Mercenary I am the king

Chapter 975 Trapped Beast
The wheels rolled over the cracked asphalt, kicking up dry, choking dust.

The barbed wire fence along the northern border of North Darfur, a symbol of the divide between order and chaos, rapidly shrank in the rearview mirror of Song Heping's Hummer, eventually being completely swallowed up by the swirling yellow dust.

Before us lies Lebia.

The time was early 2014, the third year after Gaddafi's downfall.

This once prosperous North African country has long been shattered by the iron heel of civil war.

The air was thick with the pungent, heavy smell of despair mixed with gunpowder.

On both sides of the road, the town ruins, torn apart by artillery fire, silently pointed to the gray sky like grotesque skeletons.

Amidst the ruins, one can occasionally see ragged figures rummaging through the rubble. Are they survivors or vultures?

Can't tell.

On the wall of a roadside building, a huge, faded portrait of Colonel Gaddafi has been torn to half a face, his empty eyes staring at the land he led into the abyss and which collapsed completely after his death, with an absurd mockery.

"Damn it, this is hell on earth."

The jinx sitting in the passenger seat was chewing gum, but his eyes were like knives scraping across the window.

He was a burly man, like a moving wall. The old scar on his face, running from his brow bone to the corner of his mouth, twitched slightly as he was jostled, exuding a fierce aura that kept strangers at bay.

"This is just the beginning."

In the back seat, the hunter's eyes, sharp as a hawk's, scanned the high points and suspicious cover on both sides of the road.

"The further you go in, the more lively it becomes."

Song Heping didn't speak, but just looked at the devastation through his sunglasses.

The convoy, consisting of a regular pickup truck used by Haftar's armed escort, six reinforced armed pickup trucks, and two wheeled armored personnel carriers, roared along the dilapidated road.

The vehicle was fully loaded with one of the most elite combat platoons of the "Musician" defense, along with the necessary weapons.

Meanwhile, on the northern Darfur border, a 3,000-strong mercenary force under the command of White Bear is secretly deploying according to a pre-arranged plan, ready to intervene in the Lebanese civil war at any time.

The convoy passed through a village that had been completely destroyed.

Several charred corpses were carelessly dumped in a roadside ditch, attracting swarms of flies that emitted a nauseating buzzing sound.

Several children, dressed in tattered clothes and with numb eyes, squatted beside the ruins, unresponsive to the roaring convoy, as if their souls had long been drained by the war.

"GNA's 'masterpiece'."

Hunter Lin Mo's voice remained cold and unwavering.

"The 'government forces' coming from the north were bribed by the Americans, armed by the British, and their Saudi counterparts, the madmen of Sevahabi, were used as cannon fodder. Haftar's men were blocking their way."

The jinx spat fiercely: "Damn it! They use the money they get from oil to feed their own people!"

Song Heping's gaze fell on an old woman huddled under a broken wall, holding a swaddled baby tightly in her arms, motionless.

His eyes behind his sunglasses remained expressionless, but the knuckles of his fingers gripping the car door handle turned slightly white.

Every drop of blood that flows from this land is soaked in the greed of external powers.

The fluctuating oil futures figures in the City of London, the plans on 10 Downing Street and the White House desk—the costs of which are clearly imprinted on this scorched earth before us.

The closer one gets to the eastern desert region controlled by Haftar's forces, the more difficult the roads become.

The so-called highway has long been ravaged by tank tracks and heavy artillery, leaving only potholes and gravel.

The convoy often had to take detours, leaving new tracks in the barren Gobi Desert.

Along the way, some makeshift checkpoints began to appear, guarded by soldiers wearing haphazard uniforms but with armbands uniformly embroidered with Haftar's "National Army" (LNA) insignia.

Their eyes were tired, their equipment was outdated, and the barrels of their AK-47s reflected a dim light under the blazing sun.

Upon seeing this well-equipped and menacing convoy of foreign troops, the soldiers' faces showed a mixture of vigilance, curiosity, and a barely perceptible glimmer of hope.

"Boss, we're just outside the desert city."

The driver, a South African veteran nicknamed "Trigger," pointed to the outline of a cluster of low, earthen-yellow buildings appearing on the horizon.

