Chapter 6: Close Quarters Combat

"Hand Grenade!"

Thomas shouted, quickly ducking behind the wall.

Although Song Heping didn't clearly see what had been thrown in, he had no interest in checking.

Just like Thomas, he pressed himself against the wall and shrank back, squatting down tightly against the wall and curling up into a ball.

As long as the hand grenade didn't directly land in front of him, he generally wouldn't be killed by the blast wave, and with a wall there, the shrapnel wouldn't take his life.

Boom—

Boom—

Boom—

The explosions sounded one after another.

Though separated by a wall, the shock and noise from the explosions in the confined space still made it somewhat suffocating to breathe, not to mention the ears, which really suffered. Fortunately, they had covered them up when ducking, otherwise, their eardrums might have burst.

After the explosions, the dust inside the room thickened, instantly blurring their vision.

"Fire!"

Thomas started shouting again.

While speaking, he held his gun toward the rear door and began sweeping it with fire.

Song Heping also couldn't care less at this point.

This was a common method of storming buildings, armed operatives would surely seize the moment right after the explosions to attack, anyone would do the same.

Now, stalling for time was crucial; they couldn't hope to kill the opponents but scaring them into not daring to rashly attack and holding off for just ten or eight minutes would be enough.

Song Heping didn't dare to expose his head, in case the enemy had the same idea and would sweep the inside of the door during their breach—he could easily get his head blown off.

If exposing himself was too risky, then he would just blind fire.

He grabbed the handle and foregrip of the AKM, shifted sideways from behind the wall, aimed roughly at the doorway, close enough, and then squeezed the trigger.

This method was very safe, and the worst-case scenario would be getting shot in the hand, not losing his life.

Ratatatatata—

Song Heping held down the trigger and swept the area until he had fired most of the bullets in the magazine.

More than twenty bullet holes appeared in the front door.

He then heard a thump behind the door as if a heavy object had fallen.

Then came the swearing—in Arabic, spoken so fast that Song Heping couldn't make out the actual words, but the tone was clearly frantic, suggesting someone had been shot.

Frenzied was just right.

What they wanted was the enemy feeling both anxious and helpless.

"Song, well done!"

Thomas witnessed Song Heping's actions, visibly surprised, and gave him a thumbs-up from across the room.

"Did you have military training?"

Song Heping didn't want to answer the question, especially since Thomas's annoying accent made it hard to even distinguish between "Song" and "sang."

"Be careful, they're probably going to go mad!" Thomas added, encouraging Song Heping, "Don't be scared! Our people will be here in a few minutes."

Scared?

Song Heping suddenly thought of the word.

Right.

He didn't seem to feel afraid.

He was somewhat surprised by his own performance.

Normally, someone who had never been through actual combat might panic during their first firefight.

His heart was indeed racing, but this acceleration wasn't due to fear...

It was due to excitement...

He actually felt thrilled.

At that moment, there was movement outside the door, and Song Heping heard something else being thrown in.

The sound was muffled, without the noise of it rolling on the ground.

This time it didn't seem like a hand grenade?

No.

It was still a hand grenade.

Just a string of hand grenades...

Song Heping saw those serpent-like objects drop inside the house, crashing onto the living room floor near the entrance.

It was an old-style ammunition pouch stuffed with hand grenades.

It was utterly insane!

The attackers seemed to have completely lost their patience, so they planned to end everything at once by stringing more than a dozen hand grenades together into the pouch, pulling the pins all at once, combining them into one big device to throw inside.

In an instant, hundreds of thousands of "grass mud horses" wildly ran through Song Heping's mind, his whole body's hair standing on end.

While cursing the ancestors of that group outside, he turned and dove into a corner for cover, wishing he could instantly dig a foxhole there to crawl into.

"Watch out for the big one!"

He didn't forget to send a warning to Thomas.

It probably took less than three seconds before the chain of hand grenades in the front hall exploded.

Boom—

The force of the explosion was immense, piercing through the second-floor's floor and causing part of the roof to collapse.

Hiding in the corner, Song Heping felt like he was experiencing a high-intensity earthquake. Bricks, sand, and debris fell from the ceiling, quickly burying him halfway.

The enemy must have used more than just hand grenades, probably mixing other things inside the ammunition pouch, or else the impact wouldn't have been so massive.

Song Heping raised his arms to cover his head tightly.

One reason was to prevent his eardrums from bursting, the other was to avoid getting his head cracked open.

As for other parts of his body, even if they were hit, at most he would suffer fractures, not a fatal injury.

Song Heping was half-buried by bricks and mud.

At that moment, he was somewhat delirious and couldn't even feel the pain; his consciousness seemed to have been shaken out, floating outside his body like a kite drifting in the air, hearing nothing but a buzzing sound in his ears.

Sunlight entered through the partially collapsed roof and fell on the upward-facing Song Heping, wrapping the scene in colorful, shifting light. The real world seemed rather magical and surreal for a moment.

Bang bang bang—

Bang bang bang—

Gunshots erupted.

The militants outside initiated the assault, and the final moments had finally arrived.

A warhead struck the wall near him, already half-collapsed, and its fragments splattered on Song Heping's face.

He heard the clatter of Arabic voices, coming from all directions, indeed, he was surrounded.

This time he really was going to die here...

Thinking of death made Song Heping unwilling to give in.

Because he could not die.

The thought energized him, and he began to struggle, aiming to find an AKM assault rifle.

Regrettably, his limbs were somewhat unresponsive, and his vision was all blurry as he blindly groped through the rubble without any clue.

Footsteps and voices drew nearer; the militants were almost upon him.

A shadow suddenly mirrored his position in a peculiar way, entering Song Heping's field of view like a stealthy ghost.

Song Heping lay face-up, and the figure was standing right beside his head—

The familiar Arabic robe, dirt-smudged face cover, eyes brimming with ferocity and a murderous aura.

An AK47 in the figure's hands was aimed at Song Heping's forehead.

It was an old AK47, poorly maintained, lacking that glossy polished look, perhaps the rifling was nearly worn out, too.

Song Heping couldn't understand why Illiguo, once claimed to be a military powerhouse, still had such antique weapons.

But that didn't stop the opponent from potentially blowing his head off easily, making it explode like a smashed watermelon. The sensation of having a gun barrel pointed directly at close range was terrifying and made Song Heping quite uncomfortable.

Song Heping stared calmly, waiting for the Grim Reaper to arrive.

Whiz—

Thump—

Following a deep whizzing sound, a hole appeared in the militant's forehead, and a cluster of blood and brain tissue spurted from the back of the head, the light in his eyes fading as if someone had switched off a bulb.

In the end, the man's body softened and collapsed directly on top of Song Heping.

This was the second time in one day that Song Heping experienced the 'treatment' of face-to-face with a corpse.