Mercenaries, I Will Be King Chapter 1079 - 980: City Ablaze

The gravel and rubble under the military boots emitted a piercing friction sound.

Song Heping darted through the burning ruins like a leopard, each pause expertly utilizing broken walls, overturned truck wrecks, or massive concrete blocks as cover.

The HK416 assault rifle in his hands kept spitting out short, lethal bursts, the 7.62mm NATO rounds howling towards any enemy daring to show their heads and obstruct him.

A GNA soldier who half-exposed himself from a burning window on the right, trying to fire, had his helt and half of his head instantly blown off, his body collapsing limp on the windowsill.

"Two o'clock! Pickup! RPG!"

Disaster Star's roar exploded from the left-rear; the continuous tearing fabric-like sound of his PKM light machine gun pinned down an ard pickup truck trying to charge through the corner ahead.

A figure with an RPG on the back of the pickup truck had just poked his head up, only to be driven back by Disaster Star's precise long burst, the rocket veering off to explode harmlessly in the distant sky.

"Hunter! Take it out!"

Song Heping shouted without looking back, his body already diving behind a pile of twisted rebar skeletons.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a relatively intact three-story building's rooftop ahead, a machine gun position pouring fire and blocking the crossroads they had to pass.

"No problem!"

Bang—

Whizz!

Hunter's voice and the gun sound rang out almost simultaneously.

He half-knelt behind a low wall, the wound on his left arm bleeding profusely with intense movent, soaking the bandage of the makeshift pressure dressing.

But his right arm remained steady as a rock, the muzzle of the HK417 quivering slightly.

The PKM machine gun sweeping crazily from that rooftop suddenly went silent, the shooter jerking backward and disappearing behind the parapet.

"Clear!"

Hunter's voice remained cold, as if the gushing blood was irrelevant to him. He swiftly cycled the bolt, ejecting the hot shell casing, his eyes hawk-like scanning for the next potential threat.

Haftar followed closely behind Song Heping, occasionally firing blindly with his AKMSU short assault rifle, though his eyes remained sowhat vacant, his movents stiff, chanically shadowing the silhouette ahead, sharp like a dagger.

The LNA officer, who earlier aid his gun at Song Heping but was deterred by Disaster Star, now held his rifle too, his face pale, bringing up the rear and scanning around fearfully, randomly firing a few rounds into the darkness.

Bang!

A muffled and distinct gunshot, unlike any other, like a heavy hamr striking a broken drum, suddenly echoed from high in a half-collapsed four-story building on the left front!

Almost at the sa ti as the gunshot, Hunter's body jerked violently!

He was about to relocate, in a forward-leaning posture. At this instant, a high-speed rotating .338 Lapua Magnum sniper round precisely caught the slight exposed gap at the edge of his helt!

Pfft!

The warhead struck the helt with a dull thud.

Hunter's FAST tactical helt was violently ripped off, spiraling away to crash into a pile of rubble nearby with a crisp clang.

Beneath the helt's edge, a terrifying gash deep enough to reveal bone appeared above his right temple, blood gushing like a floodgate opened, instantly blurring the vision in his right eye, covering half his face and neck in red!

The imnse impact caused Hunter to stagger half a step backward, his body crashing heavily into the broken wall behind him, barely keeping him from collapsing.

His vision was overwheld by a blood-red haze and gold stars, pain stabbing into his brain like steel needles, the world spinning wildly.

"Hunter!!!"

Disaster Star's roar was filled with tearing fear.

He turned the machine gun to fire towards the direction the bullet had co from.

"Don't move!"

Hunter rasped, forcing his body to stabilize. With his bloodstained right hand, he pressed the terrifying wound on his right temple hard, trying to slow down the bleeding and dizziness from the intense pain.

But his left hand still gripped the HK417's handguard tightly, his knuckles white with effort.

"SBS... Ace..." he gasped, his voice distorted by pain, "Water tower... northwest corner... height... at least... forty ters... with assistant..."

From the flash of a muzzle and the sound of the enormous gunshot at the mont he was hit, he instantly identified the opponent's identity and location—a top sniper from the British Royal Marine Corps Special Boat Service (SBS)!

Only they would use large-caliber .338 Lapua Magnum rounds in such an environnt, pursuing absolute penetration and stopping power!

Moreover, the opponent was extrely cunning, choosing the perfect mont when they were on the move, and Hunter had just completed a shot, allowing a slight lapse in attention!

"Suppress him! Disaster Star! Suppress the water tower! Don't let him take a second shot!"

Song Heping's shout was like a thunderclap.

He had seen the horrid state of Hunter's helt being blown off and blood spraying everywhere, his heart gripped by a cold hand.

But he knew, any panic at this mont would be fatal! The information Hunter obtained at the cost of his severe injury was crucial!

Disaster Star's eyes were red, a beast-like roar tearing from his throat, and the PKM light machine gun erupted into a more frenzied roar.

A long tongue of fire sprayed towards the northwest corner of the abandoned water tower, standing like a giant beast's skeleton in the distance.

An intense storm of bullets lashed the water tower's rusted steel and concrete structure, sparking and chipping constantly, ringing continuously, trying to pin that deadly sniper behind cover.

"Cover !"

Hunter gritted his teeth, squeezing the words through clenched jaws.

