Chapter 52: Operation Angry Dragon (Part 17)

The sky seemed to have been torn open by a gigantic gash, with startling bolts of lightning continuously piercing through the dense, dark clouds, and torrential rain pouring wildly from the heavens. Along the mountain road leading to the Mochuan Reservoir, all vehicles had their blinding high beams switched on, winding their way slowly upward along the twisting mountain path.

On both sides of the road, inside an armored command vehicle, Lieutenant Colonel Yamada, the deputy commander of the 708th Regiment, furrowed his brow deeply.

Following the order to reinforce the Mochuan Reservoir, two detachments minus three platoons had advanced rapidly under his unified command, departing respectively from the Lichuan and Nachuan Reservoirs and pushing forward in a two-pronged attack toward the Mochuan Reservoir.

Although the torrential rain soon covered the earth and blotted out the sky, relying on their superior equipment, the two forces had come within less than seven kilometers of the Mochuan Reservoir in less than an hour.

Yet at this very moment, the radio station at the Mochuan Reservoir, which had been firmly locked onto all along, suddenly vanished without a trace. And following an initial flurry of explosions, the area around the Mochuan Reservoir had fallen entirely silent, with the sounds of gunfire, artillery, and explosions no longer audible.

The monitoring system was filled with meaningless static, the military satellite signals were blurry and unclear, and the cameras of the advanced reconnaissance drones could capture nothing except the pouring rain everywhere, while the infrared radars onboard displayed no anomalies whatsoever.

"What on earth is happening?" Lieutenant Colonel Yamada thought tensely, trying to make an assessment.

Had the enemy's attack been repelled, but the radio damaged? Or had the reservoir's remaining garrison forces been completely wiped out? What precisely was the enemy's objective? Was it merely to attack the reservoir and create chaos? Was there some greater conspiracy hidden behind this?

Judging by the current situation, the majority of the infantry forces of the 708th Regiment were scattered and exhausted—with the exception of a few left behind to guard the base, the main forces of the 1st and 3rd Detachments were concentrated under his direct command to reinforce the attacked Mochuan Reservoir. Meanwhile, the 2nd Detachment, which had been sent to the urban area to help quell the disturbances, had been urgently recalled, but on its way back had encountered extremely fierce resistance. Intelligence coming from the front indicated that the opposing force was exceptionally small in scale yet possessed extremely high combat proficiency, and the battle was currently extremely intense.

This also meant that out of the four infantry companies comprising the entire 708th Regiment, three had already been deployed and driven to exhaustion, whereas the tanks, artillery, engineers, and air defense units under the direct jurisdiction of the brigade headquarters were actually of little use in clearing out this kind of small-scale harassment. This was precisely why the brigade headquarters had dispatched its directly subordinate special operations team to join the battle and had been forced to mobilize the 702nd Regiment to reinforce the 2nd Detachment.

This had effectively reduced the available forces under the brigade headquarters' command to a dangerously low level. After all, there were still more and vital departments and strategic locations that required tighter protection, and those troops could not be moved!

Lieutenant Colonel Yamada tapped on the electronic sand table at his command console, and a near three-dimensional, stereoscopic tactical map quickly appeared before him.

Looking at the riots blooming everywhere on the tactical map, looking at the distribution of the several infantry units of the 162nd Brigade, and the locations where the troops had been attacked and harassed, a strong, ominous premonition suddenly welled up in Lieutenant Colonel Yamada's heart.

"Great Amaterasu, what is this—"

A startled exclamation interrupted Lieutenant Colonel Yamada's train of thought.

Lifting his head sharply, Lieutenant Colonel Yamada saw that the sergeant who had been standing guard at the lookout port had his mouth wide open, his face pale, his entire body trembling, and his fingers shaking as he pointed outside the window.

"Hmm?" Lieutenant Colonel Yamada suddenly realized something, sprang to his feet, and lunged toward the lookout port. Then, he beheld a sight he would never forget in his lifetime.

Not far away, along the edge of the towering dam of the Mochuan Reservoir, a huge gap suddenly cracked open. White waves of water gushed out from the breach, shooting straight forward for hundreds of meters like a divine sword piercing heaven and earth, instantly puncturing the boundaries of time and space!

