Chapter 444

Chapter 444: Ground Escape

Could this "Dragon Knight" possess the ability to fly or vanish into thin air?

“Me? Just a moment ago!”

Lin Mo’s voice was very innocent and completely natural, as if it was normal.

Through the binoculars, Squadron Leader Chen Renkai witnessed Lin Mo, wearing the “Dragon General” tactical armor, unceremoniously stripping the gear from two unfortunate Alpha warriors.

He took the entire set of finely crafted Alpha special forces equipment and surprisingly pulled out a large canvas bag. Was this planned all along?

“…”

Not only was Squadron Leader Chen dumbfounded, but Squadron Leader Zhang Zhenyu and the other soldiers also shared a look of disbelief.

He took everything from clothes and combat rations to guns, binoculars, bullets, and even sunglasses; nothing was spared.

If not for a sense of humanitarianism, Lin Mo might have been more professional and thorough than any bandit.

Casually robbing, this had almost become a tradition for the Dragon Knights, repeatedly forced upon Lin Mo by circumstances.

The bag he prepared before departing was truly coming in handy.

“We should hurry up!”

Squadron Leader Chen had no interest in lingering in this troublesome place, and even less in waking up the two unlucky warriors from the most elite “Alpha” special forces. He urged the team to leave quickly; by the time those Alpha soldiers woke up, they wouldn’t know what hit them.

Fewer troubles were preferable, and since the deed was done, let someone else deal with the mess.

The team of nearly sixty men marched quickly for over thirty kilometers, setting up camp in a defensible area nestled in the hills. They enjoyed a hearty meal and began gradually approaching the target.

A few wooden cabins, seemingly cobbled together from rough timber by lumberjacks, sat quietly amidst the cold firs and white pines.

A crooked wooden fence lay partially on the ground, the remaining pieces leaning against each other. Not only would it not stop wild animals, but a wild boar could easily squeeze through.

The nearby snow, moss, and lichen left no trace of human presence, as if these cabins had never seen a human footstep and had been abandoned for quite some time.

A few cracked window panes indicated that the cabins were recently built, not centuries old, suggesting they weren’t the lair of some dreadful witch.

Figures cloaked in snow-white capes stealthily moved through the woods near the cabins, not in a hurry to approach.

Images on the screen continually displayed warning signals, identifying trees and marking contours and dimensions. The infrared response of biological entities displayed temperature colors on the mask display. Behind them, exceptionally skilled snipers covered their movements.

“Report, squad leader, target detected! I spotted a hidden lookout; I can eliminate him at any moment. There are no double lookouts arranged, and I’ve detected electronic reconnaissance devices. I need an hour to set up the camouflage deception signals.”

“Understood, ‘Cabbage,’ we have four hours left. I need you to control the external electronic monitoring system.”

Lying behind a snowbank, Major Chen Renkai turned and gave a thumbs up to Squadron Leader Zhang Zhenyu. “My squad’s electronics expert is already taking over the enemy’s monitoring system; let’s take a break.”

“Can we see their entrances and exits?”

Squadron Leader Zhang nodded, took out his tactical tablet, and checked the satellite synthetic aperture radar for in-depth scans of the target. As the program processed, a model of an underground structure gradually took shape; it would take about half an hour to complete the mapping.

“Currently, three exits have been found, but there may be hidden ones. I’ve sent people to search. Once we start, we’ll immediately install C4 remote-controlled bombs and anti-personnel mines at the discovered exits. The original plan to encircle remains unchanged. The soldiers brought enough tear gas; it should be fine.”

Squadron Leader Chen exchanged reassuring glances with Squadron Leader Zhang. With radio communication available, their exchange no longer relied on gestures or voice modulation devices.

Squadron Three had always been assigned the most dangerous missions, suffering high casualties. Every soldier made it this far due to their exceptional skills. Some specialized in tracking, others in camouflage, some in forensic analysis, and others in deduction, resembling an expert team capable of handling various complex environments.

Beyond shooting and combat skills, every soldier in the Night Special Forces Combat Squadron specialized in a particular military technique, becoming an expert in that area, thereby enhancing combat efficiency. The best warriors were those who could think on their feet during battle.

At this moment, Lin Mo was stationed on the battlefield outskirts, only five hundred meters from the forest cabins, carrying a large canvas bag filled with loot.

