The military knife used as leverage was evidently not the perfect match, yet it still had a formidable suitability level of ninety percent. If Xia Lei was given more time, he could have found or built a lever with perfect balance.
Nevertheless, Tsukino Kyoko’s condition worsened by the minute. He didn’t have any time to spare.
“Boss, leave me be, make it out on your own!” Kyoko pleaded.
“Cut the fuss! Stay put!” Xia Lei put all limbs to good use as he crawled his way forward. His hands were equipped with the custom made climbing gloves that Tsukino Kyoko had gifted him with. The rocky surface of the granite cave had already torn holes through his trousers. His knees were bloodied and bruised.
But that all paled in comparison to his only goal. He needed to escort Kyoko to safety before the pyramid collapsed on both of them!
The crumbling walls echoed through the cavern.
The entire mountain shook from the collapse as chipped rock and debris broke off the ceiling and rained down on them.
“Put me down, Xia Lei, just put me down!” Kyoko was persistent as she began limply flailing her limbs. She knew she had become a burden to his survival at that point and was certain that her presence might impede his survival.
Out of the blue, Xia Lei lifted one of his hands and groped her by the buttock. The pin ladened climbing gloves effectively jabbed her butt cheek!
“Eek!” Kyoko let out a muted grunt as she took a deep breath from reflux.
Xia Lei then frustratingly grumbled. “I’m not leaving you here alone to die. It’s either we both leave here alive, or we die in here together. Your choice!
Tsukino Kyoko wrapped her arms back onto his neck, her legs crossed tighter than before. Even though she said nothing, her actions were all the answers Xia Lei needed to hear.
Roars from the decimation shook the cavern walls even harder as the mountain itself began to tremble, yet miraculously had yet to bury both of them alive. That military knife undoubtedly did its part as the lever at the centre of balance as it single-handedly offered them sufficient time to make it to the entrance from where they came.
At the entrance of the cave, Xia Lei removed his belt and fastened it around Kyoko against himself. The interior of the mountain shook immensely but it was relatively muted from the outside. With the pair of gloves with added grip, he navigated his way down at commendable speed.
Nevertheless, as he got closer to the ground, the internal collapse of the mountain began resonating greater and greater from the exterior, akin to that of an eight-degree earthquake.
Ba-thum!
It sounded as if a row of dynamites simultaneously exploded from within!
The mountain started its collapse to the ground.
Xia Lei jerked his two feet off the cliff walls and upon stepping onto solid ground, hurled himself down the slope!
Thump!
The mountain catastrophically lost half its height in a blink of an eye!
The granite boulder that Xia Lei had just entrusted his life upon promptly succumbed into the pits of the abyss before his eyes. A second more and both of them would be minced meat!
Thud!
The two fell on the ground, Xia Lei bearing most of the impact while cushioning the weak Tsukino Kyoko on top. She was on track to end up below himself but at the brink of the moment, he twisted his body and did a potential life-changing switch.
“Bleurgh!” Bearing the full force of the fall and the rumble, Xia Lei spat out a mouthful of blood.
Tsukino Kyoko flopped off Xia Lei’s body, but this time she was left unscathed. Xia Lei had taken the full force of mother nature head-on.
“Boss, you okay?” Tsukino Kyoko anxiously took to checking. She held onto Xia Lei’s arm to lift him to his feet but was too feeble to.
“It’s fine, I’m okay...bleurgh!” Xia Lei once again spat out a mouthful of blood. This time, it was not from the injury, but instead lifted the burden on his organs. He instantly felt much better with the subsequent blood ejected from his body.
With a body built-in with a near-perfect immune system, his self-recuperation process was far ahead of most people. For an injury of this severity, most people will need a few days to half a month to heal. But for Xia Lie, a few minutes will do the trick.
Xia Lei might have felt much better since, but two subsequent blood spurting moments left Kyoko terrified as she frantically added. “Are you really okay? Tell me what can I do for you boss!”
Xia Lei hurled himself off the ground. “I’m fine, really, don’t worry about me.”
He took a good look around before his smile quickly faded. “We’re already out here, but where the hell is Sa’im?”
Tsukino Kyoko reactively gave her surroundings a quick scan, there was evidently no sight of Sa’im.
That was not normal.
Xia Lei instantly had a spike in awareness as his line of vision quickly diverted towards the direction of the valley. The valley had no sign of life within a ten-mile radius, making it especially barren from afar. Yelena should be by the mouth of the valley but she was nowhere to be seen.
Xia Lei then shifted his gaze towards the current peak of the mountain that just had its height halved by his doing. Unsurprisingly, Anjum Khan was not there too. He should be positioned by the peak, but from the commotion a while ago, he might have taken shelter somewhere. Nevertheless, he was absent on either side of the mountain.
