sbdcsierra Chapter 514 Hunting!
Chapter 514 Hunting!
Zhu Long clenched his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead, but knowing there was no point in arguing now, he nodded heavily:
"Yes!"
He turned around and told Zhou Changli and the others to lift Ning Wei, drag the unconscious Sha Wang, and help Shan Shan up, and quickly disappear into the dense forest ahead.
Zhong Yuemin stayed behind with more than ten mercenaries. They quickly set up several simple traps. Some hid in the depressions and covered themselves with dead branches and leaves, while others climbed up the giant trees silently like monkeys and hid in the dense canopy.
Only the rustling of the wind through the leaves and the increasingly close barking of dogs and noisy voices remained in the woods.
About twenty minutes later, the pursuers revealed themselves.
Zhong Yuemin crouched high in the tree branches and looked down through the gaps in the leaves. He saw about twenty people, leading several frenzied hunting dogs, pushing through the thorns and vines to search forward.
This is a rare opportunity. The number of soldiers is not large. If we can wipe out this team, we can significantly slow down the pursuing troops.
The first few soldiers swung their machetes, hacking at the vines blocking their path. One of them accidentally snagged a very thin tripwire with his blade.
"Boom! Boom boom boom!!"
Several grenades strapped to the other side exploded in succession, flames and shrapnel instantly engulfing the first few people, limbs and debris mixed with dirt flying everywhere.
The pursuers behind them were thrown into chaos, and in their panic, they opened fire wildly into the surrounding dense forest!
"Da da da da..."
Bullets rained down, tearing branches and vines to shreds, but not a single ambush attacker was harmed.
As the gunfire abruptly ceased, the clicking sound of magazines being changed filled the air...
"beat!"
With a loud shout, Zhong Yuemin was the first to lean out from the treetops, his submachine gun spitting fire. Almost simultaneously, gunfire erupted all around as the ambushing mercenaries opened fire.
Bullets rained down from all directions, and more than ten pursuers fell like wheat being harvested.
The remaining dozen or so, still shaken, turned to flee.
Zhong Yuemin grabbed a drooping vine with one hand, swung himself up, and pounced down like a monkey, continuously firing his submachine gun, taking down three or four more enemy soldiers in mid-air.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, he rolled over to dissipate the force, and the dagger at his waist was already drawn.
The close-quarters combat began.
His figure moved like a ghost among the fleeing soldiers. With each flash of the dagger's cold light, a person was struck in a vital spot—throat, heart, side of the neck... The sound of the blade entering flesh was short and muffled.
One knife, one person.
The operation was swift and decisive; the fleeing enemy soldiers didn't even have time to utter a single scream.
Within a few breaths, the last few enemy soldiers had all fallen to the ground, their blood seeping into the soil.
The mercenaries who arrived later were dumbfounded. This big boss, who had seemed like just an "employer" all along the way and whom they had assumed was an ordinary businessman who knew nothing about firearms or hand-to-hand combat, was surprisingly skilled.
In the blink of an eye, more than ten armed soldiers were easily killed like chicks.
Zhong Yuemin seemed to be doing something ordinary. He squatted down and slowly wiped the blood off the dagger from the clothes of a dead man before sheathing it.
"Check them all thoroughly, leave no survivors."
Regardless of whether the foreigners understood him or not, he got up and began to collect the enemy's left-behind weapons and ammunition, which would replenish what they had lost along the way. The group quickly cleared the battlefield and then hurried after Zhu Long and the others who had retreated.
In the following hours, they encountered several more enemy forces. They avoided them if possible, and when avoidance was impossible, they engaged in firefights as quickly as possible to resolve the situation, never lingering in battle.
Time is of the essence, and we cannot afford to take detours. Our only objective now is to break through the blockade and reach the border before the enemy forces can encircle us.
Once you step onto the border, you have won.
They survived the day without incident, but as night fell, sporadic gunfire continued to erupt from all directions, indicating that the enemy had roughly determined their escape route and was tightening their encirclement.
There was no possibility of resting, so we had to continue our journey under the cover of night. The location showed that we were only about 30 kilometers away from the border.
The way out lies just before the not-yet-fully-closed "bag" ahead shuts off.
Break through!
Whenever someone was exhausted, Zhong Yuemin would hand them a kettle filled with spring water. After drinking it down in a few gulps, the fatigue would be relieved considerably, allowing everyone to grit their teeth and persevere.
However, in the dead of night, they encountered two more waves of pursuers. Perhaps enraged by the heavy losses they suffered during the day, the number of troops deployed for the search increased significantly, with one detachment even numbering one or two hundred men.
The group could only fight and retreat under the cover of night. After a bloody battle, more than half of the more than ten mercenaries had been killed, and two others were wounded.
To be fair, these mercenaries have indeed performed their duties diligently and are exceptionally capable. Each one of them is a master who can take on ten men, and their skills and experience are top-notch.
But human strength has its limits. Faced with an enemy force that surged forward like a tide, willing to risk their lives for injury, they fought a war of attrition, while the enemy had no shortage of human lives.
Seeing the enemy troops once again encircling him from three sides like a tidal wave, Zhong Yuemin made a decisive decision.
"I'll stay behind to cover the retreat; this time, I'll be alone."
He spoke very quickly, urging us on.
"You proceed to the border at full speed as planned, do not wait for me."
“Brother, this…” Zhu Long, Zhou Changli, and Ning Wei, who was being helped up, all had red eyes.
"Stop nagging like a woman!"
Zhong Yuemin shoved Zhu Long aside, signaling him to leave immediately.
"Let's get out of here! If we delay any longer, we'll all die here!"
Zhu Long gritted his teeth so hard they almost broke, and nodded heavily:
"Brother, you must... come back alive!"
He glanced at Zhong Yuemin one last time, then turned and roared, urging his troops to charge desperately toward the border with the wounded and prisoners.
Unlike the resolute and tragic expressions of Zhu Long and the others, Zhong Yuemin relaxed at this moment.
One person is enough.
Having space at his disposal meant he could at least escape unscathed. This was his greatest source of confidence in fighting against hundreds of enemy soldiers. With no one else around, he could act boldly and without restraint.
Just then, a torrential downpour began without warning.
Large raindrops pelted down, instantly enveloping the entire rainforest in a misty curtain of water. The rain stung people's faces, the ground quickly became muddy, and the streams swelled.
The climate of tropical rainforests has always been like this, with frequent and unpredictable downpours.
But for him, this was a godsend cover.
He rolled in the mud, getting wet mud all over his face and clothes, his body almost blending into the surrounding tree trunks, vines, and decaying leaves washed by the rain.
"Huff...huff..."
The dense sound of trampling through mud and water grew louder as the pursuing force of several hundred men finally arrived.
The cacophony of voices, mixed with a local dialect he couldn't understand, was filled with irritability and anger. It was understandable; after suffering heavy losses and failing to capture a mere dozen or so people, anyone would be furious.
Zhong Yuemin held his breath, hiding in the shadows like a lurking cheetah, quietly waiting for the best opportunity to strike.