Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 20 Sneak Attack
Zhuang Fan wasted no time; he issued commands to the remaining six android soldiers via the wrist panel.

Six cold, industrial constructs marched in unison toward the lizardmen's lair.

The standard-issue pistols they carried were allocated by the Greylag Goose team; they had few bullets and were only used as bait.

"Bang bang bang-!"

Sparse gunshots echoed in the empty cave, like stones being thrown to test the waters.

Several lizardmen on guard duty poked their heads out from the rock face, their blood-red eyes rolling around.

What's going on?

Instead of attacking rashly, they let out short hisses and called to their companions.

The android soldier stopped, and the metal shell at the end of its arm slid open, revealing a menacing industrial drill bit and hydraulic shears.

The drill bit began to spin at high speed, emitting a piercing buzz that kept the sentry at bay.

Deep within the lair, the lizardman leader listened to the commotion outside, his crimson eyes filled with confusion.

"Was that the same group from earlier? Go check it out!"

One of the lizardmen beside it obeyed the order, its figure moving like a ghost, silently climbing up the cave wall, peeking out from another crack, and carefully observing the enemy's position.

A moment later, it brought back intelligence: there were only six tin cans, and there should be two or three humans in the distance; their firepower was insufficient.

The lizardman leader let out a deep, guttural growl, filled with bloodlust.

A dozen or so lizardmen emerged from the nest like ghosts, crawling at high speed along the walls and ceiling, and pounced on the somewhat clumsy iron lumps.

The moment they entered firing range, the automatic turrets hidden in the shadows of the rock wall were activated.

“Da da da da—!”

Flames spewed forth, and a dense barrage of bullets instantly tore through the darkness, turning the lizardmen at the forefront into clouds of green blood mist.

"laugh--"

Broken scales and fragments flew everywhere and stuck to the cold rock wall.

The turret was incredibly efficient; twelve mutilated corpses fell to the ground in just a few seconds.

The lizardmen had never encountered such intense firepower, and their primal ferocity was instantly crushed.

"Run!"

They let out terrified screams, turned around, and fled back to their nests in a panic, like frightened geckos.

The turret fell silent, the gun barrels emitting burnt heat, and spent shell casings littered the ground.

Inside the armory, Harry whistled excitedly: "These long-tailed idiots aren't even enough to fill a turret's teeth!"

The machine gunner and sniper didn't speak, but their tense shoulders relaxed slightly.

Grey Goose's gaze swept across the surveillance screen: "Don't let your guard down."

On the other side, a roar came from the depths of the lair—the impotent rage of the lizardman leader.

It was fooled.

This was not an encounter, but a carefully laid trap. The tin cans were just bait; the real killing move was the turret.

After its anger subsided, it licked the tips of its sharp claws, forcing itself to calm down.

They have occupied this shelter for more than two months, and every crack and every ventilation duct has been thoroughly explored.

The leader turned his head and let out a low hiss toward an inconspicuous crack behind the lair, then ordered the other lizardmen to create a commotion outside the cave entrance.

"Team leader, they've appeared again!"

Grey Goose stared intently at the screen, where several lizardmen stood timidly outside the range of the automatic turret, as if provoking, yet not daring to take a step forward.

"They might be a decoy, a feint," Zhuang Fan warned.

Grey Goose's expression changed slightly, and he immediately gave the order: "Regroup and keep an eye on all the cracks and openings. The enemy may launch a surprise attack at any time."

Harry, gun in hand, stood guard in a corner, grumbling with a gloomy expression, "I'm sure not even a mosquito could fly into this lousy place..."

As soon as he finished speaking, a faint scraping sound came from an inconspicuous crack in the rock wall.

A rifleman turned around warily, raised his gun, and aimed.

"There seems to be a sound..."

"I have them here too, in several places!"

The crevices were too narrow, barely wide enough to fit an arm, so the rifleman had to turn on his shoulder flashlight.

A beam of pale, intense light sliced ​​through the darkness, illuminating the deep crevice.

At the very center of the aperture is a huge golden vertical pupil.

Under the intense light, his pupils instantly contracted into a deadly black line, clearly reflecting the rifleman's terrified face.

The next second, a giant claw covered in rock-like scales emerged from the crack without warning and seized his head with lightning speed.

"Click."

A crisp sound of bone cracking.

The soldier didn't even have time to scream before his head, along with his tactical helmet, was crushed like a ripe watermelon.

Red and white substances splattered all over the walls, and the headless corpse collapsed limply.

"Enemy attack!"

“Thump, thump, thump—!”

A hail of bullets rained down on the wall.

Soon, rubble fell from the wall, and a colossal creature over four meters long squeezed out of the narrow crack.

Zhuang Fan's pupils contracted sharply as memories flashed through his mind like lightning:

[Ancient Lizard, a wasteland variant of the Komodo dragon, a top predator with a highly venomous tongue, brownish-red skin, and scales as hard as rock. It stands nearly one meter tall, four meters long, and weighs up to one ton.]

It opened its enormous mouth, its serrated teeth still covered with bits of flesh, and the saliva dripping from its scarlet tongue made the ground sizzle as it corroded it.