Their connection in the form of Sa’im, Anjum Khan and Yelena were all missing, so where else could they possibly be? The more he began analysing the situation, his expressions muddled as it began to irk him. What exactly happened out here?
Kyoko retrieved her satellite phone, but before she could dial any number, the roaring of engines through the vast desert paired with the chuffing of a Black Hawk chopper appeared on the horizon.
Right when the chopper revealed its propellers, Xia Lei had already scooped Tsukino Kyoko off the ground and began running towards the pile of rubble. The gargantuan rubble was naturally created from the aftermath of the crumbling cliffs. But right now, it had become the makeshift shelter for Kyoko and himself.
Xia Lei squeezed Tsukino Kyoko into a crack between two granite boulders, and just before the chopper hovered above them hurled himself inside in the nick of time.
The Black Hawk chuffed past the overhead sky before it began encircling the rubble.
Amidst the debris, Xia Lei peeked out from the cracks to observe the Black Hawk chopper as it hovered above. Even though the chopper was a few hundred meters above ground, the distance was hardly a stretch to Xia Lei as if it was just a few meters away.
With his extraordinary left eye, he caught glimpses of the pilots. Both were dressed in Israeli ground military uniforms, with several soldiers strapped in behind, also donning the Israeli military uniform. The slight distinction in their uniform from the air force was what gave Xia Lei the identification he needed.
But why would Israeli troops be here? And is there a clear correlation between their presence and the absence of Sa’im, Anjum and Yelena?
Tsukino managed to pull out her satellite phone from the confined space that they were in, dialled all three of their numbers, only to no avail.
“I can’t get to them, what’s happening?” Kyoko was in a frenzy.
Xia Lei replied. “What about you, how’s your condition? Can you still hold on?”
“I’m fine I suppose, just that…” Kyoko cut herself off midway through the sentence.
“Just what?”
“I should be the one protecting you, but it looks like you’ve been shielding me again and again. I’ve become your burden.” Tsukino Kyoko mumbled.
“Come on now, we’re family. I’ve always seen you as a younger sister, to defend my sister is a responsibility a brother should be accountable for.” He emphasized.
“Are all men this indecisive?” Kyoko blurted out of the blue.
“Huh?” Xia Lei was baffled.
“You promised you would fulfil my wishes.” Kyoko clarified.
Xia Lei immediately fell silent.
After two rounds of intensive searching, the Black Hawk chopper did not immediately depart the area but had instead chosen to land on a relatively flat plot about a hundred meters away from their hiding spot.
Excluding the pilots, six fully armed Israeli soldiers hopped off the chopper and began marching towards where Xia Lei and Kyoko were hiding.
Xia Lei reactively pulled out The Viper.
His own Gust assault rifle had succumbed into the depths of the demolition. While Kyoko did have her rifle in the backpack, it was a hassle for her to retrieve and assemble in the limited space they had.
The footsteps of half a dozen Israeli militants gradually got louder as they approached.
Xia Lei’s mind began muddled as an effect, acknowledging that there were essentially only two outcomes for the two of them. Upon their exposure, they would either be slaughtered on the spot, or taken as prisoners. There just wasn’t a third option.
Notably taking into consideration the fact that besides the six fully armed soldiers that they first have to deal with, there was literally a militarized helicopter parked right behind them!
With its heavy artillery and built-in machine gun, it didn’t matter how good he was with a gun. There was no way he could outmatch a helicopter!
To avoid an outcome of the sort, he was naturally anxious, frightful even.
The six Israeli soldiers came closer while conversing in the Hebrew tongue.
Xia Lei locked onto their lips, and with his lip-reading techniques began interpreting their conversation.
“The hell happened here?”
“Seems like an earthquake.”
“An earthquake? You’ve got to be shitting me, it’s out of the question. How can the earthquake only affect a single mountain in the area?”
“If it isn’t an earthquake then what the hell can possibly happen here?”
“God knows.”
“Previously there were three unknown armed militia crawling around the Gaza strip. Mossad has been hunting them, and I’m confident that whatever happened here has to do with them.
”You mean there’s a terrorist attack in this part?”
“Who the hell would ambush a deserted region? It makes no sense.”
Xia Lei was infuriated. Mossad was a world-renowned secret organization, tied best with the Soviet Union’s Krupp Mak Maschinenbau. And now Mossad’s men were sent to hunt down Sa’im, Anjum Khan and Yelena, how could he not be?
“Stop making pointless assumptions, take a good look around and report back to head office.” A leader figure was heard ending his conversation. He then quickly ordered his men to split into two groups, one to the left and the other to search by the right, around the pile of rubble that they were at!