Mercenary Black Mamba

Chapter 153: Chapter 18, Episode 14: The Returning Battle

Battle instincts overwhelmed him. He automatically became one with nature. The main point of becoming one with nature was based on a skill that erased the Morphic Field.

What was a Morphic Field?

All things possessed its own form and shape. What made this possible was a specific energy frame created according to its space. It was, in other words, an energy field.

On the other hand, it referred to the object’s composition and movements, the push and pull, and the spreading of power in the space made. Life forces created a connection between nature and other living things.

The reason why he could feel a presence from objects was because his senses were intercepted by other living things’ life forces. There was a difference in the presence between a tiger and a cat, a pine tree, and a flower.

Becoming one with nature was a skill that blocked out the interceptions of those living beings. It was the upgraded version of erasing small ki, found in martial arts novels. On the flipside, resonance was the enhancement of interceptions.

The nightmare of battlefields attacked the guerrillas’ search party. The Kukri became his hands and feet. The FROLINAT who were unable to sense him were done in easily. Black Mamba jumped out from the ground, trees, and rocks like lightning.

Heads exploded at his fists, backs folded in two at his feet. When the Kukri flashed, their bodies split in two. Their upper bodies were holed by a thrown rock. It was the appearance of a blood-crazed monster.

Adrenaline and dopamine increased physical strength with proper distribution, but an overload could paralyze reason. Unrelenting hand movements broke through bones and muscles. Black Mamba attacked without a thought for his injuries. Dombrey forest was soon covered with scared guerrillas shouting and randomly firing guns.

The north-eastern guerrillas were busy running from the suppressed fear which wrapped around them. They even shot their commander to run away. Amongst the dead was Major Kidili, who set up the booby trap. It wasn’t long before the gunshots and shouts died down.

Hassan, who was hiding between the branches of a baobab tree, tucked his chin in even further. He felt as though the mere clacking of his teeth would call the Kanma over.

“Everyone’s dead. Ah, everyone’s dead. Allah, please protect your pitiful slave from the Kanma’s hands. Allah, you are the sole greatness, justice, and God.”

Hassan murmured frantically. He prayed out loud, despite the fear of being heard, so that Allah could hear his prayer. Unfortunately, Allah didn’t hear Hassan’s prayer.

“Kegh!”

His neck was gripped in hands as tight as iron. Hassan’s eyes bulged out. It was the Kanma, who appeared without a trace. His consciousness fled to Andromeda.

“Ka…Kanma!”

Hassan’s eyes lost their focus as it met a pair of blazing red eyes. Yellow liquid flowed down from between his legs.

Realizing that this was his end, the thoughts of his old mother and young siblings passed Hassan’s head.

“Did they feel this fear as well?”

He recalled the gazes of the locals he’d axed to death, all done with a felling and single-bit axe. The owners of the necks he had cleaved were those he’d once ate, laughed, and talked with. Suddenly, tears ran down his face.

“What a weak b*stard!”

Black Mamba threw the guerrilla that was in his hand to the ground without consideration. A red doll dropped from the branches of a baobab tree.

“Kuh, kugh.”

Hassan twisted his body in pain after strangely twisting his spine. Hassan’s pained groan was the only sound in the forest.

Crack—

A foot loaded with immense weight stepped on Hassan’s neck.

There was silence. A red diablo stood alone in a devastated forest. It was Black Mamba, with his Kukri and Glock in each hand. His red-lit eyes slowly returned to its original color.

He looked at himself. The Kukri was suitable for slashing down and sideways, but it wasn’t suitable for slicing up and stabbing. He was bound to be covered in blood from the sliced necks and chests.

His brown-yellow uniform was dyed red. He had become a red beggar, no, a rag. Blood that drenched his clothes ran down the folds and dripped onto the ground. The litam which wrapped his face was also drenched in blood.

“Master, your student wasn’t able to escape the instincts of an animal. Please forgive your student.”

His consciousness had remained the same, but he hadn’t been able to control himself. He had drowned himself in blood, momentarily.

Black Mamba fell silent after a glance around. He couldn’t see a single clean death. Corpses that were crushed, sliced, and shattered were lined. There wasn’t another path to hell like this. This was hell.

