Life Hunter

Chapter 125: ''Damn…''

While underwater, Jin had to take multiple anti-stress pills and groaned throughout the whole excursion. Meanwhile, everyone else prepared mentally by either closing their eyes and half-sleep or clean and check their weapons.

Arima was doing the latter. A lot of the squad members would also observe him and admire their entitled sniper at work. After all, Arima had only trained four years with this rifle but had already reached a master level as if he had used it for more than two decades.

Arima practiced assembling and disassembling his gun until they reached their destination. With the familiarity he had gained with his weapon, he could do the entire process in twelve seconds.

"We've arrived," Moria announced and slowly opened the hatch. He peeked outside and saw the shore of the island in the night. "We'll have to swim a little to get there. Jin, let your drone take off from here. You should be able to connect with the other teams too," he ordered and pulled out a strange sphere from a compartment inside the submarine. He pressed on a button and it extended to become something like a handle with a small turbine on the front.

After that, he jumped in the water and used the device to approach the island. Next was Erin, and then everyone did the same.

"Here," Arima smiled and took a sphere before throwing it at Jin. The latter grabbed it with a pale expression and shot daggers at Arima with his eyes.

"Hurry up with the drone. We'll go out with you," Tieria added and Arima nodded. They were the only ones left in the submarine. The three of them had formed a team in this squad, they were basically always together on missions. Although they were the best assassin, sniper, and technician of the squad, no one ever told them something about forming a group together since they were incredibly efficient as it is.

"Us too, hurry," Tiria's voice sounded from outside as she waited with Garo and Farro.

Jin's expression twitched. "Damnit!" He deployed the drone and let it automatically fly upward.

When everyone was on top of the submarine, they activated their underwater equipment and so did Jin.

"We'll go first," Tiria said and jumped in the water with the two big guys.

"Jin, we'll go with you, so just jump and be sure to not let go of that handle," Tieria reassured her friend and Jin sighed. He closed his bag to avoid his computer being destroyed.

He inhaled and jumped together with Arima and Tieria. The two of them helped him to not panic underwater and then stepped on the beach soon after. They stayed in the water for only a minute, but it felt like an eternity for Jin.

"Let's get in the forest," Arima quietly said and took the lead. Tieria followed him and Jin lit up an electric cigar before following his teammates with a sullen expression.

They entered the forest and stopped when they found an appropriate foliage to hide in.

"Jin, what about the drones?" Moria asked through the radio.

Jin opened his laptop and checked the signal and the connections. "We're clear. The other squads are here too. They already opened a channel as well. We've also got a message from our ship, they're ready to send aerial support at any time," Jin responded calmly.

"Good, stay spread out. We'll advance like this. Take care of any patrolling guard you see," Moria instructed and cut the radio.

The trio nodded to each other and started heading toward the center of the island under the cover of the trees. And even while moving, Jin continued using his tablet. "My drone is connected but I can't hack into their security completely. I only can set a loop on the cameras' feedback but they will notice that over time if they're not stupid. What should I do, Sir?" Jin asked on the radio.

"Wait for my signal," he got his response and Jin put his program on standby.

"Shh," Tieria signaled her team to quiet down whilst putting a silencer on her gun. Jin and Arima instantly switched the radios off and slowed down. They listened attentively and heard the voices and footsteps of two people. "Stay here," Tieria murmured to Jin and nodded at Arima.

The latter slowly put his rifle on the ground and drew his gun and knife before installing a silencer on the former.

He walked toward the voices and Tieria took another path. Both she and Arima spotted two conversing soldiers walking in the forest.

They didn't need to communicate with each other as they sneaked up behind them and swiftly covered their mouths before cutting their throat. They then fired with their guns from behind and shot their hearts before dragging them to a place more secure.

"It's over," Arima said on his radio to Jin and they rejoined to resume their march. They reached the rim of the forest after a few minutes and saw the walls of the facility at least a hundred meters away from them. Meaning that a hundred meters' worth of flat terrain separated the forest from the target.

"This is rather troublesome," Jin commented whilst peeking from behind a tree.

"You bet," Tieria uttered and took her radio to listen.

"We can't rush there without cover. There are guards patrolling just under those walls and there are some inside the small rooms on top of it; looking at the camera's images most likely. We'll need to be quick. It's the usual. Jin will loop the cameras, and we will eliminate the guards. We don't have that many snipers. Arimane, you will have to take three by yourself, the other three will be taken down at the signal by Julian, Oreo, and Gen," Moria declared.

"After that, we'll rush there together and climb the wall. We'll have to do it quickly before they notice that the cameras have been tampered with. So, prepare for that," he concluded and put the radio on standby.

Every member of the squad knew that the signal will be a high-pitched sound coming from the radio so everyone fell silent as the snipers positioned themselves to fire.

Arima casually picked up his case and assembled his rifle but as he was pressing the gun's stock against his shoulder, he saw that two of his targets were now talking together.

