Chapter 132: Four Strikes
"Around three hundred people!" Lin Xiaosu spat out five words.
Lin Xiaoyang and Li Zhiwei beside him were both thoroughly shocked.
Three hundred people!
This scale was unprecedented!
Could the outpost hold them off?
In terms of combat spirit, the soldiers of Great Xia were the strongest in the world, without exception!
Because of Great Xia's bitter history, the territory won by the ancestors of Great Xia through life and death, and the fine traditions nurtured by the moral backbone of the martyrs, a military soul of invincibility was forged for Great Xia.
However, nothing in this world is absolute.
It is meaningless to talk about victory or defeat without considering numbers.
If the force arriving tonight truly numbered around three hundred, the dozen or so men at the outpost might not be able to hold them off even if they fought to their very last drop of blood.
Lin Xiaoyang laughed heartily, "Looks like a tough battle! Snipers!"
"Here!" two voices replied.
"Fire at will!"
"Yes!"
"Machine gunner!"
"Here!" a single voice responded.
"Wait until the enemy crosses the third line before firing, and hit them with lethal intent! Be ready to cover for each other at any moment."
"Yes!" three voices responded—one primary machine gunner and two assistants. Should the primary gunner fall in battle, an assistant would immediately step up to take his place.
"Empty all the grenades in the warehouse and prepare them for use!"
"Yes!"
Four soldiers sprinted toward the warehouse below.
"That's all of it. Since they dare to attack our military outpost, let them know what the Great Xia military soul is!"
"The Great Xia military soul is invincible!" roared the entire troop.
"Brother, lend me your gun." Lin Xiaosu held out his hand.
The moment the words fell, the pistol at Lin Xiaoyang's waist dropped into his palm, along with a pouch of ammunition.
This pistol was military-grade, completely different from ordinary police sidearms. It had a faster rate of fire and significantly greater power; correspondingly, the pistol itself was much larger.
Thwip!
The first bullet fired from the sniper's barrel signaled the official commencement of tonight's battle.
Muzzle flashes sparked on the opposite side as submachine guns opened fire.
The outpost's machine gun whirred to life, unleashing suppressive firepower.
Bullets spat from the rifle in Lin Xiaoyang's hand, announcing the activation of this newly minted sharpshooter.
Zhijun synchronized his fire with him. These two, forming a crossfire with the two snipers, engaged in pinpoint shooting.
Suddenly, a dozen small black dots came hurtling through the night sky...
Lin Xiaoyang locked his eyes onto them, his heart skipping a beat: "Rocket-propelled grenades!"
This was what differed from previous skirmishes.
In past clashes with mercenaries, weapons like RPGs were almost never seen. Why? Because those engagements took place deep within dense forests, revolving around stealth and counter-stealth tactics—how could an RPG ever come into play?
Tonight, however, the enemy had chosen a direct assault tactic.
High-powered heavy weapons like RPGs naturally became their primary choice.
Once the RPGs started shelling, big trouble would follow.
Right at that moment, Lin Xiaosu suddenly sprang to his feet, his gun firing in rapid succession!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Almost instantly, over a dozen RPGs exploded mid-air, and the battlefield above lit up as bright as day.
Lin Xiaoyang's eyes widened in sheer disbelief...
His brother had shot down the RPGs mid-flight with a handgun, and not a single one of the dozen-plus missiles had missed.
What kind of eyesight was this?
And what kind of marksmanship was this?
Some might say that hitting flying RPGs mid-air was something any marksman could pull off. But Lin Xiaoyang had spent seven years in the military and was familiar with various weapons as well as the principles of detonation. He knew that using a bullet to detonate an RPG was a low-probability event that existed theoretically but was nearly impossible in reality. To detonate an RPG with a bullet, there was a strict prerequisite: one had to precisely strike the fuse at the front of the warhead.
The difficulty of this was almost equivalent to shooting down an enemy bullet in mid-air!
Could this marksmanship possibly be real?
