"Huff... huff..."
After completely neutralizing the target, Gu Ji took a deep breath, like someone saved from drowning, cold sweat pouring down his back. Though the battle only lasted a few seconds, it was the most thrilling encounter of his life.
The enemy was not only cold-blooded and brutal, but also skilled in close-quarters combat.
Step, hand, knife.
Quick weapon switching, decisive and ruthless attacks, refusing to give up until the threat was fully eliminated.
But the opponent also made a serious tactical error, or rather, it was more like a mistake due to "insufficient personnel": In CQB room clearing, maintaining a combat advantage, i.e., numerical advantage, is crucial. At least two people, the ideal being a team of four or more, advancing in cross formation to prevent incidents where backup is immediately needed.
If not for this mistake, with two enemies present, he would have no chance of turning the tables.
"Wait, accomplice!"
Gu Ji's eyes widened suddenly, gripping his pistol tightly, his left hand pressed against the ground, tensed back, locking his shoulder, his whole spine springing up like a startled cat, slowly inching along the wall, gun pointed towards the office door outside.
A strong stench of blood assaulted his senses.
The entire first-floor airport lobby was filled with bodies and scattered suitcases and backpacks, intermingled, with flight information screens darkened, overturned silver metal benches, shattered glass from shopfronts, and white cerebral matter flowing everywhere.
On the escalator leading to the second floor, tourists trying to escape in fear died in various positions, some stuck on the escalator, some transported to the top in piles.
This was hell, nothing less.
Ratatat...
Gunfire on the second floor continued, a figure shook at the stairway, causing Gu Ji to quickly duck his head back.
One-plus-one plus formations.
One person was responsible for sweeping the first floor for any living remnants, one stayed at the second-floor stairway lookout, ready to support up and down as needed, while the rest continued advancing on the second floor.
Fortunately, from this angle, he couldn't be seen by the thugs inside the office.
In Gu Ji's mind, he already equated these cold-blooded military killers with "terrorist thugs," and while contemplating how to evade the second floor's "sentry" and escape, a weak numbness and burning sensation crept from his left waist.
He instinctively looked down, revealing bloodstained teeth in either pain or laughter: "Damn it, still got messed up."
Indeed, he was shot.
At the moment of lunging to grab the gun, Gu Ji vaguely felt a deviation in his body, like something disturbed his balance, turning a frontal assault into a side blow, but as his attention was focused on the 56-2 assault rifle, he noticed nothing else amiss.
But in reality, he had been shot.
Thanks to the external dangerous environment stimuli, his brain passively activated "survival mode," adrenaline surged into his blood, elevating blood pressure, heart rate, expanding lung ventilation channels, maximizing energy output.
In this "superbody" state, any pain was significantly dulled.
Moreover, pain is sensed by the brain's cortex through receptors, as long as the brain doesn't notice it, pain remains unfelt, just like many people remain standing after being shot, not because they're numb, but because they haven't realized they're shot.
And now, Gu Ji was facing the intense pain his brain just realized from the gunshot.
The escalating burning sensation felt like a thousand wasp stings.
Lightly lifting away the torn flower-pattern shirt and white vest stuck to the wound, there were two wounds, the upper one grazing the skin, the lower one was torn deeper.
The blood oozing from around the wound, and exposed yellow subcutaneous fat, clearly showed the shredded muscle fibers inside.
"Luckily, it's just a graze, not sure about the kidneys..."
With the 7.62x39mm intermediate cartridge's power, a direct hit would cause massive damage as it passed through the body, shaking the organs, then exiting at 570 meters per second, knocking one down instantly, not like him, who could still tackle the enemy and fight on.
Glancing at the corpse of the thug under the table, Gu Ji endured the pain and quickly moved over, searching.
These attackers weren't poorly equipped, and most importantly, they knew tactical coordination, clearly not ordinary sloppy soldiers from Ethiopia, but military individual elites likely carrying first aid kits.
During the search, a bulletproof vest under a brown camouflage uniform and a Type 82-2 oval grenade confirmed his guess.
This also made Gu Ji shiver with fear; luckily, he fired an extra shot then.
"Found it."
The first aid kit was tied to the belt, very basic, with only a roll of hemostatic bandage and an injector containing a white solid substance.
Gu Ji seemed to have seen something similar in police combat training trauma protection classes, no time to ponder, tore open the hemostatic bandage, gritting his teeth, wrapping it around the wound, "Ugh!", a pain beyond words shot from his lower back to his scalp, making him shudder.
This pain was too damn real, nothing like a game!
Not knowing if there would be aftereffects in reality, his Nanfu energy ring hadn't been used much, couldn't be wasted now!
Gu Ji tried to distract himself from the wound's intense pain by thinking of as many funny things as possible.
"Thi... o....fizz..."
As he was about to tie the bandage, some faint static noise entered from behind his ears.
Gu Ji immediately aimed his gun towards it.
His vision passed through the aperture sight of the firearm sight, falling on the matte black object next to the thug's ear.
It was a behind-the-ear tactical headset!
Previously hidden under the red scarf, unnoticed.
Recalling something, Gu Ji crawled closer, snatching the headset to press against his cheek.
"Theodore, what is Yatawani Tamiro?"
"Damn it! Cohen, Yatawani, Hewa Neli Ehefofa..."
...
It was a conversation among the thugs' accomplices, but unfortunately, most of it was in phrases he didn't understand, mixed with a few English words, probably in the local Ethiopian language, but from the urgent tone, it was clear they suspected something was amiss here!
He had to leave immediately.
Otherwise, he would die!
He understood, but the problem was, how to leave?
The office was at least a dozen meters from the airport gate, all open ground in between. If he ran out, he'd instantly be shot to pieces by the thugs guarding the second floor, not to mention, he already had a gunshot wound.
A dead end.
Failure.
Can I still survive?
The pain from the wound, the chatter through the headset from the thugs, the blood-red countdown in the top-right of his vision, all internal and external pressures crushed Gu Ji like an anvil, grinding him repeatedly.
Calm down, I must calm down.
Police tactical principle assessments teach that the success of an operation, shooting skills account for 15%, physical skills and luck 5% each, and mental skills 75%!
There must be a solution, there must be something I've overlooked...
Taking a deep breath, Gu Ji gradually narrowed his eyes, icy light condensing in them like cold stars, scanning every detail in the office rapidly, finally pausing along the arc marks on the wall from the 56 assault rifle bullet holes in the ceiling.
Ceiling tiles?!