Death Descends from the Sky (Part 1)

The last rays of twilight were being swallowed by the deeper indigo night that surged up from the mountains and the horizon. The sky was no longer a pure leaden gray, but rather presented an eerie hue mixed with deep purple, dark blue, and the orange-red of distant wildfire embers.

There was no wind; the air was stagnant, like cooled grease. The damp, musty smell of the rubber plantation, mixed with the aroma of firewood from a late-night cooking session, hung heavily over the villa.

The watchtower surrounding the villa was a simple observation post made of planks and canvas, located on a small hill at the bend of the dirt road leading to the villa. The guard was a dark-skinned, thin local youth named A Ta, whom A Wei had temporarily hired from a nearby village, given an old shotgun and a meager daily wage. He didn't know many rules, only that he had to keep an eye on that road and ring the broken bell by the side of the post when he saw unfamiliar vehicles or suspicious people.

A Ta leaned against a rough wooden post, yawned widely, and rubbed his tired eyes. This time of day was the hardest to bear; the light was dim, mosquitoes were becoming active, and the distant mountain forests were blurry, making it easy to strain one's eyes if one stared at them for too long. Bored, he fiddled with the safety on his shotgun, wondering whether he should go to the kitchen for some leftovers after his shift ended, or just go back to the shed to sleep.

Just as his eyelids started drooping again--

A sound, a deep, persistent, and rapidly growing louder buzz, violently tore through the silence of dusk, coming from behind the ridgeline to the southeast.

That wasn't the sound of a car engine, nor the intermittent roar of generators in the nearby villages. This sound was more... dense, more powerful, carrying a heart-pounding, vibrating sensation unique to high-speed metal spinning and cutting through the air. And it wasn't just one sound source, but at least two, rapidly approaching!

A Ta jolted awake, his drowsiness vanishing. He stared wide-eyed in the direction the sound came from. At first, he couldn't see anything in the sky shrouded in twilight and mountain shadows. But the sound grew closer and louder, as if two invisible giant beasts were rushing towards him, skimming the treetops!

Then he saw it.

Two small, fast-moving black dots, almost touching the outline of the ridge of the rubber-covered mountain in the southeast, looked like two huge black owls pouncing from their nest, rushing straight toward the villa with a resolute speed! Their flight path was incredibly low, almost grazing the treetops, using the terrain for cover, and only revealing their ferocious outlines at the last moment.

Those are... helicopters?! A Ta's mind went blank. He had seen them in movies and heard stories of war from the village elders, but he never imagined he would actually see such machines here, deep in this remote rainforest, machines that belonged only to "big shots" or "war"! And there were two of them! Judging from their lines, they were definitely not civilian sightseeing or rescue aircraft!

Fear poured over him like a bucket of ice water, instantly freezing his limbs. He remembered Boss A Wei's repeated instructions to "be vigilant" these past few days, and the increasingly grumpy, menacing "big boss" in the villa... Was trouble really brewing? Was it the police? The army? Or... an enemy?

His hand instinctively reached for the walkie-talkie at his waist, an old, knock-off model with an unreliable signal. He picked it up shakily, pressed the call button, and shouted hoarsely into the local dialect, "Ah, A Wei! There are planes! Two! Flying towards us! Very low! Very fast!"

A piercing static crackled through the walkie-talkie, followed by A Wei's impatient, seemingly unaware voice. "What? Speak louder! What plane?"

"Helicopters! Helicopters!" A Ta almost screamed, his eyes fixed on the two giant black birds that had already reached the airspace directly in front of the villa and were beginning to adjust their posture. He could clearly see that on the side of one of them, there seemed to be a dark, multi-tube-like thing protruding out...

Just then, A Wei's suddenly high-pitched, terrified roar came through the walkie-talkie, drowning out the increasingly loud, ear-piercing roar of the helicopter rotors, "Take cover! Everyone take cover! Find cover! It's not our people! Repeat, it's not us..."

A Wei's roar abruptly stopped.

Because one of the two "Little Bird" helicopters hovering diagonally above the villa, less than fifty meters above the ground, suddenly spat out a long, dazzling, and intensely hot tongue of fire from the side of its dark gun muzzle!

"Hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss--!!!!!!"