More ancient lizards broke through the wall, a total of five.

The lizardmen emerged from the shadows from both the front and back, completing their encirclement of the humans.

"The rear!" Grey Goose said solemnly from behind cover.

"Fire! Fire!"

Harry screamed in terror and fired wildly at the ancient lizards, the bullets striking their hard scales and sending up only a series of sparks.

"boom--!"

The last remaining armored soldier moved.

Like an enraged bull, he charged at the ancient lizard, and the two engaged in a primal hand-to-hand combat.

The mechanical arm collided with the scales, producing a screeching sound.

The ancient lizard tore several grotesque gashes in its power armor, but the armored soldiers held its neck firmly, ignoring the hydraulic system's overload warning.

"Crack!"

With his last ounce of strength, he snapped the ancient lizard's spine, and its massive body crashed to the ground, twitching a few times before falling still.

Another ancient lizard was still biting him from behind when he slammed it heavily to the ground with an over-the-shoulder throw, cracking the floorboards.

"Boom boom boom!"

The mechanical giant leg stomped hard, smashing the ancient lizard's skull into a pulp after several stomps.

However, the armored soldiers' energy system was also destroyed, and their heavy bodies knelt on the ground, entering offline mode.

Zhuang Fan opened the airlock, bringing in the remaining four android soldiers to join the battle.

The entire armory was transformed into a semi-enclosed cage.

Gunshots, roars, and the clanging of metal mingled with the stench of blood and the smoke of gunpowder; the battle was extremely intense.

"Illumination flares!" Grey Goose gave the order decisively.

Instantly, the entire room was bathed in a stark white light.

The lizardmen were temporarily blinded, thrown into disarray, and their casualties increased rapidly.

The leader, his face grim, roared a few times before raising his iron-pipe rifle and accurately shooting down all the brilliance stones and emergency lights.

"Bang bang bang-!"

The room was plunged into complete darkness.

Grey Goose and the others immediately switched to night vision goggles, but the interference from the eerie fog was particularly severe, with their vision filled with a lot of green noise and ghosting.

The darker the environment, the faster the eerie fog forms.

The lizardman leader was also affected by the eerie mist, but it didn't care, since humans were more anxious than they were.

The four android soldiers were an exception.

Relying on thermal sensing and acoustic positioning, they precisely pounce on the nearest lizardman, tearing open its scales with industrial drills and crushing its bones with hydraulic shears.

Humans, mutants, enhanced beasts, androids.
The battle situation became extremely chaotic.

"puff--"

Another rifleman had his neck slashed open by claws and fell into a pool of blood.

Seeing this, the flamethrower sprayed the last can of fuel forward, setting an ancient lizard on fire before it could dodge.

The ancient lizard whipped its tail wildly, and the fire soldier, unable to dodge in time, was swept off his feet and sent flying against the wall, his fate unknown.

"Oh shit!"

Harry let out a strange scream and fired wildly into the darkness. Some bullets grazed the sniper's ears, nearly causing friendly fire.

"Stop!" Grey Goose was about to stop him, but Zhuang Fan was even faster.

He snatched Harry's automatic rifle and kicked him to the ground.

"Stop causing trouble. Here's your kick back. Go cool off somewhere else."

With the cover of darkness, Zhuang Fan was finally able to unleash his abilities without any worries.

He stood at the edge of the battlefield, silently flicking out a few wisps of condensed dark mist from his fingertips, which quietly burrowed into the brain of an ancient lizard.

As the dark mist entered its brain, the ancient lizard stiffened slightly, its eyes wide open and motionless.

"puff--"

The bullet struck its eye precisely, and the massive creature instantly collapsed, dying instantly.

It worked!
This was his first real-world application of the Fog of Deception, and the results were excellent.

Meanwhile, the greylag goose was being forced into retreat by an ancient lizard, whose gaping maw was almost within reach.

But its movements suddenly froze, its blood-red eyes became empty and dull, and it stood there with its mouth wide open.

Without the slightest hesitation, she thrust the gun into its upper jaw and frantically pulled the trigger, completely smashing its head from the inside out.

On the other side, an armored soldier crawled out of his wrecked power armor and was immediately targeted by an ancient lizard.

But the ancient lizard seemed to have lost all its strength, its massive body frozen in place.

The sniper seized the opportunity and finished it off with a single shot.

This bizarre situation occurred four or five times in a row.

The grey goose keenly sensed something was wrong; the enemy's movements had become sluggish and stiff, as if they were bound by something.

She glanced at the silent figure in the corner, suppressing her doubts; now was not the time to investigate.

Many more lizardmen, whenever they peek out, will freeze briefly, revealing a fatal flaw.

The Grey Goose team seized the opportunity and picked off these live targets one by one.

"What?! What's going on?!"

The lizardman leader finally realized something was wrong; his own men were dying too quickly, and their offensive had inexplicably crumbled.

A fear stemming from instinct seized it.

The wind is blowing!

It let out a sharp hiss and gave the order to retreat.

The remaining lizardmen also fled in panic.

"Go to the nest!" the greylag goose said without a trace of emotion.

