Chapter 48: Operation Angry Dragon (Part 13)

Hiding inside a building, Lei Dong quietly lurked, silently waiting for the arrival of the reinforcing troops.

It did not take long before a distant roar reached Lei Dong's ears. In his divine sense, a long convoy was rushing over at high speed.

"Those little Japs react so fast!" Lei Dong was startled. According to prior estimation, from receiving the alarm to figuring out the origin, issuing orders, and gathering the troops to retreat, it should take at least ten minutes of reaction time, and the vehicle convoy should pass through here after twenty minutes—this was even assuming Lei Dong maximized their tactical proficiency. However, from the first explosion at the reservoir until now, it had been less than twenty-five minutes in total. Such a rapid response, sensitive command mechanism, and ferocious advance speed greatly exceeded Lei Dong's expectations.

A few minutes later, an A-S Cobra armed helicopter roared past the rooftop, followed instantly by two "Type 03" infantry fighting vehicles serving as the vanguard, driving like the wind and lightning. The main force had arrived!

Infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, command vehicles, and off-road vehicles rumbled past right under Lei Dong's eyes. Lei Dong pressed the butt of his .50 caliber sniper rifle against his shoulder, glued his eyes to the scope, and held his breath. Although this mechanized force, numbering more than a company, was eager to rush back for reinforcement and their search of the roadsides would not be very meticulous—having no time to search at all—Lei Dong did not dare to be the least bit careless. Once exposed, the 60mm rapid-firing telescoped-ammunition gun system on those heavily armed infantry fighting vehicles would guarantee to pin him down so hard he couldn't lift his head.

This force was evidently recalled temporarily from various parts of the urban area, rendezvousing as they marched, and only fully formed their column five kilometers away. Therefore, the marching formation was not particularly logical; the position of the armored command vehicle was a bit too far forward, driving almost right on the heels of the vanguard vehicles.

Calculating based on the current marching speed, in about another eight hundred meters, the vanguard infantry fighting vehicles would enter the trigger point of the magnetic landmines. Lei Dong rested his right index finger on the sniper rifle's trigger, aimed at the armored command vehicle, and silently counted down in his heart: "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, detonate!"

"Boom! Boom!"

Two massive explosions erupted; flames suddenly burst from beneath the hulls of the two vanguard vehicles. The tremendous impact instantly destroyed the chassis of both infantry fighting vehicles, launching them high into the air before they crashed heavily back onto the ground.

Boom, boom, boom! Bei Shiliang pressed the remote control button for the anti-tank mines. Amid a series of continuous explosions, several infantry fighting vehicles at the rear of the column immediately broke down, and a Hammer off-road vehicle was even blasted into mid-air by the huge shockwave, doing a couple of barrel rolls in the air before slamming heavily onto the ground.

Amid the fiery explosions and dense smoke, Lei Dong pulled the trigger repeatedly. The modified .50 sniper rifle, with its greatly increased rate of fire, continuously spat out angry bullets.

"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"

Five consecutive shots!

The first shot snapped the command vehicle's antenna.

The second shot smashed the command vehicle's periscope.

The third shot precisely drilled into the command vehicle's firing port.

The fourth shot punched through the bulletproof glass of the cab and pierced the commander's forehead.

The fifth shot flew into the vehicle along almost the exact same bullet hole as the fourth, eerily tracing an arc to smash the vehicle-mounted command radio!

The command vehicle shuddered violently, veered crookedly forward for a few steps, rammed into the rear of a bombed-out vanguard infantry fighting vehicle, groaned a few times, and ground to an unwilling halt.

Suddenly ambushed and having lost its command, the entire convoy fell into utter chaos, but soon the soldiers inside reacted, and various firearms began a widespread covering attack all around.

With two "thump" sounds, two illumination flares rose into mid-air, casting a blindingly bright light over the area. However, Lei Dong and Bei Shiliang, concealed within the buildings, were impeccably camouflaged. Unable to find their targets, the defense force began a continuous, rat-a-tat-tat suppression sweep, while simultaneously dispatching a reconnaissance team to hunt for the opponents' tracks.

