The result was a grizzly bear.

It turned out that the first missile fired was merely a decoy. When the Little Bird helicopter tilted right to evade, the true lethal killer, hidden in the wild grass to the left, revealed itself at precisely this moment and launched. Though only a single shot, the timing ensured the Little Bird had no chance to dodge again, as the aircraft was still recovering balance from its previous maneuver.

Inside the cockpit of the Little Bird, the warning radar shrieked. The Blackwater pilot could only watch in despair as the missile approached. He closed his eyes helplessly; there was no time for any action, not even to twist the control stick—the helicopter would not respond in time.

“Bang!” The Little Bird was struck and exploded into a fireball mid-air, scattering debris across a hundred meters. The burning fuselage crashed to the ground with a thunderous clang.

“Damn it!” Major Kleissman slammed his fist onto the table in rage. The impact knocked a coffee cup to the floor, shattering it. No one in the command room dared make a sound; everyone understood that losing the helicopter meant losing their greatest advantage.

“Contact the other teams. I need a helicopter here immediately!” Major Kleissman roared. His operators rushed to comply.

“Major, the nearest Team Thirty-Two still needs two hours to reach us,” came the reply from the communications officer moments later.

“Tell them they have one hour. No more,” Kleissman snapped.

“Major, look—something is approaching on the screen!” Suddenly, an operator shouted, pointing at the display. Kleissman turned to see a battered civilian car speeding toward the perimeter wall.

“Take it out,” Kleissman ordered decisively. Instantly, Blackwater mercenaries stationed on the wall, rooftop, and fourth-floor windows opened fire. Bullets riddled the approaching car, turning it into a sieve. To finish it off, a rocket launched from Building Three’s rooftop brought the car’s charge to a violent end, reducing it to scrap metal.

At this moment, the Blackwater compound resembled a latent beast—silent but deadly. Anything daring to approach would be instantly torn apart by its fangs.

Outside the wall, Elf and her team were locked in fierce battle with Blackwater mercenaries who had broken out. The fate of the probing car made it clear to Elf: now was not the time to approach the compound. Charging in would only make them a bullet-riddled target.

Since they couldn’t strike at the compound yet, they would first eliminate the mercenaries outside, weakening the enemy. With this in mind, Elf squeezed the trigger again, wounding a Blackwater mercenary whose leg protruded from behind a low wall. She then rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding a rifle grenade that blasted a shallow crater where she’d just been lying.

“Iron Man, find a chance to take out Grizzly,” Elf, back in stealth, pulled out her phone and speed-dialed Iron Man.

Unperturbed by the intense gunfire around her, Elf quickly pressed another key. “Misha, circle around and drive Blackwater out. Try to take them all down.”

“Roger,” came the reply.

Elf dialed again. “Mark, once Grizzly is down, start firing. Remember, set the houses ablaze as quickly as possible.”

After a few seconds of silence, Elf’s team burst from their concealment, opening fire on the Blackwater mercenaries. Amid the cacophony of gunfire, a sudden explosion erupted behind the enemy. A Blackwater mercenary at the rear turned, startled, to see a house collapse a hundred meters away. From the smoke, a vehicle, its front caked with debris, charged forward like a serpent emerging from its hole.

Instinctively, the mercenary turned and fired his 164, shouting into his radio, “Behind us! There’s an armored vehicle ambush—we need heavy fire support!”

His bullets ricocheted uselessly off the armored hull. As he moved sideways, reaching for the grenade on his chest, Emma on the machine gun opened fire.

At less than a hundred meters, the 12.7 caliber machine gun burst struck the warning mercenary, and, worse, hit the grenade strapped to his chest. With a thunderous blast, his body was obliterated.

Witnessing this, the remaining Blackwater mercenaries, locked in combat with Elf’s team, could no longer hold their positions. Facing the charging armored vehicle, they scattered from cover into the wasteland, hoping to hold out until Grizzly arrived. But Elf’s team seized the opportunity, chasing them down. The mercenaries, along with a few Raven Oil employees who had broken out, suffered heavy casualties.

With only a handful of Blackwater mercenaries left, Grizzly and two Humvees finally turned around at the road junction and rushed back to support.

With a hiss and a whoosh, Grizzly fired a guided missile at the rampaging armored vehicle. In that instant, Misha, at the wheel, felt his scalp explode with tension. He swerved violently, flooring the accelerator.

The engine roared as the vehicle veered and sped forward, trying to evade the missile. Meanwhile, Emma yanked the firing lever, launching all the decoy warheads from the turret. Dazzling showers of sparks formed a blazing umbrella over the vehicle’s roof, confusing the missile’s targeting system.

The dual countermeasures worked—the missile veered off course, exploding two meters beside the armored vehicle.

Battered but alive, the vehicle lurched through fire and smoke, its hull aflame in several places. Misha, undeterred, steered it level with Grizzly, unleashing wild machine-gun fire from the turret.

Meanwhile, the two Humvees followed, and their heavy machine guns joined the barrage. Streams of tracers left red dots across the night sky, and both vehicles’ hulls sparked as bullets bounced off.

In the stalemate, Grizzly fired another missile. But the armored vehicle’s decoy warheads were spent. Emma stared in despair as the missile approached, but Misha refused to give up, accelerating and finally reaching shelter behind a half-collapsed wall just as the missile struck.

The guided missile obliterated the wall, showering the vehicle in debris and sending a cloud of dust soaring nearly eight meters high. Yet, against all odds, the armored vehicle survived.

Grizzly pressed on. As its crew prepared a third missile, the vehicle unknowingly neared a ten-meter-high water tower along the residential road. At the critical moment, Iron Man, hidden nearby, pressed the detonator.

A pair of muffled explosions rang out, snapping two support pillars of the water tower. The massive tank, filled to capacity, crashed down amid the screech of twisting metal, landing squarely atop Grizzly.

With a cacophony of grinding steel and splintering metal, Grizzly’s launcher was crushed and its rear door pinned shut by twisted beams.

The Humvees behind slammed on their brakes, narrowly avoiding collision. As they prepared to reverse, a nearby two-story building was suddenly blown apart, losing its load-bearing walls. The whole structure toppled, burying a Humvee beneath.

The Humvee’s driver floored the accelerator, hoping to break free of the rubble, but Snake, who had been waiting for his moment, fired a single shot at the exposed missile warhead on Grizzly’s destroyed launcher.

With a thunderous explosion, the sympathetic detonation sent missiles hurtling wildly like skyrockets. Grizzly was reduced to scrap, and the rear Humvee was flung aside, catching fire.

Major Kleissman watched the carnage unfold on his surveillance screens, while the speakers on his desk broadcast desperate cries for help. The morale of the Blackwater team was shattered. Every deployment against these mysterious foes had ended in failure.

“Major! The support helicopter won’t arrive for another hour,” the liaison whispered fearfully, worried Kleissman would vent his rage.

“Then we hold for an hour. Let’s see how many men they have to outlast my ammunition.” With the enemy’s numbers, equipment, and objectives unknown—and his own helicopter and half his vehicles lost—Major Kleissman resolved to adopt a defensive strategy, relying on the compound and buildings for a last stand.