Lin Xiaosu had no time to ponder this; he quickly swapped out a magazine.
Suddenly soaring skyward, he spat another round of bullets into the air.
Boom!
An RPG detonated the very second it left the launch tube.
More than a dozen men were blasted into the air.
Immediately following, a second shot, a third shot!
He shifted across three different positions in mid-air and fired three shots!
In a mere three shots, every single crate of RPGs brought by the mercenaries exploded.
The RPGs that the mercenaries had brought with them, intending to blast the outpost into ruins, were completely destroyed without achieving a single shred of success, sending at least thirty men along with them.
It wasn't that they weren't careful; their RPG crates were positioned well outside the enemy's line of fire. Yet Lin Xiaosu had soared into the sky, adjusted his positioning, and still managed to score hits with all three shots!
At the very first encounter, the mercenaries completely lost their heavy assault weapons designed for a quick victory.
Pinned down by the outpost's machine gun, they couldn't even lift their heads.
In the fraction of a second they were stunned by this wave of attacks, Lin Xiaosu's figure flickered in mid-air and he landed back inside the outpost: "Grenades!"
Two soldiers simultaneously dropped their firearms, scooped up the crate of grenades before them, and ran toward Lin Xiaosu: "Master, grenades!"
Lin Xiaosu reached out, the grenades in the crate diminishing one by one. His hand traced a graceful arc, and the grenades flew far out across a distance unimaginable to humans—the furthest distance actually exceeding five hundred meters.
Boom! Boom! Boom...
Dense explosions echoed through the jungle. Every single blast landed right in the thickest clusters of the enemy. In an instant, over a hundred grenades rained down, bypassing all cover. The mercenaries wailed miserably, and the battlefield instantly transformed into a living hell.
Among the mercenary group, a figure suddenly surged skyward.
It looked identical to the others being blasted into the air, but the moment his toe tapped the trunk of a tree behind him, his entire body turned into an arrow shot from a taut bowstring.
The machine gun swung around, seemingly about to cover his silhouette, but his figure abruptly changed direction. When he flew up again, he had already reached the outpost's perimeter wall.
Thwip!
Sparks erupted from the muzzle in Lin Xiaoyang's hand. The man grinned, slipped behind a soldier, and swung the dagger in his hand. A cold flash of light signaled he was about to slice open the soldier's throat.
Lin Xiaoyang's heart plummeted to the abyss: A genetically modified human!
This was a genetically modified human!
Yet realizing this could not change the outcome.
With his own martial prowess, he was no match for any genetically modified human.
Just as the dagger came within a centimeter of the soldier's carotid artery, a figure suddenly materialized in front of the genetic warrior.
A punch shot outward!
Boom!
The genetic warrior's face instantly deformed, and he was sent flying backward into the stone wall behind him, shattering it to pieces.
That figure solidified once more as a flash of cold light erupted.
Thwip!
The genetic warrior's head flew over the perimeter wall.
Lin Xiaosu!
He had appeared atop the wall without anyone noticing.
A pair of fierce eyes pierced through the night, locking onto a specific point on the battlefield.
It was a tree, and at the very top stood a man.
This man's toes had already tensed, ready to pounce like an eagle from the sky, but suddenly, he caught sight of the head flying over the opposite wall.
That head belonged to his Falcon companion, a supreme expert by the side of the Great General, known as the Scarlet Ape.
The speed of the Scarlet Ape was as fast as lightning!
Yet in the hands of his opponent, the only thing fast about him was the speed of his own death...
Could he himself match this?
His own martial arts were only on par with the Scarlet Ape...
Suddenly, he met the opponent's eyes.
These were eyes suffused with murderous intent...
Although the nocturnal sky obscured many details, who was Falcon? With his hawk-like eyes capable of discerning the finest minutiae, he accurately locked onto Lin Xiaosu's gaze.
His heart experienced a violent jolt: the opponent had already spotted him!
Run!
