Volume One, Chapter 11: The Desperate Special Forces Vanguard!

“Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—!”

Seven or eight Lin-type submachine guns fired simultaneously, creating a shocking scene.

Bullets sprayed like a torrent of water, instantly covering the entire valley.

Rocks sparked from the bombardment, tree trunks were cut in half, and the earth was furrowed by the bullets into deep trenches.

This was the overwhelming power of automatic weapons in close-quarters combat!

Though the Japanese special forces were well-trained and quick to react, any tactical move seemed utterly powerless under such dense and violent fire.

A Japanese soldier, searching for cover, was instantly riddled with bullets in the chest; blood exploded outward, and before he could even scream, he fell heavily to the ground.

Another special forces member hiding behind a rock peeked out to retaliate with a grenade launcher but was blasted apart by a burst from Duan Peng’s gun, red and white splattering everywhere.

“Baka yarou!”

Ryusuke Kuroshima crouched behind a massive boulder, a deep groove cut into his helmet from a stray bullet, cold sweat pouring down his body.

He was completely stunned!

How could these peasants wield such fierce automatic firepower? And equipped in full formation at that!

The intelligence was wrong! A grave mistake!

This was no ordinary guerrilla force; this was a band of devils armed to the teeth!

“Grenade launcher! Suppress their fire points! Quickly!” Kuroshima roared, his voice cracking.

These vanguard special forces were truly elite among elites.

After the initial chaos, they swiftly used the terrain to launch a counterattack.

Unlike ordinary soldiers who blindly exchanged fire, they threw grenades with precision and used grenade launchers to target the guerrillas’ fire points.

“Boom!”

A grenade exploded precisely beside a machine gun bunker of the guard squad, the blast throwing two soldiers into the air, killing them instantly.

“Damn it!” Duan Peng’s eyes turned bloodshot as he roared, switching to a fresh magazine and unleashing a frenzied spray toward the grenade launcher’s position.

“Everyone, stay hidden! Alternate covering fire! Don’t be damn targets!”

Though the guard squad fought bravely, they were newly acquainted with automatic weapons, and their shooting skills and tactical cooperation were far inferior to the seasoned Japanese special forces.

They habitually emptied magazines in one burst, unaware of the effectiveness of combining short and long bursts, wasting ammunition and revealing their positions.

The battle instantly reached a fever pitch.

---

The valley echoed with gunfire, explosions, shouts, and screams intertwined.

Inside a research institute’s cave dwelling, Li Yunlong and Zhao Gang listened anxiously to the fierce gunfire in the distance, their hearts in their throats.

“Damn it! That’s a big commotion!” Li Yunlong clenched his fists, pacing nervously. “Looks like a big fish! Old Zhao, do you think Duan Peng and the others... can hold out?”

Zhao Gang’s expression was grave. “The guard squad has firepower advantage, but this Japanese squad is definitely elite. Judging by the shots, their accuracy and grenade skills surpass ours. This will be a tough fight!”

Lin Mo stood silently behind them, his ears like radar, capturing every sound from the battlefield.

“The Lin submachine guns fire too fast; the soldiers can’t control it, wasting ammo.”

“The Japanese grenade launchers pose a huge threat to our exposed fire points.”

“Our soldiers lack small unit coordination training; the firepower isn’t overlapping...”

One problem after another flashed through his mind.

For the first time, he clearly realized that having advanced weapons alone was far from enough.

Weapons needed skilled users.

And those users needed advanced tactical thinking and rigorous training.

“Commander,” Lin Mo suddenly spoke, “order Zhang Dabiao’s first company to immediately flank from the side, bringing all our grenades. Don’t hold back; cover both sides of the valley with a rain of grenades!”

“The Japanese don’t have many men, but they’re experts. If we fight them gun for gun, we’ll lose! Better to use the simplest, most brutal method: explosions and shrapnel to completely compress their movement space!”

Li Yunlong’s eyes lit up. “Right! Damn it, why didn’t I think of that? If I can’t outgun them, I’ll outsmart them! Zhang Dabiao! You hear me? Take your men and hit them hard with grenades!”

...

In the valley, Ryusuke Kuroshima was on the verge of collapse.

Of the fifteen imperial elite troops he brought, more than half had fallen in an instant.

Their firepower was merciless! A pure, violent, unrelenting iron storm!

Just as he organized a counterattack, trying to break out from the flank, the whistle of grenades overhead came swiftly.

“Grenades!”

Kuroshima only managed to shout those words before the explosion’s shockwave threw him to the ground.

A hailstorm of grenades rained down like icy hail from the sky.

“Boom! Boom! Rumble!”

The entire valley turned into a sea of explosions.

---

This was Li Yunlong’s favorite “grenade coverage tactic”—simple, brutal, yet incredibly effective.

The few surviving Japanese special forces were dazed by the blasts, either dead or severely wounded.

Kuroshima struggled to crawl out from the heap of bodies, his left arm gashed deeply, bone visible, blood pouring out.

He looked around at the gruesome scene, his eyes filled with despair and unwillingness.

It was over! All over!

He, the proud elite of the empire’s special forces, was about to be wiped out in this nameless valley!

“Retreat! Retreat!” he shouted into the radio with his last strength.

But all that answered was a chaotic static noise.

At that moment, he saw a tall figure step out from the darkness, holding a smoking submachine gun, walking steadily toward him.

It was Duan Peng.

Kuroshima instinctively raised his pistol, but under Duan Peng’s gun barrel, his movements seemed sluggish.

“Rat-tat!”

Two precise shots shattered Kuroshima’s wrist, and his pistol dropped to the ground.

Duan Peng approached, the dark muzzle pressed against his forehead.

“Speak! Who are you? What are you doing here?” Duan Peng’s voice was as cold as ice.

Looking into Duan Peng’s murderous eyes, Kuroshima suddenly laughed nervously, speaking stiff Chinese: “You... will regret this... Colonel Yamamoto... will avenge us!”

Then he bit down hard.

Black blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

He had crushed a poison capsule hidden between his teeth, committing suicide.

Duan Peng paused for a moment, then kicked his corpse aside and shouted to the soldiers around, “Search every body! Don’t let them play dead! Clean up the battlefield!”

This brief and bloody battle had finally come to an end.