death of hope

Chapter 1048 Psychic Storm (121) The Mantis Stalks the Cicada
XNUM X days,
night,
As the float entered the ambush area, Pavel Korchagin pulled up his collar, disappeared into the noisy crowd, and used his throat communicator to issue orders over the channel:
"Operators, to your positions. I hereby declare Operation Siegfried open. Sniper teams are authorized to fire. Technical teams, prepare to jam the shields."

"receive."

After a concise and efficient communication, the GRU operators, like sophisticated killing machines, began to operate, their gears meshing together.

·
Inside the towering, unfinished building,

The sniper had already locked onto the target, and the ballistic computer quickly adjusted the trajectory based on factors such as weapon velocity, gravity, wind speed, planetary rotation, temperature, and humidity, aligning the ballistic impact point with the eyepiece markings.

Rimi Takiya's hands were as steady as a neurosurgeon's, without the slightest tremor. With the aid of the brace, the crosshairs moved smoothly and evenly with the target, like an aimbot in a game.
Such skill can only be achieved by top-level shooters at the Olympic level.

Two kilometers away from the unfinished building, on a brightly lit avenue...
The float, converted from a missile launcher, was moving at a steady speed. In the middle of the huge platform supported by the float, the senator was slightly turned to the side, waving and smiling at the crowded people.

To project an image of integrity and approachability, all luxury items were deemed inappropriate. The public relations team dressed the senator in a cheap, crude artificial turquoise necklace.

There is a tiny alloy joint between the necklace chain and the turquoise pendant, which is exactly where the heart of the necklace is located. In low-light night vision mode, the center of the crosshair of the scope is gradually aligned with this joint, capturing that tiny bit of light.

·
(Aim at the smaller the target, the more accurate the shot... Stay calm... Take a deep breath...)
Rimi Takiya muttered to herself, repeating the method her master had taught her years ago, her index finger slowly tracing the trigger guard, moving inwards.

The wind wasn't strong today, and the visibility was good. At this distance, with this top-of-the-line equipment and ammunition, she was absolutely certain of success.

One can imagine that, on hundreds of television stations and in the live broadcasts of thousands of social media bloggers, a large-caliber armor-piercing incendiary bomb pierced and burned through the senator's entire chest cavity.
Imagine the horror on the faces of the hosts and bloggers. The TV director quickly cut off the bloody and horrific scenes, and the words "pause live broadcast" appeared on countless TV screens at the same time. The viewers in the living room looked at each other in bewilderment.

·
(Shino Tsukizaki, a powerful woman standing at the pinnacle of power in the Terra Federation, the leader of the Green D who trampled countless lives to rise to power, issued extermination orders on countless base planets, and slaughtered countless workers, patriots and heroes with her henchmen...)

Tonight, Shino Tsunesaki will finally pay the price for her sins…

And the bullet that ended her life was fired by me…

What an honorable mission…

Pull the trigger, to avenge our comrades…
Thinking this, Rimi Takiya shed tears.
Just as she held her breath, capturing the moment her target paused, and prepared to pull the trigger,

He heard the observer Dmitri shout beside him;

"Enemy activity!" Gunshots rang out immediately.

·
There was no panic.

Rimi Takiya had waited far too long for this moment. As a GRU operator, she had long since disregarded life and death.
Prioritizing completing the task, he pulled the trigger without hesitation.

The barrel of the electromagnetic sniper rifle glowed blue as the large-caliber armor-piercing incendiary round was accelerated to 1800 meters per second, which is almost equivalent to the muzzle velocity of a 125mm tank main gun.

The instant the shots were fired, electromagnetic pulse bombs mounted on the drone were simultaneously launched, dispersing the energy shield that had enveloped the float.
The bullet's explosive charge detonated 1 kilometer away, and the secondary acceleration gave the bullet even greater penetrating power, piercing through the physical shield and heading straight for the senator's heart, only to be stopped by an invisible force.

