427: Chapter 424: Divine Cannon, a Gift from the Worker Bee.
427: Chapter 424: Divine Cannon, a Gift from the Worker Bee.
Bruce squatted beside Cui Bo, who was lying on the ground, wanting to check why Cui Bo had passed out.
Logically, being shot at close range by a 5.45mm bullet shouldn’t have caused such severe consequences, and as for handgun bullets, that was even less likely.
As Bruce tried to undo Cui Bo’s bulletproof vest to check where the injury was, Cui Bo suddenly opened his eyes, looked at Bruce beside him, grabbed his hand, shook his head, and sat up abruptly.
“Where are you hurt?”
Cui Bo lifted his left arm, under which a bullet hole was hidden.
Because he fell face down, the left arm covered the bullet hole under the armpit after the fall.
To reduce weight, the bulletproof vests equipped by the Satan Mercenary Corps were not one-piece; though there were ballistic plates in the front and back, the sides lacked them, with the side protection being much weaker than the front.
However, they still met at least a level three ballistic standard.
Seeing that Cui Bo was shot on the side of his left chest, Bruce was startled and said, “Are you shot in the front?”
Cui Bo turned his head, glanced at a corpse on the ground to his left, shook his head, raised his left arm, reached into the bullet hole in the vest under his armpit with his right hand, and after fumbling around, he pulled out a completely deformed bullet, took a look at it, shook his head, and said, “It didn’t penetrate, but it seems like it broke a rib; it’s quite painful.”
No wonder Cui Bo had been knocked unconscious.
Although the bullet failed to penetrate the vest, without the ballistic plates, the bullet’s tremendous impact force, absorbed by the soft tissue, made it all too normal to break a couple of ribs and knock him out.
Bruce had to hurry to regroup with the main force; he didn’t have time to keep looking after Cui Bo.
Since the bulletproof vest wasn’t penetrated, it wasn’t a big deal, so Bruce said urgently, “Find somewhere to hide and rest.
I’ll deal with it when I come back.”
Cui Bo shook his head, propped himself up from the ground, stood up quickly, looked at Lucas’s corpse not far from him, walked over, pulled the hand grenade out of Lucas’s hand after a bit of struggle, waved at Bruce, and then ran towards the battlefield where the fighting was happening.
Cui Bo and Bruce ran fast.
By the time they arrived, they caught up with Gao Yang and the others advancing, now only about a hundred meters away from the four buildings occupied by Teodulo’s men.
Cui Bo quickly ran up to Gao Yang’s side, then overtook Gao from behind to get behind Li Jinfang.
Because they were divided into two columns, Li Jinfang was just three meters in front of Gao’s side.
Cui Bo’s presence behind Li made the already somewhat tight formation even more crowded, and Cui Bo had not signaled anyone before he rejoined the formation, just running directly into the line.
What Cui Bo did was a mistake that could easily lead to friendly fire, and his position was not where he should have been.
When Gao, advancing with the Blade of Satan, noticed Cui Bo’s incorrect position, he was alarmed, fearing Cui Bo would continue to make foolish moves.
It was a relief to him to see Cui Bo stop behind Li Jinfang.
Although Gao needed to focus on suppressing the enemy during the advance, he decided that he must first address the instability caused by Cui Bo; any foolish action by Cui Bo during the confrontation would not only endanger him but potentially affect the entire team.
Gao put down his raised rifle and said in a low voice, “Stop advancing, be on guard.”
After having the team momentarily halt their advance, Gao pointed at Cui Bo and said in a low voice, “You, come here.”
Cui Bo walked in front of Gao, hung his head, and said nothing.
Gao’s fury could no longer be contained, and he raised his right hand to deliver a hard slap across Cui Bo’s face.
With a crisp “smack,” the harsh slap landed on Cui Bo’s face, followed by Gao’s backhand connecting fiercely with the other cheek.
Gao used all his strength, not holding back at all, and after delivering the two fierce slaps, he said fiercely and angrily, “Are you awake now?”
Cui Bo nodded, “I’m awake, sorry!”
“Awake now and still not getting back to your position!
I’ll settle the score with you later!
Screw up again, and I’ll kill you myself, move it!”
Cui Bo nodded and took two steps back, returning to the last position in the lineup.
After slapping the continuously erring Cui Bo awake, Gao Yang waved his hand and said, “Continue advancing!”
After a delay of several dozen seconds to deal with an unstable element in the team, the group was able to continue forward.
Advancing another dozen meters, Gao Yang’s side of the team, positioned on the right side of the street, now had a sufficient field of fire to attack a house on the left side.
The house occupied by Teodulo and the Phantom Mercenary Group was situated at both sides of the street, consisting of four relatively separate buildings.
This formation allowed them to have cross-shooting angles, meaning any attack on one house would face gunfire from across the street.
To successfully complete the mission, at least one side’s fire point had to be neutralized.
