Of course, as the name suggested, they mainly specialized in underwater surprise attacks and reconnaissance.
Carrying specialized scuba gear on their backs, they aimed their APS underwater assault rifles at Huo Shaoheng and his men.
The APS underwater assault rifle was specifically reserved for underwater use. The trajectory of the bullet relied upon fluid mechanics, so there was no rifling in the gun. Also, the bullet’s shape was more slender, which maximized the speed without causing bubbles in the water.
One Special Operations Forces member had been killed and the other injured by this rifle.
Huo Shaoheng turned around in the water to fully grasp his situation.
In all directions, there were frogmen carrying APS underwater assault rifles. The frogmen stared at them menacingly, as if looking at a group of dead people. Huo Shaoheng knew he was in grave danger and immediately ordered, “Spread out and beat the water! Make the splashes as big as possible!”
The members of the Special Operations Forces were also highly trained in underwater operations. As soon as they received his order, they immediately dispersed. They started wielding their guns in the water, and using their hands and feet to flop around under the water.
Their sudden movements made the water’s surface turbulent, and the big oscillations of the waves blocked the frogmen’s sight. Poor visibility underwater meant that their sight was obstructed, and they couldn’t aim precisely. What’s more, underwater combat was different from ground combat since the consequences of inaccurate aiming meant that you were likely to hit your own people! This was especially the case at the moment because there were way more frogmen than Special Operations Forces members!
There were now more than 200 heavily armed frogmen surrounding the 13 Huaxia Empire soldiers. Although they were beneath the surface, nevertheless it was still a grand battle. They were convinced that these people would not escape their grasp!
Huo Shaoheng swung his legs around and churned the water as much as possible while looking for a place on the seafloor where he could set his feet. The sea level wasn’t deep, yet they weren’t in shallow waters, either. There were many brightly-colored coral reefs standing upright on the bottom. Colorful fish swam through the crevices of the coral reefs, yet they were driven away by the turbulence caused by the Special Operations Forces team members wildly flapping around in the water.
Huo Shaoheng quickly found a coral reef near the sea bottom and informed his subordinates through the walkie talkie in his mask, “Five o’clock position, the coral reef at 20 meters range. Hide in groups of four.”
They were dealing with frogmen at the bottom of the sea. Since they didn’t have the same sort of appropriate, high-tech equipment, they could only retreat for the moment and wait for the right time to strike. Huo Shaoheng kicked his legs and thrust his arms wildly in the water while instructing everyone to retreat.
At that moment, a few frogmen couldn’t resist the urge to help the great Japanese empire achieve their mightiest victory since the armistice, and they rushed towards Huo Shaoheng with aggression!
Because Huo Shaoheng and his men had stirred up too much water and their view was obscured, those frogmen were afraid of accidentally hurting their own people if they fired. They just surrounded them and did not continue firing for the moment. But when these frogmen rushed over intending to fight them in a battle, when they actually approached, they discovered that the Huaxia Empire soldiers that had been right in front of them moments before had suddenly disappeared from their sight! It was like they had seen a ghost, or their eyes were playing tricks on them! Where could they possibly hide on the bottom of the sea?!!
The frogmen suddenly raised their APS underwater assault rifles in alert, but it was already too late for them to do anything. The frogmen suddenly felt their legs sinking, as if wrapped in something, and they frantically tried to shoot at whatever it was that was tying them down.
Huo Shaoheng used his strong, iron-like arm, and his hands twisted around the frogman’s neck as he turned it 360 degrees quickly and snapped it. It was silent under the water. The frogman’s head lolled softly, and he died instantly.
Huo Shaoheng unplugged the dead frogman’s scuba gear then removed his equipment, put it on his own back, and took his APS underwater assault rifle and bullet clip. Then he propelled his body out with one kick.
The frogman’s body floated to the surface, drifting in the direction of the Japanese territorial waters. The bodies of several other frogmen quickly surfaced as well. The frogman killed by Huo Shaoheng still had his clothes on, but several frogmen killed by Huo Shaoheng’s men had been stripped clean and thrown to the surface. All their equipment and clothing had been taken away by the Special Operations Forces.
