243: Chapter 244 Forced Landing in Valley Leads to a $50 Million Bounty! Cross-Border Rescue Mission Fails Due to Missile Devastation

"Boom—!!!" A deafening roar exploded at the end of the Kabul Valley.

The wreckage of the massive Gulfstream passenger jet, trailing thick smoke like a heavy steel meteorite, slammed violently into the dried-up riverbed.

A crimson blaze shot into the sky, like a giant signal flare, instantly tearing through the darkness of this lawless border zone.

A violent wind rushed forward, carrying the pungent smell of aviation fuel.

Shen Hong, carrying a rifle in one hand, looked past the burning wreckage like a lone wolf in the dark night, staring intently at the distant horizon.

Just half a minute after the sky-high flames ignited, from the direction of a ruined town a few kilometers away from the crash site, dense and blinding headlights lit up in the darkness like ghost fires.

Following this, the extremely violent roar of low-quality diesel engines, accompanied by the faint sound of heavy machine guns being cocked in the wind, charged toward their position like a pack of wolves that had fallen into complete madness.

"Static... crackle..." Just then, the high-power shortwave monitor hanging on Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's tactical vest suddenly captured an unencrypted local public radio wave in this silence, which had been shielded to military grade.

There was no tactical silence from a professional army on the channel. Instead, it was filled with alternating, fanatical roars in Arabic, Russian, and English, chaotic as a pot of boiling molten iron.

Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's face turned leaden, and he pressed his hand firmly against his earpiece. Amidst the radio static filled with heavy breathing and cursing, a cold, direct, and fatally tempting English command was clearly captured by him:

"...Target down... Bounty, Fifty million dollars!"

Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's breathing stalled. This was not a simple military interception; it was an outlaw carnival ignited directly by astronomical black money!

In this deep-water intelligence zone where there were no rules, a fifty-million-dollar cash bounty was enough to lure every mercenary, desperado, and local warlord who smelled blood to come out in full force.

"Stop listening; our landing coordinates were locked onto by infrared thermal imagers a long time ago." Shen Hong turned around abruptly and strode toward Shen Du, who was lying on the gravel not far away: "Get ready to fight our way out!"

"Cough... cough cough!" The sharp pain of gravel pressing against his spine, accompanied by a suffocating sensation in his chest that felt as if it were tearing him apart, caused Shen Du to suddenly open his eyes amidst a suppressed cough.

What met his eyes was a cloudless night sky that exuded a bone-chilling cold. Intense tinnitus left his brain still filled with a "buzzing" noise. But his remaining sanity immediately captured the abnormality of the environment.

There were no leather sofas from the guesthouse, no constant-temperature cabin at ten thousand meters altitude. There was only the rough and cold rocky ground, and the thick smell of gunpowder and blood in the air.

Before Shen Du could ask what had happened in this wilderness, a harsh sound of metal colliding violently smashed into his eardrums. "Click, click."

Shen Du endured the dizziness and turned his head. Borrowing the faint light, he clearly saw that Shen Hong and Honorary Vice President Yan Feng, who had originally been in suits, had now completely changed their appearance.

The two men were wearing heavy Kevlar tactical vests, their chest holsters filled with dark rifle magazines. High-explosive grenades, tactical communication headsets, Damascus combat knives. These individual killing equipments that had only appeared in movies were now hanging on them without any concealment.

Shen Hong was looking down, deftly slamming the last magazine into a backup assault rifle, his eyes as cold as if he were looking at a corpse. There was no superfluous comfort, nor any long-winded explanation.

Hearing Shen Du's cough, Shen Hong didn't even lift his head. He directly used the toe of his tactical boot to kick a set of bulletproof vests and a pair of combat boots that had been thrown beside Shen Du. "Put them on, move fast."

