Their movents were as swift as leopards, the gun barrels locking firmly on their targets, fingers clenching the triggers, an icy killing intent enveloping the area like a tangible force.
Samini's body stiffened by the door crack.
He was just half a step away from the Gate of Hell, yet the cold gun barrel pinned him to the spot.
He slowly, very slowly, turned around, leaning against the cold iron door of the cargo hold.
The blinding flashlight made him squint, but there was no fear on his face; instead, there was an eerie tranquility almost like relief, tinged with a hint of mockery.
In his right hand, he tightly clutched a small black plastic box—the electric detonator trigger! His thumb rested on the deadly red button!
"Put down the detonator! Last warning!"
The Marine Corps Sergeant Blake bellowed sternly, his voice trembling slightly from intense tension, yet his gun barrel was as steady as a rock.
The team mbers behind him also locked their gun barrels firmly on Samini's head and heart.
In the cramped space, the air froze like cent, with the stench of death so thick it was suffocating. One of the container doors had already been opened, revealing boxes of ammunition marked as 120 caliber mortar shells inside.
Sergeant Blake felt his hair stand on end.
He saw mounted on those ammunition boxes, a square object.
Explosives!
And detonators were already inserted!
If an explosion occurred here...
Not only would people be sent to heaven, the ship would too!
The whole ship was packed with munitions, a veritable dium-sized ammunition depot!
Samini's gaze swept past the dark gun barrels, scanned over the faces of the Marines taut with intense tension, passed over their advanced equipnt.
His mouth twitched, as if smiling, as if crying.
He slowly, clearly uttered a string of Arabic, his voice hoarse yet exceptionally high-pitched, filled with the fanaticism of a martyr and a kind of hysterical satisfaction:
"Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah! Wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulu Allah! (I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah! I bear witness that Muhammad is Allah's ssenger!)
"Allahu Akbar! (Allah is the Greatest!)"
At the instant the last syllable fell, all the emotions in Samini's eyes—ecstasy, relief, madness, deep-seated hatred—froze over.
He stared straight into Blake's horrified eyes, his thumb exerting the last trace of life force to resolutely press down without hesitation!
Ti elongated infinitely at this mont.
Blake saw the movent of that thumb, a decisiveness beyond the limits of human reaction.
Almost instinctively, before his mind could react, he roared as he pulled the trigger!
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Three rounds fired in quick succession at close range! Bullets carrying scorching kinetic energy tore through Samini's chest instantly!
Blood blood like a tragic flower under the dazzling flashlight!
However, it was too late!
Just as Samini's body was knocked backward by the imnse impact of the bullets, slamming heavily into the ammunition boxes behind him and then sliding down softly—
Boom—!!!
An indescribable burst of pure white light, as if from the core of Hell, violently erupted from where Samini fell!
The light consud the flashlight beam in an instant, swallowed the Marine Corps mbers' silhouettes, engulfed everything in the stairwell!
It expanded silently, like the initial light of universal creation, yet contained terrifying world-destroying energy!
Then ca the deafening sound.
A force unimaginable, a violent shockwave like an invisible tsunami, erupted at supersonic speed from the tiny gap in the cargo hold!
It shredded steel like tearing paper! The heavy watertight door of the cargo hold was lifted and twisted like a leaf, lted! Scorching airwaves carrying steel fragnts, human remains, unexploded ammunition, burning tarps...
Swept out with a posture of obliterating everything!
Sergeant Blake and another team mber bore the brunt.
They hardly had ti to feel pain as their bodies were instantly vaporized, torn apart by shockwaves exceeding the human body's limit and by flas of thousands of degrees! The sturdy tactical vests, bullet-proof plates, the M4 rifles in their hands...
All modern technological marvels, in the face of the primordial power of the explosion, were as fragile as children's toys, annihilated in an instant!
The fireball from the explosion rapidly expanded into a massive orange-red sphere tens of ters in diater, laden with thick black smoke, erupted majestically from the midsection of the Marlin Fish!
The huge steel body of the ship was forcibly snapped in half!
Crack—
Crunch—!!!
The horrific sound of huge tal structures breaking and twisting even drowned out the roar of the explosion!
The whole ship arched skyward violently!
The keel groaned under unbearable strain!
The structures on the deck were tossed skyward like toy blocks!
At the fracture, orange-red flas and billowing thick smoke erupted, illuminating the night sky above Jebut Port like an inferno!
The shockwave began to sweep across the entire dock.
The follow-up Marine Corps personnel who had just rushed under the gangway were hit by an invisible sledgehamr, scread as they were flung away!
The armored Humr was pushed several ters sideways by the shockwave, the car windows shattering in an instant!
In the distance, the glass curtain walls of warehouses shattered like being hit by hailstones, pieces fragnted and cascaded like pouring rain!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—!!!
The first earth-shattering explosion was just the beginning! Like igniting the fuse of death, the mountainous ammo in the cargo hold was chain detonated!
Rockets, shells, bullets, high explosives...
Seawater frenziedly surged into the giant tear in the hull.
This iron giant bearing ambition and destruction, in the thunderous explosions and fierce flas, began its irreversible leaning, sinking.
The fractured bow and stern were slowly devoured by the cold, dark diterranean.
The churning seawater mixed with burning fuel, forming blazing patches of fire on the sea surface, turning the night an eerie crimson.
Ear-piercing alarms, cries of despair, the far-off wailing sirens of fire trucks and ambulances...
All the clamor belonging to the world was utterly drowned by the roar of destruction.
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