Lin Mo didn’t care at all about the Alpha warriors. Unable to understand Morse code, he acted on instinct and took the initiative before the two squad leaders could stop him. He quietly finished his work with a knockdown.

Neither squad leader expected Lin Mo to move so quickly; by the time they reacted, it was already over. As he observed the situation around the Forest Cabins with binoculars, he quietly loaded the Light Mirror Technique into the lens to capture as many images as possible, though this was limited to above ground; he couldn’t see the underground structures.

The Light Mirror Technique was not an all-encompassing solution.

This time, Lin Mo did not spot anything wrong. Even if there were unusual signs, the experienced Night soldiers had already noticed and marked them on the electronic map. Once one person marked something, everyone could see it instantly.

The information link of the digital soldier combat platform significantly enhanced the team’s operational efficiency. Each person could observe all around and hear everything, relying on each other to provide information and cover any gaps.

Listening to the operational arrangements from the two squad leaders, Lin Mo could hear their exclusive leader-level communication channel. Besides the two of them, only he could listen in. At that moment, Squadron Leader Chen Renkai’s voice filled all the helmets: “Everyone synchronize your watches; we will begin operations in three hours and fourteen minutes.”

“‘Monkey,’ ‘Dirt Dog,’ keep an eye on the ‘Dragon Knight.’ Don’t let him take independent actions, and don’t let him inside.”

Although they had agreed to take Lin Mo out for target practice, Squadron Leader Chen Renkai was ultimately still uneasy about Lin Mo. If they weren’t careful, this ace could cause trouble for them. There were different strategies for the sky and the ground, each with its own expertise. Major Chen Renkai did not expect Lin Mo to compare to his elite teammates trained in coordinated combat; one person couldn’t complete all tasks on their own.

The sun had already set, and the sky was covered in twinkling stars. The cold air from the Arctic mixed with the chilly currents from Siberia, and the branches of the trees rustled in the winter wind, sometimes producing terrifying howling sounds, like a cacophony of strange noises as if a hundred ghosts were wandering about. Snowflakes, remnants from who knows how long ago, drifted down softly.

The area around the Forest Cabins was silent, seemingly isolated from the world as usual.

It was hard to tell how long it had been when a cloud, floating from who knows where, blocked the starlit night sky, and snowflakes slowly fell, dimming the forest to a point where one could not see their own hand.

Weather, terrain, and human cooperation. When they began their operation, Night had determined the timing based on weather data from meteorological satellites, using the snowfall and cold currents as their best cover.

“Operation begins!” The voice of Squadron Leader Zhang Zhenyu rang out in all the tactical helmets.

Following that, a muffled sound echoed through the trees, where a North Korean special forces sentry lay hidden in a thick tree hole at the base of a large tree. The entrance was covered with bark, making it nearly undetectable from the outside while slightly shielding him from the Siberian night chill.

But he was unprepared for what lay behind the tree. A silenced automatic rifle unleashed an entire magazine at him. The smell of blood drifted into the cold wind; without a sound, the North Korean soldier inside the tree hole was dead before he knew it.

“Sentinel neutralized!”

“Beginning disruption of the monitoring system, safe!”

Several shadows leaped onto nearby detectors, their quick movements connecting various concealed defensive devices and attaching deception interference equipment.

Everyone’s “Dragon Guard” digital armor activated all its functions almost simultaneously. Each soldier’s detection devices formed a detection network through the data link, allowing everyone to share reconnaissance information and communicate on a public platform.

A small relay device installed on-site connected to the computer system on a “Bamboo Dragonfly” several dozen kilometers away, providing even more performance support.

Four soldiers, armed with automatic rifles, swiftly entered the wooden cabin, holding a laser cutter and powering it up against the floor. Pure white sparks flew as four high-power laser beams etched four deep lines, each about the thickness of a finger.

In moments, a bright red hollow square with high temperature appeared on the crude wooden floor, and the heat from the laser was quickly swallowed by the incoming Siberian cold.

The wooden floor was pried open, and the four Night soldiers took out electromagnetic suction cups, placing them over the metal trapdoor beneath. The strong electromagnetic field clung to the heavy steel plate, and all four worked together, using their combined strength to lift the nearly hundred-kilogram metal plate, revealing an underground passage inside the cabin.