Meanwhile, at the lair, the last ancient lizard was tearing apart its prey, while five lizardmen guarded the hostage.

When the Grey Goose team arrived and witnessed the hellish scene before them, their anger flared instantly.

"All destroyed."

They poured their remaining ammunition and Molotov cocktails into this den of evil without hesitation.

When the lizardman leader fled back with his remaining troops, they were met with a trap that had been prepared beforehand.

"Boom—Boom!"

The entrance to the lair was blown up, and gunshots, explosions, and screams echoed in the narrow cave.

In the end, everything returned to silence.

The battle is over.

Grey Goose felt utterly exhausted. She counted the men; apart from the three fallen riflemen, five remained with her.

They are Harry, the medic, the machine gunner, the sniper, the flamethrower whose fate is unknown, and the young man who has taken off his power armor.

On Zhuang Fan's side, there are only two bionic soldiers left.

The young man leaned against the wall, his face full of bewilderment at surviving the ordeal. He looked like a steel behemoth, but inside he was all flesh and blood.

But the danger has not gone away.

Just when everyone was most relaxed, Durian appeared with his sixteen men.

"Bang bang bang!"

Without any warning, gunshots rang out suddenly.

The moment Zhuang Fan saw Dulian, he moved, shoving Grey Goose aside.

The bullet grazed her cheek, while Zhuang Fan's left arm exploded into a cloud of blood.

Despite the excruciating pain, he remained unfazed, retaliated with a shot, and accurately struck the gunman.

"A hero saving an ugly person, that's good."

Durian wore a cruel, provocative smile: "How did it feel to clean up the trash? Now, it's your turn to be the trash."

He timed his move perfectly, arriving when both sides were out of ammunition and supplies, to reap the benefits of the situation.

Without further ado, Zhuang Fan and his group engaged in a fierce battle.

In the fierce battle, the fire soldier whose fate was unknown was now confirmed to be gone.

The Grey Geese had no time to grieve; they quickly ordered their team to take cover and launch a counterattack.

But they were running out of ammunition and soon found themselves at a disadvantage.

"Retreat first, I'll protect you!"

Zhuang Fan had two android soldiers stand side by side to form a temporary mobile shield to cover the retreat of the main force.

Grey Goose nodded gratefully to him and led the remaining team members back to the rear passage.

The twenty-odd surviving civilians, still unaware of what had happened, turned and ran when they saw the Grey Goose gang rushing towards them.

But Zhuang Fan knew very well that Durian would not let them go easily, so he deliberately slowed down, trying to lure them into the range of the automatic turret.

But Durian was no longer fooled.

He had secured the only escape route; all he had to do was wait patiently. He had the advantage in terms of both food and time.

In the end, the entire Grey Goose crew retreated to the control room.

The medic deftly cut open Zhuang Fan's sleeve, revealing a bullet embedded in his bone, a bloody mess.

"It will hurt a little, just bear with it."

After removing the bullet, he opened the medical kit and took out the last nanotherapy injector.

"and many more."

Harry stopped him. "The nanotherapy unit is team property, belonging to our Edge Mercenary Group. It must not be used on a wanted criminal of unknown origin!"

Grey Goose looked at him coldly: "Get out of here, I don't want to repeat myself."

"I'm just stating the facts! He caused us to lose so many lives, why should he use our best medicine!"

Harry stood there stiffly, looking completely self-righteous.

"It's alright, we just need to get the bullet out."

Zhuang Fan took the bandage and wrapped it around his neck a few times. He could treat external injuries with the Ghost Mist anyway, so there was no need to waste this precious potion.

Suddenly, a rescued civilian approached the medic with a fawning smile on his face.

"Doctor, I'm injured too, could you please take a look?"

Where is it?

He suddenly pulled out a dagger from his pocket and slashed it across the medic's neck.

"Pfft-"

Blood gushed out, and the medic clutched his neck and collapsed into a pool of blood.

"Gentlemen, Chief Durian has arrived! He will save us! Come on, kill them! This will be a great achievement!"

The man's face was contorted with fanaticism.

The young armored soldier was the first to react, roaring as he tackled him to the ground.

Grey Goose quickly pressed on the medic's bleeding wound and injected the nano-injector into it.

After being swayed like this, several men indeed began to get restless, exchanging knowing glances.

In a tense atmosphere, emotional manipulation is always useful.

Seeing that the scene was about to descend into chaos, Zhuang Fan simply raised his gun and told the young armored soldier to move aside.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Four gunshots rang out.

The man's limbs were precisely smashed, and he lay sprawled on the ground like a lump of mud, emitting inhuman screams.

The entire control room fell into a deathly silence.

Most ordinary people looked at Zhuang Fan with a mixture of awe and evasion in their eyes.

Others with ulterior motives were even more frightened.

"boom!"

With the final gunshot, the screams abruptly ceased.

Zhuang Fan lowered his gun expressionlessly, smoke still rising from the muzzle, and calmly said:
“You should be more afraid of me.”

　Thank you all for your support. The new book will be released every night at 20 PM, and I will polish each chapter.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)