Chapter 1584: No Way Out!

When the thousand soldiers of the Cataclysmic Front led by Lu Zhanjun charged up the western slope of the mountain, they had fallen completely into the death trap Hamid had set for them on the western flank.

Just as Lu Zhanjun was worrying about missing the window of opportunity and led his men in a high-speed charge, he had no idea that all around him, several stone crevices had suddenly transformed into flat, pitch-black openings.

Immediately after, tongues of fire from machine guns erupted instantly!

In an instant, the sound of gunfire roared!

Lu Zhanjun only heard the sound of gunfire all around him. Before he could even react, he heard the miserable wails of his men and the sound of soldiers being hit and falling to the ground!

One thousand men were completely targeted by the muzzles of over two hundred light and heavy machine guns and dozens of RPG rocket launchers.

Then came the unsparing, saturated fire.

Bullets poured out frantically, mowing down Lu Zhanjun's soldiers row by row; it was nothing short of a massacre.

Gunfire and explosions followed one after another. In just a minute or two, Lu Zhanjun's unit had lost more than half its strength!

He was horrified, shouting at the top of his lungs: "Damn it! We've been ambushed! Organize a breakout immediately!"

However, he had no idea that for them, there was no longer any possibility of a breakout.

These thousand men had simply fallen into a death trap formed by more than thirty pillboxes.

No matter which direction they tried to break out in, they were effectively running straight into the muzzles of guns.

They attempted to return fire, but under such heavy encirclement, they couldn't even find a place to take cover, making it even harder to fight back.

After all, their opponents were all hidden inside steel and concrete fortifications, and their weapons could hardly inflict any effective damage on the enemy.

On Hamid's side, only a very small number of soldiers were hit by bullets fired into the fortifications by the enemy.

As the soldiers of the Cataclysmic Front dwindled, some who knew escape was hopeless shouted: "Quick, protect the commander!"

Immediately after, shouts of "Protect the commander" rang out from all directions as dozens of men gathered around Lu Zhanjun.

Soon, Lu Zhanjun was surrounded by several dozen men.

Seeing his brothers falling one after another, Lu Zhanjun was filled with grief and indignation. With red eyes, he shouted: "Brothers, falling into this ambush today is entirely due to my poor command. I hope you can forgive me!"

Several soldiers cried: "Commander Lu, we are the soldiers you trained. From the day we followed you, we have never had any regrets!"

Lu Zhanjun choked with sobs: "It has been the greatest honor of my life to fight alongside you!"

After saying this, he gritted his teeth and said: "Since there is no hope of survival, why bother protecting me? Move aside and let me fight these bastards! At least I won't die feeling so stifled!"

Dozens of Cataclysmic Front soldiers still refused to move, shielding him tightly. As more comrades on the perimeter were killed, of the thousand-man unit, only these forty or fifty remained, struggling to hold on.

At this moment, the firepower from all thirty-plus pillboxes was aimed directly at them.

Seeing more of his men fall, Lu Zhanjun pushed aside the soldiers blocking him, raised his assault rifle, and while firing fiercely at a nearby spitting muzzle, shouted: "Bastards! I'll drag you down to hell with me even if I die!"

With that, he charged out.

Hearing this, the other surviving soldiers were instantly overcome with bloodlust, shouting in unison: "Fight them to the death!"

Then, they charged out regardless of the consequences.

However, this suicidal charge, aside from making them feel slightly less stifled, had almost no impact on the battle.

Lu Zhanjun had barely charged out before he was struck by over a dozen bullets, instantly falling dead.

The other mercenaries following him didn't escape the same fate; one by one, they were mowed down like wheat and killed in less than thirty seconds!

This one-sided massacre ended in less than five minutes.

Afterward, Hamid's soldiers emerged from their cover to sweep the battlefield.

Post-battle statistics showed that a total of 1,001 mercenaries from the Cataclysmic Front, including Lu Zhanjun, had been killed—not a single one survived.

On Hamid's side, there were sixteen casualties in total, six of whom died from their wounds, while the remaining ten were injured but not in life-threatening condition.

This was an absolute, crushing victory.

At this moment, the commander in charge of the frontal feint, having waited a long time without seeing Lu Zhanjun strike from the flank, and having lost nearly a thousand men in this feint, furiously questioned Lu Zhanjun over the radio as to why he hadn't attacked. But there was no response from the other end.

He immediately ordered his men to contact other Cataclysmic Front soldiers, but it was like throwing a stone into the sea—there was no response.

This panicked him to the extreme.

On the battlefield, it was impossible for a thousand-man unit to lose contact entirely, especially since they weren't some ragtag group; these thousand men were the elite of the Cataclysmic Front, far superior in training, combat ability, and discipline to his own troops.

For such a unit to lose contact completely, the only possibility was that they had met with disaster...

The man was horrified and immediately ordered his feinting troops to retreat.

At the same time, he dispatched scouts to move in as quickly as possible to investigate.

An hour later, as the scouts approached the western slope, they used high-magnification cameras to observe the western position.

One look was enough to turn their faces deathly pale.

On the western position, Hamid's soldiers were currently sweeping the battlefield.

As for the thousand elite Cataclysmic Front soldiers and their commander, Lu Zhanjun, they were all corpses riddled with bullet holes.

Hamid's soldiers were currently collecting their weapons, equipment, and other strategic supplies.

The soldiers were quite interested in the weapons and ammunition carried by the Cataclysmic Front elites, as the overall standard of these weapons was superior to Hamid's army.

The Cataclysmic Front used NATO-standard weapons, mostly those equipped by the current U. S. military, while Hamid's troops used Warsaw Pact-standard weapons from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s; there was a significant gap in both quality and era.

Aside from the weapons, Hamid's soldiers were also very fond of the desert camouflage uniforms worn by the Cataclysmic Front elites.

Unfortunately, their uniforms had long since been riddled with countless holes and were of no further use.

However, the treasure-hunting Hamid soldiers discovered that the trousers of the Cataclysmic Front elites were mostly intact and could be stripped off and worn.

These American-style desert camouflage trousers were well-made and expensive, far superior to the rags Hamid's soldiers were wearing.

Beyond that, what made the soldiers drool even more were the tactical boots worn by the Cataclysmic Front elites.

These men used extremely expensive professional tactical boots—well-designed, superior in performance, and puncture-resistant; they were artifacts for marching in deserts and mountains.

Such boots were always in high demand in the Middle East; on the black market, they cost at least several hundred dollars a pair, and even then, they were hard to find.

Thus, the scout witnessed the cruel scene of Hamid's soldiers stripping the trousers off the Cataclysmic Front soldiers one by one, removing their boots, and finally dumping the bodies into the valley.

What terrified him even more was that his lens happened to capture Lu Zhanjun's corpse; at this moment, he was left with only a pair of underpants, his body riddled with at least a dozen bullet holes, and his wide-eyed, dead expression was terrifying to behold.

The scout was terrified to the extreme and, while fleeing in a panic, reported to his superiors over the radio: "The... the Cataclysmic Front men are all dead... Lu Zhanjun... is also dead..."