Russian profanity is instantly recognizable—direct in meaning, harsh in tone, and explosive in delivery. Compounded by the deep, guttural cadence and heavy stress of the language itself, it strikes the ear with an unusually grating, aggressive edge.
Chen Ge popped open the top cover of the receiver, laid the belt across the feed tray, slotted the first cartridge rim into the extractor claw, seated the round in the groove, snapped the cover shut, cocked the bolt, and jogged into the corridor to the right of the stairwell, machine gun cradled in his arms.
The Ukrainian troops had knocked down the partition walls between rooms to allow rapid reinforcement and maneuvering. Wild Boar's squad moved to clear the rooms on the left side of the south corridor, Big Bear and his three comrades took the right, and Hacksaw's squad cleared the north corridor.
The first room on the right was a spacious laboratory cluttered with broken, rusted machinery. Big Bear mounted his PKP machine gun on an old piece of equipment and opened fire through a breach in the partition wall at the Ukrainian soldiers ahead.
Lightbulb pulled the pin on a grenade and hurled it through the gap. But the Ukrainian troops were experienced combat veterans; they ducked for cover instantly, and the blast missed them completely.
Chen Ge rushed in, stepped up beside Big Bear, emptied a burst through the wall breach, and yelled, "Manhole Cover, is that rocket launcher just an ornament? Blast 'em!"
Manhole Cover, who had an RPG-7V1 slung over his shoulder, immediately lowered his rifle, brought the launcher around, flipped off the safety, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and lined up on the breach.
Just then, Night Cat strained his neck and screamed, "Blyat! RPG!"
Behind the breached wall, a Ukrainian soldier poked his head out, shouldering the exact same model—an RPG-7V1—and loaded with a fucking TBG-7V thermobaric warhead.
"Fuck! Overkill much?!"
Chen Ge cursed. Pulling the buttstock tight against his shoulder, he squeezed the trigger. Fitted with a two-hundred-round aluminum drum, the fourteen-kilogram PKM didn't kick so much as a millimeter in his hands.
The 7.62x54mmR rounds drew a laser-straight line, striking true against the exposed head and shoulder of the Ukrainian gunner.
The hit knocked the soldier backward, and his finger contracted reflexively on the trigger. Thwump! The rocket rocketed upward and smashed into the ceiling.
"Suka, get down!"
BOOM!
The thermobaric warhead detonated, wiping out all eight Ukrainian soldiers inside the adjoining room in an instant.
A blast wave laced with fire and choking soot crashed through the gap. Chen Ge and the others ducked in unison. The searing heatwave combined with the sudden vacuum left them gasping for air.
The moment the flames subsided, Manhole Cover sprang up with his RPG and put another rocket straight into the crumbling partition wall.
Whoosh—BOOM!
Lightbulb, Big Bear, and Night Cat formed a wedge and charged in.
Stepping through the breach, they were greeted by a stomach-turning scene: severed limbs and mangled corpses littered the floor, while blood and shredded meat splattered the walls. A heavy, nauseating stench of iron and burnt flesh choked their nostrils.
Rat-tat-tat!
Gunfire erupted from behind another opening in the far partition wall. Three 5.45mm rounds slammed into Lightbulb's chest plate. He let out a muffled grunt, his body barely wobbling, before snapping his rifle up and dropping the Ukrainian soldier at the breach with a clean burst.
Big Bear and Night Cat immediately hit the deck, laying down suppressive fire toward the gap. Manhole Cover caught up, pulled the pin on an F-1 lemon grenade, and lobbed it through.
While the defenders scrambled for cover from the grenade, Big Bear and the other two scrambled to their feet and dashed up to the partition wall. BOOM! The grenade went off, followed by agonizing screams. Standing by the edge of the breach, Night Cat reached out and tossed another lemon grenade inside.
From the adjacent room, Ukrainian troops hurled back two RGN grenades. Reacting in a split second, the four mercenaries threw themselves flat.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three grenades detonated at once, filling the air with thick smoke as shrapnel clattered against the walls like hail.
A group of Ukrainian soldiers tried to rush through to finish off Big Bear and the others, entirely unaware that Chen Ge was crouched behind a pile of collapsed brick rubble across from them, waiting like a patient predator.
