The wheels rolled over the cracked asphalt, kicking up dry, choking dust.
The barbed wire that marked the border between order and chaos on the Northern Border of Northern Darfur quickly shrank in Song Heping's rear-view mirror, eventually swallowed by the pervasive yellow dust.
Ahead lies Libya.
The year is early 2014, the third year after Colonel Ka's downfall.
This once prosperous North African country has long been trampled and shattered by the iron feet of civil war.
The air is filled with the mix of despair and gunpowder, pungent and heavy.
On either side of the road, the ruins of towns torn apart by artillery fire stand like grim skeletal remains, silently pointing to the gray sky.
Between the broken walls and rubble, ragged figures occasionally search; are they survivors or vultures?
It's hard to tell.
On the walls of roadside buildings, a giant, faded portrait of Colonel Ka is torn apart, leaving only half a face, with hollow eyes staring at the land he led into the abyss and which fully collapsed after his death, bearing a grotesque irony.
"Damn, hell on earth."
Disaster Star seated in the passenger seat chewed gum, but his gaze, like a knife, scraped past the window.
He was burly, like a moving wall, the old scar from his brow to the corner of his mouth gently twisted in the bumping, exuding a fierce "keep away" aura.
"Where are we now."
In the back seat, Hunter's eyes were sharp like a hawk, scanning the roadsides' vantage points and suspicious coverings.
"The further inside, the busier it gets."
Song Heping said nothing, just watched the wounds through his sunglasses.
The convoy consisted of a plain pickup receiving personnel from Haftar's forces, six reinforced ard pickups, and two wheeled armored personnel carriers, their engines roaring forward on the derelict roads.
The vehicles carried a platoon of "Musician" Defense's finest combat units and necessary weapons.
anwhile, along the Northern Border of Northern Darfur, a rcenary force of three thousand commanded by White Bear was secretly deploying according to plan, ready to serve as reinforcents in the Libyan civil war.
The convoy passed a village completely destroyed.
Several charred corpses were casually tossed into a roadside ditch, attracting swarms of flies, buzzing nauseatingly.
A few children, in rags and with numb eyes, squatted by the ruins, indifferent to the roaring convoy as if their souls had long been drained by the flas of war.
"GNA's 'masterpiece.'"
Hunter Lin Mo's voice remained cold, without a hint of emotion.
"'Governnt army' coming from the north, Aricans bribing, British providing guns, Saudi sending Wahhabi fanatics as cannon fodder. Haftar's n blocked their way."
Disaster Star spat fiercely: "Damn! The dog food traded for oil turned around to kill their people!"
Song Heping's gaze fell on an elderly woman curled under a broken wall, tightly holding a swaddled baby, motionless.
His eyes behind sunglasses showed no ripple, but his grip on the car door handle was slightly white-knuckled.
Every drop of blood shed on this land is soaked with the greed of foreign powers.
Numbers of oil futures jumping in the London Financial City, plans on desks at Downing Street and the White House, their costs clearly imprinted on this scorched earth before his eyes.
The closer he got to the eastern desert region controlled by Haftar's forces, the roads beca increasingly difficult.
The so-called roads were ravaged repeatedly by tank tracks and heavy artillery, leaving only potholes and rubble.
The convoy often had to detour, creating new tracks in the desolate Gobi Desert.
Along the way, so crude checkpoints began to appear, guarded by soldiers in mismatched uniforms but with arm patches uniformly embroidered with the Haftar "National Army" (LNA) insignia.
Their eyes were weary, equipnt outdated, AK-47 barrels reflecting dull light in the scorching sun.
Seeing this well-equipped, intimidating external convoy, the soldiers had mixed expressions of vigilance, curiosity, and a faint glimr of hope.
"Boss, ahead is the Desert City's outskirts."
The driver, a South African veteran nicknad "Trigger," pointed to a low, earth-yellow silhouette appearing on the horizon.
Desert City—Haftar's forces' last stronghold in the east, an isolated island surrounded by sand and despair.
As the convoy approached, the traces of war beca even more striking.
The city's outskirts were filled with anti-tank ditches, barbed wire fences, and makeshift minefield markers.
Barricades made of sandbags and abandoned vehicles could be seen everywhere, with heavy machine guns mounted atop.
Bullet holes were like pockmarks covering every remaining wall.
Apart from the dust, the air also carried a faint sll of corpses mixed with the scent of gunpowder and death.
An officer dressed in faded camouflage, with his right arm bandaged, stopped the convoy at a checkpoint on the outskirts.
After confirming Song Heping's identity, he forced a polite smile, but a dead weight lay deep in his eyes: "Mr. Song? Welco to the hall of hell. The General is waiting for you at the command post."
The convoy moved into the city imbued with an apocalyptic atmosphere, guided by several ard pickups.
On the streets, pedestrians were rare, each hurried and haggard.
Beside the ruins of collapsed houses, people erected simple shacks using plastic sheeting and tin. A few malnourished children circled a black-smoking iron barrel, trying to salvage sothing to eat. Ambulances marked with red crosses but riddled with bullet holes sped past, leaving a trail of piercing sirens.
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