Desert City—Haftar's last stronghold in the east, an isolated island surrounded by yellow sand and despair.

As the convoy drew closer, the traces of war became even more shocking.

The city's perimeter was covered with anti-tank ditches, barbed wire, and makeshift minefield markers.

Barricades made of sandbags and abandoned vehicles are everywhere, with heavy machine guns mounted on top.

Bullet holes covered every remaining wall like pockmarks.

Besides the smell of dust, the air was also filled with a faint stench of corpses and the smell of gunpowder—a deathly odor.

An officer in faded camouflage uniform with a bandage on his right arm stopped the convoy at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city.

After confirming Song Heping's identity, he forced a polite smile onto his weary face, but his eyes held a deep, deathly stillness: "Mr. Song? Welcome to the front hall of hell. The general is waiting for you at headquarters."

Led by several armed pickup trucks, the convoy drove into the city, which was filled with an apocalyptic atmosphere.

The streets were sparsely populated, and those who were there seemed to be hurrying along, their faces pale and thin.

Beside the ruins of collapsed houses, people built makeshift shacks out of plastic sheeting and sheet metal. Several emaciated children huddled around a smoking metal barrel, trying to scoop out something to eat. Several ambulances, marked with red crosses but riddled with bullet holes, sped past, leaving behind a trail of piercing sirens.

"Damn it, can this place... even be defended?"

The jinx muttered a curse under his breath; even he felt the overwhelming despair.

From soldiers to civilians, this armed force exuded a sense of exhaustion and numbness, as if they had been pushed to the brink of despair.

Haftar's command post was located in a relatively intact three-story concrete building, heavily guarded with heavy machine guns mounted behind sandbag fortifications at the entrance. However, the entire building was riddled with bullet holes, and one wall even had a large hole blown into it, which was barely covered by a tarpaulin.

Song Heping, accompanied by Hunter and Calamity, led two tense LNA guards through a corridor filled with the smells of sweat, cheap tobacco, and engine oil, and into a fairly spacious room on the top floor.

This room is the heart of Haftar's territory.

In the center of the room was a huge wooden conference table covered with scratches and coffee stains, on which lay a battle map of eastern Lebia that had been repeatedly smeared and was already filthy.

On the map, the red arrows representing the GNA and its affiliated armed forces, like the forked tongue of a viper, tightly coil around the blue areas representing the LNA-controlled territories from the west, south, and north.

The blue area is now just the desert city and a few isolated dots around it, surrounded by dense red markers, as fragile as a candle flame in a storm.

Next to the signs representing important strongholds, suffocating words such as "Ammunition only enough for 3 days", "Fuel out", and "Heavy casualties" were scrawled in a mess.

Several old field telephones hung on the wall, their cables tangled like a mess. In the corner were several boxes of opened compressed biscuits and bottled water.

Haftar stood in front of the map, his back to the door.

He was tall, and even in his slightly oversized desert camouflage combat uniform, his upright frame as a soldier was still evident.

But at this moment, his broad shoulders were slightly hunched, revealing an indescribable heaviness.

Hearing footsteps, he slowly turned around.

This is a face deeply etched by desert winds and the anxieties of war.

His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones were high, and even his thick, graying beard couldn't hide the weariness on his face. Those brown eyes, which might have once burned with the flames of ideals or ambition, were now only filled with bloodshot exhaustion and a kind of almost frozen resentment.

His lips were chapped, and the knuckles of his fingers, gripping a red marker, were white from the force he was using.

"Mr. Song."

Haftar's voice was hoarse, but his tone remained relatively steady. "Welcome, or rather... I'm sorry to show you the worst side of Leviathan."

He extended his calloused hand and shook hands firmly with Song Heping.

The handshake was very strong, as if trying to grasp at the last straw.

"The situation is worse than we anticipated."

Without exchanging pleasantries, Song Heping glanced at the suffocating map and got straight to the point.

Haftar let out a short, bitter laugh, like sandpaper rubbing against metal: "Damn? No, Mr. Song, it's despair."