With a "clatter," Shen Hong pulled the bolt of the MP5 submachine gun in his hand. He glanced at the foot of the mountain, at the lights of the vehicle convoy approaching rapidly like a swarm of crazy ants. His tone was chilling and without any inflection:

"The private plane crashed, and the signals here have been shielded across all bands at a military level. Our current coordinate value is fifty million dollars." Shen Hong raised his head, his eyes staring fixedly at Shen Du like tangible sharp blades: "Put on the bulletproof vest. If we can't fight our way out of this encirclement tonight, the three of us will likely not see tomorrow's sun."

The aftereffects of the shockwave left Shen Du's brain still in a state of recurring dizziness. However, he displayed psychological resilience far exceeding that of an ordinary person. Without any unnecessary chatter or hesitation, Shen Du grabbed the Kevlar bulletproof vest from the ground and put it on.

His fingers felt somewhat stiff when fastening the tactical buckles due to the surge of adrenaline. Whether in his past life or this one, he had never touched a real gun in a real-life Shura field. But the oppressive feeling of impending death had forced him to keep up with the rhythm of the two men.

Stomping forcefully into the high-top combat boots, Shen Du had just straightened up when a heavy black firearm was thrust directly into his arms. Looking at the pickup truck convoy at the foot of the mountain that was already close at hand—he could even hear the sound of tires grinding against the gravel—Shen Hong had no time to provide any basic tactical instruction.

He pressed down on Shen Du's hand holding the gun, and with his thumb, violently flicked open the safety catch on the side of the gun for him. Shen Du glanced down; it was a compact MP5 submachine gun. He immediately realized that Shen Hong was afraid he wouldn't be able to handle the massive recoil of an automatic rifle, so he had specially chosen this weapon, which was easy to control and suitable for close-range fire suppression, to save his life.

"Listen up, there's no time to teach you about aiming!" Shen Hong's speaking speed was as fast as rapid-fire bullets, and his instructions were extremely brutal and direct: "You only need to remember two things: First, never point the muzzle at me or Old Yan; control your finger, don't have a negligent discharge! Second, as long as you see someone shooting at us, don't think about anything else, just pull the trigger all the way!"

"Understood." Shen Du didn't say a word of nonsense, gripping the cold gun handle tightly. "Retreat!"

Honorary Vice President Yan Feng held his assault rifle and cut directly into the blind spot ahead to clear the way, while Shen Hong held his gun to cover the rear. The three of them didn't hesitate at all. They quickly followed the dried-up erosion gully and plunged into the pitch-black, complex, and deep rocky mountains of the Kabul Valley.

Less than five minutes after the three of them retreated into the complex weathered rock zone, the pursuers, like maggots on bones, had already bitten down hard on them. There was no probing, nor any extra shouting.

"Da da da da—!" A dense rain of bullets, like a violent metal storm, instantly shredded the boulder they had been hiding behind just a second before. Sharp gravel, exploded by the massive kinetic energy of the bullets, splattered in all directions like buckshot, slamming hard against Shen Du's bulletproof vest, making a heart-stopping, dull thud.

"Keep your profile low, don't expose your head!" Shen Hong roared, his body pressing against the cold rock wall as he suddenly dodged to the side. The assault rifle in his hand instantly poked out from behind cover. Relying entirely on muscle memory etched into his bones, he fired two precise short bursts toward the flashing muzzle flares below. Two shrill screams immediately came from the darkness.

But immediately after, even more insane, all-encompassing crossfire poured toward them like mad dogs. "There are too many people; we can't kill them all!"

Honorary Vice President Yan Feng lowered his body, moving rapidly through the trench-like erosion gully. He didn't blindly return fire. Instead, he reached back and pulled off a high-explosive fragmentation grenade, pulling the pin with one hand. After counting silently for two seconds, he used the cover of the rocks and viciously hurled it toward the blind spot with the heaviest firepower.

"Boom—!" The violent explosion was infinitely amplified within the narrow cave passage. Amidst the sky-high flames, accompanied by the severed limbs of several militants and flying dust, the pungent smell of blood and gunpowder instantly flooded into the three men's nostrils.

