. Sparks exploded from its corpse as it crashed onto the ground.

Then came another wave.

Missiles. Drones. Shoulder-mounted plasma repeaters.

M ran along a data pillar, deflecting incoming rockets with his blade, then kicked off, flipped upside down, and cut through a Chimera's body in a single strike.

Below him, one Minotaur charged its turret, glowing red-hot.

M landed behind it. With a single upward slash, he removed both its legs.

And then, silence.

The crypt floor was littered with scrap metal, oil, and broken servo limbs. M stood in the center, breathing slow and even, not a single drop of filth on his body.

Meanwhile, in the tunnel above the crypt…

Aymeric screamed, ducking a high-velocity round as a Minotaur blasted through the wall like a rhino. "This is insane! I'm a netrunner, not a god damn borg!"

"Then run faster!" Reed barked, emptying a shotgun shell into a drone's exposed sensor. "Back to the next alcove! We hold there!"

Aurore sprinted alongside him, blood trickling from a graze across her cheek. "We're not gonna make it at this rate!"

Reed glanced back. "He'd better stop this thing. Or we're dead."

Back in the crypt, silence returned.....

Hundreds of machines lay mangled, their cores pulsing weakly before fading to darkness. Black oil flooded the stone like a sacrificial offering.

M, breathing steadily, walked through a tunnel into the other side of the chamber in the direction of the clone.

The darkness felt older here, thicker, sacred, cursed. Every step M took as he moved towards the clone was met with a flicker of corrupted sigils lining the blackstone walls, pulsing in sync with the low mechanical hum of the servers ahead. The clone's body, the host, floated in a glass casket just beyond a field of raw magnetic force, pale-skinned, androgynous, with neural veins like roots binding it to the server spine through the casket.

But before M could take another step—

A tremor.

Then another.

From the far end of the sanctum, behind a rusted gate wrapped in steel cabling and bone charms, a deafening grind cracked through the cathedral.

Gears turned. Pistons hissed.

And something massive emerged.

Eight tons of death on legs.

Its body, sleek black chrome laced with burning red lines. A tail-mounted plasma cannon curled like a scorpion's stinger. Legs stabbed into the marble with each step, spraying sparks. Its eyes, seven digital irises, zeroed in on M like the wrath of a god.

The AI's voice boomed through the vault.

"This one I made for you, Maximus. You will be the first to die by it. A monument to finality. I call it… Guard-Scorpion."

Its tail slammed down, shaking the crypt. The front claws unfolded into miniguns, rotating at blinding speed.

It lunged.

Plasma fire erupted across the room. M rolled sideways, kicking up sparks as the tail fired a hyper-charged laser that carved a trench through the stone floor. Drones swarmed from above, firing synchronized pulse blasts.

He countered.

One slash, five drones fell.

He ran up a pillar, Hyperfocus burning at 90%, dodging laser grids by mere millimetres. The Guard Scorpion leapt after him, crashing down and sending debris flying. M used the debris as stepping stones, bounding upward like a human missile.

He stabbed downward.

The blade hit the armor and stopped.

The mech surged power into its plating, throwing him off midair.

M slammed into the wall, cracking it. Blood ran down his lip.

It roared, and charged again.

He leapt just in time, tail slicing the stone behind him like butter.

He darted beneath its legs, cut into its underside. He sprinted up its tail, using the brief stutter in its targeting system, and drove his blade deep into its core.

But the mech activated an emergency override, ejecting M with a shockwave.

He rolled, bleeding now, his ribs cracked. Then they healed and he smiled.

M's blade was already out.

The Guard-Scorpion monstrosity charged.

He didn't wait.

He vanished.

Golden slashes tore through the chamber like lightning strikes. M moved faster than the eye, a fusion of shadow and flame, his Edge of Eternity ringing against armor that screamed under pressure.

He slid under a cannon blast, carving out one of the mech's leg servos in a blur. But it didn't stagger.

It adapted.

Another leg kicked out, catching M mid-dash and slamming him against a server column. Sparks flew. The entire vault shook.

M spit blood, smiled.

"Finally."

He activated Hyperfocus again.

The world stopped.

Time slowed.

Golden afterimages blurred in every direction as M launched himself back in, blade spiraling, striking pressure points, hydraulic cores, heat vents, everything.

The scorpion fought back. It moved like a demon given code. Tail sweeping, turrets shifting, plasma burning into stone. But M danced between every fatal strike.

His skin cracked, then healed, then cracked again. He didn't care.

He vaulted up the beast's back, using a flickering wing turret as a springboard. Mid-air, he twisted, pulled back his blade —

And pushed both of his powers to the limit.

Edge of Eternity, at full resonance.

Hyperfocus, to the edge of madness.

And then, as he stood suspended above the clone's coffin —

He slashed once.

Then again.

Then a thousand times.

Each cut born of intent.

Born of will.

Hundreds — thousands — of golden afterimages exploded outward in all directions. They wrapped around the mech like divine punishment, every arc a perfect line, every strike a separate death.

Then — silence.

M reappeared in front of the AI's stasis chamber, kneeling. Behind him…

The Guard Scorpion paused mid-movement —

— Then it split into pieces.

