The second-floor stack halted simultaneously.
No command. No signal. Yet every woman stopped.
Tang Ziyi slowly raised a fist.
The hallway ahead stretched longer than expected, lined with thick plastered walls and heavy wooden doors reinforced with tal fras. Dim ergency lights flickered weakly after the generator shutdown, barely illuminating the corridor.
Sothing felt wrong.
Not rely danger.
Pressure.
Tang Ziyi narrowed her eyes behind the white phosphor tubes. Her instincts scread at her that the targets were here.
But the atmosphere was absurd.
Too quiet.
Too prepared.
She shifted slightly and imdiately noticed sothing else—the corridor itself had been transford into a kill zone. Furniture overturned. Heavy cabinets dragged sideways. Partial barricades.
Prepared firing lanes.
"Contact likely front," Tang Ziyi whispered.
Ahmin's expression darkened. "They knew."
"Ti has passed for so long. Elites can already react." Tang Ziyi answered short. She simply motioned the formation wider.
She didn't care much since the enemies weren't highly trained according to the combat in the past.
Even if the guard elents were elite, could they compare with Spirit Fox or the militia, she trained?
The operators spread across both sides of the hallway, minimizing clustering. Muzzles floated steadily in the darkness, IR lasers invisible to the naked eye dancing through the corridor like death lines.
Then—
BRRRRRRRRRRTTTTT!!
The hallway exploded.
A PKM roared from the far end behind the barricade.
The sheer violence of the burst startled even Ahmin.
Chunks of plaster erupted from the walls. Wooden fragnts detonated into splinters. The corridor beca a hurricane of sparks and debris.
"CONTACT FRONT!"
The operators instantly flattened against the walls.
Tang Ziyi ducked behind a doorway as 7.62x54R rounds ripped through the corridor at chest level.
BRRRRRRRT!!
The machine gunner swept side to side aggressively, attempting to pin the entire assault team.
Ahmin cursed inwardly.
Cracks and whiplashes shrieked through the formation. Bullets barely missing the mark.
This wasn't normal suppressive fire.
The enemy knew exactly how to lock down a CQB corridor.
Several militia commandos froze montarily under the sheer pressure. Even with training, a PKM firing down a confined hallway felt utterly monstrous.
Fortunately—
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
The thick walls absorbed most of the incoming rounds.
Tang Ziyi imdiately noticed it.
Solid construction.
Country S still used older concrete-heavy architecture rather than hollow modern partitions. The rounds penetrated partially but failed to fully punch through multiple rooms.
Otherwise the hallway would already have beco a slaughterhouse. So already managed to retreat to a secure room when suppression started. It was a miracle nobody died in the first barrage.
Hallway was dangerous for a reason when soone occupied the entire sector with machineguns in CQB.
"Fortunate walls," one Spirit Fox operator muttered calmly while checking her angle.
A few dropped prone. One operator who was also Spirit Fox lifted two dead bodies of terrorists nearby and piled them in front as makeshift sandbag.
Tang Ziyi couldn't bear to stay stoic. Especially Ahmin's sharp gazes landed on her. She wanted to say she didn't know them at all. She complained bitterly—what were they trying to act. They wouldn't even get hurt from bullets with outrageous individual protection chanisms.
Perhaps, Spirit Fox operators didn't want the new ally to et misfortune. She also understood the dilemma when they must conceal such advantages with friendly units and watch them in danger.
So, acting anything possible to protect them was easy to comprehend even if their behaviors stood against values.
Tang Ziyi exhaled once and ignored Ahmin's eyes. For now, everyone decided to wait to see how the situation unfolded since they judged from the sound—there was only a single shooter. Then the absurdity escalated.
Clink.
Clink-clink.
Grenades rolled down the hallway.
"GRENADE!"
The entire stack collapsed deeper into rooms.
BOOM!!
BOOM!!
The corridor shook violently.
Dust burst from the ceiling.
Before the echoes even faded—
BRRRRRRT!!
The PKM resud firing imdiately.
