Action had to be taken.
“I don’t care about the life or death of others; I just want everyone by my side to survive!”
Kers whispered this to himself, then, without a moment’s hesitation, pulled the trigger. A loud bang erupted as the bullet shot out of the chamber instantly, like an arrow leaving a bowstring.
However, Kers hadn’t undergone long-term professional training, so his shooting accuracy had clear shortcomings.
The bullet didn’t pierce the enemy’s head as he’d hoped. Instead, it ruthlessly tore through the hand holding the gun, specifically the back of it.
The intense pain hit instantly. The man’s face turned deathly pale from the agony, and his hands unconsciously let go of his weapon. He then screamed at the top of his lungs:
“Someone’s… ambushing us!”
Hearing the shout, the nearby guards immediately fell into chaos. They quickly crouched down, looking around warily, their eyes full of confusion.
They couldn’t figure out how the enemy had managed to circle behind them without being noticed at all.
The adjutant reacted quickly. With a furrowed brow and a calm expression, he immediately began issuing orders:
“There’s probably only one gun over there. Have a sniper and the guards who still have a few bullets left watch for the direction the shots are coming from. Then, use your pistols to take him out!”
Taking advantage of the guards’ moment of panic, Kers pulled the trigger again, firing off two more bullets.
One bullet instantly pierced the chest of a guard trying to get closer to him, and the man crumpled to the ground with a thud. The other bullet whistled past the adjutant’s head, stirring up a strong gust of wind and leaving his face pale with fright.
“A repeating rifle! Damn it.”
The adjutant cursed through gritted teeth.
Outwardly, the adjutant tried to force calm, but inside, he was already a mess. The thrilling scenes from just moments ago kept flashing through his mind.
He had no idea if that bullet had pierced the sniper’s lung. At that moment, that sniper was struggling in agony on the ground, barely able to move, and certainly couldn’t fight anymore.
Kers’ earlier shot had accurately hit the palm of the submachine gunner, creating an immediate gap in their originally tight formation.
Like sharks sensing blood, the gang members seized this rare opportunity and began encircling them from all sides. The sound of their battle cries was so loud it made the adjutant’s eardrums ache; the situation was becoming increasingly critical.
Although the other two submachine gunners had quickly reloaded, and the injured one had been replaced by a fresh fighter, their disadvantage had already begun to show, sweeping in with unstoppable momentum.
With his brows tightly knitted and sweat beading on his forehead, the adjutant knew he had to quickly figure out a way to turn the situation around.
First, that guy hiding in the grass, taking cheap shots, was like a hidden tumor, constantly threatening their safety. He had to be eliminated as soon as possible.
So, gritting his teeth, the adjutant dispatched five men. Four were armed with Borchardt C-93 pistols, and one carried a sniper rifle. Although the bullets in their pistols were running low, the adjutant thought it should be more than enough to handle Kers.
Of course, the adjutant was also well aware that these five men didn’t have Kers’ talent for stealth and surprise attacks. Plus, their pistols had a shorter range. It wouldn’t be easy to flush Kers out without causing their own casualties, and then use the sniper to finish him off with one shot.
What gave the adjutant an even bigger headache was that, while everyone usually claimed loyalty to the Empire, when faced with a real life-or-death crisis, there would always be those with weak resolve. He stole a glance at the guards beside him and noticed a few with shifty eyes, their feet unconsciously stepping back – clear signs of fear.
This undoubtedly added insult to injury in an already grim situation.
But the adjutant didn’t blame them. Mobius City, unlike some cities that frequently experienced riots, had left everyone comfortable and complacent for too long. Moreover, the garrison force in Mobius City was pathetically small. Nearly half of the guards in his current team were rookies who had just finished training.
And the problems didn’t stop there. The fighting up front was intense, and bullet consumption was extremely high. They had only brought two large boxes of ammunition when they left, and some of it had been damaged during the previous grenade blast. At best, they had enough for another dozen or so rounds of firing. At the current rate of consumption, this position would definitely be lost in less than half an hour.
The adjutant listened carefully and could faintly hear gunfire in the distance, about four hundred meters away. He knew that if the gang’s resistance was strong enough, they wouldn’t receive reinforcements within ten or twenty minutes. They had to prepare for the worst – that their backup was being held up for half an hour.
“Everyone, snap out of it!”
The adjutant yelled at the top of his lungs, but his voice sounded so weak and feeble against the deafening gunfire.
There was no time to worry about that now.
Two of the four guards armed with Borchardt C-93 pistols leaned against the wall, crouched low, and carefully crept towards the direction the bullets were coming from. With every step, they were terrified, their eyes scanning the surroundings vigilantly, afraid that Kers might suddenly pop out from some corner.
