The screech of a truck's emergency brakes shattered the dead silence. Through the shattered window, Leitao saw more than twenty Japanese Army soldiers carrying Type 38 rifles filing out of the truck bed. Under the moonlight, the cold gleam of bayonets flickered alongside the cherry blossom badges on the soldiers' collars, and the troop leader's saber cast a faint, cold light in the night.
Heilong suddenly arched its back, a low warning rumbling in its throat. Leitao quickly switched his HK14 to burst mode, his peripheral vision catching a rusted liquid nitrogen Dewar flask in the corner—frost was flaking off the tank's surface, and the valve was wrapped in layers of faded warning tape. His pupils constricted as he remembered the crooked Japanese lettering he had seen on the tank when he first infiltrated the area: this was "special cargo" secretly transported by Unit 731. Just then, several of the Japanese soldiers, holding Type 38 rifles, advanced to within twenty meters of Leitao's position.
The midnight moonlight was torn into shreds of silver by the clouds. When the first gunshot pierced the stagnant air, Leitao's M24 sniper rifle had already completed its secondary zeroing. A 7.62mm bullet trailed a dark red exhaust, wedging into the titanium alloy seam at the bottom of the Dewar flask like a poisoned fang. The crisp sound of snapping metal mixed with the piercing scream of gushing liquid nitrogen, reverberating harshly inside the bomb shelter. The tank crashed over, t…
Chapter 488