Chapter Sixty-Eight: Massacre (Part Three)

Jack Bevin quickly sensed something was wrong.

It was around six in the morning. The vast sea, freshly battered by a violent storm, was tinged with the pale light of dawn. Saint Emperor’s Bright Island, shrouded in darkness, was now touched by a faint, hazy glow. As the most elite special forces of the Minia Federation, every member of the Sea Cucumber Assault Team was equipped with individual night vision gear. In previous operations, Jack had never worried about visibility in the night.

But after he led his unit through layers of interference and obstruction and reached the designated area, he was shocked to find that the once brightening sky had abruptly plunged back into darkness. This darkness was enveloped in a dense, unnatural black fog.

The fog was uncanny. Not only did it render him unable to observe with the naked eye, but even the night vision devices seemed useless. Communications equipment was heavily disrupted, with static and noise making contact with other squads nearly impossible. Yet, the signal operators confirmed there was no electromagnetic interference.

“What the hell is going on here?” Jack Bevin cursed furiously. Even Sergeant William, who had managed to communicate amid the chaos twenty minutes earlier, was now unreachable.

A powerful sense of foreboding surged in Jack’s chest. He looked around. Within several hundred meters, the fluorescent identifier dots on his squad’s helmets were barely visible through the dense black mist. Normally, these glowing dots gave him reassurance, but now they seemed indistinct and eerie.

He shook his head forcefully, trying to dispel the creeping fear.

Suddenly, his gaze froze. He could hardly believe what he was seeing. He shook his head again and squinted to confirm: at the far right of the formation, two fluorescent dots representing his own assault team members suddenly soared into the air, then plummeted to the ground, motionless.

“Enemy attack—!” Jack Bevin shouted furiously, only for his face to pale as he realized his voice seemed to vanish into an endless void; even he could not hear his own echo.

Within seconds, Jack watched helplessly as another dot on the right wing vanished without a trace.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—Jack could bear it no longer. He raised his rifle and fired a fierce burst toward where the dot had disappeared.

At this point, Jack no longer cared about friendly fire. His instincts told him that if he allowed the hidden enemy to continue, his squad would suffer unbearable losses.

The 32 automatic rifle in Jack’s hands fired three rounds followed by a tracer in each burst; before the magazine was empty, the meteoric streaks of tracer fire finally caught the team’s attention. These seasoned, battle-hardened elite soldiers did not panic. Instead, they immediately opened fire toward the direction indicated by the tracers. Adjacent team members quickly formed triangular formations to guard against sneak attacks.

Even in total darkness, their actions remained swift and effective. Yet, in those few seconds, two more assault team members were killed in bizarre ways—one cleaved in half by a battle axe, the other struck in the face with such force that his skull was shattered to powder.

One was in the center, the other on the left wing.

Jack Bevin’s eyes widened in horror, a chill piercing his heart. How many foes lurked in this darkness?

Just then, thump—thump—the team’s grenade launcher operators fired two 35mm infrared stealth illumination rounds skyward. The parachutes deployed, descending slowly, emitting near-infrared light barely visible to the naked eye. Through night vision goggles, the dense black mist was now tinged with a faint blue halo.

In this ghostly light, Jack Bevin saw a shadow flicker on the left flank—a phantom-like figure. In the instant before it vanished, it seemed to wave a hand, and a team member’s body was sent flying, crashing heavily to the ground, never moving again.

The whole squad opened fire wildly, but the jungle remained eerily silent. Jack heard no sound of the soldier hitting the ground, but he felt as if a massive hammer struck his chest; he knew the man was finished.

The assault team now formed nine three-man squads, linking together in a ring formation. Firepower overlapped, covering all 360 degrees without dead angles. But Jack Bevin noticed the phantom shadow had disappeared, melting into the tall grass and dense foliage.

Jack led his squad forward cautiously, determined to use the formation to flush out the lurking enemy. The right wing of the formation had a clear defensive gap, seemingly due to insufficient manpower, but Jack knew it was a deliberate trap to lure the hidden foe into attacking. Once the enemy made a move, two nearby squads would immediately converge, while others would close in from different directions, entangling the enemy like a giant python until it was utterly destroyed.

That gap was the python’s gaping maw.

Furthermore, behind the python, two sniper teams waited like venomous fangs, ready to strike. Jack glanced toward their positions, nodded slightly, and raised his rifle. The grenade launcher beneath his 32 automatic rifle flashed—he silently fired a delayed infrared stealth illumination round above the gap.

In ten seconds, the first two illumination rounds would fade. The enemy, accustomed to moving in darkness, would almost certainly act, and at that instant, the delayed round would ignite, catching them off guard. Jack’s lips curled in a grim smile.

“Five, four, three, two, one!” At his countdown, the two previous rounds extinguished. In the last instant before darkness fell, Jack glimpsed the phantom shadow appear again at the gap.

“Finally lost patience?” As the third illumination round exploded at the perfect moment, Jack grinned savagely, imagining the enemy’s face contorted in terror at being exposed.

But his grin froze instantly.

Almost simultaneously, another illumination round burst in the sky—not a high-tech infrared stealth round, but a standard flare used by every army worldwide.

This ordinary flare unleashed unimaginable power.

A dazzling white light! Drawn to the area lit by the third round, every assault team member’s night vision goggles flooded with blinding brightness.

“Ah—my eyes—!” Soldiers screamed in agony, clutching their eyes against the sudden pain. Even those with iron resolve, reacting instantly, could only fire blindly in the general direction, losing all aim.

Thud!

A corpse fell from above, landing heavily on Jack Bevin, who had instinctively rolled back to avoid two bullets when the white light flashed. It tumbled to the ground.

It was the sniper who had just been lurking in a tree behind him. He had seized the moment to fire when the shadow appeared, but now half his head was blown away by a large-caliber sniper round. The remaining eye stared wide open, as if unable to believe the enemy could hit him in the dark.

He died with eyes open.

The pain from the flare faded quickly. As Jack rallied his soldiers back into battle, they realized that the enemy, after killing four comrades with unknown weapons amid the hail of bullets, had vanished into the jungle once more.

Looking at his fallen men, at the sniper lying beside him with eyes wide open in death, Jack Bevin’s heart sank.

He knew he had encountered the most cunning, terrifying adversary.

This foe possessed sharp senses, a calm mind, precise judgment, superb stealth, deadly marksmanship, and formidable hand-to-hand combat.

He hid in darkness like a silent mountain, moved like a ghost, and struck with ruthless precision—never leaving survivors.

Most crucially, this enemy was not greedy. Though he could have slaughtered more during the chaos, he struck like lightning, killed five, and vanished before the squad could recover, leaving no chance for retaliation.

Strangely, Jack recalled the old professor who had trained the assault team, reciting a poem with reverence and yearning about the mysterious warriors of an ancient eastern land—those called “knights-errant”:

Ten steps, one kill; a thousand miles, no trace.

“What kind of enemy is this?” For the first time, Jack Bevin felt utterly powerless.