Having achieved success with five shots, Lei Dong did not rush to evade. Instead, he took several long strides up to the rooftop, mounted his .50 caliber rifle behind a makeshift room on the sixth-floor roof terrace, and rapidly reloaded with armor-piercing incendiary rounds.

The convoy's ambush quickly drew the attention of the passing A-S Cobra. The helicopter dipped slightly, turned its direction nimbly, flew toward the rear, and cast a blinding aviation searchlight straight down from the sky.

Five hundred meters left! Estimating the aircraft's speed and wind velocity, Lei Dong abruptly pulled the trigger.

"Puff!" A 12.7mm armor-piercing incendiary round shot out amid the faint muzzle flash.

"Bang!" The searchlight was shattered by a single shot!

Immediately afterward, Lei Dong pulled the trigger again, destroying the Cobra's main rotor reducer with one shot. The Cobra instantly lost control, trailing black smoke in mid-air as it swayed erratically.

The next three shots targeted the Cobra's fuel tank. "Clang, clang, clang," three crisp sounds merged into one; struck consecutively in nearly the exact same spot, the fuel tank was finally punctured. The aviation fuel was violently ignited by the armor-piercing incendiary rounds, and a huge fireball appeared in mid-air as the Cobra exploded and disintegrated!

Amid a chain of heart-rending screams, the crew members were thrown far away by the massive shockwave, instantly catching fire all over. They became burning human balls, writhing wildly as they plummeted from mid-air to the ground.

Right before they hit the ground, the fragments of the Cobra, carrying clusters of fire, slammed viciously into the ground, sending the defense force into a chorus of ghostly howls and wolfish shrieks.

Firing successively had finally exposed Lei Dong's position. On an infantry fighting vehicle that had not yet been destroyed, the twin-mounted coaxial machine gun quickly swung its muzzle and unleashed a frantic spray of fire toward the rooftop. Five rounds of regular plus one tracer bullet painted a vivid trajectory in mid-air, marking the position for the unit. Immediately following that, a vehicle-mounted grenade launcher targeted the rooftop position where Lei Dong was located. The Type 63, somewhat resembling a heavy machine gun in appearance, used belt feeding and boasted an extremely high rate of fire. Amid a continuous series of "thump-thump-thump" sounds, twenty grenades were lobbed onto the rooftop like they were worthless, exploding into a sheet of fire.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, almost all the soldiers from the infantry fighting vehicles leaped off their vehicles, sought cover, blockaded the front of the building, and covered a ten-man squad as they outflanked the rear of the building.

On the mountain road leading to the urban area, Wuyun drove the Hammer 2 wildly forward.

At this moment, the sky, which had originally been clear with sparse moonlight, was now covered with dark clouds. Heavy, thick rain clouds were moving rapidly from the northwest, pressing down so heavily that people found it hard to breathe. A torrential downpour was about to arrive!

"Boom! Boom, boom!" A series of explosions echoed into the speeding vehicle.

"The boss has made contact with the enemy!" Wuyun's expression instantly turned solemn. The Hammer off-road vehicle accelerated fiercely once more, racing madly toward the rendezvous point.

Dozens of kilometers away behind them, following a chain of meticulously designed explosions, the abutment of the reservoir dam and the granite mountain finally cracked open an enormous fissure that could no longer be contained. The seemingly calm water surface instantly found an outlet for release, surging madly in this direction.

"Crack, crack, crack-crack-crack," under the immense pressure of millions of tons of water, the reinforced concrete and granite rocks continuously emitted creepy cracking sounds. That initial fissure, which was only ten meters long and less than a meter wide, kept expanding and deepening, followed by an even more massive volume of water and pressure surging over. The fissure, like a ferocious and terrifying black snake, rapidly wound and extended across the dam...

"Crack—" A heaven-shaking thunderbolt exploded, and a thick bolt of lightning struck straight down from the dense dark clouds, illuminating the dam in an eerie, ghastly white.