Chapter 144
Chapter 144
The first exchange of fire was brief, but intense.
The entrance to the hall was thick with gunpowder smoke and the smell of blood.
The two team members injured by the landmine lay on the ground, moaning in pain, but no one dared to go help them.
Wild Dog hid at the corner of the passage, his face terribly grim.
He hadn't expected to lose two men before even getting through the door.
"Sir, the night vision goggles are being interfered with—there's a strong light source in the hall!" a team member shouted.
Wild Dog stuck his head out for a look.
On the stone pillars on both sides of the hall, several high-powered flashlights had somehow been turned on, shining straight toward the entrance.
Under the magnification of the night vision goggles, those bright lights were like flashbangs, making it impossible to keep your eyes open.
"Damn it! Turn off the night vision goggles, use tactical lights!"
Wild Dog cursed and ripped off his night vision goggles.
The team members followed suit, turning on the tactical lights mounted under their gun barrels.
Dozens of light beams swept back and forth through the hall, searching for Jack's figure.
But the hall was empty—apart from the abandoned equipment and stone pillars, there wasn't a single person in sight.
"Squad One, flank from the left! Squad Two, from the right! Squad Three, stay in the passage on guard!" Wild Dog quickly gave his orders.
Two groups of team members, four in each group, held their guns and carefully entered the hall.
They moved slowly, each step extremely deliberate, gun barrels always pointing toward corners where someone might be hiding.
However, they had only gone a few steps.
"Click."
An extremely faint sound of a metal clip releasing came from under Squad One's feet on the left.
"Oh no! It's a tripwire!"
The team member in front's face changed dramatically, and he tried to jump back.
But it was too late.
He had stepped on a thin steel wire, which pulled the ring on a piece of abandoned rebar nearby.
The rebar, which had been pulled extremely tight, instantly snapped forward with several sharp glass shards tied to it, sweeping like a giant guillotine across the lower legs of the two frontmost team members.
"Ahhh—!"
Screams rang out again.
The two team members' legs were covered in blood as they collapsed to the ground.
The team members behind them immediately opened fire wildly in the direction the rebar had come from, but aside from shredding a pile of cardboard boxes, they hit nothing.
"Sir, left side blocked! Physical trap!" Squad One's team members shouted.
Wild Dog listened to the commotion inside from the passage, his teeth grinding audibly.
"Jack, you coward! You rat that only hides in the shadows!"
Wild Dog roared into the communicator.
But in the hall, only his echo reverberated—there was no response at all.
Jack, hiding behind the equipment, listened with no expression on his face.
He was like a cold hunter, quietly watching his prey walk step by step into the traps he had set.
He knew this was just the beginning.
Ronan had a lot of men. He had to use the fewest bullets to cause the enemy the greatest casualties and panic.
"Lucy, ready?"
Jack said in an extremely low voice into the walkie-talkie.
"Ready." Lucy's voice was a bit shaky, but clear.
She was hiding behind a stone pillar on the right side, her palm sweaty around the switch of a high-powered flashlight.
"On my mark, three, two, one, go!"
As soon as Jack finished speaking.
Lucy suddenly pressed the switch in her hand.
The high-powered flashlights on the right side of the hall instantly went out, while the lights on the left suddenly started flashing at an extremely high frequency.
This sudden change in light and shadow caused the "War Dog" team members in the hall to experience instant temporary blindness and confusion.
"Fire!"
Jack roared and stood up from behind the equipment.
The M4A1 rifle in his hands let out an angry roar.
"Tat-tat-tat! Tat-tat-tat!"
Precise three-round bursts.
The two team members on the left who were trying to shield their eyes from the light took headshots instantly and fell to the ground without even a grunt.
The team members on the right snapped to and immediately opened fire at Jack.
But the instant Jack fired, he had already rolled and disappeared back into the darkness and the shadow of the equipment.
"He's on the left! Kill him!"
Squad Two's team members fired wildly at where Jack had just been standing, riddling the abandoned equipment with bullet holes.
But what they didn't know was that Jack had already silently made his way behind them through an abandoned cable trench.
In the darkness, Jack appeared like a silent ghost behind one of the team members.
He didn't use his gun.
His right hand flashed, and a sharp combat knife had already stabbed hard into that team member's neck.
"Pfft!"
Jack covered his mouth with his left hand and twisted hard with his right. The team member's body convulsed a few times, then went completely limp.
Jack caught the rifle from his hands, rolled to the ground, and simultaneously pulled the trigger.
Close-range spray.
The other three Squad Two team members never expected someone behind them and were instantly riddled with bullets.
The hall fell silent again.
Only the acrid smell of gunpowder remained, along with the corpses on the ground still bleeding.
In just a few minutes, two elite "War Dog" squads had been completely wiped out.
At the corner of the passage.
Wild Dog listened to the gunfire that suddenly stopped inside, his heart sinking to the bottom.
Through his tactical terminal, he saw that the life signs of all Squad One and Squad Two members had turned to the gray that represented death.
"Sir... should we... should we retreat?" The three Squad Three members keeping guard in the passage already had a sob in their voices.
They were the White Tower Foundation's most elite warriors, having carried out countless dangerous missions.
But they had never encountered an opponent as terrifying as Jack.
He wasn't human.
He was a demon that had merged with the darkness. You couldn't see him, couldn't even hear him, but your comrades kept dying one after another.
This invisible fear completely shattered their psychological defenses.
"Shut up!" Wild Dog roared. "Anyone who retreats, I'll shoot them right now!"
He was actually scared to death himself, but he was more afraid of Ronan.
If he went back empty-handed like this, Ronan would torture him with methods ten thousand times more painful than death.
"The Colonel has already arrived at the foot of the mountain with his men," Wild Dog said through clenched teeth. "We just need to hold this passage. Once the Colonel's reinforcements arrive, Jack is dead!"
"Yes, sir." The team members could only reluctantly agree.
At this moment, in the hall.
Jack picked up two magazines from the ground and inserted them into his tactical vest.
He walked to the stone pillar where Lucy was hiding and looked at her.
Lucy's face was very pale, her body still trembling slightly, but the gun in her hands was still held steady.
"It's okay." Jack patted her shoulder, his voice soft. "You did great."
Lucy took a deep breath and nodded. "I'm fine. What do we do next? It looks like they're not coming in anymore."
"They're waiting for Ronan's reinforcements." Jack looked toward the passage, saying coldly, "When Ronan arrives, the game really begins."
"Alex, can you hear me?" Jack pressed his earpiece.
A harsh burst of static came through the earpiece, and after a long while, Alex's voice came through faintly.
"Ja... Jack, the signal... interference is very bad. Ronan... brought... brought a large signal jamming vehicle... my satellite... can barely see you anymore..."
"How many men did he bring?" Jack asked.
"At least... at least thirty fully armed... 'War Dog' elites... and... and Ronan himself... you... be careful..."
The voice cut off completely there, leaving only the harsh sound of static.
Jack removed his earpiece and threw it on the ground.
"The signal's been cut." Jack looked at Lucy. "We're completely on our own now."