Chapter Thirty-Five

  " Auxiliary fuel tank... damn it!! Can't see. Driver's periscope... hitting this is useless..." Although the turret had already turned towards where my mountain bear was hiding, I, who still hadn't given up, tried hard to find a way to stop the tank from firing.

  There's only one shot, and two positions left. The communication antenna is useless, so I'll just use the long-range periscope... With my target confirmed in my mind, I calmly take aim, and... As the recoil from my shoulder comes, I don't bother to reload, taking my eyes off the sniper scope, directly visually confirming my results. What I see is...

  The tank began to adjust the angle of its cannon, and the automatic machine gun on the turret had already started a frantic sweep in my direction, forcing me to keep my head down and unable to return fire... I could hear the bullets whizzing over my head. 'Hit it, why didn't you use it?'

  "Is it going to end? Ouyang, don't forget to pick me up..." The tank had already adjusted the angle of its cannon and would fire in a few seconds. He slowly let go of the sniper rifle he had been tightly grasping, murmuring softly as he closed his eyes, waiting for the deafening roar by his ear, waiting to meet Ouyang, waiting...

  "Damn it!! Hurry up!!" With my eyes closed waiting for the outcome, I suddenly felt a large hand tightly grabbing the back of my neck, and then dragging my body. It was at this moment that Mountain Bear's voice reached my ears. "Right! Mountain Bear is also here!!! He still has to go back!!" Realizing this in my heart, I quickly grabbed the sniper rifle beside me, got up, crouched down, and ran with Mountain Bear to the crack on the floor...

  BOOM! As we jumped down, the tank finally fired its cannon. The shockwave sent me tumbling through the air, and I lost my balance. "Ahh!" I let out a short cry of pain as I fell heavily to the ground. Shan Xiong pulled me up, and in the swirling smoke, I couldn't see his face, but his voice came clearly to my ears.

  "Come on, let's go!! That *** won't stop until he blows this place to kingdom come." As the bear's words reached my ears, my body was once again dragged forward by him, running towards a nearby broken hole that wasn't far away. That was our pre-scouted retreat point...

  "Come back!!" I, who had just run to the entrance of the cave, suddenly saw a glint of light outside and quickly pulled Mountain Bear back. The two of us had just leaned against the wall when a hail of bullets hit the wall. "Are you ready to catch some alive?"

  I and the mountain bear, quietly leaned against the wall, waiting for people outside to rush in, or waiting for tanks to fire and send us away... But after a long wait, no one came near, nor did we hear that loud noise.

  "Listen up, people inside!! We already know your identities. You used your lives to cover for the comrades who escaped, but one of them was caught by us and he betrayed you!!" Upon hearing the voices outside, my heart skipped a beat, "Have they been captured? Have we failed?"

  "Damn it! What's going on? We've been sold out!!!! Let's go fight our way out!" As he spoke, Shan Xiong had already pulled out his handgun, ready to charge out and engage in his final battle...

  "Don't move, listen to what they're saying?" Seeing this, he quickly pressed down on Shan Xiong, his knee directly pinning the hand holding the gun against the wall.

  "Captain Wang Kun, ace sniper, codename: Gyrfalcon. Lieutenant Li Xue-liang, current platoon leader, known as the strongest Iron Blood Warrior, codename: Mountain Bear. Who would have thought... who would have thought..." That voice seemed to be lamenting something, 'Can lamentation catch us?'

  That voice is still shouting at us, "I didn't expect to run into you! Do you know? You are the ones specified by the higher-ups to be captured alive! Let's start with Wang Kun, our records show that you killed 479 of our people, including 100 high-ranking officers, 134 ordinary officers, and others such as artillery guides, medical soldiers, snipers, and ordinary soldiers. You're quite impressive! And then there's Li Xue-liang, who is said to be able to break through any defense wherever he goes. I've also heard that you once used a Gatling multi-barrel machine gun all by yourself, although it was already lightweight... but for me, the fact that you can use it alone is still unbelievable..." The voice outside continues, while we exchange glances...