Kers was fully aware of his disadvantage. A distance of nearly forty meters was too far for him. To hit the enemy accurately, he had to wait for them to get closer.
Forty meters…
Thirty meters…
Almost there!
Kers made a split-second decision and, without hesitation, pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. One shot accurately hit a guard’s left arm, and the other, by sheer luck, went straight through another guard’s head.
The gunshot rang out suddenly. The injured guard, enduring the searing pain, tremblingly fired one shot with his single hand towards the distant grass. At the same time, the sniper positioned near the adjutant quickly locked onto Kers’ firing position and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
That gunshot! It was different from the previous ones. A sense of dread instantly washed over Kers. He instinctively tried to get up and run, but the bullet was incredibly fast, hitting him directly in the lower back like a bolt of lightning.
Before Kers could even take two steps, his body froze in place from the searing pain in his lower back. Immediately after, the unsteady guard who had just fired shot him in the calf with his pistol.
“It never rains but it pours…”
Was the only thought that flashed through Kers’ mind.
Hit in both his lower back and calf, the excruciating pain washed over him in waves. Kers felt his vision darken, and a wave of despair washed over him – there was no escape.
Gritting his teeth against the agony, he struggled to turn his body. Resting his chin on the Winchester rifle, he emptied the remaining four bullets in the chamber towards that guard and the distant sniper.
At the same time, he quickly leaned back, crashing heavily onto the gravel path.
That guard was instantly riddled with bullets, but Kers didn’t hit the distant sniper at all.
A sense of foreboding washed over Kers. He had a nagging feeling that his shots had allowed the sniper to reacquire him. The next shot fired might very well be his last.
For some reason, the intense pain in his waist and calf made Kers’ eyes well up uncontrollably, and scenes from his past began to flash before his eyes.
His eyes bloodshot, he shook his head violently. The well-timed pain helped him gradually snap out of his daze.
At that moment, he was clearer-headed than ever before. He could clearly hear the footsteps, getting closer and closer, each one feeling like it was stepping directly on his heart.
In his over twenty years of life, Kers had done many things: stealing, robbing, working in a slaughterhouse, even begging.
He knew very well that when stealing, you had to be aware of the homeowner’s movements; when robbing, you needed to know the police’s whereabouts; as a porter, he needed a strong body; when praying on the street, he had to understand the psychology of the rich and learn how to gain people’s trust to extract information.
Now, his vast experience and keen, innate intuition led him once again to make the right choice: play dead.
At the moment, the guards were still some distance away. Their steps were light, cautious, clearly showing they were wary of him. Of course, aside from the sniper who could roughly sense his position, the two guards nearby seemed completely in the dark.
Kers quickly calculated in his mind: The chamber originally held sixteen bullets. Nine were left when he got it. He had used eight in total during this process. Counting the bullets in the magazine he was holding, that made seventeen in total. Hmm, he also had an old-style pistol on him.
Playing dead might fool them. Once they got close, he could use the Winchester to take out one and then riddle the other with bullets from the pistol… After dealing with these two, he’d need to quickly find a place to hide and buy time to reload.
But where could he hide now?
There were only a few scattered factory buildings nearby. Initially, he had used these buildings for cover to successfully get to the side of this group. Of course, he wouldn’t have had this chance if he hadn’t first thrown those grenades, eliminating nearly a third of the nearby defensive force, and if the gang hadn’t been preparing for a desperate fight, diverting their attention.
Kers quickly glanced around. The closest factory building was about ten meters ahead. Unfortunately, it was located right under the noses of the guard unit, the door was locked, and the windows were welded shut with iron bars.
If only he had a grenade, he could blast open the iron window and easily get inside. But he had already thrown all the grenades the Third Boss had given him. He should have taken more.
(Third Boss: He had already given Kers all the grenades he could get his hands on. Grenades and guns were strictly controlled on the market; only some discarded models could be obtained. Every gang team got a share, and it was only because the Second Boss looked out for them that they were given over a dozen. Some in the gang had tried making homemade grenades, but the success rate was extremely low, and the accident rate was high, so no one was willing to take the risk.)
Kers racked his brains, thinking hard for a long time, nearly bursting a blood vessel, but he still couldn’t come up with an excellent way to escape.
Meanwhile, the footsteps in his ears were getting closer and closer, the sound like the drumbeat of a death knell, pounding on his heart with each step.
Two blurry figures slowly came into Kers’ field of vision, gradually becoming clearer.
Kers smiled bitterly to himself. He hadn’t expected to think for so long. It was too late to worry about whether he could escape and reload. At this point, he had no choice.
He could only grit his teeth, raise his gun, fire, and leave the rest to fate!
