King Of War: Starting with Arms Dealer

Joe Ga and his team were searching for a hidden spot with the prisoner while distant combat was reaching a fever pitch.

The sounds of heavy-caliber machine cannons could be heard from afar. Joe Ga climbed a hillside and looked into the distance. What he saw through his night vision goggles made him pull off his protective glasses and rub his eyes...

Four Longbow Apaches...

Joe Ga thought the world must have gone mad!

It's not unusual for the National Guard to have Apaches, but deploying Apaches to hunt him down? That was just overkill!

Apaches are equipped with extremely advanced detection systems. Once they're on you, Springblade drones aren't effective against them, meaning their side would be in serious trouble.

Joe Ga didn't have time to overthink. He quickly rushed to the covert mountain hollow Poison Wolf had chosen, going straight to Squad Leader Case. He signaled the medic to use smelling salts to wake the man up...

Then, as Case hazily regained consciousness, Joe Ga grabbed one of his fingers and snapped it with force...

Case froze for a few seconds before letting out a muffled groan of agony.

As he instinctively tried to struggle up, a pair of large hands slammed him firmly onto the ground.

Seeing the terror in Case's eyes, Joe Ga shook the satellite phone in front of him and said, "This is the tool you use to contact General Ogen, isn't it?"

Case stared wide-eyed at Joe Ga, desperately trying to act tough...

Then he let out a scream that didn't sound human...

Joe Ga was holding a knotted wooden stick and struck it hard against Case's ankle.

The excruciating pain was just the beginning. Grabbing Case's hand, Joe Ga proceeded to break his fingers one by one while demanding, "Give me answers..."

By the time the fourth finger was viciously snapped, Case screamed in terror, "Yes, yes, this was given to me by General Ogen..."

Amid Case's screams, Joe Ga decisively broke his fifth finger. He then picked up the wooden stick again and asked coldly, "What were his orders to you?"

Case hesitated, prompting Joe Ga to swing the stick down without hesitation, slamming it onto Case's other ankle.

"Ahhh..."

Case convulsed in pain, trying to clutch his ankle, but Ayu pinned him resolutely to the ground.

The man wailed and shrieked, watching as Joe Ga stomped on his intact left hand, pulled out a hatchet from his chest rig, and made a threatening gesture...

"I'll talk, I'll talk. General Ogen ordered me to lead personnel from the north into the jungle under the guise of a drill. He told me to kill all outsiders when necessary.

There are other squads just like mine...

I don't know what's happening; I was just following orders.

Seriously, I'm begging you. I was only following orders…"

Joe Ga listened, picked up the satellite phone placed near Case's head, and said, "Did you hear that? Take down that son of a bitch Ogen! He actually deployed Longbow Apaches..."

On the other end of the call, Cooper hesitated for a second before responding, "He didn't..."

"He didn't what?"

"Ogen didn't deploy the Apaches. FUCK, Hu Lang..."

Joe Ga didn't bother listening to the rest of Cooper's words. He stood up and shouted, "We retreat, we retreat! FUCK! The whole National Guard is against us!"

As Joe Ga was yelling for a retreat, two of the distant Apaches suddenly opened fire...

A volley of 40 rockets swept through the area near Bloody Mary's crashed Black Hawk helicopter, annihilating the positions established there along with the captured pilots and crew members, reducing them into shredded meat.

Then the other two Apaches ascended a few hundred meters and launched four specially designed Super Pressure Hellfire missiles toward Joe Ga's location...

Joe Ga, sprinting, felt a burning heat on his back before being propelled forward like he weighed half as much, speeding through the forest for dozens of meters before crashing heavily to the ground.

As Joe Ga struggled to get up, Ayu rushed over, grabbed him, and shouted for Dorian to cover the boss's other side before picking up the pace and running hard.

Though the heat from the Super Pressure Hellfires hadn't dissipated yet, another barrage of 20 rockets pounded their previous location.

After being carried for several hundred frantic meters, Joe Ga strained to have Ayu put him down, then activated his communicator and yelled, "'Pliers,' stop freezing up! Deploy every Springblade we've got, now!"

Meanwhile, 'Pliers' and 'Dart' were losing their minds too. Pliers controlled eight unmanned aerial drones circling above for cover and targeted the Apaches. He and Dart simultaneously released the last eight Springblades they had left...

Once the drones were deployed, Pliers yelled to Dart, "Get in the car! Drones won't work against Apaches; we need to make some noise to draw their attention."

As Pliers and Dart sprang into action, the eight drones grouped into pairs and zeroed in on the hovering Apaches...

All four Apaches were attacked simultaneously. But as Pliers had stated, hitting the side armor of an Apache with a drone attack simply couldn't achieve lethal results.

Furthermore, Apaches had highly sensitive sensors. When the drones initiated attacks, their level flight made them too slow, allowing the Apaches time to respond effectively.