  "Good kid, you're awesome!" This is the look in Mountain Bear's eyes when he announced my record. It was filled with his admiration.

  "You're not bad either~" This is what I heard them say about the mountain bear, with a look of surprise in their eyes.

  "Can we talk? I can guarantee not to shoot, and you guys can see, betray your own people!!" As I exchanged glances with the mountain bear, the guy outside had already proposed a tempting condition.

  He didn't bother with him, but instead casually pulled out a heavy fragmentation grenade from his body, pulled the pin, and signaled to Shan Xiong to get ready. Then, he directly threw it into the blind spot of our line of sight next to us. Boom! Along with the explosion, came waves of miserable cries. With one big step, half of his body was exposed in front of that corridor, and what he saw were those who had tried to sneak in lying on the ground in disarray.

  Bang! Bang! The mountain bear casually blew the heads of two groaning men, and at this time, I had already started checking other corpses... "Except for the handgun, they were all carrying non-lethal ammunition. It seems they really intended to capture us alive..." After finishing the examination, I lightly spoke my findings to the mountain bear.

  "Can you hear me? Maybe I can get us out of here alive." I stood up slowly, standing in front of the mountain bear, and spoke my words softly. "Promise me, brother, I need your trust."

  Seeing the expression in my eyes, Shan Xiong seemed to consider for a moment before giving me his answer. "Brother, I trust you, you won't let them catch us alive, I'll listen to you!!" As Shan Xiong's firm voice came over, I also handed the sniper rifle in my hand over to him.

  "Help me hold this, I'll go talk to the people outside..." Without paying attention to Shan Xiong's puzzled gaze behind him, he directly took out a hand grenade from his body, pulled the pin, and tightly grasped the safety lever. If the safety lever were to be released, the grenade would explode in a few seconds.

  I, holding a hand grenade, put my hands behind my back and slowly walked to the door. I shouted loudly outside, "All of you who came in have gone to heaven, no need to send anyone else in! I'm coming out, can you guarantee my safety?"

  "Don't worry, we won't arrest you until you formally surrender." I smiled wryly upon hearing this and gave Yamakuma a reassuring glance before walking slowly out the door.

  Just as I walked out the door, not even a few steps away, a gun was slammed into my face, knocking me to the ground. Then two people pounced on me, trying to disarm me. "I knew you'd do this," I said in my heart, without resisting. Instead, I raised the hand grenade that I had already pulled the pin from, letting them see it, while my other hand covered the side of the grenade to prevent them from snatching it away. The hand holding the grenade had released three fingers and was now lightly grasping it with just two fingers.

  "Calm down!!" Along with the two guys beside me, who took a step back in terror, the person who had been shouting also shouted out my request.

  I gave a slight smile to the guy holding the megaphone, stretched out my hand and caught one of the guys who was about to run away, directly placing him in front of me. I put my hand with the grenade around his neck, pressing it against the tip of his nose. "Be good, don't move, my hands are very easy to shake." I put my mouth next to the guy's ear and whispered out threats to him, feeling his muscles stiffen all over his body. I knew he could understand what I was saying, and he was very obedient.

  "Now we can have a good talk." The guy in front of me, with both hands idle, I'm waiting for him to lose patience and snatch the grenade from my hand. I slightly stick out my head, loudly say what I want to say to the guy holding the megaphone, at the same time, also making the guy in my arms feel at ease, letting him think I'm using him as a hostage.

  "Yes, yes. But can you let go of the person in your hand first?" This guy must be sweating on his head.

  "Not interested, then what are we talking about?" I directly rejected his words and asked out my question.

  "Want to take a look at the prisoners we caught?" A rather tempting proposition, isn't it?

  "Good!"

  The guy with the megaphone, upon hearing my response, whispered something to the person next to him, and then that guy nodded and walked behind the ruins. Before long, he dragged a person who had been beaten beyond recognition, with their mouth sealed shut, back up.

  "You see, are you satisfied?" The guy holding the megaphone was triumphantly showing off his spoils to me.

