Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 924 Hatred
The scorching air of Islamabad felt like a burning ember stuck in my throat; with each breath, a heavy smell of gunpowder and acrid smoke filled my nostrils.

At the entrance to the town, Song Heping's gaze passed over the armored vehicle of the "Death Squad," whose hood was still warm, and landed on the devastation of the street.

The suicide bombing carried out by the "Martyr" on 1515 had destroyed half of the buildings on both sides. Scattered among the ruins were fragments of limbs, and dark red, sticky bloodstains meandered in the dust, attracting swarms of flies and mosquitoes to buzz around in the afternoon sun.

"Have Eames and his men take a headcount, gather ammunition, and we're leaving here immediately."

After giving instructions to Jiang Feng, Song Heping leaned against the car, took out a bottle of mineral water, drank half of it, and poured the remaining half over his head.

"This damn weather..."

He felt as if the cool spring water poured on his head was like pouring it onto a hot pan, sizzling and steaming.

"woo woo woo woo--"

The sudden crying alerted Song Heping.

Just a dozen meters in front of the armored vehicle, a woman knelt on a pile of rubble, tightly holding a small body in her arms.

It was a little girl, at most three or four years old, wearing a floral dress whose color was long gone, hanging softly like a rag doll whose soul had been taken away.

The woman buried her face in the crook of her child's neck, her shoulders convulsing violently, each spasm feeling as if she were about to vomit her internal organs.

Just now, members of group 1515 stormed into the city, and these guys killed almost everyone they saw.

Although before the war began, Song Heping had ordered Eames and his men to inform the local people to take shelter in their houses to avoid being injured by stray bullets.

But bullets have no eyes, and the intense firefights ultimately resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians.

That's what war seems to be like.

Anyone caught in it could die.

Whether they are soldiers or civilians.

"Demons! You demons who bring death!"

Just as Eames and his men returned and passed by the woman, she suddenly began to scream at the group of soldiers while holding her daughter's corpse.

The overwhelming hatred in her voice was as clear as a poisoned blade.

"Allah will punish you! It's you! It's your bullets! My Laila... my little sun!"

She suddenly raised her head, her bloodshot eyes fixed on Eames's face, which was closest to her. Her gaze was empty and crazed, as if she wanted to devour him alive.

Eames's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, and he instinctively gripped the cold rifle handle in his hand, but after glancing at the girl's corpse in the other man's arms, he held back in the end.

He opened his mouth, as if to explain something—

The deadly stray bullet, whistling and tearing through the air, was clearly fired from the abandoned building where the 1515 militants were entrenched on the street corner.

But the woman's utterly broken, hatred-filled eyes acted like an invisible wall, blocking all his words.

He could only stand there stiffly, his face a mixture of helplessness and the frustration of being unjustly accused.

Song Heping stood in the shadow of the armored vehicle, watching all this, his heart heavy and depressed.

The scene before me had a surreal, nauseatingly magical quality.

The logic is crystal clear: it was that group of madmen from 1515 who brazenly attacked this town, and it was their bullets that, like the scythe of death, indiscriminately reaped the streets.

However, logic appears so pale and laughable on this crushed land.

In the woman's shattered world, in her pupils swallowed by boundless darkness, all the gun barrels are pointed in the same direction—the source of the war.

Regardless of who owns the gun.

Perhaps, from the very beginning, this protracted war was stripped of the glamorous veneer of so-called "right and wrong".

In the eyes of millions of ordinary people like the woman before them, war itself is the ultimate evil that is etched into their hearts and cursed with all their might.

It indiscriminately crushes everything, leaving behind ruins and wounds that never heal.

In the face of the deaths of innocent people, there is no banner of justice, only bloody pain and hatred.

Song Heping suddenly felt a long-lost sense of guilt.

He wanted to curse, but didn't know who to curse.

He spat the chewing gum into the ground, waved at Jiang Feng, and said, "Let's go!"

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable resolve and a heavy weariness.

"Everyone, get on the bus! Let's go immediately!" Right now, Song Heping didn't want to stay here for even a minute longer.

The engine roared again, and the steel behemoth clumsily turned around amidst the rubble, its tracks grinding through dust mixed with dark red blood.

Song Heping glanced at the rearview mirror one last time.

In the mirror, the woman holding her daughter's remains, like a stone statue frozen in immense grief, grows smaller and more blurred.

Her piercing curse, like a leech, pierced through the roar of the engine and the scraping of metal, clearly imprinting itself in his ears, refusing to fade away:
"God will curse you! He will curse all those who take up arms! He will curse this damned war! He will curse you all—!"

An almost suffocating silence filled the carriage.

Song Heping sat in the passenger seat, his body swaying slightly with the bumps of the car.

He closed his eyes, his brows furrowed, and he felt a tightness in his chest.

This feeling is somewhat similar to how I felt after my first murder in Iligo.

I never imagined that after so many years in the defense industry and having been through so many battles, I would suddenly witness the body of a little girl in a small Middle Eastern town and be ambushed again.

"Song, are you feeling very unwell?"

Utkin, who was sitting behind him, suddenly asked.

Song Heping instinctively wanted to deny it, but in the end he nodded.

Utkin comforted him with the words of someone who had been through it all: "In a few years, you'll be completely numb."

Song Heping smiled wryly. He touched his phone in his pocket and felt an urge to call his younger siblings.

Perhaps only the voices of loved ones can help one rediscover their place in reality.

But when the time came, he still didn't take out his phone.

After all, he's already on the terrorist list, and calling them would only cause more trouble.

This line of work can be brutal at times.

The best way to protect your loved ones is to cut ties with them.

Like an arrow released from a bow, the convoy broke free from the mire of sorrow and hatred in Isriyah and rushed into the vast and desolate heart of the desert.

The monotonous, withered sand dunes stretched out of the car window, undulating all the way to the gray horizon.

Deir ezur.

That lonely city, stubbornly standing on the banks of the Euphrates, was their destination, but also the entrance to hell.

There was almost no intelligence support; the only certainty was that the area had been completely surrounded by the 1515 armed forces.

They must enter the city and then join up with the Wakna mercenaries to obtain enough troops to go to Asara, a town near Deir ez-Zor, to rescue the cook.

Thinking of this, he turned to Utkin and asked, "Have you contacted your troops? Where are they?"

"They have a long way to go and will arrive an hour or two later than us."

Utkin glanced at his watch.

"I just contacted them and I've just arrived in Baisili."

"Hurry up. If you don't want to find just the cook's body, then you need to get your men to Deir ez-Zor before dawn tomorrow. We don't have much time to waste."

Five hours later.

It was getting dark.

The sand beneath the wheels gradually hardened, and more gravel began to accumulate.

In the distance, the outline of a dark mountain range, stretching like the back of a sleeping giant, became increasingly clear under the dazzling afternoon sun, lying across the horizon.

"Mount Gailby".

Jiang Feng's voice broke the long-standing silence in the carriage. He pointed to a mark on the map and looked up at the mountain range.

"The natural barrier of Deir ez-Zor. We've arrived."

"Stop the car at the foot of the mountain and don't go any further."

Song Heping immediately issued the order over the radio.

(End of this chapter)