The moment five Ukrainian soldiers crossed through the wall breach, the PKM roared to life, unleashing all seventy rounds remaining in its belt.
Thump-thump-thump!
Bullets shredded flesh and bone, making the five soldiers jerk wildly like puppets before tumbling to the floor in twisted heaps. Steaming, crimson blood pooled outward, staining the concrete.
Chen Ge cast the PKM aside, grabbed his HK417, and ran forward, reaching down to help up Night Cat, who was clutching his chest and wheezing from the shockwave. Suddenly, his spider sense flared into a frantic alarm.
Critical danger!
He snapped his head toward the window. An FPV drone darted into view, screaming toward them at forty meters per second.
At that speed, an ordinary human couldn't possibly react. But in Chen Ge's eyes, it moved in slow motion.
His nerves and musculature had mutated into a unified system; the neural pathways, fascia, and muscle fibers had completely eliminated conventional biological transmission delays.
Operating at a visual frame rate of 250 FPS, signal processing and motor triggers occurred nearly simultaneously, locking his overall response time at four milliseconds—just 0.004 seconds.
The instant the FPV drone registered in his vision, his torso and arms pivoted and raised the rifle on pure instinct.
BANG!
A single shot cracked out. The round hit the drone dead center, sending it into a wild spin toward the ground. It slammed onto an abandoned car outside, and the slung RPG warhead detonated, blowing the vehicle to pieces.
***
Two and a half kilometers away, in an underground bomb shelter housing the control center of the 4th FPV Attack Platoon of the Ukrainian 93rd Brigade.
A makeshift command console was pieced together from several folding tables, screens flickering with live battlefield feeds. Operators stared intently at the drone transmissions, thumbs dancing over joysticks amidst the hum of electronics and sharp, terse commands.
Operator Dmitry, a recipient of the Order for Courage, stared wide-eyed in utter disbelief as the display inside his Fat Shark goggles suddenly flipped, warped, and erupted into static.
A second later, the screen went completely black. The signal died, leaving only the hiss of white noise in his headset. A frozen overlay prompted: MISSION TERMINATED — VEHICLE DESTROYED.
He ripped off the goggles, his face pale with shock. "Hell! That's impossible!"
The bustling control center went still for a second. Heads turned toward Dmitry.
Platoon Leader Vasily strode over, asking in a grave voice, "What happened?"
"Sir, I was piloting a strike on several Wagner mercenaries inside a second-floor room of the asphalt plant's laboratory building. Speed was one hundred and forty-five kilometers per hour, distance two hundred and eighty meters. One of the Wagner mercenaries spotted the drone mid-dive and shot it down with a rifle!"
"One shot! He only fired one shot! I swear I'm not seeing things!"
To prove his claim, Dmitry pulled up the recorded DVR footage on his Fat Shark goggles, replaying the sequence: acquiring the target, entering the dive, and being shot down.
The camera resolution was sharp, and the distance was short. It clearly showed Chen Ge snapping his head toward the window, then pivoting and raising his rifle in a flash of lightning to fire.
Fast. Inhumanly fast. So fast the camera only caught an afterimage.
In the next frame, the drone was hit, tumbling downward before the screen cut to black.
The air in the room froze. Vasily's pupils contracted slightly, his entire body rigid.
The dozen or so operators gathered around were left slack-jawed, their minds entirely blank.
That freakish reaction speed and pinpoint marksmanship were completely beyond comprehension. It defied every law of nature.
Was that guy even human?
Vasily stood stunned for a few seconds before shaking his head. He told himself it had to be a fluke.
Fluke or not, the bastard had to die.
"Scramble five more drones. Take him out!"
***
Meanwhile, at 17 Aram Khachaturian Street in Yerevan, Armenia.
A five-story Khrushchevka apartment building stood weathered by time, its faded beige tiles peeling away to reveal patches of gray concrete beneath.
On the ground floor was a secondhand bookstore whose blinds remained permanently drawn, the Armenian lettering on its signboard worn faint and illegible.
On the fifth floor, room 501 bore a yellowed sheet of printed paper taped to the door:
"Yerevan Folklore Photography Studio • By Appointment Only • No Trespassing"
This was a secret safe house for the pro-Russian hacktivist collective known as KillNet.
Chapter 46