King of Tomb Raiders

Chapter 66

In a battle between experts, victory or defeat may be decided in a mere tenth of a second of the speed at which a gun is drawn. Tina already had her gun in her hand, but it was pointed at the ground, leaving her no time to raise it.

“Please drop the gun on the ground, drop it obediently on the ground… Hehe, I must warn you, Miss Tina, I have studied all your specialties and have made meticulous countermeasures for each one. You should know that in terms of shooting skills, I am slightly better than you…” Robert laughed smugly.

Tina's face finally turned ashen. She released her grip, letting both guns fall to the sand, and asked defiantly, with a tone of death-defying resolve, "What benefits did the rebels give you? Could a mere special forces captain position really buy you off? If so, I can simply petition the president to give you that captain's position, how about that?"

Although this captain's position is of extremely high rank, in reality, he is nothing more than a dog protecting the president and the national security of Egypt. Even if Robert were to be promoted from instructor to this position, it would be no difficulty at all.

Robert grew increasingly smug, his joy at achieving his goal making him forget that I and Suren were still there: "Haha, Captain? No, no, the Ministry of Defense promised me the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and the soon-to-be-established Air Force Rapid Reaction Force will be reorganized and expanded under my leadership. Our plan is to absolutely control all the airspace over the African continent..."

This idea may sound crazy at first, but if the Egyptian military's initial fighter jet purchase plan is followed step by step, it is not an impossible fantasy.

People who are too proud are always prone to making mistakes. When Robert's gun moved slightly away from Tina's head due to his maniacal laughter, Suren suddenly rolled to the side, firing both guns simultaneously from his pockets. Six bullets in quick succession accurately entered the hand holding the gun, from the wrist to the shoulder, almost at equal distances, completely dissipating his control over the pistol.

Suren was smart enough to know that if the bullet had hit Robert in the head, even if Robert died from the wound, in the last few seconds before he died, his remaining consciousness would surely have been enough to pull the trigger and kill Tina. Now, by instantly crippling Robert's arm, he would only instinctively drop the pistol in excruciating pain, and would be unable to make any other reaction.

The instant the gun fired, I pushed my lightness skill to its limit, stomping my toes into the sand and leaping out at a 30-degree angle to the ground like a stunt performer on a beach trampoline. I squeezed into the less than one-meter gap between Robert and Tina, using my body to separate them and truly becoming Tina's shield.

Robert, as expected of the Rainbow Warriors' instructor, almost simultaneously ducked down as his right hand lost control and the pistol fell, discarded the bomb's remote control with his left hand, caught the pistol falling from mid-air, and immediately pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Suren rolled to the side and fired, I rushed forward to block Tina, and Robert bent down and fired—all three things happened in the same second. So, I barely had time to react before I was hit five times in the chest. Only then did I hear the "click-clack, click-clack" sound of the firing pin of Robert's gun missing its target.

I looked down at my injuries in a panic, but the first thing I saw was a slender women's combat boot that stretched out from between my legs, hooked the toe to the remote control, and with a gentle flick, sent the remote control flying. To Robert's exasperated expression, it landed in the hand of a tall and strong girl.

Immediately, the immense impact of the bullet sent a continuous, excruciating pain through my chest, and I was thrown backward involuntarily, crashing into Tina along with me.

"Kill! Kill them! Kill them!"

Robert roared at the top of his lungs, but Suren reacted even faster. Before the sixty-odd men following Robert could make a move, he fired two guns in quick succession, taking down the dozen or so soldiers closest to me.

Part Six: The Divine Appearance Revealed

— Chapter 6 — The Death of Tanino —

Robert staggered back a few steps, fiercely bent down and picked up a submachine gun from a soldier's hand. Enraged, he fired a burst of bullets at Suren, the flashing sparks from the muzzle seemingly an outpouring of his fury. His carefully laid-back rebellion and hostage-taking plan had been thwarted in an instant by my combined attack with Suren's; how could he not be furious?

