Air Strike

After a short rest, Doom packed some simple luggage and arrived at the agreed location at the appointed time, where one of the smugglers was already waiting.

This was the first time he'd ever smuggled someone from another country to Latovinia since he started working as a human smuggler. If it weren't for the high price Doom was offering, he wouldn't have bothered with the job. But since the client was only one person, the smuggling operation didn't require much effort; he could just send a subordinate who knew the way.

This was Doom's own understanding, and he did not doubt that so much had happened in the past few hours.

After all, reality is illogical. Many unbelievable things only happen in reality, and writing them down would only get you scolded by readers. On the contrary, logic is needed. Sometimes, in order to make the plot development coherent and interconnected, writers might be thinking about the plot while carrying steel bars under the scorching sun, and then get scolded by the foreman for being lazy.

The smuggler's henchman gave Doom a ticket, saying, "The driver has already been taken care of; you just need to follow me."

Doom could smell the strong odor of alcohol on the man; he must have drunk quite a bit before coming. If he fell asleep in the car and missed his turn, it would be disastrous.

Without revealing his emotions, Doom took the ticket and boarded the bus with the smuggler's henchman.

It was already quite late, and there were very few intercity buses still running. Without needing directions from the smugglers, Doom easily found the bus they were going to take. However, he didn't act on his own and obediently followed the man who was walking with a slightly unsteady gait.

There weren't many people on the bus, just a few backpackers and a family of four. The backpackers were dark-skinned and looked tired, dressed in clothes suitable for outdoor activities, clearly the kind of people who go hiking. The family consisted of a couple with two adorable twin daughters. The two daughters were full of energy, chatting and laughing in their seats. The mother was obviously very tired and had taken a nap on her father's shoulder, while the father quietly reminded his daughters not to disturb the others.

The driver was a thin, middle-aged man, around forty-five years old. After checking Doom and the smuggler's tickets, he said impatiently, "Sit in the back. I'll stop when we get there."

Even though he had received a sum of money, the driver didn't have a good impression of the people who were illegally crossing the border. He spoke to them coldly and sarcastically. In addition, he noticed a strong smell of alcohol on one of the smuggler's men. In order to prevent him from disturbing other passengers or getting too drunk and missing his destination, he gave him a special reminder.

This suited Doom perfectly. The train wasn't crowded, which meant he didn't have to sit in the seats marked on his ticket, allowing for a lot of flexibility. So he headed straight for the back row, but as he passed the family sitting in the rows in front and behind him, he glanced at the twin girls, which aroused the father's suspicion.

Doom and his companion were clearly the last two passengers on the bus. The driver closed the doors and started the engine, and with the roar of the engine, the bus gradually drove away from the city.

Sitting in the back corner, Doom smiled. Taking the last step on his return journey, he felt relieved. His mind, which had been filled with anxiety, was racing with thoughts of his past life. He couldn't help but recall that if he hadn't worked for Victor, he would probably be a professor at some university now, married with a lovely daughter.

Once he started thinking about it, Doom couldn't stop. He even came up with a name for his daughter: Valeria Doom.

Having gathered his scattered thoughts, Doom began to observe the scenery outside the window. However, it was already late at night, and the streetlights and car headlights could only illuminate a small area of the scenery. He couldn't really see anything. Nevertheless, the passing vehicles were a kind of pleasure for Doom, whose mood had changed drastically.

After turning a corner, the vehicles on the road seemed to disappear and suddenly became sparse, until only their car remained. It was as if a vast army was lurking in the jungle on both sides of the road.

Doom's heart suddenly tightened. Although his danger intuition didn't give him any indication, his long-cultivated sixth sense told him that something was wrong. He turned to look at the snakehead's henchman in the last row corner. Sure enough, the man was fastened to a seatbelt and had fallen asleep. Even that couldn't stop him from sleeping in a slumped position. It was a good thing he wasn't snoring.

Just as Doom was about to stop the vehicle and escape into the woods by the roadside, a huge noise source approached from afar. Even with the interference of the car engine noise, Doom could still clearly distinguish that the noise was coming from a U.S. military light fighter jet, which was mainly responsible for assassination bombing missions against certain important figures who infringed on United States interests. Doom had seen this fighter jet destabilize the situation in a certain region quite often when conducting arms transactions.

This fighter jet is primarily designed to target vehicles. It uses a non-explosive missile, relying on the inertia of high-speed flight to gain initial velocity. A small amount of fuel is carried to correct the trajectory, and finally, the missile itself delivers a physical blow to the vehicle—even a main battle tank couldn't withstand this attack. (This is just the writer's speculation.)

Inexpensive, quiet, and lethal are the biggest advantages of this missile. It is also a demonstration of force by the United States military against countries with weak air defenses. If a lump of iron can achieve an error of no more than ten centimeters, what about a more advanced missile?

"What is that?!"

There is a United States military base nearby. Even though complaints cannot stop the United States military exercises, the driver is used to seeing fighter jets flying overhead. With his hands on the steering wheel, he is more concerned about the road conditions. Driving at night requires extra caution.

But in the night sky, a small, luminous object flew straight toward him, making him wonder and instinctively peer over to look.

The next second, a metal missile fell from the sky, crashing through the front of the bus to the rear. The bus was almost split in two. The driver, who was hit first, was instantly reduced to mangled flesh and bone fragments. The horrific state of the other passengers was unimaginable.

The bus's fuel tank ruptured, and fuel flowed rapidly out of the crack, partially evaporating into a gaseous state. It was then ignited by an electric spark, accompanied by a small explosion, and the entire bus burst into flames.

Less than half a minute after the airstrike, five military Humvees carrying twenty-five U.S. military arrived at the scene. The soldiers were equipped with combat recorders and transmitted the footage directly to the United States mainland via the signal transmission devices on the vehicles. If the high-ranking officers watching the monitoring screens weren't concerned about their image, they would probably be cheering right now.

A long-standing worry that had been troubling them was finally gone; those "incorrect" transactions could no longer be used as evidence by their political enemies to attack them, and the last witness had been silenced.

They say excessive joy leads to sorrow, and then, an unexpected event occurred that exceeded everyone's expectations...