That wasn't an ordinary gunshot. It was the terrifying roar of a giant beast, or like a high-pressure water gun tearing through canvas, created by the six barrels spinning wildly under the drive of a high-speed motor, spraying bullets at a rate of thousands per minute! The sound instantly overwhelmed everything, as if a hole had been torn open in the sky itself!

Inside the villa, in the study on the second floor.

Xie Yunchuan was slumped in the leather chair behind his desk, staring blankly at the darkening sky outside the window, unconsciously clutching the empty wine glass in his hand. He had only vaguely heard the first half of A Wei's terrified shouts on the walkie-talkie—"helicopter"—and his mind hadn't fully processed it yet.

Immediately afterwards, a terrifying roar, seemingly from the depths of hell and tearing everything apart, shattered the thick soundproof glass without warning and with extreme brutality, filling his ears, making his scalp tingle, and causing his heart to clench and almost stop beating!

He sprang up from his chair with a thud, the wine glass in his hand falling to the ground with a crash and shattering. But he was oblivious, instinctively scrambling to the huge French windows.

Then, he witnessed a scene he would never forget, a scene that terrified him.

Outside the window, diagonally above the villa, hovered a black, menacing helicopter, like a steel vulture surveying its prey. To the side of the helicopter, a figure in combat gear and a helmet with goggles was operating a multi-barreled machine gun, its muzzle spitting out deadly fire!

The fiery whip, composed of countless pieces of scorching metal and whose trajectory was almost impossible to discern with the naked eye, was lashing wildly at his meticulously constructed wooden villa, which he believed to be impregnable!

"Pfft pfft pfft pfft--!!!"

"Crack! Boom! Crash--!!!"

The dull thud of bullets piercing wooden planks, the cracking sound of beams breaking, the crisp sound of glass windows and decorations shattering instantly, the hissing sound of bullets entering the room and hitting furniture and walls, and the crackling sound of something being ignited... countless sounds mingled together, accompanied by a sky full of flying wood chips, glass shards, brick fragments, curtain tatters, and smoke, leaping and scattering wildly on the villa's exterior walls!

The floor-to-ceiling window where he stood was the first to be hit. Bulletproof glass? In the face of ammunition of this caliber and rate of fire, it was as fragile as a biscuit. After the first wave of bullets swept through, the huge bulletproof glass window was covered with spiderweb-like cracks, and then under the second and third waves of more intense bombardment, it exploded inward with a bang! Countless sharp fragments were sprayed into the study like shotgun pellets!

Xie Yunchuan didn't even have time to dodge before he felt a huge impact, a mixture of scorching heat and debris, slam into him! He screamed and was thrown back, his back hitting the bookshelf behind him hard, sending expensive hardcover books and ornaments crashing down. A sharp pain shot through his back and arms, and warm liquid streamed down his forehead, blurring his vision.

He struggled to get up, but all he could hear was the relentless, terrifying gunfire that seemed to last until the end of the world, and the guttural groans and collapses emanating from the villa itself. Through the shattered windows and billowing smoke, he saw the outer pillars broken, the balcony railings gone, the roof tiles torn off as if by an invisible giant hand, and the beautiful wooden facade of the villa being visibly torn apart and peeled away, revealing the twisted frame and broken wires inside. Flames began to leap from some of the smashed appliances and furniture.

Despair, a chilling, bone-deep despair, instantly gripped him. This was not a warning, not a negotiation; this was a merciless, utterly destructive attack! The other side didn't even utter a word, didn't give him any time to react, and immediately unleashed the most intense barrage!

K! It must be K! Only he, only the power behind him, could mobilize this level of weaponry and use such a ruthless and efficient method to carry out his final reckoning!

He wanted to escape, to hide, but his body wouldn't obey him. He could only collapse amidst the piles of books and fragments, watching the fiery whip of death plow his sinful lair again and again. Each shot felt like a direct lash to his soul. His meticulously arranged security, his chosen hiding place, his remaining wealth and ambition—all turned into laughable and pathetic dust in the face of this absolute violence.

The villa was groaning, collapsing, burning.

In Xie Yunchuan's eyes, the Grim Reaper outside the window, spitting flames, and the apocalyptic scene were reflected. In his final moments, only boundless fear and... a twisted, unwilling realization remained.

He finally found a way to "see" K.

He was delivered by death in the way he feared most, and in the way he was most "honorable"—by death himself.