Arima frowned but didn't say anything as he drew his pistol and calmly aimed at the soldiers. Jin and Tieria opened their mouths but restrained themselves from saying anything. After a few seconds, a beeping sound came from the radio.

Jin immediately installed the loop and the three snipers fired and so did Arima. He quickly fired two times consecutively. The two soldiers he was aiming at fell dead on the ground.

Arima didn't even use his rifle for the last guy either as he stood up and pointed his gun at him before firing.

Jin sighed in relief and put back the cigar in his mouth. He closed his laptop and stood up. "Always so reckless, huh?" He muttered and Tieria rolled her eyes as she agreed.

Arima smiled and put back his rifle in the case. "A hundred meters is my limit like this anyway, we were lucky that they weren't farther," he said and started running toward the facility. The other members of the squad also emerged from the forest after him.

They also did something odd as they passed by the fallen guards. They took a strange device and scanned the throat and clothes of the people they had just killed. They then plugged it into their portable devices and Jin started working on his laptop.

It was a measure against pagers. Jin would scan the vocal cords, register the pagers' signal on his computer, and then electronically reconstitute a voice to answer. That technology was still not perfect but it was more than enough since even trained soldiers, especially those protecting a certain place for a long period of time, don't call the pagers unless they notice something bizarre.

The bodies of the soldiers were placed in the dead angles of the cameras and then everyone swiftly climbed the wall by creating footholds with steel blades. Their exceptional constitution allowed them to jump over it without touching the electrified railing at the top.

Jin landed and removed the loop. He also received different messages from the other squads saying that they had infiltrated the facility in their own ways.

The squad gathered on the top of the wall and looked at what it was sheltering. But they could only see a spherical roof that didn't have any hole or window. They couldn't deduce anything from the outside appearance of the facility.

Moria wordlessly pointed at one of the small rooms built across the wall's length and everyone nodded. Erin leaned next to the door and used a squarish device to inspect it. He detected two heat signals and put away the scanner. He beckoned to one of the squad members and the guy crouched in front of the door. He grabbed a really small object from his bag and pierced a hole on it with a needle before throwing it in the room through the gap between the door and the ground.

Everyone counted a minute in their heads before someone picked the door's lock and opened the way. The two guys watching the monitors were already dead and the small object that was thrown inside had dissolved in the air.

Jin didn't waste time and connected his laptop to the devices in the room. He looked at his screen while the squad inspected the room and called the elevator that was in it.

"I see" Jin mumbled and turned around. "Arima, you dabbled in hacking, right? Help me out for a bit."

Arima was a bit surprised but put down his case and went toward the monitors. "What do I do?"

"You see that line? That's the address connecting those computers to the mainframe directing the security system. I want you to trace it and connect me to the source. I'll cover you while you're doing it. I can't do those two things at the same time," Jin explained.

"No problem," Arima nodded and started typing. Meanwhile, the squad patiently waited as they were ready to go down that elevator cage at any moment.

"Done," Jin said after a few minutes and Moria walked over to take a look. Jin showed a map of the place with all of the cameras' locations and sent it to the other squads.

"This place has actually many underground levels" he said as he looked through the files. "I can connect to the cameras somewhat but I can't access the database from here," he stated and displayed the images of the cameras.

He looked over some images before stopping at a certain bundle of them. Everyone in the room froze as they stared at the images displayed on the screen.

On those images, you could see some really disturbing looking things. First of all, there were huge tanks of Eion energy. This wasn't a surprise but what was coupled to those tanks was another thing. They were connected with pipes to several humanoid robot frames.

"Are they serious?" Arima blurted out loud what everyone was thinking. Giant robots. What a funny idea for past generations. But they still attempted it. Arima remembered it perfectly. It happened when he was eleven and he was particularly interested in that topic.

But even with Eion, the idea was abandoned since the cost, the materials, and the different constraints were too tough to overcome. So, in the end, the army decided to stick with armored vehicles.

Thus, the fact that this facility in the middle of the Pacific Ocean actually owned some prototypes was shocking for the squad. On top of that, there were additional images and videos where the robots were being tested and they were working at perfection. Even the movements were fluid.

Jin swiped on his tablet and found new photos. Those were of unknown pods connected to the robot frames. It appeared that human brains had been used to replace the driving functions that should have been programmed.

And finally, on the last images, the squad was faced with a very alarming sight; large hangars filled to the brim with prototypes of Eion Fission Bombs. Essentially the equivalent of nuclear bombs.

"Damn" Jin didn't have any other words to describe this.

"We need to destroy this place," Moria stated. "We can't even show this to the higher-ups. I'm not even sure what kind of atrocities they could do with all of that," he said and directly went to the elevator. He opened the trapdoor that led to the elevator cage and sighed.

"Let's go. Our main objective is to destroy the aerial defenses and then blow up the underground levels before calling an airstrike," he declared with a tone that left no place for inquiries and jumped down.