866: Chapter 856 The Invisible Enemy 866: Chapter 856 The Invisible Enemy Reyuan Dong didn’t move a muscle, and Gao Yang’s shot missed its mark.
Even if a mere twig stood in the path of a bullet, the slightest touch would be enough to alter the bullet’s trajectory.
A miss is as good as a mile, and a bullet with a changed path would certainly not hit the enemy.
At only a little over sixty meters, Gao Yang thought the enemy could hear the gunshot, but after he fired once and Reyuan Dong still didn’t budge, he quickly fired a second shot.
Following the sound of the gunfire, the target remained still, so Gao Yang took a third shot.
Gao Yang fired rapidly, and he would continue as long as the target didn’t move.
Gao Yang believed there were twigs in the bullet’s path but nothing too large; a big twig would be visible through the night vision device, while smaller ones would be broken or knocked aside by the bullets.
This meant that if he could maintain a consistent trajectory, his bullet would eventually break through the obstacles and hit the target.
If the Satan Mercenary Corps had thermal imaging night vision as good as Gao Yang’s, they’d be able to concentrate fire, and with concentrated fire, they could take down a target suspected to be the enemy with a barrage of bullets.
Unfortunately, Gao Yang had only managed to acquire one night vision device from the Angel Mercenary Corps, so he was the only one who could fire, as the others couldn’t make out the target in the trees.
Gao Yang fired a fourth shot, and the target moved but didn’t leave its original position, just shifted on the spot.
Gao Yang fired a fifth shot, then the target shuddered violently and fell from the tree, or rather slid down, not particularly quickly, but once it finally left its position, Gao Yang noticed the thermal outline was elongated.
Gao Yang laid down his rifle and called out urgently, “Hit the target, it should be a person, but the enemy’s likely not dead, be careful!”
If Gao Yang’s target was a person, then they surely would have heard the gunshots by now.
However, he didn’t think the gunshots were intentionally aimed at him; that’s why they insisted on staying put.
Of course, this was just Gao Yang’s speculation, and he might never know the real reason – that is, if he had hit a person at all.
Lucica waved her hand and quickly moved towards the direction of Gao Yang’s shots.
After sprinting about forty meters, Lucica suddenly stopped, waved her hand instructing everyone to spread out, immediately tossing a grenade that she was holding.
Lucy would’ve needed to give a verbal command before, but after several months of training together, everyone knew what to do by Lucy’s gestures and movements.
Frey, following Lucica’s grenade-tossing direction, quickly lobbed four grenades, and Glolov stepped forward, wielding his machine gun and sweeping the indicated direction with a hail of bullets.
The others, regardless of the type of weapon, fired intensely in one direction.
Just as the Satan Mercenary Corps unleashed their collective firepower, counterfire came from the opposite side.
Simultaneously, Gao Yang, with his night vision device, spotted two red dots suddenly appearing on a hillock and moving rapidly.
Gao Yang took aim at the thermal signatures but, being prone, his bullets failed to accurately hit the enemy, disappearing again after a brief moment.
“Twenty meters away!
The enemy has ground cover; use grenades!”
Gao Yang pointed out the direction, and after he finished speaking quickly and softly, he tore off a defensive grenade from his chest, counted silently in his mind, and then tossed it.
Almost simultaneously, ten grenades were thrown, and nearly at the same time, they exploded over the area where the target was taking cover.
Once the grenades went off, Gao Yang drew his pistol with one hand and his rifle with the other and charged forward.
Gao Yang felt the enemy couldn’t have possibly survived that barrage of grenades; now charging forward was merely to deliver a coup de grâce.
But he had barely taken two steps after rising when he heard Cui Bo scream at the top of his lungs, “Get down!”
Gao Yang heard a sound as something passed through the leaves, then he saw a grenade falling towards him after it had cleared the top of a short tree.
Judging the trajectory of a grenade is a basic infantry skill.
If you can’t see it, that’s one thing, but if you do, you should know where it will land.
Especially in the rainforest, grenades can’t be thrown straight but must be lobbed, and they’re not particularly fast.
Gao Yang could tell at a glance that even if he lay down, the grenade would land beside him, leading to the same explosive fate.
In a fraction of a second, Gao Yang kicked out, catapulting the grenade back into the sky with the top of his foot.
The time taken from seeing the grenade to instinctively kicking it away was just a blink of an eye, but with a kick that was now second nature, Gao Yang saved his own life.
The grenade was kicked back into the air but didn’t travel far before exploding.
Gao Yang felt a flash before his eyes, his nose like it had been punched hard, and a sudden jolt in his stomach.
When he finally lay on the ground, regaining his mental faculties, he discovered a grenade fragment had hit the left lens of his ballistic glasses, which was now spiderwebbed with cracks.
