Chapter 30: Night Infiltration
When the sky was completely dark, beams of searchlights swept across the Saint Limen Fortress, scanning over the Geya Alliance positions.
Although the searchlight bulbs were often shot out, the Sun Kingdom side would immediately replace them with new high-power bulbs to prevent enemies from sneaking into the fortress under cover of night.
"Commander, is this really okay? I keep feeling a chill down my back."
A female voice came from a pit 300 meters below the fortress.
"Shut up."
The pit fell silent.
"Don't paint here too, it's so embarrassing..."
"..."
"Commander, you're using the mission as an excuse to harass a female subordinate. This is going to military court. Ugh~ I was wrong."
In the pitch-black pit, the little assistant, covered in mud with particularly bright eyes, poked her head out and looked around.
"No enemies spotted. Commander? Commander?"
The little assistant turned her head, but Su Xiao was nowhere to be seen.
In a shell crater more than ten meters away from the little assistant, Su Xiao had his arm around an enemy's neck, covering his mouth and nose. Between his legs lay a corpse whose neck had already been snapped.
"Ugh~"
Crack!
With a crisp sound, the enemy Su Xiao had been holding stopped struggling.
A dark figure pounced over, a dagger in hand, stabbing wildly at the enemy between Su Xiao's legs. A few of the stabs nearly hit Su Xiao's leg.
Su Xiao kicked the little assistant in the side. She let out a muffled grunt, a sound very similar to when Su Xiao kicked Bubu Wang.
The little assistant looked at Su Xiao with a grimace.
"He's already dead."
"Uh~ Is that so?"
The little assistant grabbed the corpse by the collar and shook it. The enemy was indeed cold.
Setting aside the little assistant's mistaken stabbing of the corpse, her ferocity alone was something most women lacked.
Su Xiao took out a night vision device and tossed it to the little assistant. She put it on with a puzzled expression, then seemed to discover a new world as she reached out and grabbed at the air.
The night vision device Su Xiao provided was, of course, not ordinary tech. In the little assistant's view, besides everything being greenish, there were actually colors in her sight, though very faint.
The little assistant looked at Su Xiao.
"Commander, you're green."
The little assistant grinned mischievously, nearly getting kicked again. When she was kicked, she didn't feel angry because she could sense something from Su Xiao's actions. In Su Xiao's mind, she wasn't a weak woman but a soldier. On the battlefield, soldiers had no gender distinction.
Su Xiao pointed ahead at two shell craters where two enemies were lying in ambush. These Sun Kingdom soldiers were guarding against enemy infiltration into the fortress at night.
After the sky had fully darkened, the battlefield fell into a deathly silence. Only occasional gunshots could be heard, some reckless new recruits trying to scare the enemy. It had little practical effect. The veterans weren't afraid of these scattered shots, but if they heard the whistle of artillery shells, they would wake from their sleep.
The little assistant looked at the two shell craters Su Xiao pointed to and understood his meaning. One crater had five people, the other had two.
Su Xiao would clear the crater with five, while the little assistant handled the other two.
The little assistant crawled on her belly toward the crater with two people.
A searchlight beam swept over, and she immediately stopped. She turned to look at Su Xiao, but he had vanished again.
With a slight grunt, Su Xiao snapped an enemy's throat. He pulled with his left arm, and the blood-stained Realm Severing Thread tightened. The smooth line flicked off the blood before retracting into the reel.
Using the cover of night, Su Xiao looked toward the other crater not far away.
"Ugh..."
A muffled sound came from the neighboring crater. The little assistant had her legs wrapped around a soldier's neck, one hand covering his mouth and nose, her whole body riding on his shoulders.
The dagger flipped in her hand. Her arm swung down, and the sharp blade pierced into the enemy's skull.
The enemy's body went limp, but the little assistant still kept her hand tightly over his mouth and nose, causing her to bump her head into the soft dirt.
Behind the little assistant lay a soldier whose throat was more than half severed. The smell of blood spread.
The little assistant shook the dirt off her head and looked toward Su Xiao. She felt she had dealt with the enemy quickly and might be able to support him.
When she crawled into Su Xiao's crater, she frowned because she didn't smell blood. But when she saw the five corpses neatly lined up, with no visible wounds on their bodies, her pride took a hit. She had come to support...
"Good work."
Su Xiao buttoned up his uniform. He had already changed into a Sun Kingdom military outfit.
"10 seconds."
Su Xiao tossed a Sun Kingdom uniform to the little assistant. She sighed, and rustling sounds came from the darkness. Moments later, wearing a steel helmet and the enemy's uniform, the little assistant was fully dressed.
"Dagger."
Su Xiao looked at the little assistant's weapon. This time, she hesitated. This dagger had some special significance.
"Damn it."
The little assistant stabbed the dagger into the dirt and pulled a standard-issue dagger from an enemy corpse.
"Commander, it's a deal."
"...?"
Su Xiao looked puzzled.
"If this mission succeeds, you'll give me a special patterned spiral steel dagger. You just said so."
The little assistant set up a flag that could be called a death sentence.
"Is that so? I know a nice cemetery."
"Hah, I was just joking. This dagger is fine. Good quality. The chipping... the chipping is very neat~"
Su Xiao and the little assistant had to advance forward. They were now about 100 meters from the enemy trench.
The hardest part of infiltrating the enemy fortress was a 50-meter stretch in front of the enemy trench. This area was illuminated by hundreds of searchlights with no blind spots. Once they entered here, they would be in the enemy's line of sight. Who knew how many snipers were watching this spot.
This area was at least 20 meters wide. Su Xiao couldn't rely on speed to cross it. Those snipers had incredible dynamic vision. They didn't need to see Su Xiao clearly; if they sensed anything suspicious, they would sound the alarm, followed by artillery bombardment.
Once, a rabbit that ran out of a hole crossed this area and was blown to pieces by shells. The bombardment and heavy machine gun fire didn't stop for several minutes.
"Commander, what do we do?"
The little assistant looked at the brightly lit area more than ten meters away. It was like a quarantine zone.
"Wait."
Su Xiao took out a timer. He was 3 minutes ahead of schedule.
Three minutes passed quickly. In their own trench, a man with extensive burns on his face poked his head out.
"That ghost actually needs my help. How refreshing."
The man let out a sinister laugh, raised his gun, and aimed.
Bang!
The gunshot pierced the night sky. A bullet hit the lightning rod on top of Saint Limen Fortress, ricocheted, and finally struck a bulb on the fortress's diagonal rear.
A patch of the illuminated area went dark. At the same time, a figure darted through the darkness, seemingly carrying something in hand.