Chapter 40: Fierce Battle

As Joja and his team attacked, a firefight also broke out in the village. The opposing force, initially consisting of ten men, was reduced to seven after Joja took down three. However, these seven were enough to wreak havoc on Huang Laoban's men, who were swiftly overwhelmed.

In less than two minutes, one of Huang Laoban's men was killed, and a young man who had just escaped death earlier was also shot dead. This was an elimination squad, and although all of its members were Black, their combat skills and equipment were shockingly elite. Joja began to harbor an even more terrifying suspicion.

Adjusting his aim based on Karman's description, Joja spotted a man hiding in a residential building, holding a high-end camera on the windowsill with the lens constantly aimed at Huang Laoban's group. Unable to see the man's body, Joja aimed at his arm, firing a shot that pierced the window ledge and hit the photographer's arm.

From 700 meters away, Joja couldn't hear the man's screams, but he knew that without help, the photographer wouldn't be able to escape. As Joja attempted to find his next target, a bullet whizzed by and struck the dirt mound in front of Nise. Yet, the woman seemed unfazed, quickly identifying the shooter's location from the trajectory and firing back.

A loud bang echoed as Joja, looking through his scope, saw that the bullet had blown a hole in a mudbrick house in the village. A man holding a sniper rifle tumbled forward, his upper body collapsing onto the road. The sight of the man dragging his torn intestines as he crawled a few more meters before dying gruesomely made Joja glance at the praying Nise with admiration before refocusing on finding his own targets.

With the opposing sniper's horrific death, a tense silence settled over the village. No one dared to show themselves or move. Joja was considering how to break the stalemate when Huang Laoban's phone rang. This time, it wasn't Huang Laoban speaking, but Dorian.

"Hey, Jackal, my boss is pinned down. I can grab that mounted machine gun to suppress them and buy Huang Laoban time to retreat. Can you cover my flank?"

Joja put the phone on speaker and analyzed the positions of Huang Laoban's vehicles and the machine gun. After half a minute, he nodded, "I'll cover you. Let Huang Laoban's group go first."

Squeezed between two military trucks, Dorian handed the phone back to Huang Laoban. "You all crawl forward. Those two pickup trucks should still be operational. I'll cover you and buy you time to retreat."

Dorian then handed Huang Laoban an account number, saying seriously, "If you survive, you must transfer the remaining 50,000 dollars to this account."

Huang Laoban, seeing Dorian's serious expression, solemnly nodded. "Don't worry. As long as I'm alive, I'll pay. If I die, my son will pay."

With that, Huang Laoban began loudly directing his men to crawl under the trucks, not forgetting to drag the two corpses with them. Once they were in position, Dorian took a deep breath, pulled out a cross from his chest, kissed it hard, and made a reverent sign of the cross before leaping out like a cheetah.

As Dorian dashed out, several bullets struck the truck behind him, producing a series of sharp clangs. Dorian ran headlong for about ten meters and then dove into the bed of the pickup truck. Ignoring the lump forming on his head from the impact, he stood up, grabbed the machine gun, and started firing while shouting, "Go now!"

Huang Laoban displayed some basic organizational skills. He and a few others threw the bodies onto the pickup truck, and then the ten of them divided into two groups, each taking a pickup truck and heading north, intending to bypass the battlefield and escape into the desert to evade pursuers.

Dorian's desperate cover fire was effective; the few enemies who could have targeted the pickups were suppressed. As two gunmen emerged from the side to take him out, two shots rang out—one man's head exploded, while the other was hit in the chest, sending his head and half of his shoulder flying.

The elimination squad of ten was now down to just four.

As soon as Dorian emptied the ammunition belt, he scrambled off the pickup, crawled between the two trucks, grabbed his AK-74, and refused to expose himself again.

Joja was considering having Karman circle around to enter the village and flank the remaining four enemies when the Genevieve militia, who had left earlier, suddenly returned. They clearly knew Joja's position, as their trucks, loaded with over 20 militia members, stopped about 300 meters away. The militia began firing and advancing, with several of them launching RPGs at Joja's position.

The RPG blasts kicked up clouds of dust, obscuring Joja's vision. He shouted to Nise beside him, "Switch positions! Go around behind them and block their escape route. I'll handle these guys with the Lizard."

Without hesitation, Nise crawled back a few meters, then stood up and ran south with the heavy TAC-50, prepared to shoot any of the four remaining enemies trying to flee.

Through the billowing dust, Joja saw the 20-plus militia members entering the minefield he had set up. Laughing, he said to Karman, "Didn't you want to feel the power of the 'Claymore'? Let's begin. Three, two, one—press!"

At Joja's signal, the two of them simultaneously pressed the buttons to detonate eight remote-controlled mines. The sandstorm made it hard to see, but they didn't need to; a series of explosions shook the ground, turning the area below the ridge into a blood-soaked hell.

The reason the directional mines are called "Claymores" is that they sweep across their target area like a massive sword when they explode. The MON-50 mines have an effective killing range of 50 meters, but their internal fragmentation matrix is so wickedly designed that anyone caught within it would suffer excruciating pain.

The unfortunate militia members had walked right into the minefield—who could survive that? After the massive explosions, only a few militia members were left, clutching their torn bodies and screaming in agony; there was no other sound.

Karman, experiencing his first time detonating a directional mine, took a deep breath of the smoky air. As the dust began to settle, he stood up, slid down the slope, and started finishing off the survivors among the wreckage of bodies.

Joja didn't bother with Karman; the remaining enemies only had assault rifles, which couldn't reach from such a distance. However, Joja began to second-guess himself, wondering if he should descend and enter the village to engage the enemies directly. This standoff wasn't going anywhere, and if the enemies called for reinforcements, they wouldn't have any more mines to use.

While Joja hesitated, Karman had already found an RPG-7 in the militia's truck. Dragging it out along with two rockets, he rasped into his communicator, "Boss, I'll circle around to flush them out. You focus on blocking their escape routes."