Throughout the entire mutiny, the rebels seemed to have completely forgotten about the scalpel, which was undoubtedly a fatal oversight by Natura and Robert. For this mistake, Robert paid the tragic price with his life. As he discarded his gun, fell to his right, and prepared to pick up another submachine gun, a horrific howl suddenly escaped his throat. He rolled several times on the ground before leaping to his feet, bracing himself with one hand.

A small knife had been inserted through his Adam's apple, like a roasted duck hanging on a rack—both laughable and pitiful, except that he could no longer make a sound.

At the same time, two other identical knives appeared, spinning rapidly, and instantly sliced through the throats of eleven rebel soldiers, severing their Adam's apples.

Three knives shot out simultaneously, unstoppable and invincible—this is the signature move of a scalpel.

At the same time, Tina pressed the switch on the remote control beneath me, and the second explosion occurred right in the center where the sixty people had been hiding...

Without relying on a large number of soldiers, Suren, Scalpel, and Tina alone wiped out all sixty rebels in a whirlwind.

Scalpel appeared at the tent entrance, draped in a thick military overcoat. He glanced at me sharply, then asked Tina without speaking, "Is it ready?"

His appearance was exactly the same as the original scalpel, but his inner temperament and cultivation had completely changed. The depth, experience, and humor of the original scalpel were nowhere to be seen. In its place was a chilling, fierce wildness that came from the depths of his heart.

For the past five years, everyone in the martial arts world knew that Scalpel had largely abandoned his knife-throwing skills and rarely used it to kill. Someone of his status wouldn't need to lift a finger to eliminate someone; a simple phone call would summon thousands of martial arts masters to serve him. Consequently, almost everyone had forgotten his legendary knife-throwing skills, and Robert's death was a direct consequence of this "forgetting."

"Are you alright?" It was Tina's cold and reserved voice.

"Brother Feng, Brother Feng, Brother Feng... How are you?" Then came Su Lun's extremely concerned soft call, and she hurriedly tore open the shirt in front of my chest, revealing the bulletproof vest. Fortunately, I was not dead. The bulletproof vest absorbed the impact of the bullet, and even the deepest embedded bullet had only just penetrated half of the protective plate.

With Suren's help, I sat up, forcing a smile: "Thank goodness, I'm wearing this vest, I won't die..."

In the situation just now, I was wearing a bulletproof vest, so Tina's body was completely unprotected. If that burst of bullets had hit her, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

"It's alright, thank you for saving me—" Tina didn't say many mushy words of gratitude. When she was with Suren, she always acted superior and arrogant. I knew this wasn't her true nature; perhaps she didn't want outsiders to see that she was competing with Suren for something. Girls experiencing their first love are always reserved and proud, and although she was a general, she was no exception.

The thought of "first love" stirred something within me: "Has she fallen for me? Perhaps? If she hadn't, why would she have given me her personal bulletproof vest?"

As I watched her walk away towards the military vehicle heading north, I was momentarily lost in thought.

Suren sighed softly in my ear, "Brother Feng, you are too... rash and impulsive..." The fragrance of her hair drifted into my nostrils on the wind, tickling me and making me sneeze four or five times.

Tina climbed onto the roof of a military vehicle and personally waved three small red, white, and black flags to signal the approaching armored personnel carrier.

Suren muttered to himself, somewhat puzzled, "Hmm? So they're on the same side? That's strange. What exactly is the Desert Legion's large-scale operation for? Weren't the military and the government already at loggerheads? How come they're joining forces again?"

I struggled to my feet. Since Tina was alright, I should go back to the tent first and check on Tanino and Fujika. "Resurrection" was a huge mystery. Once things were settled by tomorrow, Tina would definitely come to inquire, so I needed to figure out what exactly happened to Tanino…

"Strange? Why do I keep thinking about Tina with every move I make? It seems like so many things I did in the camp were for her..." My thoughts were a bit chaotic, and I staggered forward. Suren followed closely behind, and by this time all the soldiers had begun to automatically disperse and clean up the mess.

