Wang Qiang said no more and raised a hand.
The nineteen soldiers behind him sprang into action.
Silently melting into the darkness beyond the outpost.
They moved toward Observation Point No. 3.
Squad Leader Li and Zhao Xiaohu quickly changed into camouflage gear and checked their equipment.
The two followed Wang Qiang out of the outpost. The cold wind hit them head-on, but their hearts burned hot.
"Squad Leader," Zhao Xiaohu whispered, his voice trembling with excitement.
"What kind of unit are they? They seem... incredible."
"Don't ask." Squad Leader Li stared at the nearly invisible figures ahead.
"We only need to know one thing—tonight, someone's going to have a very bad time."
They climbed up to Observation Point No. 3, a concealed position formed by natural rock.
It gave them a clear view of the entire disputed valley and several of White Elephant's forward outposts.
Wang Qiang and his men were already there.
Squad Leader Li saw that the Thunder Squad members were making their final preparations.
Checking the tension on their crossbows and adjusting the positions of their short blades.
Others took unfamiliar special equipment from their packs.
What shocked Squad Leader Li most was that two members walked straight to the cliff's edge.
It was an almost vertical eighty-meter precipice.
Then... just like that... they went down.
No ropes, no pitons. Their hands and feet seemed to cling to the rock itself.
They moved as lightly as geckos, vanishing into the darkness within a few breaths.
"This..." Zhao Xiaohu's eyes widened.
Wang Qiang seemed to notice their shock. He turned and said softly:
"No need to be surprised. It's new equipment. Time is tight. The operation begins."
He made a gesture, and the remaining seventeen members split into four groups.
They silently vanished into the valley's shadows.
Squad Leader Li and Zhao Xiaohu lay prone at the observation point, watching through high-powered night-vision goggles.
They saw the dark figures moving through boulders and brush at an unbelievable speed.
And they made almost no sound. At times, steep slopes or ravines clearly lay ahead of them.
Yet they crossed them directly, landing without raising so much as a speck of dust.
"Squad Leader... are they even human?" Zhao Xiaohu murmured.
Squad Leader Li did not answer. He only stared fixedly through the night-vision goggles.
The first target was a temporary observation post White Elephant had set up in the middle of the valley.
Two soldiers were there, dozing behind a crude shelter with rifles in their arms.
Two Thunder Squad members appeared like ghosts on either side of the shelter.
Squad Leader Li had not even seen how they approached.
One second, there had only been White Elephant soldiers there. The next, dark figures had appeared.
The two White Elephant soldiers whose necks had been snapped went limp and were gently lowered to the ground.
The dark figures did something to them, then swiftly left and continued toward the main outpost.
"D-Done?" Zhao Xiaohu swallowed.
"Not yet," Squad Leader Li said hoarsely.
He saw another group of Thunder Squad members had already slipped around to the rear of White Elephant's main outpost.
A diesel generator stood there, rumbling loudly.
One member took a small device from his pack and attached it to the generator casing.
A few seconds later, the generator's roar gradually weakened before finally stopping.
The lights inside the outpost flickered, then went out.
"The power's out!"
"What happened?"
"Did the generator break down?"
A flurry of panicked shouts came from the White Elephant outpost.
The door was pushed open, and two soldiers came out cursing as they went to inspect the generator.
Then they suddenly froze.
Because five figures slowly emerged from the darkness before them.
Dressed all in black, with camouflage paint on their faces, only their eyes reflected faint light in the dark, like wolves in the wilderness.
"Y-you... who are..." one White Elephant soldier stammered, fumbling to raise his rifle.
But he did not complete the motion.
One of the dark figures moved, so fast it left an afterimage.
The White Elephant soldier felt his wrist go numb, and his rifle had already flown from his hand.
The next second, a light press struck the side of his neck. His vision went black, and he lost consciousness.
The other soldier tried to shout, but the moment he opened his mouth, a hand covered it.
At the same time, searing pain shot through the back of his neck, and he too crumpled to the ground.
The entire process took less than three seconds, utterly silent.
The dark figures dragged the two dead soldiers over and propped them beside the generator.
They arranged them in the posture of drunken men asleep. Then one of them took out a spray can.
He sprayed it a few times at the outpost entrance.
Squad Leader Li saw the spray appear an eerie fluorescent green through the night-vision goggles.
It formed several clear numbers:
1962...
After spraying them, the dark figures receded into the shadows like a falling tide.
The people inside the outpost had yet to realize what had happened outside.