He didn't waste a single second, driving force into his toes to execute an eagle's swoop—only this time, the direction was purely for escape.
Having had falcon genes implanted in his body, his escape speed was peerless under heaven.
Yet, barely three miles into his run, he sensed movement right behind him.
Lin Xiaosu was in pursuit.
Another mile ahead lay the boundary marker. Fast! Fast! Fast!
Pushing his speed to the absolute maximum—the fastest he had ever moved in his life—he successfully crossed the boundary marker...
As long as he crossed the border, no matter how grave the offense, it would become a diplomatic affair between two nations. At last, he was safe.
Just as Falcon felt a slight relaxation in his chest, a roaring gale swept in from behind.
Falcon whipped his head around. Thwip!
A cold gleam swept past, Falcon's head flew into the air, and his headless body kept running for over twenty meters purely on momentum.
The spot where he died was firmly on the territory of the Qingmian Country.
A full eight hundred meters away from the boundary marker.
Lin Xiaosu tapped his toes against the ground, leaped back across the boundary marker, and returned to Great Xia territory. Ahead of him, though the battlefield had been decimated, over a hundred men remained hidden behind various covers.
These cover positions had been facing the outpost; unfortunately for them, the attackers had come from behind them.
In an instant, the battlefield descended into utter chaos. An invisible dagger and an unseen figure marched straight into their ranks. As a gust of wind swept past, the encampment fell completely silent.
Lin Xiaosu shouted at the top of his lungs: "Cease fire!"
The machine gunner's finger jerked violently off the trigger, his hand cramped from the strain...
Everyone inside the outpost stared in petrified silence at the figure standing out on the battlefield...
Were these the legendary ancient martial arts masters?
Completely subverting the conventional rules of warfare?
You dared to plunge alone into the tiger's den of a crossfire battlefield, launching a sneak attack from the rear?
When Lin Xiaosu returned to the outpost, his brother's very first words were a reprimand: "You took too damn many risks! Weren't you afraid of getting killed by stray bullets from our side?"
Lin Xiaosu just smiled and offered no reply. Of course he couldn't tell his brother: I can see every single bullet fired from your guns!
The battlefield was cleared overnight, while sighs of amazement never ceased.
The enemy had dispatched a force of three hundred to assault the outpost—such sheer determination was unprecedented.
However, this side had Lin Xiaosu.
He had made a total of four moves...
First, he used a handgun against RPGs, neutralizing the rocket threat.
Second, he unleashed a conventional-defying rain of grenades, inflicting maximum damage upon the enemy.
Third, he slew the enemy's genetic warrior, nipping the most uncontrollable variable on the battlefield in the bud.
Fourth, he flanked the enemy from the rear, mopping up the remaining stragglers.
To a true master, the number of ordinary mortals meant nothing.
That was likely the concept deeply ingrained into the minds of these soldiers, and guided by this exact realization, they would all eventually transform into true ancient martial arts fanatics many years later...
That, however, is a story for another day and need not be mentioned further.
Southern Shan State.
Inside that same towering building representing absolute dominance.
Kunsha sat on his signature oversized sofa, staring fixedly at the screen before him.
Displayed on the monitor was the intense battle that had just unfolded outside the Gongchun Mountain outpost.
Filmed by the latest reconnaissance drone, the general outline of the battle could still be discerned even through the rainy night.
Precisely because he had witnessed the entire process of this disastrous defeat, Kunsha's expression was exceptionally grim.
"A single man! Because of just one man!" Kunsha said in a deep voice, "Who is he?"
As his voice trailed off, a face on the screen tilted upward, seemingly detecting the drone's presence. This man was the pivotal figure who caused the failure of the entire operation—one could even say he had accomplished it single-handedly!
In the dead of night, this person wasn't captured with absolute clarity, but it was vaguely discernible that he was a young man.
At Kunsha's inquiry, no one in the room could offer an answer.
Because according to their intelligence analysis of the Gongchun Mountain outpost, this individual was completely absent from all intelligence reports.