The Auspex's beeping broke the predawn silence.
Wade checked the situation immediately.
On the pale green scanning interface, four red arrows were closing in on the ranch from different directions, thirty kilometers away.
Numbers flickered beside each arrow: 120, 130, 80, 64.
He pressed the communicator.
"Sir, we've got a situation."
"Four groups have appeared thirty kilometers out. Their total strength is close to four hundred. They have aircraft and ground vehicles."
"They got here fast." Fu Haoran wasn't surprised.
Life-extension technology and almost-universal medical treatments were no longer secrets among the wealthy.
Even though he'd kept himself behind the scenes, Fu Haoran was sure that anyone determined enough could easily trace things back to him.
"Looks like someone thinks I'm a fat lamb with a golden egg."
Fu Haoran turned to Wade. "Wait until the enemy gets close before opening fire. I want every last one of them trapped here."
"Yes, sir!"
Wade hesitated. Their side was outmatched in heavy firepower. A close-range engagement could mean heavy casualties.
But he suppressed the thought and answered in a low voice, "Yes, sir!"
In the Warhammer Universe, casualties were just numbers. Victory was everything.
At the same time.
Gray Stone crouched beside the command vehicle, staring at a tablet.
The screen was split into four sections, showing the real-time positions of the other three teams.
"Night Owl is three kilometers northeast. Two Little Bird helicopters are already airborne and scouting," Anvil, the deputy squad leader, said quietly.
"Lumberjack is on the west side. Their mortar team is setting up. Ghost's people are scattered through the woods to the southeast, and their snipers are in position."
"What are they waiting for?" Phantom chewed his gum.
"For the other side to make the first move." Gray Stone sneered. "A bounty of 120 million. Everyone wants it for themselves."
He brought up the final infrared image taken by a drone half an hour earlier.
The outline of the ranch glowed faintly on the screen with its heat signature.
Several large heat sources were stationary between the buildings, their heat-dissipation patterns strange.
As for the more than three thousand people there, Gray Stone didn't consider them a concern.
They were nothing but illegally hired migrant laborers. So what if every one of them had a gun? How could they compare to special forces equipped with heavy weapons?
"Are they sleeping?" one of his men asked with a frown.
"Sleeping people don't have heat signatures like that." Gray Stone shook his head. "They're setting up a defense. It's a textbook defensive deployment."
"They're setting up a defense? Impossible. Are they regular troops or something?!"
"That's why something's off." Gray Stone turned off the tablet and looked toward the ranch. "Tell everyone to hold position. Let the others make the first move."
"What if they succeed?"
"Then we take the winners by surprise." Gray Stone patted the gun at his waist. "120 million. It's worth taking a little risk."
Static suddenly crackled through the communicator.
Then came the urgent voice of Night Owl's squad leader. "Gray Stone! Those bastards from Lumberjack are moving toward our flank! They're trying to surround us!"
"Calm down." Gray Stone pressed the talk button. "Everyone hold your position. Whoever fires first becomes a target for everyone—"
BOOM!
The muffled explosion carried far through the night sky.
The comms channel erupted at once.
"Lumberjack, are you fucking crazy?!"
"It wasn't us! We didn't fire!"
"Then why did the helicopter go down?!"
"It's the ranch! There's a flash of light from the ranch!"
Gray Stone swung his binoculars around.
The ranch was pitch-black.
But something flashed in that darkness.
A red beam streaked through the air again, and the second Little Bird helicopter exploded into a fireball.
This time, everyone saw it.
The channel fell silent for half a second.
Then Phantom's voice came through, trembling with disbelief. "W-what the hell was that?"
Gray Stone didn't answer.
He'd spotted something moving in the darkness along the edge of the ranch.
At last, he made it out.
"A tank!" Gray Stone roared. "They've fucking got a tank!"
"Open fire! All units, open fire!" Gray Stone bellowed into the communicator. "Concentrate your fire on that tank!"
It wasn't any model he recognized. Its hull was tall and broad, like a French tank from the Second World War, and it looked hopelessly outdated.
But the RPGs, grenades, and rocket launchers all hit the so-called "old relic," and it didn't so much as flinch. It was completely unharmed!
Even its exposed tracks were undamaged!
Worse still, a large number of infantry were following behind the tank!
The machine gunner in Gray Stone's squad opened fire.
The M249's muzzle flashed through the night, and tracer rounds streaked toward the gray figures.
The bullets hit.
Gray Stone clearly saw at least three rounds strike the chest of a soldier in the front row.
Then they bounced off.
They hadn't pierced the armor and gotten stuck. They'd bounced right off.
Sparks from the impacts were clearly visible in the dark, but the soldier only swayed slightly and kept advancing at the same speed.
"Armor-piercing rounds! Switch to armor-piercing!" Gray Stone shouted.
It was already too late.
The gray soldiers raised their weapons and unleashed a dense barrage of red beams. They looked like flashlight beams, accompanied by a high-pitched sizzling sound, like a nest of snakes hissing all at once.
The red beams swept across the battlefield, punching through row after row of mercenaries. Their bulletproof vests burst apart like paper, and the men didn't even have time to scream!
There wasn't even any blood visible in the wounds!
"Fall back! Retreat!" Gray Stone shouted into the communicator. "Everyone, retreat east! Get the helicopters to pick us up!"
There was no response.
He looked up toward where the Black Hawk should have been hovering.
The sky was empty.
Only a burning mass of wreckage drifted in the distance, spinning as it fell—the third Black Hawk, its tail rotor sheared clean off.
A bone-deep chill ran through Gray Stone.
He raised his binoculars and looked toward the ranch one last time.
The unknown tank's turret slowly turned, aiming in his direction.
Gray Stone grabbed an antitank missile launcher, aimed it at the tank, and pulled the trigger. The missile screamed through the air, but a flash of light rippled across the tank's surface and deflected it. It exploded against a tree in the distance.
Gray Stone dropped the launcher and ran.
Ssshh—
A bright red beam grazed the heels of his boots.
Ten meters behind him, the turret of the Sherman M4 tank had been melted clean through.
Its main gun barrel drooped and dripped like a melting candle.
The ammunition stored inside the tank ignited. The shock wave from the secondary explosion flung Gray Stone through the air.
He hit the ground hard, his ears ringing.
Through his blurred vision, he saw a gray soldier walk up to him.
The soldier wore a fully enclosed helmet with a dark visor that hid his face.
The weapon in his hands—a long tube—still glowed faintly red at the muzzle, like iron fresh from the forge.
The soldier crouched and prodded Gray Stone's bulletproof vest with the weapon's barrel.
Then he spoke into the communicator inside his helmet in English, with a strange accent:
"Sector A7 clear. One prisoner, mild concussion, fit for interrogation. The corpse can be used as corpse starch."
After that, he muttered under his breath, "These primitives' weapons are worse than those of the Lower Hive gangs."
Gray Stone's vision went black.
Not because he'd passed out.
Because he was furious.
Before you continue