Gao Yang’s heart raced; the ballistic glasses had saved one of his eyes and prevented the fragment from entering his brain.
As for the shock in his stomach, no doubt it was another grenade fragment.
Ballistic eyewear had been proven to resist grenade shrapnel in numerous real combat situations, but even with that knowledge, Gao Yang still harbored doubts about how a pair of small glasses could defend against the shrapnel of grenades and the shooting of shotgun bullets; it was only after ballistic eyeglasses saved him one time that Gao Yang, amidst fear and shock, finally realized the importance of ballistic eyewear.
The area where the glasses rested on his nose was sore, and the heavy blow to the bridge of his nose left Gao Yang’s head somewhat muddled.
Grateful and appreciative, he ripped off the ballistic eyeglasses and flung them aside, then immediately fired several shots with his pistol.
Seeing Gao Yang encounter a grenade, the others had already started shooting.
“Boss!”
“I’m fine!”
After the brief exchange, Gao Yang put his pistol back into its holster and then began searching with his rifle’s scope.
However, after sweeping the area, he didn’t spot any heat signatures.
No matter the combat situation, wearing a bulletproof vest was essential.
If the shrapnel couldn’t penetrate the eyeglasses, naturally it couldn’t penetrate Gao Yang’s bulletproof vest either, so he didn’t bother checking the spot on his stomach where he’d been struck.
“No sign of the enemy, they have cover!
Anybody hurt?”
No one reported injuries, only Eileen, who was near Gao Yang, said softly, “My helmet was hit by shrapnel, but I’m okay.”
It was at that moment Lucica suddenly announced, “There’s water!”
After saying there was water, Lucica immediately began firing, and as the others followed her lead and fired in the same direction, Jinfang, Eileen, and Frey quickly used the suppressing fire to dash forward.
Passing through an area of large-leaf plants riddled with bullet holes, the view suddenly opened up, and upon seeing what lay before them, Jinfang immediately ordered, “Cease fire!”
Gao got up again and rushed over.
When he too emerged from the cover of the broad-leaf plants, he saw a river.
Gao ran to Jinfang who had set up a defensive position not far away, raised his gun, and after scanning both sides of the river, didn’t spot any targets.
“The enemy has run off!”
The river wasn’t wide, just seven or eight meters across.
The murky water made it impossible to determine the depth, and it seemed to be stagnant.
Within the Amazon River’s basin, such rivers were exceedingly common.
The riverbanks were not very steep, but steep enough to avoid bullets and evade detection by thermal imaging devices.
The follow-up personnel gradually caught up and established a defensive line along one side of the river.
Then, Gao looked up at the nearby trees and pointed at one not-so-tall little tree, “There’s blood on that tree, someone was hiding up there.”
Because it was by the river, the canopy of tall trees might cover the space above the river, but the sunlight still had the chance to shine through the gaps and reach the ground below, thereby offering the smaller tree a chance to survive.
Andy He quickly ran to the base of the little tree to inspect it, while Lucica remained focused on the river.
After examining the base of the tree, Andy said solemnly, “The enemy is wounded.
Judging by the loss of blood, the injury isn’t very serious.”
Gao glanced at the riverbank and, in a low voice, said to Lucica, “There are no traces of the enemy crossing the river.
They ran along the bank, but our target point is on the other side of the river.
Should we cross?”
Lucica shook her head, “No need, a river like this won’t run straight; there must be a turn not far off.
We can just circle around it.
It’s too easy to get ambushed if we walk along the riverbank.
The enemy has re-entered the jungle, so we should move through the jungle as well!”
Fighting in the jungle was a nuisance.
After exchanging fire with an unseen enemy, Gao felt like a blind man and couldn’t help feeling a sense of powerlessness.
Fighting in the rainforests of Colombia was headache-inducing enough.
Although it was a high altitude area with numerous trees, the undergrowth and vines were less thick.
But where Gao and his team were now, in the main basin of the Amazon River, the Amazon Plains, the vegetation was much denser than it was near the Eastern Cordillera Mountains in Colombia.
In other words, jungle warfare here was much more challenging.
Gao exhaled and said into the radio in a heavy tone, “Friend of Nature, we’re very close now, and we’ve engaged the enemy.
Hold on, we’ll be there soon.”
“Jackal understands, whoever you are, thank you.
Be careful, the enemy is formidable.”
Gao had only intended to notify the people from Friend of Nature, but while talking to Huan, he had a thought and asked solemnly, “Has the enemy used directional mines?”
“No, the enemy has never used directional mines, but before they didn’t need to.
We can’t rule out the possibility they have them.”
After the brief communication with Friend of Nature, Gao gestured and commanded sternly, “Bat, Toad, take point and be careful.
Everyone else, maintain a twenty-meter distance from the vanguard.” (To be continued.
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