Kleleixi fixed his blazing gaze on Vistha and fired off three questions in rapid succession. Each one landed like a heavy hammer blow to Vistha’s heart, leaving him speechless and frozen in place.
It was true—Vistha harbored grand ambitions and had steeled himself to sacrifice everything for them.
But the moment he stepped onto this thorn-covered path, turning back would become an impossible luxury, and the road ahead was riddled with unknown hardships and dangers.
Ahead, countless enemies would surely lie in wait like starving wolves, and the gun clenched in his hand would inevitably be stained with their blood.
He had wrestled with these thoughts many times before.
He believed his mind was strong enough to overcome any obstacle.
Yet now, faced with the brutal reality of having to raise a gun and take a life, could he—a sheltered student who had lived his entire life on peaceful campuses—truly go through with it?
Between ideals and reality yawned an unbridgeable chasm. The two were worlds apart.
No.
Hesitating now would only waste precious time. They were already like arrows loosed from the bowstring, surging forward without retreat.
Even if fear and unease filled his heart, even if pulling the trigger felt impossibly hard, there was no choice but to grit his teeth and do it. Otherwise, the only thing awaiting him would be the abyss of death and ruin.
“I will!”
Vistha clenched his jaw and gave his word. Both hands tightened unconsciously around the pistol—the one with only two bullets—until his knuckles turned white.
“Good! That’s exactly what I needed to hear. From this moment on, our lives are in each other’s hands.”
Kleleixi let out a hearty laugh. He unbuttoned his collar and carefully pulled out a small, well-preserved stash of tobacco from inside his shirt.
With practiced ease, he quickly rolled a few cigarettes and handed them out to everyone present.
“Think of this as your last smoke. When we finish these, we go all in.”
Vistha didn’t know how to smoke. He glanced at the cigarette in his hand, hesitated for a beat, then tucked it into his pocket.
While the others took a moment to relax with their smokes, Kleleixi swiftly set the plan in motion according to the scheme Vistha had painstakingly devised, assigning each person their task with calm precision.
A few minutes later, everything was ready.
Kleleixi drew a deep breath, then swept his gaze slowly over the group. He lowered his voice, his tone dead serious:
“Failure is not an option. Move!”
Kleleixi and the rest of the gang members stayed behind to hold their position. Meanwhile, Vistha and his three companions, accompanied by two gang members known for their sharp shooting, slipped away through a hidden passage the gang controlled. They crept cautiously around to the area near the train platform, planning to ambush the guards at the checkpoint from behind.
Once everything was in place, one of the dockworkers in Vistha’s unit quietly circled back to Kleleixi and whispered that all preparations were complete.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Kleleixi gave the order for the front line to open fire. Drawing the enemy’s attention was the main goal, of course, but if they could also manage to take out the policemen and guards behind the sandbag wall in the process, so much the better.
The sudden burst of gunfire jolted the sluggish guards and policemen so badly that they scrambled to their feet, tripping over themselves. One guard, still rubbing his eyes as if caught halfway between sleeping and waking, had barely stood up when a bullet struck his shoulder blade. The searing pain jolted him fully awake in an instant, and a scream tore from his throat.
The personnel stationed at this checkpoint had never actually believed the gang would launch a real attack. After all, why risk their lives for such measly monthly pay?
So at first, they had only gone through the motions. It had never crossed their minds that the gang would actually come for them.
“Damn it! Enemies at the rear too! The guards at the third checkpoint have been killed!”
Word came through from the second checkpoint. The men at the first checkpoint felt the blood drain from their faces. They were now caught in a pincer attack, a desperate trap. If they didn’t do something fast, they were finished.
“Bring out the ‘new turtle’!”
At their squad leader’s command, the injured guard clutching his shoulder scrambled frantically to find a crate inside the checkpoint. Inside lay a disc-shaped object that resembled a sea turtle.
The guard handed the device over. The policeman who took it swiftly pulled the safety pin and then pressed down hard on the activation switch.
Timing it carefully, the squad leader hurled it with all his might in the direction the bullets were coming from.
Boom!
A fierce blaze erupted. The massive explosion from the turtle grenade ripped open the corner where the gang members had taken cover, leaving a crater half a meter wide. Inside that crater were the remains of human tissue, and the air filled with the acrid sting of gunpowder mixed with blood.
“Huff… huff… sons of bitches.”
Kleleixi staggered to his feet, cursing through clenched teeth as he fought through the pain of shrapnel embedded in his flesh. He gripped his pistol tightly. They’d been lucky—Kleleixi’s reflexes were sharp enough that he’d yelled for everyone to dive flat the instant before the blast. Otherwise, the entire squad would have been wiped out.
One man’s leg, too close to the grenade when it went off, had been blown clean apart. Blood was gushing from the wound. Kleleixi immediately ordered someone to drag him back for emergency treatment.
He was about to give the enemy a taste of their own medicine, but before he could even speak, two more grenades came rolling toward them. Kleleixi had no choice but to give the reluctant order to pull back and create distance.
This time, forewarned, the squad took no serious injuries, but the alley they’d used for the ambush was blown to rubble. Jagged stones flew everywhere, making it almost impossible for the gang members to find stable footing.
The corner that had been blasted wide open could no longer serve as cover either.
“Relocate!”
The plan had been unfolding steadily just as Vistha envisioned, but the enemy’s combination of pistols and grenades was forcing Kleleixi’s group to retreat step by step.
