“This is Iron Eagle One to Captain Powell. We are locked on the target, I repeat, we are locked on the target. Do we open fire? Do we open fire?” The helicopter pilot’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie with that request.
“Blow that vehicle up along with him!” Powell responded with a tone that was close to a growl. Once he had accomplished the mission of escorting Sarah Michelle, Xiao Luo had become nothing more than a thorn in his side. If he did not remove that thorn, he would not feel safe even after returning to his country.
“Roger!” the pilot responded. In the next second, an anti-tank guided missile was launched from the base of the helicopter. This would completely blow up Xiao Luo’s jeep to smithereens.
Whoosh!
With intense flames bursting from its backend, the missile accelerated quicker than the helicopter’s flight speed. In an instance, it had crossed several hundred meters, leaving behind a trail of propellant fumes behind it. It hit that vehicle that was dashing down the road, right on target.
BOOM!
The guided-missile smashed into the jeep and exploded, sending a resounding blast echoing across the land. The vehicle turned into a sea of flames in an instant, as the explosion sent it flying several meters into the air before it finally came to a rest. Its parts were scattered about, and a sea of flames seemed to reach the sky, growing larger as it engulfed the whole wreck, sending billows of rising smoke from it.
“Iron Eagle One to Captain Powell–we’re on target, it’s a strike. Iron Eagle One has neutralized the target!”
There were excitement and exhilaration in the helicopter pilot’s voice that crackled over the comms.
Had they hit the target?
It was too easy!
Powell sat in the truck as he stared out into the smoke-filled sky in front of him. It had not sunk in yet, and he found it difficult to believe that Xiao Luo could have been killed by them this easily.
He commanded the driver, “Hurry, drive at full speed!”
“Yes, sir.”
The 20 or so vehicles very quickly reached the site of the explosion. On the road, a wreck was being swallowed by pillars of flames that reached three, almost four meters in the air. Simultaneously, there was the sound of crackling, not unlike the sound of a pile of firewood burning.
“Don’t go any closer, Captain. The vehicle could blow up a second time, it’s dangerous!” Rice called out as he hurried to warn Powell when he saw the man step closer to the vehicle.
But Powell wanted to ascertain for himself that Xiao Luo was dead—every second he spent with his eyes off of Xiao Luo was a second of uneasiness. And so he completely disregarded Rice’s warning, slowly advancing toward the burning wreck.
The closer he got to the car, the higher the temperature climbed. When he was barely a meter away from the vehicle, the burning sensation he felt on his skin was almost unbearable!
Powell forced himself to bear this terrible heat and let his gaze pierce through the veil of flames, looking toward where the driver’s seat of the jeep would be. He took a glance and immediately broke out into a cold sweat. There was nobody in the driver’s seat, and the entire vehicle was empty as could be. Even if it had been hit by the guided missile, there was no way he could have turned to dust, right? The only plausible explanation for this was that the Hua Nation man had not even been in the vehicle.
But if there was no one in the jeep, then who was driving it?
And when he took a closer look, he realized that there was a rock in the jeep that was scorched black. Instantly, he realized. There was nobody in it, and the reason why the vehicle had continued on was that there was a rock lodged to the accelerator pedal, forcing the throttle to be pressed down. Once the car was put in gear, it would be as if someone was driving it.
This was all done by that Hua Nation man?
Why did he have to do all this? Did he realize that someone was making an attempt on his life?
The more Powell thought about it, the more cold sweat poured from his body. He had hidden it so well, so carefully, and he had waited until his own troops appeared before revealing any hint of animosity. How did Xiao Luo realize Powell wanted his head?
Deep in the dense forests, Xiao Luo leaned against a tree, kneeling down on my knee. There was a hard edge to his expression.
“He’s shown his true colors!”
He looked at Powell, his lips curled into a sinister smirk. “Then allow me to execute you lot, one by one,” he muttered.
As soon as he said that, he had the chopper, Iron Eagle One, in the scope of his sniper rifle. As the helicopter was hovering roughly 200 meters in the sky, and he fired a shot.
BANG!
The lethal round tore through the air, with an immense and incomparable amount of energy behind it, and tore right through the rotor mast.
The rotor mast was made of high-strength metal, and it was strong enough to withstand a shot from small arms fire. Even the high-velocity bullet from a sniper rifle like the one Xiao Luo employed had not been able to pierce through it, but it caused superficial damage to its structure. The rotor mast housed the mechanism that powered the propeller, and any change, no matter how minute, was fatal for the helicopter.
Iron Eagle One was out of control instantly, and it started plunging to the ground.
KABOOM!
Iron Eagle One smashed into the ground, breaking up into bits instantly, accompanied by a deafening explosion, and billows of smoke filled the air.
“Quick, be on your guard!” Powell shouted out a command. At this point, Powell finally snapped out his senses and tore himself away from pondering if Xiao Luo was not in the wreck.
BANG!
Another shot was fired. The rotor mast in Iron Eagle Two’s propeller had also been hit, and it lost its control in the air. It plunged down at a skewed angle, following Iron Eagle One’s fate into a fiery death.
“He’s at three o’clock!”
Mina was a sniper herself, so she was adept at picking out the direction of the shots. She was the first to determine Xiao Luo’s hiding place, and then she fired a shot at three o’clock.
“Go, take him down!”
Powell waved a large hand furiously, ordering more than a hundred of the Mei soldiers to charge toward Xiao Luo’s location.
These Mei soldiers were actually rather brave. They charged onward valiantly and fearlessly, only to realize upon reaching the spot that Xiao Luo had long vanished.
“Scatter and do a sweep. Stay on your radio at all times and report to me the moment you detect any movement!” Powell roared into his walkie-talkie.
This was a ferocious tiger of the Hua Nation, and there was no way they would allow this monster to return to his home. They had to do all they could to kill the man here in this war zone. Even if Hua Nation were to pursue the matter, all they had to do was pin it on the Libyan army. At that point, Hua Nation would only be wasting their energy if they tried to kick up a fuss.
“Sir,” the various squad leaders responded through their walkie-talkies.
Rice stayed by Powell’s side. Mina, on the other hand, tapped into that special intuition she had as a sniper and tried to deduce where Xiao Luo was hiding.
This was a dense forest. As soon as they stepped in, it felt like the sky had darkened. There was a sinister vibe to this place.
Xiao Luo was like a venomous snake as he lay without a single sound or movement on the leaf-covered ground. His gaze was fixed in front, and his lips curled into a sly smirk.
The hunt has begun!
After stepping foot on this land, he always had the nagging feeling that he could not allow himself free reign of his instincts. Just as well, then, that these Mei soldiers would soon fix that for him.
Perhaps, if it had been the Gobi Desert that he was stranded in and facing such a crisis, he would have frowned a little. But there was no sort of pressure on him in this dense forest–on the contrary, the blood in his veins was slowly stirring.
Whoosh!
He struck, quick as lightning, brandishing the black daggers in his hand. They shot out like a flash of lightning, and three of the Mei soldiers who were combing the area had their throats slit. Blood gushed out of their wounds, and there was no other sound but the blood-chilling gurgles as they choked.
The Mei soldiers close by heard the sound and immediately turned about with their guns raised, shocked.
RAT TATAT TAT TAT!
The sound of gunfire filled the air, shattering the silence of the forest. But Xiao Luo was too quick for them, and they were only firing in vain.
Urgh!
As the daggers flew from Xiao Luo’s hand and glided through the air, all of the soldiers suddenly gripped their throats and convulsed as they hit the ground.