Under the immeasurable pressure of hundreds of millions of tons of water, mere seconds later, this breach expanded rapidly—by a few meters, a dozen meters, twenty meters...

A continuous, thunderous roar echoed through the air. The entire left half of the dam collapsed with a crash. The body of water, having brewed immense power as it surged left and right, finally found an outlet to pour out, rushing down all at once like a boundless herd of frightened wild horses galloping madly from the mountain valley with an unstoppable momentum!

The raging floodwaters battered the mountain rocks and gorges along the banks, stirring up giant waves tens of meters high, emitting a heaven-shaking roar before crashing down from the sky in an overwhelming deluge.

Massive boulders were washed away, and thick tree trunks were snapped in half by the overwhelming force of the water waves, swept along by the flood as it rushed downward and incessantly plunged into the already churning, turbulent river. That roaring sound, while pounding against the banks, was both shocking and despairing.

The infantry fighting vehicles and motorcycles of the vanguard units were caught in the roaring waves at the very first contact and vanished without a trace in an instant.

The color drained entirely from Lieutenant Colonel Yamada's face. Suddenly, he knew what those enemies lurking in the shadows had done, and what they had intended to accomplish all along.

Their true target was not this place!

"Great Amaterasu—" Lieutenant Colonel Yamada only had time to utter a startled cry before he was swallowed by the boundless, overwhelming giant waves...

The grand and imposing mountain torrents plunged headlong down the mountain valleys among the peaks. Coupled with the torrential rain, the gullies within the valleys were completely filled to the brim. Due to the steep terrain and narrow riverbeds, the massive body of water seemed eager to break free from external constraints, rolling ceaselessly and becoming increasingly rapid. Layer upon layer of giant waves, churning up snow-white foam, roared downstream like an enraged giant dragon!

Finally, after navigating numerous twists and turns, the floodwaters rushed out of the valley where the terrain flattened out, causing the water's momentum to slacken accordingly. The rapid flow slowed down, and the towering waves disappeared. In their place was a vast, blinding expanse of white between heaven and earth—a flood that appeared calm on the surface but harbored dangerous undercurrents underneath, surging forward at a speed exceeding ten meters per second.

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On the outer ring highway of the Jingdu urban area, a Hammer 2 military off-road vehicle drove with its headlights turned off, speeding like an arrow through the pouring rain.

"Whoosh," "Whoosh," two dark figures darted out from the bushes of the roadside green belt, their bodies flashing as they plastered themselves tightly against the side of the Hammer 2.

The vehicle doors flew open swiftly and closed just as fast. The two dark figures dropped effortlessly into the vehicle, leaning back against the seat cushions with exceptional comfort and letting out a long sigh of relief.

"Hello, comrades!" As soon as Bei Shiliang sat down, he waved his hand in the manner of a high-ranking officer. Wuyun held the steering wheel with one hand while delivering a sharp rap to Bei Shiliang's head with the other: "Good job, little comrade!"

Bei Shiliang rubbed his head and scolded with great dissatisfaction: "Damn it, a comrade is a comrade, would you please not put the word 'little' in front of it? In what way am I smaller than you?"

Amidst the roaring laughter of the others, Lei Dong rolled his eyes, opened his military-grade computer, and his fingers danced nimbly across the keyboard. In a moment, he entered a series of codes—the latest intelligence sent over by Li Yongzheng.

The intelligence was written in cipher, transmitted through multiple proxies and multiple email accounts so that no person or intelligence agency would notice anything unusual. With Lei Dong's brain, there was no need for prolonged reading, nor did he need to translate the code; a mere glance with his eyes was enough to commit a string of disconnected and seemingly meaningless codes to memory as vital intelligence pieces.

"Damn it!" Lei Dong slapped his thigh.

"How is it?" Wuyun asked without turning her head.

Lei Dong drew a breath and said with a trace of gloominess, "That old turtle Daye Siwudian refuses to come out of his hole... Looks like we'll have to stoke the fire a bit more!" He pointed at the exit ahead, "Wuyun, Area Number!"

Wuyun slammed the steering wheel hard, applying both handbrake and footbrake simultaneously. The rear of the vehicle drifted, sliding sideways toward the exit and kicking up a graceful arc in the standing water on the ground. Amidst a splash of water droplets, the Hammer 2 sped off the highway and charged into the urban area.