This scene gave me the feeling that "everything is proceeding according to a plan, like a war movie performed according to a storyboard." Thinking about this, a bitter smile involuntarily appeared on my lips, and that strange feeling of "being fooled" resurfaced in my heart.

The tent flap was drawn low, and it was quiet inside.

Suren frowned: "Brother Feng, Gu Ye... really... came back to life?" If it weren't for the sniper watching from above, she probably would have rushed to the tent the moment she heard the news. This kind of fantastical "resurrection" is not something everyone can experience.

"Of course, why would I lie to you? His death is real; his resurrection is also real. If you don't believe me, let's go in and see for ourselves—" My hand had already touched the curtain when suddenly a strong smell of blood wafted out with the wind, instantly filling my nostrils and almost making me want to vomit violently.

Suren gasped, drew her pistol in a flash, and rushed ahead of me. There was bloodshed, and of course, danger. Her rush in was almost a carbon copy of my earlier act of rushing out to shield Tina from bullets.

When the curtain was lifted, the first thing I saw was James's back, his hands raised in mid-air as if to cover his mouth. It was a gesture of shock and horror, and anyone who saw Tanino in that state would likely be horrified.

Tanino sat on the floor, leaning against his cot, his head drooping limply, his hands hanging limply at his knees. Blood dripped from his chest to his feet, then onto the sand, where it was absorbed by the dry sand, leaving only a light brown stain. The other end of the blood appeared on Fujika's bed, and on Fujika's hand—

The ropes and blankets binding Tengjia were gone. She lay there peacefully, breathing evenly, still fast asleep.

Under the lights, the strangely shaped gold sleeves on her body emitted an eerie glow. The blood initially appeared on her hands, but after I moved around James's body to cover myself, I noticed there was also blood around her mouth.

Suren first pointed his gun at Tanino, then at Fujika, and then turned to point it at James.

The time between my departure and my hasty return was roughly between half an hour and forty minutes. During that time, my entire attention was focused on the standoff between the two armies in the camp, and I had no time to assess the situation inside the tents.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Suren released the safety of his pistol and stared intently at James.

Tani is dead, and Fujika is in a vegetative state. To find out what happened, you can only ask James. I walked to Fujika's bedside, staring at the blood at the corner of her mouth. A chilling shiver ran through my body. Because the most immediate thought was that she had scooped something up with her hands and swallowed it.

"What is that? What can a person in a vegetative state do? Can they just get up and eat? Impossible! Impossible..." I know I shouldn't use the word "impossible" anymore, but after just that thought, anyone who heard it would blurt out that word.

James spread his hands, his face full of innocence as if he had just woken up from a dream: "I... I was only a minute earlier than you, maybe even less than a minute... When I came in, this was the scene! Miss Suren, don't point the gun at me, be careful it doesn't go off..." At this point, at least his hands and mouth were clean, and the sand under his feet was slightly sunken, which basically matched the situation of "standing for a minute".

He frowned, as if he had suffered a great injustice, and kept shrugging and shaking his head.

Without a doubt, Fujika was still unconscious and hadn't changed at all before I left.

Suren put away her gun, squatted down next to Gu Ye, and looked at him, gasping for breath: "Brother Feng, it's the heart... the heart is gone!"

The wound on Tanino's body was an irregular circle, as if he had been struck in the chest by the claws of some animal, which then snatched his heart, killing him instantly. It was a brilliant irony that a strange man who had just "come back to life" was so easily killed again in the blink of an eye, and his heart was taken away.

Suren stood up, tapped her forehead twice, and said thoughtfully, "Brother Feng, I suspect... could it be... the Azure Dragon Society?" She was still glancing at James sideways, her expression still filled with great distrust.

The tents trembled again under the fierce northern winds. It seemed that all the tents in the camp had been affected by the explosion and would need to be reinforced before they could be used again tomorrow.

I took a tissue out of my pocket and slowly wiped away the bloodstains on Fujika's hands.

