Chapter Forty-Five: The Resonant Battle Hymn

“Crack—!” A bolt of lightning tore through the heavens, splitting open the vast night sky, shooting down from above and illuminating the ocean in a blood-red glow. Instantly, a tremendous thunderclap exploded between the heavens and earth, detonating in the ears of the eight team members.

With that deafening thunder, it was as if the sky had been ripped open by a colossal wound. Rain fell in an unbroken sheet, like a giant reservoir breached, pouring through this gaping chasm. In the blink of an eye, the world was submerged in a blinding white deluge.

The wingsuit was drenched in an instant; under the crushing weight of the rain, the descent quickened noticeably. Lei Dong hurriedly released his toggles, spreading out the entire canopy to slow his fall.

He was now less than a hundred meters from the ground. The sea below was raging, towering waves several meters high crashing over the tiny islet, sending up massive sprays. The dark, jagged rocks of the island flickered in and out of sight amidst the storm-tossed waves.

A sudden gale inflated his wingsuit like a wind-filled sail, yanking Lei Dong forward at increasing speed. He fought the toggles, slowing his advance, eyeing a relatively flat patch of rock as he descended. The other seven team members navigated broad zig-zags through the air, steering their canopies to slow down while closely watching their landing zones.

Peering through the torrent, Lei Dong strained his eyes to survey the island. He was now close to the surface. The island, less than five hundred meters long and barely a hundred at its widest—narrowing to sixty meters at the slimmest point—was now clear in its undulations.

“Dammit!” Lei Dong almost cursed aloud after just a glance. The so-called island was nothing more than a cluster of large rocks forming a tiny platform. The rocks varied in size and height, some sharp, some flat, and safe footholds were few and far between. One misstep and you'd plunge into the sea. “Worse than jumping onto a ship off Hainan!” he muttered, maneuvering his canopy in tight zigzags toward a larger, flatter-looking rock.

Now less than fifty meters above the ground, Lei Dong yanked the toggles to turn into the wind. The fierce ocean gusts blew him rapidly backward. As he skimmed past the razor edge of the island, he released both toggles and was about to slap the release catch on his chest to jettison the canopy when a sudden violent gust slammed into him again, filling the canopy and dragging him seaward. A massive wave, whipped up by the wind, surged in, slamming into the shore as a wall of water over ten meters high, crashing straight toward Lei Dong.

“Damn it!” he swore, seeing he was about to be blown off the island and swept into the raging ocean. With a punch to his chest, the release snapped, and the canopy flew away as his body dropped like a stone toward the rocks.

Seconds before hitting the water, Lei Dong twisted and stretched in mid-air, as if his body had suddenly grown. His right toe barely hooked the edge of a rock; with a quick exertion, his forward momentum halted. He curled up, took a deep breath.

The wall of water swept over him, the force nearly knocking his feet from the slick, wet stone. But the more dangerous the moment, the calmer Lei Dong became. Mind and body as one, he curled into a ball to minimize impact, reaching down to seize a small protrusion beneath the rock. With a sudden burst of strength, his fingers gouged two deep holes into the ancient stone, anchoring himself as firmly as if nailed to the rock. No matter how the waves battered him, he did not budge.

As the wave receded, Lei Dong’s figure emerged once more. Ignoring his soaked state, he shouted into his comms, “Watch out for the waves! Mind your footing!”

“Understood!”

Even before the reply faded from his earpiece, Black Cloud swooped down like an eagle, landing on a boulder ten meters ahead. As his toe barely touched down, he slapped the chest release, shed his canopy, sprinted a few steps to shed momentum, and tucked himself into a steady stance.

A perfect “one-legged bird landing!”

“Damn it, never misses a chance to show off!” Lei Dong rolled his eyes. Black Cloud’s landing was far more elegant than his own bedraggled arrival.

To make things worse, Black Cloud struck a guard posture and called out gleefully, “Wow, boss, how’d you end up looking like a drowned rat?”

Lei Dong rolled his eyes again. Try taking a dip yourself!

With a thud, Bei Shiliang landed right where Black Cloud had touched down, executing another flawless “one-legged bird landing.”

No sooner had Bei Shiliang moved aside than Lang Tianyu landed in the same spot—another perfect landing. Luo Haoran, Song Jingang—each one landed near Black Cloud’s spot, then turned to Lei Dong with strange grins. Only when Huang Xiwen landed with a one-legged bird landing as well did the group finally put away their schadenfreude.

After all this time, they’d finally caught Lei Dong in an embarrassing moment!

