Chapter 121: Counterattack in the Jungle

Silencing people—Sanders explicitly attributed the reason they were attacked to this. Zhao Li had no objection to this conclusion. Although he did not witness how the monster was ultimately disposed of, it was indeed something ordinary people should not have seen.

Zhao Li was also furious about the attacks the two of them had suffered. If he hadn't just acquired a high-tech bulletproof vest, he would surely be a corpse right now.

Zhao Li had experienced being transferred to an inescapable prison simply for protecting others, had witnessed people being locked away for a lifetime to protect certain secrets, and had even been reassigned to the middle of nowhere just because of suspicion—though that last one seemed to be his own choice.

However, what Zhao Li detested most was silencing witnesses by murder. The last time because of this ridiculous and pathetic excuse, out of all the prison guards Zhao Li had worked with, only the old warden was still alive. This time, merely for seeing something they shouldn't have, he was getting a taste of that same experience all over again.

Regardless of any other justification, people usually try to come up with a plausible excuse, but this time they struck directly without asking any questions. Even a clay idol has some fire in it, let alone Zhao Li, who was a violent machine trained by the Federation, and who had spent a full year undergoing grueling special training by a bunch of stone-cold killers.

"Zhao Li, I don't know if you're still holding on to that foolish notion of trying not to kill unless absolutely necessary, but this time it's different," Sanders warned him in advance. "If you don't kill, others will kill you! There is no room for compromise, understand?"

"Understood!" Although Zhao Li wasn't particularly fond of killing, in this situation, he had no other choice left. Sanders was right: if you don't kill, you get killed. Zhao Li had no desire to use his own life to pad the combat record of some unknown enemies.

Sanders looked quietly into Zhao Li's eyes, as if trying to discern whether he was lying. After all, this was murder, not a game. Zhao Li's calm gaze seemed to indicate that he had accepted this reality. Finally, Sanders nodded, gave a grand wave of his hand, and said, "Let's move out! Remember, this is a jungle hunt, don't tell me you've forgotten those techniques."

Zhao Li nodded again, and the two of them, one right after the other, vanished into the boundless jungle.

High in the air, inside a massive cloaked aircraft, a commander-in-chief was flying into a rage. "It's been five hours, and you still haven't found the trace of those two bastards? Are you all a bunch of idiots and good-for-nothings?"

"Sir..." A weak-sounding voice came through the communicator in an attempt to explain, but before he could finish addressing his superior, the commander cut him off. "I don't care what method you use, I want those two people dead! Your operation is top secret; anyone who witnesses your actions must be silenced forever, understand?"

"Yes, sir!" The subordinate replied loudly. Judging by the sound, they seemed to be rigorously trained soldiers.

"There was blood at the initial attack site; they must have been contaminated with the incapacitating virus. Five hours—even two elephants should be lying down waiting to die by now. Expand the search radius immediately. You must find them and make sure they can never utter a single word!" The commander did not speak, but a man beside him—not in a military uniform, but wearing a scientific researcher's white lab coat—interjected.

Not only did the commander raise no objection to this interruption, but he even elaborated further. "They passed through water and should have washed their bodies in it, which makes tracking the incapacitating virus quite difficult. Unless we wait for the virus to multiply extensively... Five hours should be about enough. Search along the riverbank, we must find them!"

"Yes, sir!" The voice of acknowledgment came through the communicator once again. "Traces of passage found!" an excited soldier reported.

"Keep tracking!" The commander's expression finally improved slightly.

"We found one of their campsites, but there's no sign of them," a soldier reported after a long while.

"Then they must be nearby, find them immediately!" the commander ordered loudly. A campsite? Infected with the incapacitating virus, running desperately for their lives, and then resting—they must be completely paralyzed and unable to move by now. They definitely had to be close by. The commander let out a long breath, feeling that this would soon be resolved.

Shortly after the commander gave his orders, the first group of soldiers to arrive dispersed under the squad leader's command. Everyone knew about the incapacitating virus; once infected, it suppressed the human motor system. Within just a few short hours, it could turn a strong, bulky man into a puddle of mud. This virus wasn't fatal; it only stripped away mobility, making it the ideal tool for capturing targets. Moreover, when the incapacitating virus multiplied extensively, it secreted a distinct odor—undetectable by human noses, but easily tracked using a specialized electronic nose.

This brand-new virus was said to have been recently developed, and besides them, no one else possessed the specific antidote. Even these soldiers had been injected with an immunity vaccine a few days before departure, which would protect them from the effects of this incapacitating virus for several months.

The commander sat quietly in his spacious chair, waiting to hear good news. The man in the white lab coat beside him sat in silence as well, the two of them staring blankly at each other. No one could have anticipated such an accident during a classified mission; the entire area had already been cleared once, yet somehow two people had still managed to pop up. Now they could only wait for the results with no other alternative available.

A muffled grunt echoed through everyone's communicators. However, everyone assumed it was just someone tripping or bumping into something by accident, and nobody paid it any attention.

A sharp snap—everyone assumed it was just someone stepping on a branch or some other debris.

Countless ordinary sounds, mixed in with the search noises of numerous people, were seamlessly masked. However, the commander soon noticed that the sounds coming through the communicator were gradually thinning out.

"Each squad, search carefully!" The commander reminded them once more. "You must find them!"

A few simple replies came through the communicator, but the number of voices was pitifully small.

"What's going on?" This time, the commander didn't use the communicator, but instead asked the man in the white lab coat beside him.

Under the commander's gaze, the scientist casually activated the communicator's positioning function, displaying it on the screen. In less than half a minute, sweat broke out on both of their faces.

Among the search team positions shown on the screen, at least thirty people had remained completely motionless from a moment ago until now. What it meant for a search team to remain completely stationary without reporting in was something both of them knew all too well.