There's a strange problem I'd never noticed before: even though Fujika is in a "vegetative state," her fingernails are growing like crazy. Currently, they're all over two centimeters long, pale and sharp, looking inexplicably odd.

"What did you say?" James exclaimed in horror, raising his hands like a startled gorilla.

Suren's words were clear enough: it was the "Azure Dragon Society"—the reason I hadn't spoken was because I was repeatedly thinking about the possible connection between this matter and the Azure Dragon Society.

"Impossible!" James, having caught my urge, also started using this phrase frequently.

"Impossible—" James waved his hands wildly in the air.

“Why is it impossible?” Suren and I asked him almost simultaneously. At the same time, I squatted down and looked at some milky white things embedded in Tengjia’s fingernails.

The Azure Dragon Society is a mysterious organization, and currently the only terrorist organization that makes the powers of North America and Europe tremble with fear.

During the nearly one hundred years of the 20th century, the three most powerful transnational organized crime groups in the world were undoubtedly the Italian Mafia, the Chinese-owned Sanlian Gang, and the Yamaguchi-gumi of Japan. According to verifiable data from Interpol, 87% of the violent terrorist incidents, large and small, that occur around the world each year are directly related to these three organizations, and 10% are indirectly related—it can be said that the actions of these three organizations directly affect Interpol's sensitive nerves.

However, on the night the clock struck midnight, at least thirty high-ranking deputy leaders of the three major organizations were suddenly attacked and killed. The organization that dared to challenge all three organizations simultaneously was the "Green Dragon Society." Within five years, the Green Dragon Society's power expanded exponentially, eventually becoming a new generation of terrorist force that increasingly troubled Interpol, its reputation rivaling that of the Mafia dynasty headquartered in Sicily, Italy.

"I mean, it seems the Azure Dragon Society's influence... has never appeared in this wild land of Africa. Their territory is in Europe, Asia, and North and South America..."

James was a well-traveled and knowledgeable man; otherwise, he wouldn't have received such a grand invitation from the Scalpel Society to participate in such a momentous event as the excavation of the pyramids. He walked over to Gu Ye, leaned down to observe him for a minute, adjusted his glasses, and before speaking, took a deep breath. Then, in a strained tone, he said, "You mean, it was done by the 'Reborn Ones' of the Azure Dragon Society?"

The term "reborn" may be unfamiliar to many, but almost everyone who follows the news is familiar with the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which caused a huge uproar in Japan a few years ago. Aum Shinrikyo's doctrine required its followers to gain "new life" through "suicide" or "murder," and this evil theory claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people around the world.

The reason cults are able to spread their bizarre doctrines is that their seductive rhetoric is often incredibly elaborate. I once read a pamphlet from the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which not only took the beautiful theory of "resurrection" to its extreme, but even quoted classic lines from Buddhist scriptures such as "If I don't go to hell, who will?"—they really went to any lengths to achieve their goals.

Interpol has sufficient evidence to conclude that Aum Shinrikyo is merely a small part of the "Reborn" faction of the Green Dragon Society. The "Reborn" headquarters is located somewhere in the tropical rainforest of South America, relying on several semi-primitive tribes to conceal their whereabouts, and maintaining close contact with all the "headhunters".

Actually, if I had been more alert when Tanino mentioned that he would "come back to life," I probably would have connected it to the "Reborn" organization. However, after finally returning from the "Dungeon of Ten Thousand Snakes," I was utterly exhausted, both mentally and physically, and had no energy to think about such things.

Suren bit her lip and sneered, "That's right! A 'Reborn One'! Doctor, you're a top figure in the martial arts world, you must know a lot about that cult, right?"

Her hostile attitude towards James puzzled me slightly.

James shook his head: "I know nothing about it. I'm just an academic researcher buried in the laboratory. How could I possibly have any contact with the Azure Dragon Society or the 'Reborn'?"