Babul's voice came from within, thick with drunken irritation:
"Why's the power out? Shahrukh! Hamid! Have you two useless idiots fixed it yet?"
There was no response.
"Damn it..." Babul cursed as he staggered out with a liquor bottle in hand.
Then he saw his two companions "sleeping" against the generator.
And the glowing numbers at the entrance.
He froze.
The bottle slipped from his hand, smashed against a rock, and shattered.
"W-what..." He rubbed his eyes, but the words were still glowing.
At that moment, the others in the outpost came out as well.
The lanky man, the older soldier, and two others.
They all saw the row of numbers and stepped forward to check their fallen companions.
Only to find that they had stopped breathing.
"Enemy attack!!"
"Alert! Alert!"
"Quick! The radio! Call for backup!"
The older soldier remained relatively calm. He rushed to the radio and cranked the hand generator with all his strength.
Then he pressed the transmit key. "Headquarters! Headquarters! This is River Valley Outpost No. 7!
We are under attack! We have casualties!
Repeat, we are under attack! Enemy identity unknown, position unknown..."
His voice cut off abruptly.
Because a dark figure was standing in the darkness before him, silently watching him.
The older soldier felt as though his blood had frozen.
He wanted to shout, to fire, but his body would not obey him.
The dark figure raised a hand and pointed to the radio handset in his grip.
The older soldier looked down and discovered that the handset cable... had somehow been cut.
Then the dark figure took a step back, merged into the darkness, and disappeared.
As if it had never been there.
"G-ghost... a ghost..." The lanky man broke down. Screaming, he fired wildly in that direction.
The gunshots echoed through the silent valley, painfully sharp.
But there was no response, only the wind.
Trembling, Babul pointed at the fluorescent numbers by the entrance.
"It's... it's Rabbit... They must have come for revenge..."
"Impossible!" the older soldier roared.
"How could Rabbit possibly get in?! How could they sneak in without a sound?!
We have sentries outside! Minefields!"
As if in answer to his question—
BOOM!!!
In the distance, a supply depot White Elephant had set up upstream in the valley suddenly exploded in a burst of flames, glaringly bright in the night.
Then, in another direction, every tire on a White Elephant patrol vehicle was punctured.
Farther away, at a concealed White Elephant artillery observation post.
All the lenses on the observation instruments had been smeared with opaque paint.
Beside them, a huge middle finger had been drawn in fluorescent powder.
Across the entire valley, within just twenty minutes, seven White Elephant forward positions.
Patrols and observation posts alike had all been wiped out.
Many personnel had died, and every piece of equipment had been destroyed or spray-painted with the number 1962.
The survivors would remember only those ghostly figures in the darkness.
At last, the Thunder Squad led by Wang Qiang regrouped at the designated assembly point.
Twenty men, not one missing.
Wang Qiang checked the time: 03:47.
He pressed his earpiece and said quietly, "Thunderbolt reporting. Mission complete.
All targets cleared. No exposure. Withdrawing according to plan."
At the observation point, Squad Leader Li and Zhao Xiaohu were already trembling all over—not from fear, but excitement.
They had seen with their own eyes those arrogant White Elephant soldiers.
Being eliminated one by one like lambs awaiting slaughter.
And every White Elephant forward position had been marked with the humiliating number 1962.
Not a single trace had been left that could prove the attackers' identities.
Only those glowing numbers, those humiliating graffiti.
Etching deep terror into the mind of every White Elephant soldier.
"Squad Leader..." Zhao Xiaohu's voice choked. "This... this is what we should be doing!"
Squad Leader Li heavily patted his shoulder, his own eyes damp.
"Let's go back. What happened tonight stays buried in our stomachs.
But remember—the country has never forgotten us, and it has never feared anyone."
They quietly retreated to the outpost.
In the distance, inside White Elephant's valley outpost.
The surviving Babul crouched in a corner with his head in his hands, trembling all over.
The lanky man was still babbling incoherently.
The older soldier stared at the severed radio cable, then at the glowing row of numbers by the entrance, his face deathly pale.
From tonight onward, this valley... no longer belonged to them.
Something they could neither understand nor resist, something they could not even describe.
Had already drawn a boundary here.
Tonight's experience would haunt White Elephant's border forces like a nightmare for many years.
Meanwhile, one kilometer away at Rabbit Outpost, the lights were warm.
Squad Leader Li poured each soldier a cup of hot water. He said nothing, only raised his cup.
Everyone silently raised their cups and drained them in one gulp.
The water was scalding, but their hearts burned hotter.
Tonight, the wind on the plateau was still cold.
But some things had already changed.
Before you continue