Starting from South America, speeding through the world

Chapter 216 Where is God?

A rebel camp in North Kivu Province, Congo.

It was already dark, the rain had just stopped, and water droplets still clung to the leaves.

The shoes sank into the mud, making a sticky, squelching sound.

Banza didn't pay any attention and continued walking.

A hijacked Toyota was parked in front.

He lifted the tarpaulin on the truck bed and confirmed that both bodies were still there.

A man and a woman, their clothes almost completely stripped off.

The woman was face down, her head missing; the man's neck was severed by an electric cable, and he still had a wooden stick in his mouth.

Flies flew out of his eye sockets and circled around his ears.

“Hey, give that bottle back!” Banza shouted.

No one responded.

A few boys were tearing apart roasted meat around the campfire, passing around strong liquor among themselves, their dark faces flushed red as if burned.

Banza walked over and snatched the bottle from a boy's hand.

The man looked up at him, his gaze lingering for a brief half-second before he said nothing.

“You’re not the one leading the charge,” another mumbled, his words unclear and sounding more like a provocation.

Banza glanced at him, said nothing, and smashed the bottle on the ground.

In an instant, a pungent liquid splattered.

"You want it?" he said. "Take it."

The man stood up and tried to fight back, but the boy from before held him down firmly.

"Tika, ah tika biloko wana!" he urged in panic, "Ye azali na maji, eeh? Nzambe akokanga yo mbala moko!"

(Don't move, don't go crazy!)

(He has been baptized with holy water; "God" will punish you.)
The air froze instantly.

The group seemed to suddenly realize something and all fell silent.

They had all witnessed the massacre that had taken place in the village that morning.

He was insane, cruel, and when the enemy fired at him, the flashes of gunfire went off, but he was unharmed.

No one dared to utter another sound.

Seeing this, Banza smiled with satisfaction, picked up the broken bottle, and strolled away.

He urinated by the roadside and casually tossed the shards of glass into the stove.

There, mattresses and underwear were burning; flames were rising and the smell of burning was strong.

Banza thought for a moment and decided to go and pray for his beloved gun first.

However, after taking only two steps, a voice came from behind: "Banza".

He stopped and turned around.

In front of the tent, the commander stood up, supporting himself on his knees.

“You are a hero tonight,” he said, “We are the ‘immortal Banza’.”

Even though Banza always prided himself on this, he felt a little embarrassed at this moment.

The commander smiled, his teeth gleaming. "Go to the back and pick a clean one."

"They can't speak, but they can still cry."

Several older soldiers nearby chuckled softly upon hearing this.

Banza did not laugh.

He nodded seriously, pulled a small knife from his waistband, the blade was chipped, and patted it into his palm.

Then, he turned and headed towards the place where the prisoners were located at the northernmost border.

A tattered net hung outside the shed.

When the two boys, who were still sobering up, saw Banza, they immediately puffed out their chests in admiration and opened the wooden door for him.

The light was dim, but you could still make out five or six figures inside, all huddled on the ground.

Banza pointed to one at random.

The boy on the left hesitated, "She keeps crying."

Banza licked his lips and said, "It's nothing."

He stepped inside, grabbed the woman's arm, and pulled her out.

The firelight shone on her legs, revealing dark skin covered in cuts from sharp blades—red, purple, and scabbed.

"Nzambe azali kotala ngaye azali awa! Ekozonga, eh! Ezongaka liboso! Ee Mungu wanguEe Mungu wangu"

(God is watching me! This will all come back to haunt me! My God, my God!)

“Unanionaaaaaaaajuu paleatasemaeh atasema kweli!”

(You see me high up above. He will speak/judge!)
The woman cried out her accusations, her face a mixture of blood and tears. Banza continued his actions, coldly stating:
"Oyo nyonso - ye nde apesi ngai."

(All of this was given to me by Him.)
"Mungu anaona mikutoka juu kabisa. Mi ni wake toka zamani."

(God is looking at me from above. I have always belonged to Him.)
Is God really on high?
no one knows.

But at this moment, there is indeed someone else up there.

At an altitude of 9,800 meters, an MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance aircraft is slowly adjusting its course.

Inside the control room at the Agadez Air Base in Niger, a young man wearing an Air Force short-sleeved shirt leaned forward, staring intently at the screen.

The image on the console is shaking.

In the thermal imaging spectrum, the woman's body twisted and turned, while the man's remained quite stable.

“God,” he whispered.

A teammate next to him lifted his headphones, chewing gum, and said, "Are they messing around by the fire again?"

"It looks like rape, or worse."

"Damn, is that really a woman?"

“Definitely,” the third operator said. “See the ribs? Malnourished, probably ** years old. North Goma. Fuck savage.”

No one objected.

Move the mouse pointer, the cursor is locked in the area on the screen, and type a label.

Mudundun 40.

Next, we wait for confirmation.

A few minutes later, a static noise flashed by, and a male voice came through the channel:
"Alpha-Six, Task Lead confirmed."

"Target designation: Red-One. Authorized strike. Thirty seconds."

Zhou Yi stood at the top of the slope, easily unwound his headset, and clipped it back onto the shoulder strap of his tactical vest.

The officer in M23 was standing nearby and heard everything clearly.

He squinted at Zhou Yi, a hint of hesitation on his face, as if trying to figure something out.

"What exactly do you want me to see?"

"If it's just execution, my soldiers can do it just as well."

Zhou Yi didn't refute, but smiled slightly, took out a pair of binoculars from his backpack, and handed them over.

“Look there,” he said.

The officer hesitated for a moment, then held the object up to his eyes and adjusted the focus.

Ten seconds later, he blinked.

A campfire, a corpse lying on the ground, a familiar figure—the figure of an enemy.

There were many people celebrating around the camp. It was chaotic.

"This is..." the officer began hesitantly.

Then, before he could ask a question, Zhou Yi interrupted him.

"Time is up."

"Varied--"

Before the words were even finished, an explosion suddenly erupted on the horizon.

It wasn't a gun, a cannon, or any ground attack he was familiar with.

Several beams of blazing white light cleaved down from the clouds.

Immediately afterwards, a deafening explosion ripped through the entire valley, almost stopping everyone's heart.

The world trembled, and the earth wailed.

In the distance, the enemy's camp was instantly engulfed by towering flames.

The shockwave swept across the surroundings, carrying debris, sand, and steel, and swept in like a tidal wave.

Before the officer could react, his knees buckled and he collapsed to his knees in the mud.

His eardrums ruptured, making a buzzing sound, his stomach churned, and he vomited a mouthful of acid on the ground.

Before me lay the mushroom cloud of distant mountains, blindingly bright, like a pillar of judgment in an apocalypse.

Those he knew and those he didn't all ceased to exist, erased from existence.

Screams, laughter, women's cries, gasoline drums, Toyota cars, blood, flesh, ruins—all vanished.

All that remained was deathly silence.

There's still a heartbeat.

One beat after another, like the beating of a drum.

"This is. What is this?"

The officer heard his own voice, but it sounded as if someone else was speaking for him.

　Lingara/Swahili is not easy to translate accurately; please forgive any issues that readers may notice.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)