Fighting Side by Side

Apart from leaving Li Changjiang speechless, the Russian's words also made him realize that the atmosphere in the air felt somewhat wrong.

It was too quiet!

Even the gunshots seemed to have vanished completely, which did not fit their current situation at all. This was a battlefield; if there were no gunshots on a battlefield, some unexpected change must have occurred.

"What?"

He asked the Russian in a somewhat neurotic tone, leaving the latter thoroughly confused.

"You mean planes? Are you talking about planes?"

Planes?

In the air, when the sonic boom generated by high-speed wings compressing the air reached his ears, Li Changjiang could not help but look up toward the northwestern horizon.

Below the skyline, several black dots were approaching extremely fast. However, before he could figure out which country the aircraft belonged to, streaks of fire spat out from beneath the wings.

Damn it!

It was ground-attack weaponry.

Li Changjiang was jolted awake by the sudden sight, realizing almost instantly where the problem lay.

What a bunch of fucking bastards.

Those damned Englishmen had really sent fighter jets to launch airstrikes on Khamis's government forces. Without a doubt, there was no possibility of success for the government forces' operation this time.

"Damn it, Khamis is retreating. Russian, we're out of time! Let's go!"

Fuck!

He almost cursed Khamis's eighteen generations of ancestors in his mind; Li Changjiang was genuinely panicked now.

These Libyans were truly useless, failing to even capture Misrata, which had a defending force of fewer than ten thousand, despite an army of nearly twenty thousand.

Damn it.

He cursed a few more times.

"Russian, can you still walk?"

Nodding in a dizzy spell, the Russian had no other choice. He stood up and stumbled forward a few steps. With no other option, Li Changjiang had to support him as they rushed down the stairs from the roof terrace.

When they reached the ground floor, they ran right into Tank and a dozen Englishmen charging up from below.

"Boss! Tank!"

"Thank God, you're still alive!"

"Damn it!"

"Quick, hit the deck!"

Boom!

Before they had time to drop to the floor, a rocket-propelled grenade came streaking straight through the crossroad across the street, its long trail of white smoke visible from afar.

With a loud boom, it smashed directly into the exterior wall of the building and exploded, followed immediately by two more whooshing sounds.

Fuck!

Fuck! RPG! Quick! The RPGs are coming again!

"Upstairs, head upstairs quickly!"

Boom-boom!

This time, two RPGs tore directly into the interior of the building and detonated. One of them struck the middle of the staircase, blowing it completely apart and shattering any hopes the group had of retreating upstairs.

Inside the room.

The shockwave from the explosion instantly turned the interior into a mess. Massive clouds of dust, debris, and shredded fabric surged into the air, and soon everyone was covered in gray grime, becoming indistinguishable from one another. Coughing fits erupted one after another, and the thick smoke stung their eyes so badly they could barely keep them open.

Clack!

Bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

Li Changjiang was the quickest to locate a firing position for counterattacks. With two consecutive shots, he directly took down the rocket launcher operator closest to them. However, before he could fire a third shot, a burst of gunfire swept in from outside the window.

Puff, puff, puff!

All the bullets struck the wall behind them. Including Tank and Will, everyone dropped heavily to the ground, not daring to show their heads. The Libyans were arriving too fast—or rather, they had just poked a hornet's nest.

They had overlooked the fact that this was Misrata, a city surrounded by rebels and a massive number of radical nationalists, meaning militiamen and madmen.

First, they had broken into the Misrata prison to rescue prisoners heavily guarded by the rebels, and then they had evacuated all the British personnel from the MI6 branch. If the rebels had not been constantly tied down by the main forces of the government army, they probably would have been wiped out long ago.

"Bastards! Those damned Englishmen are only good for making things worse!"

Indeed, the English were only capable of making things worse.

Yet, it was precisely Clark's phone call that had prompted the English to make the resolute decision to bomb the Libyan government forces.

What the hell kind of hellish luck was this.

"Boss, what do we do now? We've been surrounded."

Glancing outside through a bullet hole in the window frame, Tank immediately shouted at Li Changjiang. The German-accented English coming from his mouth sounded somewhat awkward, but Li Changjiang had no mind to care about that right now.

Outside the door, there were over a hundred militiamen and rebels, almost every single one of them gripping an AK assault rifle along with numerous rocket launchers. He was even more worried that these guys possessed other heavy weapons, considering they had even brought out anti-aircraft machine guns earlier.

Once suppressed by heavy firepower, they would genuinely be in mortal danger.

"Damn it, what is that?"

However.

Li Changjiang's worries were evidently not unfounded.

Before Tank's voice had even faded from his mind, the Russian's curses reached his ears.

Li Changjiang immediately looked in the direction the Russian was staring. At that single glance, his heart ached with pain.

Damn it, the Libyans were really trying to exterminate them down to the last man!

It was a tank!

A tank!

What the fuck!

"Fuck, it's a tank! Take cover!"

Within his line of sight.

An archaic Soviet-style tank was slowly rolling toward them from amidst the bizarrely dressed Libyan militiamen. Its dark, hollow cannon barrel looked menacing and terrifying. Soon, the tank stopped less than a hundred meters away from their exit, and its heavy turret began to rotate, the grinding metallic screech audible even from this distance.

"Fuck!"

"Dammit, get out of the way!"

A startled cry rang out.

Li Changjiang had already lunged directly toward the base of the wall on the left. Boom!

A violent explosion detonated right beside his ears, leaving him utterly dazed and his head feeling unbearably heavy.

"Boss! Boss! Are you alright?"

Lifting his head, he saw that freak Tank, who, aside from looking somewhat disheveled, showed no adverse reactions at all. Li Changjiang looked up and realized the bastard had actually plugged his ears.

What the hell—

This is insane!

"Tank, quickly check the headcount. We have to break out."

"Russian!"

"Russian!"

"Will! Will!"

The leader of the British operatives quickly pushed away the corpses on top of him and gathered toward Li Changjiang. He looked somewhat wretched as well, with a gash torn across his face by something, blood streaming down his neck.

"Will, no matter what conflicts we had before, we must break out together now, get out of this damn place, are you understand?"

"Yes, I understand!"

The Englishman nodded readily this time. Li Changjiang patted Will on the shoulder and glanced back; the previous shell blast had torn two British agents into pieces, a scene that was not only bloody but intensely sickening.

After firing that single shell, the Libyan tank suddenly made no further moves. Li Changjiang glanced at the Libyans hiding behind the architectural ruins on both sides of the street, a thought flashing through his mind.

"Shh! Quiet, stay quiet!"

"Grenades! Get your grenades ready, let the Libyans get close!"

The entire room fell dead silent instantly, the sound of their breathing clearly audible.

50 meters!

40 meters!

30 meters!

Seeing no movement ahead, those damned Libyans finally stirred, a massive, dark mass slowly approaching the front of the building.

Li Changjiang's hands gripping the grenades were slick with sweat, his nerves taut as he stared fixedly at the approaching silhouettes. When the first wave of men stepped into the grenade's kill zone, he roared at the top of his lungs.

"Fire!"