044 Invincible With Me
This chapter was written by Rice until almost one in the morning. A late update, but it was done—truly, I just want to rest now! Goodnight!
To hold back an assault squad single-handedly—even if the opposing force was not as formidable as imagined—left Elisa utterly speechless with shock.
“Ah—”
A low, guttural moan suddenly escaped from Hamis’s throat, who lay unconscious.
Elisa and another female soldier immediately tensed.
“This is bad!”
“Elisa, General Hamis’s wound is becoming infected.”
They pulled aside the clothing at Hamis’s waist to check. As expected, the blood had already soaked through the bandages covering the wound. Nearly two hours had passed since he was shot; with the temperature soaring to thirty-eight or thirty-nine degrees, if not higher, the infection had set in rapidly.
“Elisa, if we don’t get the general to a hospital right away, he won’t last much longer.”
The other female soldier bit her lip but still spoke the words.
Elisa was silent for a moment, then cast a glance toward the Chinese man. At this moment, Li Changjiang was unaware that Hamis was already teetering on the edge of life and death.
He had just emptied three magazines, leaving only one more, plus the few rounds left in the chamber—less than fifty bullets in total.
On a normal day, fifty bullets would be more than enough for him to dispatch all his enemies. But now, the opposing side refused to reveal themselves, and the distance between both parties had already exceeded the effective range of his sniper scope.
Relying solely on his marksmanship, Li Changjiang did not believe he could hit his targets.
In truth, at this life-or-death juncture, Li Changjiang wasn’t thinking too much. Otherwise, he would never have landed that shot on the machine gunner earlier.
After such a prolonged period of highly intense and nerve-wracking shooting, he had become almost numb, firing on instinct whenever an enemy showed themselves, regardless of whether he could actually hit them.
In that moment, aiming and shooting had become a mechanical reflex, not a conscious act.
Bang!
Rat-a-tat-tat!
No sooner had thirty seconds of calm passed than the machine gun resumed its sweep. This time, the enemy seemed to have grown smarter, shifting the gun behind the off-road vehicle. But in doing so, only the stray bullets posed any threat at all; it was almost impossible for them to hit Li Changjiang, who lay hidden behind the two corpses.
Summoning every ounce of strength, Li Changjiang forced himself to swallow down the bile that had risen in his throat.
But before he could fully suppress the nausea, he retched violently.
Oh, damn!
Damn it!
Tears and snot streamed down his face.
Were it not for the will to survive overpowering the sickening feeling in his gut, Li Changjiang might already have charged out.
The two corpses were all but shredded, their blood absorbed by the sand and dust, but the air was saturated with the stench of blood.
Li Changjiang could almost imagine the blood spattered across his own face.
“Damn you all, just pray you never get caught by me,” he cursed inwardly, seething.
He lay low again, nerves taut and vigilance unwavering as he watched the open ground ahead.
He was waiting.
Clearly, so was the enemy.
It was only a matter of who would lose patience first.
But Li Changjiang did not know that behind him, Elisa had pressed her lips together, on the verge of making a decision.
“Elisa!”
Clack!
The abrupt sound of a bolt being pulled snapped Elisa’s attention back to the present.
The masked female soldier’s voice quivered as she spoke. Her face, half-hidden by the mask, betrayed a flash of terror. Anyone familiar with her would recognize that expression and know exactly what it foreshadowed.
Sometimes, death itself is not the most terrifying thing; it is the endless, unrelenting suffering that is worse. Death, in those moments, becomes a luxury to be wished for.
If Hamis died, what awaited them would not be death, but a terror a hundred times worse.
Though the barrel of a gun was now pointed at her forehead, Elisa remained strangely calm, hesitating.
“Morty! What are you doing? Put down the gun.”
“No, no! Elisa, don’t make me do this. We have to leave, or General Hamis will die here. You know what will happen to us if General Hamis dies here. I have to go back—I have younger siblings. I must go back.”
The female soldier seemed to have fallen into a state of utter terror, her words tumbling out in confusion.
Elisa glanced at her, her eyes suddenly growing cold. But her companion failed to notice the dreadful decision forming in Elisa’s mind.
“Okay, okay, Morty, move the gun away, would you? I don’t want to die here, and I don’t want to face the President. I’ll go with you. Come here and help me—we have to take General Hamis back.”
The soldier named Morty looked skeptically at Elisa, then at Hamis, whose face had turned pale as he lay on the ground. She put down her gun and bent over, trying to lift Hamis.
Bang!
Across the empty wasteland, the long-standing silence was shattered by a sudden gunshot. A trace of remorse flickered in Elisa’s eyes as she gently laid the woman she had just shot flat on the ground.
“I’m sorry, Morty. Without him, we’ll never make it out.”
Damn it!
Hearing the shot behind him, Li Changjiang jerked up, glancing back abruptly.
Damn! What just happened?
At that moment, not only Li Changjiang but the enemy as well heard the gunshot. Startled, they rushed out heedless of the immediate danger.
It seemed incomprehensible, but Li Changjiang understood—if the searing pain in his left arm weren’t there to remind him of his situation, he might have charged out too.
The sun above blazed down with oppressive heat. He hadn’t tasted a drop of water in hours; his throat was parched, his head dizzy from prolonged tension.
Three hundred meters!
Two hundred!
One hundred!
But as the final moment approached, sweat in his palms turned sticky, sending a jolt of panic through him.
Bang!
At last, a single gunshot signaled the renewed assault. This time, the enemy had learned: as soon as shots rang out, they scattered, sprinting the last fifty meters.
No matter how fast Li Changjiang was, there was no way to kill all six in mere moments.
Bang! One!
Bang, bang, bang! Two!
Bang! Three!
—!
By the time Li Changjiang had emptied his magazine, the last man had broken through the final line of defense.
A guttural roar erupted as the enemy squeezed the trigger.
Pop, pop, pop, pop!
Li Changjiang made no attempt to dodge sideways or retreat; instead, he lunged forward, rolling ahead, then charged and rammed his shoulder into the enemy from below. His gun fell from his grasp—he kicked it away and immediately grappled with his opponent.
“Damn you! It’s you or me today!”
No one could have predicted this confrontation, but neither Li Changjiang nor his adversary had a choice. All that remained was to use every ounce of strength to kill or be killed.
Clutching his opponent’s throat with all his might, Li Changjiang felt a searing pain in his lower abdomen, bile rising to his throat, but he refused to let go.
“Die—die!”
The screams lasted for minutes, hoarse and desperate, until finally, his voice failed.
He released his grip mechanically. Drained, he collapsed, everything fading to black as he lost all consciousness.