The house on the right side of the street was made of bricks and relatively sturdy, while the one on the left was made of wooden boards, offering little protection against bullets and shells, making it quite normal to choose the left side houses as a breakthrough.
Thirteen people aimed to defeat more than a hundred, and they were also in an unfavorable position of assaulting a firing point; yet, Gao Yang had no intention of giving up.
He would rather attack fiercely in street fighting than retreat and be chased by the enemy.
By now, if the enemy even thought of poking their heads out to shoot, they would be precisely targeted and killed.
They had been completely sealed within the buildings, unable to strike back.
For about a dozen people to take the fight to this level, especially when five of them were, strictly speaking, just guides tagging along, what Gao Yang and his team had achieved was truly remarkable.
Gao Yang signaled the team to stop once again, then said in a deep voice, “Big Dog, Rabbit, seal off the right side fire point from the left; Worker Bee, use the mortar to blast the people out from the left side fire point.
The rest of you, get ready with your grenades, and when we advance to within thirty meters of the enemy’s left side fire point, launch the grenades, trying to make them explode in mid-air.”
Tommy immediately knelt on one knee, placing six mortar shells within easy reach, then he propped up the mortar tube to take a quick observation.
After nodding his head, he took out a shell and placed it at the mouth of the tube.
Seeing that Tommy was ready, Gao Yang immediately said, “Charge!”
But as they suddenly rushed out, Tommy released the first shell, and after it had left his hand, he immediately picked up the second shell.
Although he still had motions to make, his left hand, which supported the tube, did not move an inch; as soon as the first shell flew out of the tube, he promptly loaded the second one in.
Glolov and Cui Bo’s guns kept firing, sealing back the attack coming from the right side.
By the time Tommy’s third mortar round fell, Gao Yang and his men had reached their position and then threw the prepared grenades.
Tommy’s shelling was extremely precise; the first two rounds landed just above the rooftops of the two houses on the left, and the thin metal roofs could not stop the falling mortar rounds.
Thus, just two shots later, the houses made of thin wooden planks were shattered into pieces.
The effects of the mortar attack were surprisingly good, even beyond Gao Yang’s expectations.
With Tommy’s mortar fire hitting the mark with precision, it was the first time Gao Yang felt that a forceful attack could be this easy.
The impact of the bombardment was also beyond Tommy’s expectations.
His main experience was in combat operations in Europe, where it’s pretty cold in winter, and the materials used for building houses are mainly brick and stone, with thick walls, making mortar attacks less effective.
But wooden houses in the tropical rainforest region only needed to provide shelter from rain, offering no defense against mortar shells.
Chameleon was lucky, not having hidden in the completely coverless houses but staying in the courtyard instead.
Although lacking the experience to dodge artillery, the whistling sound of the shells in the air told him something was terribly wrong, and he immediately lay down on the ground.
After two rounds, splinters flew from the wooden houses, but since the houses were large, though they each took a hit, they weren’t entirely obliterated by the blasts.
But Tommy’s bombardment was far from over.
Just as the soldiers who were lucky enough to survive the first barrage tried to flee, the rapidly descending shells completely flattened the wooden buildings.
Those who stayed in the courtyard fared better.
Those hiding in the wooden houses were truly unlucky; the wooden structure couldn’t provide cover, yet it prevented the people inside from escaping quickly.
So when Tommy’s shells fell, the wooden houses effectively became coffins.
By the time the fourth round hit, grenades also flew over Chameleon’s head.
By now, most of those who remained in the houses were nearly dead, and those in the yard were sent tumbling by the grenades that exploded right above them.
After hearing a few booming noises in the air, Chameleon, who lay behind a wall, felt a numbness in his buttocks and legs followed by intense pain.
He reached down to touch, only to find his hand covered in blood.
Chameleon, now struck by the shrapnel from the grenades, truly regretted his actions.
He had had the chance to run away just before; although the house had no back door, a simple climb over the waist-high mud wall could have facilitated his escape.
But Chameleon thought that with only a dozen enemies, it wasn’t to the point of fleeing immediately.
Unfortunately, he now realized that even a mere dozen foes were not something they could handle.
Chameleon tried to stand and run, but he quickly realized he couldn’t escape on his own.
His legs and buttocks were hit by at least a dozen pieces of grenade shrapnel, and his legs had no strength to use.
To run away, unless someone helped him, it was impossible.
As he looked at the people wailing in the courtyard and felt his ears ringing from the blasts, Chameleon grabbed one of his subordinates by the arm, who was also covered in blood, and roared with all his might, “Retreat!
Retreat!
Leave through the back wall.
Carry me and quickly retreat!”
Chameleon’s subordinate, half-bloodied, still managed to stand up shakily.
As he grasped Chameleon’s arm and was about to drag him away, he saw yet another cluster of grenades flying overhead.
(To be continued.
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