After a brief episode of slaughter, the waters grew heavy with the scent of blood. The frogmen behind them dared not come forward, but instead formed a line and slowly approached them with caution.
Huo Shaoheng and his men had seven to eight sets of frogman equipment in their hands. Although it was not enough to equip everyone, it was more than enough for their needs. Besides, they hadn’t taken the initiative to attack, they merely hid in the cave by the coral reef and decided to stay put for the moment.
A few people happily swam behind the coral reef bunkers they found and started to divide the gear. Huo Shaoheng only took the APS underwater assault rifle. He leaned on the coral reef and continued to communicate with the ground.
“The other party sent frogmen to block our retreat. We can’t get out—” Huo Shaoheng didn’t finish his sentence because a rustling sound came from the headset. His heart sank. If he had heard it right, that was the sound of electromagnetic interference! After waiting for a few minutes silently, Huo Shaoheng opened the communication line with the station again and found that there was still that same rustling sound! It sounded like spring silkworms spinning in the rainy night, which should have had hopeful connotations, but now it just signified cold despair!
Huo Shaoheng held the APS underwater assault rifle and contemplated how to save himself. No matter what, even if all 12 of them were killed, Hong Kangquan would be safely returned to the territorial waters of the Chinese Empire!
He raised his gun expressionlessly, then aimed at a frogman sneaking up on him and pulled the trigger! The slender bullet spun out of the barrel of the gun like an arrow, cut through the seawater, and plunged into the frogman’s heart. The frogman spasmed twice in the water, his hands and feet twitched, then his whole body lost balance and started to fall. Huo Shaoheng swam over and dragged the man towards him, removed all his equipment, and cast him aside. Now they had another set of frogman equipment.
From night to day, they had been battling each other for eight hours, and the seawater had changed from dark to bright. They could see the situation around them better now. They also had more and more frogman equipment in their hands. Now they had more than 20 sets. This meant that they had killed more than 20 frogmen. That is, they had killed one tenth of their platoon. Although this number wasn’t that impressive, it definitely wasn’t bad, either.
The Japanese frogman troops were shocked by the combat prowess of these 12 Huaxia Empire soldiers and were too frightened to sneak in, let alone stand near the coral reef. Twenty-eight hours later, Huo Shaoheng had tried countless times, yet the electromagnetic interference was still too strong to be overcome. They could not get in touch with the station.
…
Twenty-eight hours ago, as soon as Huo Shaoheng’s contact with the station was interrupted, Gu Nianzhi had taken notice. Since she was in the central control room, it had the best supercomputer monitoring system in the entire Huaxia Empire and even the All Blue Star.
The voting period of the general election had ended, and the counting had ended as well, so they could start using their central control system again. Gu Nianzhi didn’t leave, and with those 27 people, she took on the task of helping Huo Shaoheng restore communication with them.
This time, Huo Shaoheng and his men were able to track Hong Kangquan and mobilize the drones out to the sea all because Gu Nianzhi had been working on it behind the scenes to ensure that everything ran smoothly. Even the impressive precision of the drones, down to the 0.01 meter, was due to her ingenuous optimization and modification efforts.
She had been highly anxious ever since she found out that Huo Shaoheng’s communication line with the station was broken. This had never happened before. Since Gu Nianzhi checked the fixed connection signal between Huo Shaoheng’s device and the Nandou Satellite System, he did not necessarily have to initiate contact with the station personally just to indicate that the communication system was running smoothly.
She used a small program to ping every ten seconds. If there was no problem with the connection, the ping would run smoothly.
So when her applet suddenly started reporting frequent errors, and the ping wasn’t running as smoothly as it should have, Gu Nianzhi knew that something must have gone wrong.
She quickly turned on Huo Shaoheng’s frequency and started calling him directly, but there was only a rustling sound over the connection that sounded like a silkworm spinning.
However, Gu Nianzhi knew that this distinctive rustling sound was not a spring silkworm spinning on a rainy night but electromagnetic interference!
Huo Shaoheng’s communication line was blocked by the Japanese.
Gu Nianzhi stood up and went out to call General Ji.