In the resulting explosions, only one Apache suffered tail rotor damage, causing minor instability and forcing it to withdraw.

The other three seemed enraged, descending and raining bullets from their cannons on the spot where Joe Ga's team had been.

As Joe Ga's group continued to run, a Stinger missile fired from the south struck one of the Apaches.

The Stinger proved far more effective—its strike severed the tail rotor instantly, causing the Apache to spin violently before crashing heavily to the ground.

The remaining two Apaches immediately climbed higher altitude. One began scouring the direction from whence the Stinger had been fired, while the other kept pursuing Joe Ga's team relentlessly...

"Boss, use signal flares to confuse the Apache's heat-seeking system. Find a snowbank to hide in.

Jack still has one Stinger left..."

The voice on the channel belonged to Ronnie, who'd yet to stand out much in the chaos. Joe Ga didn't have time to ponder where Ronnie got his Stinger; while sprinting, he activated the missile pack on Ayu's back and shouted, "Elephant, throw out the flares! King Kong, we move!"

Dorian was about to reach into the pack when Poison Wolf, trailing behind him, suddenly pulled out a flashbang grenade, activated it, waited two seconds, and hurled it skyward.

The flash of the grenade caused a temporary break in the Apache's assault. Seizing the moment, the team members simultaneously ignited their flares and scattered in different directions...

Joe Ga instantly understood their intent...

Seeing the Apache's cannon fire tracking the others, Joe Ga roared as he rushed into a clearing, locked onto the Apache, and shouted, "Spearhead Missile, twelve rounds, fire~!"

At Joe Ga's command, twelve Spearhead micro-missiles launched simultaneously from his and Ayu's missile packs.

The pursuing Apache paid dearly for its mistake...

Twelve micro-missiles traveled over 1.6 kilometers, hitting the Apache completely.

A string of explosions sent smoke billowing from the Apache's airframe before it plummeted from 200 meters and detonated upon impact.

Meanwhile, Jack and Ronnie fired a Stinger missile at the same time.

Unfortunately, the targeted Apache was prepared this time, dispensing multiple flares to thwart the Stinger's attack before launching a series of counterstrikes aimed at the missile's origin.

A barrage of over a dozen rockets leveled an area before the Apache turned its focus back toward Joe Ga, clearly intent on a long and deadly engagement...

Joe Ga realized the external conflict had certainly reached the climax...

It wasn't just General Ogen in the National Guard who'd gone rogue. Others had, too.

Pushed to the brink, these individuals had nothing left to lose. Cooper, an FBI deputy director, was just an intelligence chief. Faced with a rebellion from soldiers, he was utterly powerless.

Their only path to resolution was to take down the last Apache and crush the National Guard's will to fight.

If P.B.'s people survived, their enemies would lose everything—and they'd lose permanently!

Joe Ga shed his missile pack, eliciting a strange look from Dorian as he dug into his tactical backpack to reload six Spearhead missiles.

Securing the pack atop a mound to ensure clear airspace overhead, Joe Ga activated his communicator and said, "Sound off—who's still alive?"

Poison Wolf flung another ignited flare far away. As he approached Joe Ga, he responded, "Team C, Poison Wolf intact..."

Poison Snake pulled a branch thorn from his arm, moving toward Joe Ga as he said, "Team C, Poison Snake intact..."

Poison Scorpion inspected his left hand, noticing somewhere along the way he'd lost two fingers. Wrapping the injury with bandages, he said, "Team C, Poison Scorpion intact..."

Sniper Xiao Luo emerged from a snowbank, patted Poison Scorpion's arm as he passed, and said, "Team C, Xiao Luo intact..."

Spurs sat beneath a large tree, watching Depp retrieve two remnants of corpses from the initial bombing site—he knew they were De Niro and Raphael.

Seeing Depp's zombie-like expression, Spurs glanced down at the open wound on his calf. Bitterly smiling, he tightened his tourniquet before turning his gaze toward the blood-spewing, wheezing Orange Cat...

He motioned for medic Bandage to ignore him temporarily and attend to Orange Cat. Meanwhile, he pulled out morphine and injected himself. Sighing, he bent down to realign his broken shin bone within the mangled tissue before using an inflatable stabilization bag to wrap it...

"Boss, the HRT lost two men. Orange Cat and I should survive, but neither of us is moving anywhere…"

Joe Ga heard the responses from his team and looked toward the incoming Apache. He shook his head and declared, "Move? Why should we move?

They made us bleed; we'll make them bleed even more!

Hold the line. Once I take down that Apache, Cooper's rescue helicopters will pick us up."

Turning his gaze to Team C's members, Joe Ga nodded, ensuring none of them were gravely injured. He then said, "Those bastards disrespected us...

Make them bleed. Bleed a lot..."

Poison Wolf nodded slightly, signaling his team to vanish into the shadows, heading toward the cluster of National Guard personnel...