The sudden bombing threw the whole camp into chaos.

The thatched shacks the child soldiers had thrown together were torn up like paper by the blast wave; they took heavy losses before they even saw where the enemy was.

This already shaky organization迎来了它的终点 in this round of bombardment.

The child soldiers, who'd barely seen real bloodshed, were stunned by such a fierce assault. They dropped their guns and bolted for the woods, only to collapse under the muzzles of the encircling armed narcos.

"No. 7 Changjiang, what the hell are you even doing out there? Let them get this close and you didn't notice? I told you to stand watch, did you give the post to a dog instead?"

David and Killer Demon kept Gloria behind them while they laid into No. 7 Changjiang over comms. Their status meant they didn't give a damn if a teammate got all moody about it—if there's spraying to be done, they'd spray.

No. 7 Changjiang was feeling wronged as hell too.

"They snuck in on a side trail. I never even saw them, and the detectors didn't ping once. I'm guessing some mole guided them in—their mines didn't trigger a single time."

"Cut the crap and wait till we get back. I'm gonna fix you good."

David was itching to bust this guy down on the spot, but right now, getting Gloria out in one piece was the only thing that mattered.

But when Gloria saw David being dragged farther and farther away by Jose as they ducked shellfire, she was just as anxious.

"David! Over here!"

Killer Demon tried to push through the bombardment zone to drag David back, but the armed narcos storming in behind had already blown the camp to pieces. Humvees were smashing through the brush; just dealing with enemies from all directions was hard enough—there was no way to punch past them to go looking for David.

Dragging Gloria along, David's head was pounding. He glanced at the tracker he'd shoved onto David earlier.

"He's moving north, but at this rate it doesn't matter where he goes. If he dies out there, there's no way we can explain it."

God knows what the scenario writers were thinking when they cooked this up. David sure as hell didn't dare bet these lunatics wouldn't just kill David off here. David wasn't even a formal employee of Horizon Corporation, and out in this godforsaken wilderness there was no way to piggyback off the LAN to get in touch.

Killer Demon, on the other hand, moved fast and clean. Once Olivia grabbed the guns from the vehicle, he tossed one to David.

"Then let's make some noise. Draw everybody to us and buy them time to get out."

"Olivia, you take Gloria and head south. No. 7 Changjiang will link up with you there. Find a safe spot and lie low till the morning after tomorrow. Someone will come pull you out."

"Ugh… fine."

Gun in hand, David could only resign himself to organizing a tactical counterattack.

"Prep for combat! Follow my lead. No. 6 and No. 5 Changjiang, get up on the rear-left slope and set up the machine gun. Create overlapping fields of fire with us and pin them behind those two houses up front. Don't let them cross."

"Optical drones up, thermal mode on. Sync the feed overlays to your own HUDs—don't let anyone get close. Everyone else, keep moving and shooting. Forget kill count; just keep the fire thick and draw them all this way."

After rattling off the orders, he raised his rifle and lobbed a single underslung grenade, landing it dead-on into an off-road truck charging in.

The HE round slammed into the thin armor plate of the SUV and burst into a bloom of fire, then set off the whole vehicle—like a crimson lotus exploding in the night.

David calmly observed the battlefield from behind cover, squeezing the trigger in precise three-round bursts.

His aim was insanely good, and he deliberately picked off those narcos with little to no augments. Almost every shot paid off. Their cyberware had crap ballistic protection, and only a handful of them were wearing heavy Subcutaneous Armor. As for vests, this op had come together so suddenly that most hadn't even put theirs on.

After all, this guerrilla band had already hit rock bottom; they weren't expecting any real resistance. The first few artillery salvos had racked up plenty of kills, and the child soldiers' heavy losses only made the narcos even cockier.

Then they slammed headfirst into the defensive line David had set up and started bleeding hard. The sudden roar of the machine gun reaped several lives in an instant, hammering them so hard they didn't dare rush again and instead scrambled for cover.

But their CO quickly realized the enemy's gunfire wasn't all that dense, and that they were constantly shifting positions to keep up the suppression. Once more and more armed narcos arrived, his bruised ego made him bellow,

"心机嘎啵啊飞啦,阿莫新的麻吉噶solo,吔屎sei曼达撕吧dei!（What the hell are we waiting for? We've got more guys than they do! Charge!）"

But the few men who stuck their heads up were instantly turned into cold brain salad by David.

Like the Reaper calling roll. Everyone else clamped down on their urge to charge. Another burst from the machine gun chewed up their cover, chips of stone bouncing off a few foreheads. After that, it didn't matter how much the CO screamed—nobody dared move. All they wanted was to wait for the artillery to finish correcting their aim and then plaster those bastards with a saturation strike.

Using the fire from the burning woods and the drone feed, David could see armed narcos swarming over the hills, closing in on the guerrillas from all sides. Gloria's group had already pulled back a fair distance, and it looked like David had managed to break out as well.

Seeing the enemy's attack slow, David instantly guessed they were planning to use artillery to wipe out their firing points, and he started barking orders one after another.