  "Let him speak." The man who fell to the ground looked at me with pleading eyes, I knew he had something to say, and I also wanted to hear his explanation.

  "This..." Someone hesitated.

  "Come on, baby, be good, open your mouth." There was no hesitation from the guy in front of me, who I had been using as a shield and hostage. He pinched open his own mouth with his hand, and slowly inserted half of the grenade into it. I knew that the guy with the megaphone could hear my words through the communication device on the body of the person I had just stuffed the grenade into.

  "Stop!!" The guy looked at me like that, and also heard my murmured voice from the communicator in his ear, shouting at me to stop. Then, he personally squatted down, tore off the adhesive tape that stuck our soldiers' mouths shut.

  I didn't pull the grenade out of his mouth, but instead pushed it in a bit further, just enough to get it stuck in his mouth, and the pin was still under my control. "Tell me, what happened?" I asked loudly to the person lying on the ground, who started crying when he saw me.

  "Captain, I'm back, but I didn't bring any reinforcements..." That guy, upon hearing my voice, didn't give me the answer I wanted, but instead started telling me about his grievances.

  "I didn't blame you, say, what happened?" Interrupting his meaningless voice, directly asking him to say what I wanted to know.

  "We've returned to the base, but no matter how we plead, they're unwilling to send anyone to rescue you!!" His voice made my heart skip a beat. "Why? Why? Why??!" I shouted in my mind, but I couldn't let them know my emotions, so I could only silently scream inside, maintaining my usual calm expression.

  Slowly, I backed out of the cave entrance, turned my head and gave a puzzled look to the mountain bear leaning against the side of the entrance. Then I turned my head back and asked, "Then what? How did you get captured?"

  "We see that everyone is unwilling to come out and save you. They just sneak away, thinking it's better to die, but we want to die with you together." His voice knocked on my heart, also knocking on the mountain bear's heart, his eyes already had tears in them.

  His voice continued to strike my heart, and the words of this nameless warrior made me feel a pang of sadness. It's not his fault, really. "We were halfway there when we were ambushed by enemies who came out of nowhere. I told them to retreat back to our position. Hayate, this is the first time I've called you that. Because... because I can finally do something with you, I drew off the pursuers and ran back. The ones who retreated are probably getting scolded on the battlefield right now. Hahahaha! Those idiots must be getting chewed out badly! If it weren't for me being knocked out by a grenade, you wouldn't have seen me here. Those idiots gave me a truth serum, damn it!!!" Now he's excitedly laughing loudly, and at this moment, my tears quietly fell down my cheeks... because I saw his hand slowly move to his waist...

  "Hahaha~~~ It's my turn to laugh, do you think I'm an idiot!!" The guy holding the megaphone noticed the movement of the warrior lying on the ground, but he didn't go to stop him. Until the warrior on the ground found that there was no fuse on his waist as he thought, the guy with the megaphone burst out laughing.

  "You think I wouldn't notice the C4 hidden in your waistband? Let me tell you, your waistband is much thicker than anyone else's." The guy laughed loudly as he answered the warrior and my question.

  The warrior on the ground didn't speak, but looked in my direction, his eyes filled with determination and a request for me. 'Am I going to have to personally send another brother off again?' I thought to myself, already preparing to release the safety on the grenade...

  "Hahaha ~ Can you guys surrender now?" The guy who didn't know what was happening was still shouting.

  "Daydream!!!" As soon as the words came out, the hand that had been holding onto the safety device also loosened its grip, and with a burst of strength, slapped the grenade directly into that guy's mouth. With one kick, he started running forward.

  "Don't!! Don't come over!!" This guy who's shouting wildly, doesn't he know that we're more than 30 meters apart? The time-delay fuse on the grenade is 5 seconds, and I won't be able to run to his side in time. And this is just an ordinary grenade, it can't even hurt him.

  "Brother!! Take care!" I shouted out loud, and at the same time, I also drew out the pistol stuck in my leg, aiming at the soldier lying on the ground. Under his determined, pleading, resolute, and desperate gaze, I forcefully pulled the trigger. Bang...