The three of us burst into laughter almost simultaneously, because a "scholar" like James was utterly ridiculous and a disgrace to the noble title of "scholar." As a double agent for both the US and India, his skin was undeniably thick.

The tensions outside have clearly eased. It seems that the real ones who fell into the trap were Natura and Robert's rebel group. The tense standoff between the military and the government was just a facade, a clever move to deliberately create momentum and lure the rebels into falling into the trap.

Suren suddenly gave a bitter smile: "Brother Feng, you've been used by someone again..."

Indeed, I was aware of this problem the moment the scalpel was launched.

James's expression remained strange, as if the mention of the "reborn" issue had genuinely frightened him, and he wished he could immediately withdraw from the vortex.

After James left, Suren opened her left hand to me, letting the three bullets clink and fall to the ground: "Brother Feng, these bullets can't kill you at all—three-quarters of the gunpowder in the bullets has been poured out. After the firing pins ignite these congenitally malnourished bullets, the killing power produced is not much stronger than blanks. And you were wearing the best bulletproof vest... So, the conclusion we can draw now is that someone doesn't want you to die, but wants to test your concern for her, so they put pawns like us, who are irrelevant to the overall situation, on the chessboard..."

I bent down and picked up a bullet, flicked it with my finger, and sure enough, I could feel that it was filled with very little gunpowder. Although it looked very intimidating with its bright yellow color, the actual shooting effect was just as Suren had said; it was completely incapable of causing fatal damage to someone wearing bulletproof gear.

"Is it Tina's trick again? What on earth is she up to?"

The person who switched the rebel bullets must have been Tina, and it can be inferred that all the rebel actions were under her control. Even without my and Suren's help, she would have been fine.

My face flushed again. I thought I was doing something incredibly heroic, risking my life to shield her from a bullet—but actually…

Outside the tent, the command to assemble the soldiers rang out, and as the engines roared again, the foreign armored vehicles slowly retreated.

Suren opened a small window on the back wall of the tent, and the night breeze rushed in, quickly dispelling the stench of blood. At the same time, she pointed in the direction the armored vehicle had disappeared, a faint smile on her face: "Brother Feng, Tina was just testing your patience. I think the result of this test will definitely be 100% satisfactory. Your good fortune in Egypt is about to begin..."

Being able to risk my life to shield Tina from a bullet was not part of my original plan. In the heat of the moment, it was just a desperate gamble, and I never imagined there were so many complicated details involved.

The mutiny came quickly and ended just as quickly. It turned out to be nothing more than a farce by Tina to purge the traitors. Natura and Robert jumped out in a hurry, but in the eyes of those in the know, they were nothing more than foolish and laughable clowns. So what role did I play in it?

At dawn, order was restored in the camp. The Rainbow Warriors had lost a total of 95 members. The remaining soldiers had been reorganized into new squads, all of whom were core members loyal to the president and Tina.

Tina had promptly sent people to inform and reassure the outsiders: "The mutiny has been quelled, everyone please remain calm and do not panic."

Of the nominal outsiders, only I, Suren the Scalpel, James, and the vegetative Fujika remained. To everyone in the camp, Tanino's death was hardly a big deal, less significant than the death of a stray dog. It seemed the Japanese, like the Nazi Party in Germany, were not well-received in any country in the world.

Suren and I stayed in the tent where Tengjia was lying, without sleeping all night. We meticulously wiped away all the blood from Tengjia's body and carefully examined every single one of his fingernails. As for Gu Ye's body, it had already been collected into a huge nylon body bag by well-trained soldiers.

"Brother Feng, do you believe that Tengjia killed Gu Ye?" Su Lun's questions always revolved around Gu Ye's death. Throughout her conversation with James, she remained suspicious, believing that James was the murderer.

The bizarre story of a person in a vegetative state killing someone was something I had never heard of before. If it really was Fujika who suddenly killed Tanino and then lay back on the bed, the whole process sounded exactly like the "corpse exploding" from ghost stories.

I've reenacted the scene in my mind countless times—