Lei Dong didn’t need to guess what was going through their minds. Frustrated, he wanted to howl at the sky, “Heavens above, send a gust and blow them all into the sea—!”

The instant Huang Xiwen landed, he shouted, “Find cover!”

Everyone followed his gaze. The world was a blinding white, the rain now a continuous curtain, engulfing everything. The relentless downpour hammered the ocean, creating a ceaseless roar that merged with the crashing waves.

The wind screamed past their ears with an eerie wail, like ghosts crying or some cosmic beast howling at the sky.

And this was only the outer edge of the hurricane—what horrors would its core bring?

No one was in the mood to mock Lei Dong anymore. They rushed to find shelter, not that they could have gone on mocking him anyway. Even in their waterproof combat suits, in these few short moments, each looked as if they’d just stepped out of the shower, water streaming from their faces and heads, running down their gear to the ground.

“This damned weather!” Black Cloud grumbled, searching for shelter. “Isn’t it nearly winter in the southern hemisphere? How can there be such a storm?”

Song Jingang hunched his shoulders as a wave nearly smacked him in the face, laughing, “Just find your spot! Even in winter, when the wind wants to blow, what can you do?”

Despite years of camaraderie forged in training and battle, these two seemed born to bicker. If they didn’t trade insults each day, they couldn’t sleep. Yet the more they argued, the deeper their friendship grew, making them the most notorious love-hate duo of Team Three.

Sparring with Song Jingang, Black Cloud rose to the challenge, retorting, “On this blasted rock, show me a place out of the wind if you can!”

That was exactly what had all the team members cursing. The island was nothing but slippery, uneven stones of every size and height—nothing else!

The wind grew fiercer, howling wildly, making it hard to stand. The rain, whipped by the gale, slanted down in sheets, stinging their faces. Everyone knew that if they didn’t act soon, the arrival of the hurricane’s core, with its over-force-12 winds, would make survival even harder.

Given their skill, the team could anchor themselves with finger and arm strength alone, clinging onto the rocks as with the “thousand-pound drop” technique. But the might of nature was unpredictable—who knew what would happen next?

Growing anxious, Lei Dong was the first to react, rallying his strength and shouting, “Static ropes!”

“Damn! How didn’t we think of that?” The realization hit everyone at once, and they silently berated themselves—ropes weren’t just for climbing!

In moments, they pulled static ropes, pitons, carabiners, and figure-eight descenders from their packs. The whir of hand drills sounded as they bored into the rocks, the noise lost amidst the storm. Minutes later, pitons were hammered deep into the exposed stone, providing solid anchor points.

Just as the last piton was set, the hurricane’s full force arrived. The wind and waves surged together, a chain of lightning illuminating the sky. The monstrous, lid-like black clouds above pressed down as if with the weight of a thousand tons. The eye of the storm had arrived.

But no one was afraid or panicked. In mere seconds, they ran the static ropes through the carabiners, looped around figure-eights, draped them over their shoulders, wrapped the ropes around the rocks, and tied secure double loops. Instantly, their bodies were anchored tight to the stone.

The howling wind raised waves over ten meters high, crashing down to pin the seven team members under water.

Thunder rumbled endlessly, lightning ripped through the driving rain, detonating over the sea. The wind, rain, waves, and thunder blended into one, as if the world held no other sound—only this vast, all-powerful symphony of nature’s wrath, raging between heaven and earth.

Such was the limitless might of the world—manifested here and now!

Yet as the waves were still surging, in the midst of the lightning and thunder, the wind and rain, a bold voice suddenly rang out above the storm—

“Unseen when I come, traceless when I go! Like lightning, like the breeze—”

It was Lei Dong’s voice!

Those twelve words crashed through the storm into the ears and hearts of the team, sending their blood surging. Brimming with pride, they could not help but shout in unison—

“Unseen when I come, traceless when I go! Like lightning, like the breeze!
Alone I charge into enemy ranks, seizing prisoners, scouting the foe!
Through water thousands of feet deep, we swim; up mountains ten thousand fathoms high, we climb!
Our thoughts are pure, our spirit is strong! With the morning sun in our hearts, we strive for revolution!
If you ask who I am, I am the people’s scout!”

Bold and resounding, the song of the scouts, roared from the depths of their hearts, pierced through the wind and rain, battered back the waves, and reverberated across the boundless vastness of the sea, echoing between heaven and earth!

PS: Now this is the true, authentic song of the scouts—in those days, only our battalion could sing this in front of the Reconnaissance Battalion without breaking stride! Ha!