He slammed his red pen down hard on the location of the desert city on the map, so hard that the pen tip almost pierced the paper.

"GNA bastards! And their masters behind them—the vampires of London and Washington!"

His voice suddenly rose, trembling slightly with excitement, and a flame of anger burned in his eyes.

"Do they think that by stuffing some dollars in, airdropping a few batches of second-hand weapons, and letting those lunatics under the banner of 'jihad' lead the charge, they can make us submit? That they can drain Libya's oil like water?"

He pointed sharply to the west, “The Tripoli ‘interim government’ they’ve installed is a bunch of puppets who have sold their souls! Lebia’s fate should be in the hands of the Lebian people themselves, not as playthings of Western oil companies and geopolitics!”

His chest heaved violently as he gasped for breath; after the anger came a deeper sense of powerlessness.

"The Russians... those bears in the north, they promised support. But now? Humph, they've found cheaper, more fanatical proxies..."

His tone was filled with resentment at being betrayed.

“Those Wagner mercenaries have shifted their focus to the more resource-rich Central Africa, and we… have been abandoned.”

He slumped down, put down his pen, braced his hands on the edge of the table, leaned forward slightly, and his voice lowered, carrying a tragic air of a hero's end: "My lads... are good. They are fighting for a unified Lebia, one not controlled by foreign powers. But the reality is... we don't have enough heavy weapons to fight the GNA's armored vehicles and armed pickups, no ammunition, no fuel, no medicine... we're even short of decent anti-tank weapons. The GNA receives a steady stream of military aid and intelligence support from the West, and potential air cover... while we have nothing but sand, stones, and blood that's almost dried up."

He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes fixed on Song Heping, a look tinged with a last vestige of stubbornness and an almost pleading hope: "Mr. Song, the equipment and training you promised... are our last hope. If we can't get substantial support within a month to break the GNA's encirclement of the eastern front of Desert City..."

He slammed his hand on the map. “They intend to turn this place into a giant tomb. My army, along with the last will to resist in this city… will be crushed.”

A heavy silence enveloped the room, broken only by Haftar's heavy breathing and the faint sounds of construction or explosions coming from outside the window.

The air was thick with the scent of failure and death.

Song Heping silently stared at the precarious blue area on the map, his eyes behind his sunglasses sharp as a knife, quickly weighing each piece of intelligence.

Hunter Lin Mo took a step closer without making a sound, his voice extremely low, whispering in Russian that only Song Heping could hear: "Boss, the situation is worse than Henry's intelligence. This armed group... is rotten to the core. Morale has collapsed, equipment is gone, and logistics have been cut off. To help them fight against the GNA and the West behind them... requires a huge investment, carries even greater risks, and is too slow to yield results. Perhaps... we should turn around and contact the Misrata militia? Or the Zintan militia? They are closer to the oil fields, have a stronger foundation, and with money and weapons, it would be more effective and cost-efficient."

The hunter's analysis is cold and pragmatic, like a precise scalpel dissecting the cruel reality.

Song Heping's fingertips unconsciously traced across the rough desktop map, skimming over the blue strongholds that symbolized despair.

The hunter's words were like cold steel needles, piercing the scales of reason.

Misrata?

Jintan?

These local armed groups are indeed closer to the oil lifeline of the Gulf of Sidra, still possess considerable strength, and are not entirely united with the Western-backed GNA.

Supporting them, leveraging oil interests, and striking at the heart of British vulnerability seemed to be a shorter, more direct, and more cost-effective path.

And this Haftar in front of us…

The leader of an armed group trapped in a besieged city on the verge of collapse, and a demoralized, poorly equipped remnant army...

Is it worth betting the huge sums of money from the Mbala Diamond Mine Memorandum, and the future strategic focus of Musician Defense, on this desolate desert?
A moment of hesitation, like a fleeting dark cloud on the desert horizon, swept across Song Heping's heart.

This gamble seems too high. I can lose, but what if the stakes are the lives of countless brothers...

"I see."

Song Heping responded to the hunter's concerns in a low voice in Russian, then turned to Haftar again: "General, please continue to explain the biggest problem you are facing now. Don't worry, I will listen carefully."

(End of this chapter)