Some fight for dreams, some for revenge. And some don't even know what they're fighting for—only that, when a gun barrel is shoved in their face and they can smell the pungent stench of blood, there aren't many choices left.
Milon Kozlov figured he was in the last group. He'd never considered himself that tough—not like those self-important gangsters or the arrogant lone-wolf mercs, burning through their lives with drugs and women.
He just wanted to make a living as a merc. To leave behind that sad, hopeless place he came from. But one thing led to another, and half a year passed in the blink of an eye.
In that time, fellow mercs he'd met—some died, some got maimed. The rest scraped together pay from life-risking gigs, staring hesitantly at shelves lined with corpo-grade cyberware.
Lose an arm or a leg in a freak job, and the cost of replacement would chain you to a lifetime of debt, slaving away just to pay off the loan.
He often heard broken-down workers muttering bitterly, unsure whether they were living for themselves… or for their implants.
Cyberware let them walk away from disability, sure. But if they missed a monthly payment, corpo reps would come knocking to reclaim the gear. Even if your body was free, your time was trapped—burnt away by endless labor, drifting between wakeful drudgery and numb dreams.
Milon was lucky.
Not just because he'd dodged that fate. But because, compared to others who had no choice, he still had some agency.
Being a merc meant strapping your life to your hip and accepting that you were just another consumable asset.
In a war made of metal, flesh was fragile. A single shard too deep, and your arm or leg was gone. And that's not counting the guts that could be pulped by a lucky round—lungs, hearts, kidneys—if they were decent models, they were always in demand.
Only the lucky, successful mercs got to lie back in a ripperdoc's chair and walk away with new chrome.
And even then, having the cash was better than needing high-interest loans.
If surviving meant selling off your remaining years, Milon would rather bet it all on one last fight—even if it meant dying in a hail of bullets.
He was done living in the dumps.
Sako Nielsen had been his brother-in-arms, a comrade who'd crawled through the same garbage heaps with him.
In a place like Pacifica, even blood brothers didn't mean as much as the friend who'd eaten shit with you and lived to tell the tale.
Right next to Pacifica was Arroyo in Santo Domingo. If it weren't such a hellhole, the corps would've built factories everywhere long ago.
Petrochem was one of the few that had.
Pacifica, Rancho Coronado, and the vast landfills surrounding Night City's outskirts weren't just for dumping household waste.
Some folks made a living scavenging. But they weren't picking through ordinary trash—they went after the toxic industrial waste dumped by heavy industries.
Corrosive, poisonous, radioactive, carcinogenic—whatever you could name, you'd find it there.
And sometimes, those toxic piles held valuable treasures—
Like a transformer worth 5 eddies.
From Petrochem.
But treasures like that were guarded, just like dragons hoarding gold.
Greedy scavengers who wanted the payout had to pay the price.
Rashes, itching, loss of appetite, headaches, nausea, hair loss, discolored skin…
If Roqi were here, he'd call it a prime location for artificial gene mutation.
Give a biotech corp a sample, and they could probably cook up some runaway cell line that mutated into a nightmare freakshow that could drain your sanity on sight.
There was a reason Petrochem didn't send their own to collect this junk. If they did, they'd run out of disposable labor in months.
But someone was always willing—like Milon and Sako back in the day.
Back then, they wore the cheapest implants you could buy. No money for SkinTech. They slapped cracked plastic faceplates on their heads that peeled in under a month.
Sitting on a filthy but still usable couch, marooned in a trash island, worrying about how they'd make it through tomorrow.
So when they got the chance to make money with guns, they jumped on it—and never looked back.
Being a merc wasn't shameful. In a world where people mocked poverty but not selling your body, standing tall didn't mean dignity, and crawling didn't guarantee survival. But if you could slip through a crack, maybe you'd make it out alive.
He thought he'd gotten used to merc life—heart of stone, zero mercy, drink today like there's no tomorrow, soaked in blood every night. The only ones who earned the right to toast at the bar were the ones who survived.
But then Sako died.
Right in front of him.
The Animals in Grand Imperial Mall weren't clumsy meatheads. When they pulled the trigger, they were just as ruthless as any other gang.
Bullets didn't have names. They went where they went. Whoever got hit—tough luck.
Strays were worse.
When Sako's blood splashed across Milon's face, his mind went blank. All he could see were memories flashing past. It had only been a few seconds.
Another nameless merc fell.
No one mourned. He exited the stage of life in silence.
Milon knew this day would come. He just didn't think it'd come so soon. And not to just anyone—but to his brother.
"What the fuck are you spacing out for!?"
Cody Dunn's voice snapped him back. "Cover me! I'm blowing them to hell!"
He pulled out a rocket launcher—absurdly compact, almost small enough to fold into a backpack.
He aligned the sights with a heavy gunner behind a planter and yanked the trigger.
Fwoosh…
The warhead—somewhere between a grenade and a shoulder-fired rocket—shook as it accelerated toward its target.
BOOM!
The machine gun fell silent. Shards flew like fireworks, scattering in every direction.
Cody's face lit up with a twisted grin, teeth bared in satisfaction. He crouched behind cover, safe from return fire.
He had plenty more of those. While not particularly powerful, they were filled with a mix of concentrated corrosives and toxic powder.
Too weak to punch through walls—but against dug-in enemies, it was perfect, like an anti-stimulant.
Few could stay standing after taking a hit up close.
Not even these freaks from the Animals.