Tang Ziyi's eyes narrowed.
No pause.
No reload rhythm.
No barrel discipline.
Just endless fire.
Then—
Another grenade.
Then another.
Then another.
Boom! Boom!
The hallway beca an inferno of suppressive violence.
Ahmin's pupils contracted, glanced worriedly at her subordinates. Even with the highest tier ear protection headset, their heads were dizzy from multiple blasts. Only Spirit Fox operators fended well because of their physiques.
"How many grenades do they have?"
Tang Ziyi remained silent.
That wasn't the strange part.
The strange part was the timing.
The machine gun never truly stopped long enough for a belt transition.
Even with assistants, even with prepared drums, there should have been pauses.
But the gunfire flowed unnaturally smoothly.
As if the enemy never needed to reload. Heck, even if they had extrely long belts for ammunitions, the barrel would've lted by now and exploded.
"Sothing's wrong," Tang Ziyi said quietly.
BRRRRRT!!
Another burst hamred the doorway.
One militia commando scread as fragnts sliced across her cheek from concrete spall.
"dic check later! Stay in the fight!" Ahmin barked instantly.
The won steadied themselves.
Tang Ziyi peeked briefly.
Puff! Puff! Puff!
Three suppressed shots snapped outward.
The PKM fire imdiately shifted toward her position with frightening speed.
She withdrew instantly as bullets tore through the doorfra.
Too reactive.
Too disciplined.
Not random militants or terrorists.
"Experienced fighters," Ahmin whispered.
Tang Ziyi disagreed internally.
Experienced was one thing.
This felt chanized.
Cold.
Relentless.
Unhuman-like.
Then suddenly—
BANG! BANG!
A side door farther ahead burst open.
Two ard n attempted to flank the operators, thinking they were suppressed.
But they barely erged halfway.
Puff-puff-puff!
Two Spirit Fox operators fired directly through the wooden door before the n fully exited.
The rounds punched cleanly through the panels.
Both bodies collapsed backward into the room before they even understood what had happened.
"Side threats down."
Spirit Fox mbers sneered. This much pressure was nothing if not to care for the militia commandoes.
The PKM answered with another furious burst.
BRRRRRRRRT!!
The hallway lights shattered.
Darkness deepened further.
More grenades bounced forward.
Clink. Clink.
"Back!"
Boom!!
Fragnts blasted outward.
One militia operator lost balance and crashed against the wall.
Tang Ziyi grabbed her vest and dragged her deeper behind cover before the next burst stitched across the corridor.
The enemy was deliberately alternating:
suppression
explosives
suppression again
Perfect corridor denial.
And still—
No reload.
No weapon transition.
No audible ammunition depletion.
Tang Ziyi finally frowned.
Even the Spirit Fox won were beginning to notice.
One operator muttered quietly over comms:
"How the hell are they sustaining this?"
Ahmin's breathing beca heavier.
This no longer felt like a standard defensive stand.
It felt wrong.
Almost inhumanly relentless.
Then Rooftop team's and Backyard team's voices suddenly crackled softly into Tang Ziyi's earpiece:
"Hotel 1, status?! What the hell is going on? So many explosions."
Tang Ziyi froze slightly and responded. Hotel 1 belonged to the frontal assault team.
"Everyone's fine. A few scratches."
A brief pause.
Then they asked:
"How can we help, Hotel 1?"
Another burst erupted from the corridor.
BRRRRRRRT!!
Tang Ziyi stared into the darkness. "Wait one."
Finally—
She understood why Ling Qingyu had been so focused on this target.
The enemy wasn't rely resisting.
Sothing abnormal was happening inside that hallway. She dared to bet her fighting experiences that she was eting a cheating opponent.
Well, she also cheated. "Athena, guide the periter team to throw in several flashbangs at the suspected gunner's location from the exterior."
"Roger that. Athena's on the line."
Tang Ziyi relaxed her nerves and tapped her helt at anyone looking at her to gesture that they would advance soon.
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