"Ambush!" The commander decisively activated the communicator to warn all personnel. Over thirty people, a force of six squads, had been wiped out without a whisper. What kind of people had they provoked? There were still about a dozen people left—a little over two groups, but less than three—so he needed to warn them to be careful.

Just as he finished saying those words, it was as if a powder keg had been ignited. A burst of intense gunfire erupted from the communicator, drowning out the commander's voice.

It was certain that the enemy had been monitoring all communications the entire time, until the commander's warning just then let them know that any chance for further assassination had passed.

The gunfire finally ceased, and the commander and the scientist stared blankly as all the location dots on the screen remained frozen in place without any movement. Neither of them spoke again, but both knew that the remaining two groups below had also met their doom.

Were their opponents really just two people? Or was someone laying a trap specifically designed for this operation? This was the first thought that flashed through the commander's mind.

This operation was entirely top-secret; even the subordinate soldiers didn't know the specific details, only arriving here to carry out orders for an arrest, and not a single detail had ever leaked. How could so many people be wiped out cleanly in the span of just an hour?

Could two guys infected with the incapacitating virus wipe out over fifty people? That probability was ten thousand times lower than a pile of meteorites suddenly falling from the sky and taking out all fifty of them. The only possibility was that this had been pre-arranged.

Leaving aside whether anyone could happen to show up in such a remote place by chance, the antidote for the incapacitating virus was strictly restricted, and outsiders could never possibly possess it.

"No matter who you are, the flow of the incapacitating virus antidote can definitely be traced. You're dead men!" the commander threatened darkly into the communicator. He believed that the people below would definitely hear him. With so many targets, he had no way to pinpoint the exact locations of the attackers through the communicators, which meant he no longer had the means to continue precision airstrikes.

Having said this, regardless of whether the people below could hear him or not, the commander viciously hung up the communicator. This operation was infuriating; how had it turned out like this? Just as he caught his breath to calm his boiling rage, he heard the scientist beside him scream out, "Oh no..."

"The incapacitating virus?" The voice coming through the earpiece made Zhao Li repeat the phrase involuntarily, a trace of vigilance rising in his heart. However, when he lowered his head and saw the corpse lying beside him, his heart sank even further.

It wasn't as if Zhao Li had never killed anyone before; he had killed when seizing the purple crystals and when wiping out the Black Prison mercenary group. However, most of the people he had killed previously were shot with guns. The only time he had broken someone's neck with his bare hands was when an eight-tier expert threatened Li Mengdie's life.

Killing a powerful expert who threatened your life was one thing; killing people who had almost no ability to resist was entirely another. From the moment Zhao Li took down his first victim, he knew that these were certainly not elite special forces; they were simply ordinary soldiers.

Under Zhao Li's stealthy surprise attacks, not a single person could withstand a single blow from him, unable even to make the most basic sound. For a dozen consecutive people, his go-to method was to clamp a hand over the target's mouth from behind and swiftly snap their neck. Of course, there were also times when it was necessary to pierce an enemy's heart with a military dagger.

Practice makes perfect, and under the pressure of being hunted by numerous searchers, his jungle stealth techniques had matured rapidly, and his killing methods had likewise grown far more practiced.

However, when he and Sanders used guns to eliminate targets they had long since scoped out, and then carefully examined the bodies before them, he saw a face with wide-open eyes and an agape mouth, yet completely unable to utter a single sound.

The youthful facial features showed that the other person was no older than Zhao Li, at best a fresh-faced kid straight out of recruit training camp. That tender face was filled with reluctance, fear, and a hint of pain.

This was the first time Zhao Li had looked so closely at a face he had killed with his own hands. In an instant, a string seemed to be plucked deep within Zhao Li's heart, and his mind spun in a daze as a voice inside him kept questioning: "Did I do this? Did I do this?"

Even with his eyes closed, that young and tender face still appeared before Zhao Li's eyes, crystal clear. Zhao Li couldn't help but want to scream out loud, but he managed to force the sound back down his throat just as it reached it. Who knew if there were still enemies around? Screaming like that was far too dangerous.

Sanders over there had already confirmed the death of those hit by gunfire in the middle, and hurried over to rendezvous with Zhao Li, right as he witnessed Zhao Li's reaction.

"What, can't stomach it?" Casually crushing the communicator Zhao Li was wearing on his head, and carrying the lingering murderous intent of someone who had just slaughtered dozens, Sanders asked fiercely.

"I don't know!" Sanders' return was timely, and his words allowed Zhao Li to completely regain his composure. Raising his hands to look at them, there were no scars on them, yet in Zhao Li's mind, those hands felt soaked in blood.

"This is just a few people. When I led a team for live-combat training here for the first time, our seven-man squad faced an encirclement of over four hundred people. In the end, the enemy was completely wiped out, but of my squadmates, aside from me, only one survived—and when we got back, he still had to have his limbs amputated and be permanently discharged from the military." Sanders began recalling his own military career while simultaneously trying to pump Zhao Li up. "Do you want to end up like those corpses on the ground, or do you want to be that squadmate who got his limbs amputated and was discharged?"

Zhao Li didn't want to be either, so he looked at the corpse before him, opened and examined his hands, and replied firmly, "I'm just a little unaccustomed to it, I'll get over it soon."

"Not bad. To handle things this ruthlessly on your first time and snap more than a dozen necks with your bare hands—you're better than I was back then." After the harsh reality check, Sanders began to praise Zhao Li, patting him on the shoulder before shifting the topic. "These guys are really mysterious, they don't even wear military dog tags."

Doing this was undoubtedly to maintain secrecy. However, Zhao Li was more concerned with something else. "What is the incapacitating virus?"