That was Cody Dunn's logic.
He loaded another warhead—but never got the chance to fire.
He jerked like he was electrocuted, every muscle contorting at impossible angles.
A burst of overloaded sparks shot from his eye socket, dragging half a bloodied eyeball and a plume of black smoke.
He collapsed backward. The launcher clattered to the floor, misfiring.
BOOM!
A puff of cloth-colored gas burst from their cover, reeking of rotting flesh.
The nearby tiles began to bubble. The blast wasn't strong—just melted the surface polish.
But a merc standing nearby wasn't so lucky. The payload splattered across him. In seconds, he lost all motor control—twitching, jumping, screaming in agony.
The Animals' bullets quickly finished him off.
Mercy wasn't in their vocabulary.
Attacking Grand Imperial Mall had been a mistake.
Milon cursed inside.
He'd heard the stories about Voodoo Boys—but figured they were just that: stories. All hype, no firsthand proof.
Seven well-equipped mercs, all hardened killers—taking out some oversized gang brawlers should've been easy.
But once boots hit the ground, it was clear how dumb that assumption was.
The Animals weren't brain-dead muscleheads. They juiced up, sure, and got aggressive—but that didn't make them stupid.
And there weren't just thirty like the Voodoo Boys claimed. No, the place was packed. Upstairs, downstairs—crossfire from every angle.
Milon instinctively tried to fall back, but bullets rained down nonstop. They couldn't even lift their heads.
Concrete shards sliced his face, exposing the circuits under his cheap plastic shell.
And then he realized—he was the last one alive nearby.
Vadim Vasiliev. The guy always strumming a lute, playing exotic tunes. People said he was the last romantic soul in the dumps.
But even he'd picked up a gun. And now he was choking on dust under enemy fire.
If he made it out alive, Milon swore—no more merc work.
The thought hit hard. Then harder. It consumed him.
He missed his trash-pile nest. Who the hell had taken it over?
Eating synth food, listening to garbage-quality music, curled in shadows under an overpass. Watching the sunlight cut between skyscrapers that pierced the heavens.
Even those looping ads on the megatowers… suddenly felt nostalgic.
A merc dies? So be it.
But to die like this—pinned, helpless, surviving longer than he should—that made it all feel meaningless.
Those Voodoo bastards were probably laughing somewhere.
His chest burned with rage—but before it could ignite, a deeper emotion swallowed it.
He couldn't even take out these Animals. Escaping alive was a stretch. Pulling some heroic solo revenge? Pipe dream.
"Vadim! Vadim! Got any smoke grenades!? Toss it now!"
He shouted during a lull in gunfire, panting, face twisted.
"Vadim? Vadim!?"
No reply. He shouted louder.
Still silence.
A pool of blood spread from Vadim's body—like a spilled jar of paint, flowing across the ground.
Some people vanish without a word. Unless they speak up, you'd never know they were gone forever.
Sunrise to sunset feels long. But blink, and someone alive is gone. Just like that.
"WHO—THE—FUCK—IS NEXT!?"
From inside the mall, a mountain of a man strode out.
His hair was a wild mix of seaweed, waterfalls, and lion's mane, sprawling across his skull.
But the muscles—those were the real show. Swollen like inflated balloons, then doubled in size.
Standing before him, resistance felt pointless. His palms alone were bigger than most people's heads.
He held one such head right now, gripping it like a puppet. The body dangled like a mop.
With a roar, he hurled the corpse like a broken cucumber. It smashed to the floor, twisted like a ribbonfish.
Every bone shattered.
Svetlana Voronina—once the only woman from their garbage crew to make it as a merc.
They weren't pretty boys or cover girls—otherwise they wouldn't have grown up in the trash. But now, her mangled body didn't even look human.
Milon felt… nothing.
No rage. No scream. No cursing fate. No mad laughter like a clown.
He had no idea what he was thinking.
Half a year as a merc—and he still didn't understand.
Some lives end clearly. Others just blur out.
His mouth opened. No words came.
Like a fish flopping on dry land, he twitched. Then dropped the gun.
The muscle giant stepped beside him, towering like a three-story building, blocking the sky.
Women could become monsters like this?
The thought slipped through his mind.
Then the shadow swallowed his head.
And like a smashed watermelon, everything went dark.
Wiped out.
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💘 MY GIRLFRIEND'S A CYBERPSYCHO—WHO KNEW?
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💘 LOVE IS COMPLICATED.
Especially when your girlfriend could probably tear a squad of heavily armed mercs apart.
Welcome to Night City romance.
My Girlfriend's a Cyberpsycho—Who Knew? has 100+ chapters ahead waiting for you.
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💀❤️ ROMANCE, CHROME... AND QUESTIONABLE LIFE EXPECTANCY
💘 Romance
🤖 Cyberware
🧠 Cyberpsychosis
🔫 Night City action
😂 Chaos & dark humor
🌃 Dangerous relationships
🔥 Very bad situations getting much worse
People say relationships require patience.
Communication.
Trust.
Nobody mentioned surviving cyberpsychos.
🔥 100+ CHAPTERS AHEAD.
👉 Keep reading if you're brave enough.
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🌐 SrMagnusCorp: https://srmagnuscorp.com/
🔥 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MrMagnus
🐦 X / Twitter: https://x.com/SrMagnuscorp
⚠️ Power Stones help decide release priority!
💘 Love hurts. In Night City, sometimes literally.