The woman, as cold and beautiful as ice, one of the senator's two top bodyguards, the cybernetic Alexandra, stood in front of her master.

The psionic shield is immune to electromagnetic pulses. Alexandra blocked the fatal blow for her master. The fragments and flames from the armor-piercing incendiary warhead explosion disappeared into the psionic shield as if sucked into a black hole.

·
(How...how is this possible?)

I messed up?!
Do not…

(The other side was prepared...)
Rimi Takiya was both shocked and furious. She only had this one shot, her chance to avenge her family and comrades, and it had been wasted. (Could it be… a traitor betrayed us?!)
Enraged to the point of having her eyes bloodshot, she unhesitatingly removed the high-powered scope, flipped up the low-powered holographic sight hanging on the side to lock onto it, and turned the gun around to throw it to her side.

The observer, Dmitri, had already been wounded protecting her; a caltrop thrown from the darkness pierced his thigh, drawing blood. The bearded man threw down his binoculars, drew two Scorpion submachine guns, and opened fire wildly, tracer rounds leaving trails of flame...

·
The attackers did not appear to be human.

A dozen nimble black figures moved like monkeys, climbing along the edges of scaffolding and the exterior walls of the unfinished building.
Several of them were hit by the Scorpion submachine gun and fell, one of whom circled around, pulled out a sickle, and slashed at Dmitry's neck.

"Uncle Di! Lie down!" Takiya shouted hoarsely.

Dmitry reacted extremely quickly; upon hearing his comrade's warning, he immediately lay prone on the wooden planks of the scaffolding.

A large-caliber high-explosive shell struck the shadowy figure that had ambushed him. With a loud 'BOOM!', cybernetic body parts, sticky bio-organs, and genetically modified flesh and blood splattered everywhere.

The other person's veins were full of compounds and stimulants, with almost no blood...

·
Due to the urgency of the situation and the close proximity, the shot was not aimed at all, but rather thrown out based on muscle memory and nerve reflexes, thus saving his comrade in time.

Rimi Takiya fired repeatedly, then used a low-magnification holographic sight to kill three people within two seconds.
Taking advantage of his comrades' cover, Dmitri quickly threw four grenades. Due to the special proximity fuses and his superb throwing skills, each one exploded in mid-air, and several dark figures were hit by grenade fragments and fell to the ground.

Seeing that the sneak attack had failed, the shadowy figure in the darkness no longer concealed itself and revealed itself.
There were men and women, all dressed in bizarrely designed combat suits, headscarves, and implanted cybernetic eyes emitting a cold green light.

Equipped with sickles, barbed wire, shuriken, and samurai swords, these people didn't seem to be in a hurry to make a move, after all, the sniper team had nowhere to escape.

·
"Little Gu... watch out... these are cyber ninjas..."

Dimitri gasped, clutching his wound and painfully pulling out the barbed caltrop.

Rimi Takiya threw away the empty magazine of her sniper rifle and pulled out her Colt carbine from her back, cocking it.

"How did these guys sneak up here? Wasn't Old Cui supposed to be keeping watch on the first floor?"

"Old Cui is probably dead... We need to report this to the boss and the others as soon as possible."

"The channel is being jammed; all I can hear is static..."

"What's going on?! We're using the highest security level channel... why hasn't the technical team activated the backup channel yet?! Could it be... that Tonya, Antō, and the others... have also... perished...?"

"I don't know what happened... Anyway... our sniping attempt failed..."

"Paul and his team will execute Plan B. If they're still alive... we can't help them, we need to get out of here quickly..."

"How do we retreat...? There's no way out... We're surrounded..."

"Damn it! A living person can't be killed by holding their pee! Charge out!"

·
Dimitri threw down his submachine gun with its magazine empty, pulled out a Remington 980 shotgun from his back, and chambered a bullet with a click.

"Let's give it our all!"

Rimi Takiya's eyes also reddened. She picked up her carbine and fired at the charging cyber ninja...