Water…
Must replenish water imdiately!
Otherwise, even before the SBS acts, he himself will collapse!
At this mont, a familiar figure, bent over, nimbly weaved through the corpses and debris, quickly approaching him.
It was Disaster Star!
His face was also splattered with blood stains, his left arm's sleeve had a long gash, and blood had soaked through the fabric.
In his hand, he tightly grasped a military water bottle—one pilfered from a GNA soldier's corpse, bulging.
"Boss!"
Disaster Star's voice was hoarse, with a barely noticeable hint of worry.
He rushed to the vehicle wreck where Song Heping was hiding, knelt on one knee, and handed the water bottle over without hesitation.
Song Heping's gaze was locked onto that water bottle.
The body of the bottle was covered with blood and sand, but the sound of the sloshing liquid inside was more lodious to his ears than heavenly music at this mont.
He snatched the water bottle almost greedily, the cold heavy touch making his fingers tremble slightly.
His action of unscrewing the bottle cap was clumsy due to urgency, his fingers trembling all the while.
A refreshing scent with a faint plastic aroma wafted towards him. Without hesitation, without a taste, Song Heping tilted his head back, positioning the bottle to his mouth, greedily gulping it down!
The icy liquid, like a sweet spring, instantly poured into his parched throat, cracked like a desert!
He could almost feel every near-dried cell madly absorbing this life-saving nectar, letting out joyful sighs.
He set down the water bottle, exhaling a long, satisfied breath with a trace of tallic blood essence.
His eyes, once bloodshot, nearly burned by thirst and murderous intent, now regained so clarity.
"Disaster Star! Wrench!"
Song Heping's voice, now moistened and hoarse, pierced through the blood-soaked killing field that had just quieted down more than a mont ago, "Move fast! Clean the battlefield! Only take water! Ammo! Food! Dump all other junk! Grab it and retreat! Five minutes!"
The order was like an icy steel needle, piercing through the brief relaxation brought by surviving the massacre and the slight satisfaction from rehydration.
The soldiers, eyes bloodshot like ravenous wolves, sprang up from the pile of corpses, the swiftly as if whipped.
Water pouches!
Beca the sole target at this mont.
They roughly rifled through the warm bodies, tearing bulging water bottles from blood-soaked utility belts, pulling sealed field ration packs out of scattered backpacks.
Ammunition boxes were pried open, rows of magazines, hand grenades stuffed into tactical vests, making dull thumping sounds.
No mourning, no hesitation, only highly efficient plundering.
Wrench led a few people, like fierce hyenas, firmly guarding that pile of mound-sized valuable loot—dozens of water pouches of varying sizes.
Song Heping leaned against the cold remains of the sand buggy, quickly assessing his condition.
The wound under his ribs soaked with sweat, every breath bringing a tearing pain, the searing sensation from a grazing bullet on his arm becoming apparent again.
Fatigue, like cold lead, filled his limbs and body, but his mind, spurred by the cold water and the intense sense of danger, beca exceptionally alert.
The gaze of that SBS mber, calm and aid before his death, felt like venom-tipped ice spikes deeply embedded in his consciousness.
A truly well-trained hunter, those last few shots almost took his life.
"Boss!"
Disaster Star crouched low, like a shadow skimming across the ground, appearing beside him again, tossing a bulging tactical backpack to the ground, "Water, food, and this!"
He pointed to a black rectangular object tucked in the side pocket of the backpack, "Snatched from the GNA communications soldier's body, an encrypted radio, still usable."
Song Heping's eyes flashed coldly, instantly understanding Disaster Star's intent—the enemy's ear.
"Grab it! Retreat!"
He grabbed the backpack and slung it over his shoulder, the weight causing a sharp pain in the wound under his ribs. He clenched his teeth, his expression unchanged, "Wrench! Lead the way! Target: Kurtan, full speed!"
"OK!"
Wrench responded with a low growl.
The soldiers, who had long since resupplied and reard, quickly assembled. With Song Heping and Wrench at the forefront, Disaster Star and a few skilled n ford the rear guard.
They no longer ran but adopted a long-distance running stride with a peculiar rhythm that maximized their endurance on the sand, like true desert wolves. Silently and swiftly, they lted into the deep darkness of the northern end of Sand Valley.
Under the moonlight, over a hundred figures dragged long shadows as they swept past the battlefield strewn with corpses, leaving only the nauseatingly thick stench of blood drifting on the cold night wind and a wasteland of death.
Dead silence.
The heart-wrenching silence replaced the echoes of the frenetic symphony from half an hour ago.
Captain Don stood on the hood of his open-top military jeep, his expensive desert combat boots deeply embedded in the dark red sandy mud that had been repeatedly soaked and trampled by blood.
It was the second ti that day he had seen such a scene.
His face, etched with profound lines by the harsh desert sun and years of tense nerves, was as rigid as a weathered rock. Only a bulging vein on his temple throbbed, betraying the tumultuous fury within.
All that t his gaze was a true tableau of Hell.
Around the sand heap, corpses lay across the valley floor in all sorts of twisted, bizarre poses—so heaped together, others sprawled alone—cast in an eerie gray-blue under the faint moonlight.
The coagulated blood stained large patches of sand a viscous black-purple, exuding a suffocating stench of sweetened blood mixed with the acrid scent of gunpowder.
Only the charred skeletons of burning vehicles remained, emitting faint curls of smoke, while twisted tal reflected a cold gleam under the moonlight. Scattered weapons, shattered water bottles, torn uniform fragnts, and even severed limbs...
No survivors.
Or rather, no one left breathing.
Only swarms of sand flies, having discovered a feast, buzzed eagerly, swarming the fresh wounds still covered in unfrozen blood.
"Fucking animals!"
Don forced the words through clenched teeth, his voice hoarse and low, like sandpaper against cast iron.
Behind him were over a thousand GNA soldiers who survived the sandstorm; now each stood as if under an immobilization spell, around the dunes, their faces etched with shock, fear, and an unnoticeable sense of schadenfreude.
The scene before them was more impactful than any battlefield propaganda film, silently speaking of the rcenaries' ruthlessness and efficiency.
"Boss!"
A lieutenant, face with fresh abrasions, ran over panting, his boots caked in blood-soaked mud.
"Counted... no survivors..."
The lieutenant swallowed hard, "The enemy seems to have only taken all the water and so ammunition supplies, left the other equipnt... almost untouched."
"Only took the water... those they couldn't carry they punctured the water bags, letting it all drain into the sand..."
Don chewed over these words, each syllable piercing his nerves like an ice awl.
Song Heping!
This Ghost!
He wasn't seeking a decisive battle; he was using the coldest and most efficient ans, like a desert scorpion, precisely stinging their most vulnerable supply line—water!
He actually dared to turn his force of over a hundred, doubling back for another strike, replenishing his own most fatal shortfall with a blood-soaked slaughter, then disappearing again into the vast desert sea.
Agile, flexible, ruthless, precise, cunning...
This style of warfare made Don feel an unprecedented sense of frustration and anger.
He felt like a giant wielding a massive hamr, only to strike futilely at elusive smoke.
He jumped down from the hood abruptly, his heavy combat boots pounding into the bloodstained mud, splashing a few dark red stains.
"Radio operator!" he barked in a harsh voice, jarring in the valley of death, "Get Eagle's Nest (British command code na) imdiately! Highest priority! I need to know which sand hole those weasels crawled into! Right now! Imdiately!"
The radio operator scrambled to set up the portable radio, the antenna ineffectually spinning in the night sky.
The static of the radio beca the only background noise in this valley of death, filled with an anxious expectancy.
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