Intense firefights erupted completely in the Kabul Valley. This was not an evenly matched battle at all, but a frantic slaughter launched against them by bounty hunters covering the mountains and plains. The three could only rely on the rugged caves and weathered rock formations to wage an extremely tragic fighting retreat.

Shen Du gritted his teeth, suppressing the taste of rust welling up in his throat. His fingers were stiffly hooked outside the trigger guard. Amidst the deafening explosions and fire suppression, he moved to the extreme, following the tactical rhythm of the two men.

The roar of heavy firepower shattering rocks and the screams rising and falling in the darkness were like frantic drumbeats, permeating this long and bloody night.

When the first ray of gray-white morning light struggled to tear through the thick night of the valley, the gunfire across the mountains and plains finally saw a brief pause. The three of them leaned against a giant rock that had been riddled with holes by large-caliber bullets, panting violently.

A whole night of desperate flight and high-intensity firefights had completely drained their physical stamina. The bullets in Shen Hong's assault rifle were all spent. The Damascus combat knife he held in reverse had dark, congealed bloodstains in its blood groove.

Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's tactical vest had a huge gash torn by shrapnel, and he looked as if he had been fished out of smoke and blood. Just in this suffocating, brief silence.

"Static... crackle... This is 'Storm' flight formation... Repeat, target coordinates locked..." In the backup shortwave radio on Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's chest, which had maintained frequency silence the whole time, a fragmented, high-frequency encrypted voice suddenly pierced through!

Honorary Vice President Yan Feng jerked his head up, and an unbelievable light instantly burst forth in his eyes, which were bloodshot and red from exhaustion. He grabbed the radio, his voice trembling violently with extreme excitement:

"It's the cross-border fighter jet formation from Europe! The message got through; that old monster gave a kill order, and they actually crossed the border and sent more than a dozen military fighter jets to forcefully carpet-bomb the area for extraction!"

Almost the same second Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's voice fell. "Rumble—!" The violent roar of fighter jet engines instantly tore through the thick morning clouds! Several white vapor trails, having broken the sound barrier, raced directly toward the sky above the Kabul Valley!

That represented the violent machinery of a nation, the ultimate hope that could instantly turn the bounty hunters covering the mountains and plains into ashes. Shen Du jerked his head up, his gaze piercing through the cracks in the rocks, staring fixedly at the fighter jet formation in the sky that represented life and the chance to fight back.

However, this ecstasy of surviving a disaster hadn't even had time to fully bloom on Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's face before a sudden change occurred!

"Whoosh—! Whoosh—! Whoosh—!" Deep in the valley. From several underground shadows hidden in radar blind spots where even sunlight couldn't penetrate, several blinding scarlet exhaust flames suddenly shot out!

Those were heavy anti-aircraft missiles that had long been locking onto the airspace from the ground, ready to fire! They carried a terrifying shriek that tore at the eardrums. Rising from the ground at a terrifying speed, they shot straight into the sky like the fangs of a viper!

"No!!!" Honorary Vice President Yan Feng's eyes were splitting, and he roared in despair. Under the shocked gaze of the three, their pupils contracted.

"Boom—!!!" Twenty thousand feet above, those European fighter jets, about to complete their tactical dive and fire coverage, were locked onto by the missiles before they could even fully deploy their chaff and flares.

Violent explosions erupted in the morning sky, and several massive fireballs, tragic to the extreme, stung everyone's eyes. Burning heavy metal wreckage, like apocalyptic meteors, dragged black smoke as they slammed toward the earth.

The air seemed to solidify completely at this moment. The hunters hiding in the dark used this most maniacal, most reckless, iron-blooded method to deliver a final death sentence to these three trapped beasts: They were determined to bury Shen Du completely in this deep-water zone, even at the cost of shooting down regular military fighter jets of a nation and triggering an international war!

That only path to survival that could tear open the encirclement was, right before their eyes, completely welded shut.