228: Chapter 228 The Gun Muzzle in the Empty Room

Then let them come.

He had spent half a month using the materials provided by the system and the tireless labor of the Death Soldiers to transform this natural hollow and old sewer beneath the ruins into a true labyrinth of death. It featured a three-layer three-dimensional structure with twelve real passages paired with twenty fake ones; every fork in the road could be a choice between life and death.

There were no heroes here, only hunters and prey.

And today, the hunting grounds were fully prepared.

3:00 AM, the surface of Gaza's East District.

Fifty fully armed soldiers slid out of armored personnel carriers like ghosts, quickly fanning out into a security formation. They wore dark gray special ops camouflage, their helmets integrated with four-lens night vision goggles and thermal imaging modules. Masks covered the lower halves of their faces, leaving only eyes that were as sharp as eagles' in the night.

This was the 3rd Company of the "Yasam" special forces, codenamed "Iron Pickaxe." They were specifically trained for urban underground combat; every member had undergone at least three hundred hours of tunnel simulation training and was well-versed in identifying and clearing various traps.

The commander, Captain Yossi Levi, crouched behind a low wall, watching the "abandoned well" fifty meters ahead through his helmet display. Thermal imaging showed a faint warm air current escaping from the wellhead—indicating ventilation and human activity below.

"Team A, release the 'Mole'," Yossi ordered in a low voice.

A soldier took a shoebox-sized hexapod robot from his backpack. The robot slid silently onto the ground, crawling toward the wellhead with precise steps and descending along the well wall. Its head was equipped with a high-definition camera, a thermal imager, and a gas analysis sensor.

On the control tablet, the feed began to transmit: the vertical shaft was about eight meters deep, with a passage extending horizontally at the bottom. The passage walls showed signs of manual reinforcement, and there were fresh footprints on the floor. Gas analysis showed normal oxygen levels and no common toxic or flammable gases.

"Team B, sonic scan."

Another soldier set up a device shaped like a satellite dish, aiming it toward the wellhead. Sonic pulses were emitted, and the returning data constructed a rough outline of the underground—a complex network extending in at least three directions.

"Captain," the technical sergeant reported, "detection depth is about thirty meters, multiple hollow structures found. Heat signatures... concentrated in the southeast, about forty meters straight-line distance from our current position, showing characteristics of a cluster of five or more people."

Yossi narrowed his eyes. A clustered heat source—this was likely the enemy's headquarters, or at least a significant assembly point.

"Team C, establish a communication relay. Teams D and E, follow me down the well. Remember, maintain spacing and check every inch of the floor and walls. If you hit a fork, send the robot in first to scout. Our goal is to find and destroy that command node and capture the enemy commander alive if possible."

"Understood!"

Ten minutes later, twenty "Yasam" members rappelled into the bottom of the well in sequence. They moved in pairs, back-to-back, with muzzles pointed to the front and rear of the passage. Night vision goggles were switched to thermal mode; in their field of vision, the passage ahead appeared a cold blue, with only a few faint yellow spots in the distance—these were "human heat signatures" simulated by decoy generators.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Too smoothly.

Underground, Command Node F.

Sinwar watched twenty red light dots slowly enter the tunnel network on the screen. They were cautious, using robots to scout every step and checking the floors and walls for pressure plates or tripwires. In the first ten minutes, they had advanced less than fifty meters and cleared three simple booby traps—traps that were originally intended to waste their time and energy.

"The decoy heat sources are working," a Death Soldier said, staring at a split screen. "They're heading toward Sector E."

Sinwar nodded. "Wait until they've all entered the narrow passage in Sector G, then initiate Phase One."

"Yes, sir."

In the tunnel, Captain Yossi frowned.

They had advanced eighty meters along the main passage and discovered at least five suspected traps, but they were all crudely made fakes—a loose wire, a brick intentionally sticking out, an empty ammunition box. This low-level psychological warfare actually made him more vigilant.

"Captain, the passage ahead is narrowing," the point man reported. "The width is only 1.2 meters and the height is 1.8 meters; we need to pass through in single file."

Yossi looked at the thermal imaging. On the other side of the narrow passage, those yellow heat sources seemed to have stopped moving, remaining in a larger space at the end of the passage.

"The headquarters?" His heart skipped a beat. "Teams A and B, advance with alternating cover. Team C, use the snake-eye camera to see what's at the end."

A soldier quietly extended a long pole with a flexible fiber-optic camera from around the corner. The image was transmitted to the tablet: the end of the passage was indeed a room of about twenty square meters. Inside were several boxes, hand-drawn maps on the walls, and several antennas—a typical setup for a temporary command post. Most importantly, thermal imaging showed five humanoid heat sources, either sitting or standing.

"Target confirmed." A ruthless look flashed in Yossi's eyes. "Prepare to breach. Flashbangs in three, two, one—"

BOOM!

The moment the flashbang detonated in the room, twenty "Yasam" members charged out of the narrow passage like cheetahs, their muzzles pointing to every corner of the room.

Empty.

The room was empty. There were only a few pieces of electronic equipment generating heat and several constantly rotating metal cylinders on the walls emitting thermal radiation—infrared decoy generators.

"It's a trap!" Yossi's expression changed drastically. "Retreat! Retreat, now—"

Before he could finish his sentence—

RUMBLE—!!!

At both ends of the narrow passage they had just passed through, pre-planted directional explosive devices detonated simultaneously! They weren't meant to kill them, but rather—to cause a collapse!

A massive amount of concrete fragments and rebar fell from above, instantly sealing off both ends of the passage! Twenty men were completely trapped in this twenty-square-meter room!

"Digging tools! Fast!" Yossi roared.

But in the next second, the vents in the four corners of the room suddenly sprayed out pale yellow smoke!

"Gas! Masks on!"

The team members scrambled to pull out their gas masks, but the smoke settled extremely quickly, rapidly filling the entire room. A mixture of chlorine and phosgene gas, even through the filter layers of the masks, still had a small amount seep in, irritating their eyes and respiratory tracts.

"It's no good! This gas can penetrate the filters!" someone began to cough violently.

Something even more terrifying happened.

On the walls of the room, over a dozen palm-sized firing ports suddenly slid open! In the darkness, muzzles extended outward.

"Take cover—!"