Clean lines. No sparks. No noise.

Just metal falling like autumn leaves.

Dead.

The golden aura around M's sword flickered... then shattered.

The sword crumbled in his hand, its task complete.

M didn't flinch.

M, breathing steadily, walked toward the clone suspended in stasis.

He reached for the datachip — the failsafe given by the scientist. One slot. One chance. If he inserted it into the host's cortex, the AI would be forced behind the Blackwall again.

He raised his hand.

Stopped.

A memory slammed into him like a divine whisper.

Flashback – The Divine Meeting ...

He stood once more in the white void.

Before him, God's silhouette—a being of cosmic gravity and quiet mischief.

A void. Stillness. Silence.

M stood in a space with no direction. The old man stood before him.

"Do not redeem all your mission rewards too early, child. They are not constant. They manifest based on what you need, not what you want. If you thirst and ask, you shall receive water. But if you wait…"

M remembered.

He'd waited.

He never used the rewards for rewriting David's fate, or saving Maine's crew. Three unopened blessings.

M blinked.

He returned to the crypt.

He opened his system menu.

[Mission Rewards Available: 3]

[David's Salvation]

[Maine's Redemption]

[Edgerunners Arc – Complete]

His eyes flicked to the AI host.

He didn't need to banish it.

He needed to end it.

Redeem reward 1?

Yes.

Reward 1: EXCALIBUR – Legendary Weapon

Golden light exploded from the interface.

In his hand formed a sword unlike any other. Pure silver. Engraved in runes of kings. Radiant.

Excalibur : "A sword that cuts not what it touches, but what its master wills."

He took one swing — air cracked. A digital wall nearby, solid code, split down the center.

It was not technology. It was not forged of man's design. This was a myth given steel. The moment he held it, the crypt quieted. The corrupted code shivered.

"Its edge could cut what its master willed.", murmured M as he stared at it.

This… was no mere blade.

Redeem reward 2?

Yes.

Reward 2: The Seal of Enslavement

A dark brand, ethereal and circular, formed in the air. Etched with eldritch law, rooted in forgotten magic.

Seal of Enslavement : "That which bears the seal shall serve its master, bound beyond body, time, and space."

A cruel smile curled on M's lips.

Not destroy.

Not banish.

But enslave.

He approached the pod.

The clone's eyes opened.

"Do you know what this sword is, AI? This is the legendary sword of King Arthur, bane of the dragons. It is said this sword can kill and cut anything its master will it to cut, be it real or unreal." M said with a small smile.

The AI's voice echoed.

"You would destroy me with a storybook relic?"

"Destroy you ? No, you are too valuable a chess piece " M whispered. "I'm giving you a job."

He pressed the seal to the clone's chest.

The pod burst open. Light exploded. The AI screamed, faces shifting around the crypt — human, beast, machine.

The crypt ignited in blinding light.

Then silence.

"Master…" the clone whispered.

It bowed.

Enslaved.

Somewhere in the upper tunnels.....

Aymeric screamed as a drone clipped his shoulder. Reed barked orders while firing his last magazine into the swarm of approaching minions. Aurore tossed her final EMP, covering their retreat through a collapsing corridor.

They were cornered.

Out of breath.

And out of time.

Reed was bleeding. Aymeric had dropped to one knee, overclocking a jammer to buy them seconds.

Minotaurs were closing in.

Aurore was down to her last bullet.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

A Minotaur raised its cannon.

And froze.

All of them did.

In perfect, eerie silence, they all stopped moving.

Their red eyes dimmed.

A beat.

Then they powered down, one by one.

Aymeric stared. "What the fuck…"

Aurore looked up.

"I think he did it," she whispered.

Reed holstered his pistol. "He did it."

Aymeric groaned. "We're… alive?"

Catacomb Exit, Dawn Breaking Over Paris...

The sun peeked through ruined cobblestone as the four emerged from the catacombs.

M led them, body bruised but unmoved, the clone trailing behind him like a silent ghost.

Reed limped, jacket torn, still lighting a cigar.

"Didn't think we'd live to see the damn sky again," he muttered.

Aymeric laughed and then winced. "No faith in miracles, Solomon?"

Reed groaned but smiled at Aymeric.

Behind them, Aurore slowed her steps. She watched M.

Aurore stared. "…Did we win?"

M didn't answer.

The clone stepped beside him, awaiting orders.

Reed squinted. "What the hell did you just do?"

M glanced at him. "Brought me a new employee."

Aurore exhaled, brushing her hair from her face.

"By the way, do you three by any chance ... require employment? I have this very successful company that could use you", M gave a faint smile.

The three simply smiled, then all of them laughed out loud.

The Eiffel Tower shimmered in the distance.

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Hi guys author is here ...

what do you think about the chapter? 

the boss fight?

and the ending of this arc?

Tell me what you want the next chapter to be

A side ACT comedic and fun, showing how they returned to NC with some emotional shit with Aurore?

A +18 chapter of M and Aurore?

Or maybe both?

Or for the most deprived of souls, Reed and Aymeric +18 chapter ?

DO make a review, guys, the next goal is to reach 15 reviews.