The pain and dizziness surged against his will like a tide, with his right eye's vision completely obscured by the flowing blood.

But he had no choice.

As a sniper, he understood his importance right then.

Forcing open his left eye, still able to see, Hunter ignored the blood pouring from his temple wound due to the effort, once again setting the HK417 on the breach in the broken wall!

The crosshairs in the scope wobbled arduously in the blurred bloody view, trying to capture the elusive opponent in the water tower's shadow.

At the top, within the sniper point of the water tower,

Captain Coleman.

The sniper commander of this SBS operation, a faintly cruel and complacent smile on his lips.

The muzzle of his TAC-50 sniper rifle still wafted faint wisps of smoke.

He was confident that shot had severely wounded the opposing sniper. Even though it wasn't a direct headshot, such an injury was enough to incapacitate much of the opponent's combat capability.

"Target heavily damaged, confird loss of effective counterattack capability."

Coleman reported calmly through the encrypted earpiece, his voice without a trace of emotion.

"Looking for Song Heping, report his location if anyone sees him."

His spotter, also a veteran with rich experience, was holding up a high-power observation mirror, rapidly reporting correction paraters: "Wind direction northwest, wind speed three ters per second, constant… wait! The target just hit is still moving..."

Poof—

A warhead pierced through the high-power observation mirror.

Snap—

The lens shattered.

The spotter fell backward.

"Connor!"

Coleman quickly ducked behind the wall, crawled to his spotter's side, reaching out to pull him up from the ground.

But he quickly gave up the thought.

Upon seeing the pool of blood and the "tofu brain" splattered from the torn skull, Coleman knew his spotter was beyond saving, now eting God.

"Looking for death!"

Coleman's gaze turned cold, murderous intent evident.

He instantly abandoned the search for Song Heping and quickly moved to the other end of the water tower.

The gun muzzle was slightly adjusted again, the crosshair steadily locking onto the figure still attempting to counterattack in the pool of blood!

The opponent was still there but seed to be starting to move, trying to relocate.

"Want to run? Die!"

Bang—

The TAC-50 let out a thunderous roar once more!

The massive recoil even made Coleman's strong shoulder tremble slightly.

Almost at the sa mont Coleman pulled the trigger!

In the ruins below, Hunter, relying on the near-prophetic danger intuition honed through nurous life-and-death experiences, executed an extre evasive tactical roll to the right in the split second before the opponent fired!

This was a reaction squeezed out by the last potential of his body!

"Splat—!"

The deadly .338 warhead viciously grazed the outside of his left shoulder!

The Kevlar fiber of the tactical vest's shoulder was instantly torn apart, along with a deep, bone-revealing blood groove in the muscle beneath!

The imnse impact knocked him completely to the ground!

"Ugh—!"

This ti, Hunter could no longer suppress the heart-wrenching scream of pain.

The severe injuries in two places, especially the dizziness from the heavy blow to his head and the blood loss, plunged his vision into complete darkness, consciousness rapidly fading like a candle in the wind.

The HK417 in his hand flew out, landing among the rubble nearby.

"Hunter!!!"

Disaster Star's eyes widened with rage, again repositioning to set up a machine gun barrage at the water tower, bullets sparking and roaring against the steel platform on top, yet unable to silence that deadly sniper point.

"Cover ! Drag him back!"

Song Heping's voice was cold to the extre.

There was no panic, only a kind of resolve that froze everything.

Before the words had faded, his body shot out from behind the cover like an arrow from a bow!

Moving so fast as to leave only a blurred shadow!

Two seconds later, during the high-speed run, he miraculously ca to a halt, pivoted on his left foot, tracing an almost perfect semicircle on the rubble-strewn ground, transitioning from extre motion to extre stillness!

At the sa ti, his right hand, as if possessing an independent life, flashed backward with a scoop!

The move was so fluid, swift, and precise that it was jaw-dropping! As if rehearsed a thousand tis!

"Snap!"

That sand-and-smoke-smudged, knuckle-defined hand firmly grasped the stock of the HK417 sniper rifle Hunter had dropped amidst the rubble.

The cold tallic feel instantly transferred to his palm.

Grab the gun!

Spin the body!

Prepare to fire!

Three actions were completed seamlessly in less than half a second!

In the instant Song Heping completed his spin, he had already ford an incredibly stable low-profile shooting stance, the hefty HK417 like an extension of his arm, pressed securely against his shoulder.

His gaze, at the sa instant his body finished rotating, locked dead onto the deep shadow atop the distant water tower like the most precise laser rangefinder!

No scope calibration! No breath adjustnt!

No heartbeat interference!

All human hesitation and emotion were completely stripped away and discarded at this mont!

His brain, like the most efficient ballistic computer, instantly synthesized the position Hunter fell hit, the directions from the two gunshots, the structure of the water tower, the angle of the moonlight, even the drift of dust in the air...

Countless fragnts of information were processed, analyzed, and yielded a singular conclusion in a thousandth of a second!

Target: Northwest corner of the water tower, edge of the upper platform, about one ter to the right of the second load-bearing steel column in the shadow!

Ti seed infinitely long and frozen at this mont.

Song Heping's index finger steadily and resolutely pulled the trigger.

"Bang—Sizzle!"

The HK417's silencer let out a deep, suppressed roar, and the first 7.62mm NATO round burst out of the chamber!