Bullets sparked across the creature's skull, carving shallow furrows in its flesh but doing nothing to slow its murderous advance. In seconds, it would be on him, ready to repeat the slaughter.
Suddenly, the deafening roar of a heavy machine gun split the air. A torrent of lead slammed into the hellhound, knocking it off its feet. It tumbled across the dirt before nimbly rolling back up, now peppered with dozens of small wounds. It threw its three heads back and unleashed a frustrated, furious roar.
Xiao Ke, his heart hammering against his ribs, glanced at the off-road vehicle. Luo Hou, the gunner, gave him a gritty, triumphant grin. "Lao Luo, good work!"
Luo Hou started to shout something back, but the hellhound was already coiling to charge again. He swiveled the turret and let loose another sustained burst. The heavy caliber rounds still couldn't deliver a killing blow, but the sheer volume of fire was enough to keep the beast at bay.
The near-death experience flipped a switch in Xiao Ke's mind. The "madman" inside him took over. He turned to his remaining men.
"Fight with me!" he roared. "Don't you dare run! This terrain is shit; the trucks can't get up to speed. That thing is faster than we are on wheels. If we try to escape, it'll just pick us off one by one. We make our stand here. We kill it, and we earn our damn merit!"
He'd wanted to yell at them to fight for Lu Chang's honor, but he knew an appeal to vengeance wouldn't work on these men. Military merit, however? That was a language they all understood.
It worked. They realized he was right—running was a death sentence. But if they fought, if they actually managed to take this thing down… the glory would be immense.
One by one, Duan Canglong and the others raised their weapons, using the vehicles as cover, and opened fire on the hellhound.
Unseen by the battling soldiers, a jeep had pulled up on a nearby ridge. A handful of men climbed out, all wearing the insignia of the Black Shark Legion. Their leader, a handsome but cruel-looking Centurion in his mid-twenties, watched the firefight with cold amusement.
"Well, well," he said with a smirk. "Looks like a bunch of greenhorns picked a fight with a hellhound."
One of his subordinates stepped forward. "Sir, should we help?"
The Centurion's smirk widened into a predatory grin. "A level-five is no joke. Let the new blood soften it up for us. We'll take over when they're done bleeding."
Every instinct screamed at Xiao Ke to focus on the three-headed monstrosity trying to tear him and his men apart. But even in the roaring chaos of combat, the voice of his mentor, Qin Bing, was a persistent echo in his mind: A commander's eyes are never just on the enemy in front of him. They're on the whole damn board.
So, when a dust-caked armed truck materialized at the edge of the blood-soaked clearing, he saw it. He registered the familiar black shark emblem stenciled on its side—the insignia of his own legion—and for a fleeting second, a wave of relief washed over him. Reinforcements.
But that relief curdled into a cold knot in his stomach. Three men disembarked, their Imperial soldier uniforms crisp and clean, a stark contrast to his own squad's grime-caked fatigues. He could just make out the rank insignia on one of them: a Centurion. They should have been charging into the fray, guns blazing.
Instead, they did something so utterly baffling, so insulting, that Xiao Ke almost lost his focus. The Centurion and his two subordinates just… stood there. One offered the other a cigarette. A lighter flickered. They leaned back against the hood of their vehicle, plumes of smoke rising lazily into the air, and watched the life-or-death struggle unfold with the detached interest of spectators at a gladiator match.