Watching the explosions, a gnawing unease welled up inside Vistha. He knew this kind of emotion would cloud his judgment, so he forced himself to take deep, deliberate breaths, trying to calm his racing mind.
Between breaths, he analyzed the situation with as much cool detachment as he could muster. This band of guards and policemen were no amateurs; they would almost certainly exploit the gap left by Kleleixi’s retreat to launch a counterattack.
Vistha made an immediate decision: they needed to push forward and secure the third checkpoint right away. With the cover that checkpoint provided, they could, at the very least, relieve some of the pressure bearing down on Kleleixi.
“Look what we found!”
One of the gang reinforcements exclaimed as he rummaged through the sandbag wall and dragged out a crate. Inside lay three turtle grenades.
“Do you know how to use these?”
Seeing the grenades ignited a flicker of hope in Vistha’s heart. Now that they had grenades of their own, they could absolutely strike back.
The gang reinforcement had experience with the crude homemade grenades the gang produced. He figured this contraption was probably similar, so he nodded and confidently answered:
“I know how.”
“Quick! Show me!”
Vistha urged.
The gang member wasted no time on words. He yanked out the pull ring right in front of Vistha. Still unfamiliar with the grenade’s exact design, his movements were a bit clumsy as he frantically pressed all four corners to keep the safety striker from springing loose.
Once he heard the mechanism click, the gang member hurled the grenade with all his strength toward the second checkpoint.
But because he’d thrown it in a high arc and it landed directly on top of the sandbag wall, the grenade didn’t detonate in time.
A sharp-eyed guard at the second checkpoint spotted the grenade instantly. He snatched it up and tossed it straight back toward the third checkpoint.
The violent jostling from being thrown twice caused the grenade to explode mid-air just as it reached the third checkpoint.
“Hit the deck!”
Razor-sharp fragments sprayed in all directions. Though the gang reinforcement managed to shout a warning to Vistha and the other two, all three of them still reacted a beat too slow.
Vistha was lucky: a single fragment only grazed the back of his hand. But one of the workers wasn’t nearly as fortunate. A shard of shrapnel embedded itself deep in his chest, instantly soaking his shirt crimson.
“Ugh… aahh…”
The worker clutched his chest, howling in agony as blood welled uncontrollably through his fingers.
Vistha had never witnessed anything like this. His mind, already rattled by the blast, turned into a complete fog—a total blank.
What was he supposed to do?
Where even was he right now?
Should he try to save the man first, or keep throwing grenades…
He simply couldn’t process anything. He lay there, frozen, crouched behind the sandbag wall, his eyes wide with helplessness.
Bang!
Just as Vistha’s mind reeled in shock, an intense and concentrated barrage of gunfire erupted up ahead. It was Kleleixi’s squad.
They had swiftly found new cover and, with seamless coordination and nimble tactics, were once again drawing the attention of the steadily dwindling guards and policemen back toward themselves.
“I can’t just freeze up here… I’ll get everyone killed.”
Vistha snapped back to reality with a violent jolt.
Every second right now determined whether they all lived or died. He could not afford a single instant of distraction.
Clamping down on the surging terror in his heart, Vistha reached with trembling hands for the second grenade lying in the corner.
“Remember… remember! How did he do it just now?”
Vistha mumbled to himself over and over inside his head, desperately trying to steady his nerves.
His fingers quivered slightly as he placed them on the pull ring. He took a deep breath, yanked the ring free, and immediately pressed down hard on the grenade’s striker.
The first grenade they’d thrown had detonated far too late. It was obvious it hadn’t been triggered in time.
There had to be a window—a delay between the striker springing loose and the actual detonation. That timespan was probably about two to six seconds.
If he could just manage that timing, if he could just throw the damned thing at the right moment, he could wound people. He could kill people.
There was no more time to hesitate. Every second of doubt threw his comrades deeper into danger. And there was no freedom to hesitate anymore either. On this brutal battlefield, hesitation would only lead to his own annihilation.
Just as Kleleixi had said:
“Once you step onto the battlefield, there is only kill or be killed.”
Vistha understood. He had to take this step—for himself, and for Kleleixi, who had entrusted his back to him.
Steeling his heart, Vistha released his grip. His eyes locked onto the grenade as he began to count silently in his head.
One… two…
After waiting those two seconds, he mustered every ounce of strength in his body and hurled it directly at the second checkpoint.
Boom!
A deafening blast. In an instant, blinding fire erupted inside the second checkpoint, and the sheer concussive force made the very air tremble.
Three guards and policemen were blown clear off their feet, sent hurtling through the air before slamming heavily onto the ground with varying degrees of injury.
One of them was too badly wounded to hold on. He was dead before anyone could even try to help.
Staring at the scene before him, Vistha was overcome by a profound sense of unreality.
A human life, extinguished just like that in the blink of an eye—as simply as an autumn leaf drifting down in the wind.
The acrid stench of blood on the battlefield assaulted his nostrils. Vistha’s stomach churned violently.
His face turned ashen, and a cold, fine sweat broke out across his forehead.
The gang reinforcement nearby noticed Vistha’s distress. He was just about to free a hand and ask if he was alright, but Vistha forced the queasiness down. Through slightly trembling words, he made his wishes clear:
“Don’t… worry about me. Push straight on to the second checkpoint! We can’t give the enemy a chance to catch their breath!”