“Namu Amita Bul, may you live in fortune in your next life!”

The guard had lied. He had killed 180 by attacking the command post and erased 230 in the forest. There were those who’d ran after killing 410, and there were still soldiers in the command post. There was no way to tell how many there were in total. Black Mamba would never know that the guard was an idiot who didn’t know math.

“So many of those dirty b*stards had come. Well, there’s not much difference between 300 and 500. There’s no need to kill those who’ve run and hide, I guess.”

The 300 to one death-match in Dombrey forest closed its curtains. The guerrillas who survived the battle began to spread evil stories of the Kanma once again throughout central Africa.

He had a presence that ran faster than a horse, flew through the skies, didn’t die from bullets and shells, sucked on brain fluids, and drank blood—The Sahel was overflowing with stories of Kanma like boiling soup, for a long time.

Black Mamba picked up the Dragunov he’d hidden. He hadn’t imagined that those b*stards would set up booby traps. There was a saying that one mistake could ruin 10,000 preparations, and he’d experienced just that. The pain and mental strain returned at the end of the battle.

He became tired at the end of a massacre, as always. The pieces of meat and streams of blood were, without a doubt, his artwork. Anger surged through him, but he didn’t know where it was aimed.

For whom and for what had he ended all these people’s lives? There was no one to ask, and no one to answer. He felt unjust and lonely, but became frustrated as he didn’t know why.

“Namu Amita Bul Gwaneumsa Bosal!”

He killed them as an enemy, but they had their reasons to live and their justice to serve. A prayer came out of his mouth, instinctively.

Tension bled out. When his tension dropped, his muscles screamed, and his bones creaked. He was filled with nothing but the thoughts of going to sleep immediately.

Pain surged from his left arm where the bullet was lodged. His left rib was equally painful. He was safe due to the bulletproof vest, but his body had received shocks from five shells.

A bulletproof vest wasn’t able to exempt the full kinetic energy. The force was received in its entirety. The kinetic energy of a bullet was within 1,700 Joules. It was enough to break the ribs protected by a bulletproof vest twice over. His strong muscles and bones had withstood the impact, but the shock had been strong.

“Hah, I’ve become weaker!” he sighed.

The continued tension, lack of sleep, and battle had worn down his body. His senses and reactions had decreased without him knowing. The result was an injury.

“Agh!”

Black Mamba’s face crumpled as he raised his arm. The shoulder was the only joint in the body that could rotate 360 degrees. The bullet which had dug into his bone was preventing that movement. He could withstand the pain for now, but he’d also gained a large handicap in battle.

He gritted his teeth, pulled off the compression bandage, and ripped off the hemostatic compression band. The band made out of polaroids was a temporary way of stopping blood loss. His tissues could become necrotic after long wear.

His regenerative speed could also decrease if the bullet remained inside. Blood leaked from the bullet wound. The hole was as wide as two of his fingers. The tissue damage worsened since the bullet didn’t penetrate properly.

Chartres had once said that he entered Legion Etranger because he disliked a life that revolved around drama, but in reality, it was a documentary. Black Mamba, on the other hand, wanted to live life like a documentary. Instead, he was living life like a drama.

“Hehe, drama or documentary, they’re both ice creams that melt under the sun. There’s nothing different in life after all those curves at the very end. Hehehe!”

Black Mamba laughed like an old man who’d lived his life to the fullest. Bellman was far, and the enemy was near. His battle abilities would plummet if he didn’t get rid of the bullet. He took out morphine from his emergency kit and injected it between his shoulder and chest. He waited a moment for the medicine to work before pulling out darts from his ankle.

He confirmed the location of the bullet between his muscles using his dimensional sight. The bullet had dug 40 mm underneath his shoulder joint in the teres major muscle. The battle wasn’t over. Shots rang when he was heating a knife in a fire.

Bang—

Bang—

It was the sound of the Soviet’s Makarov pistol.

“Why does that b*stard shoot a Makarov when I gave him a Beretta?” Black Mamba complained.

He had given the lackey a Beretta and an M9 knife after hearing that the lackey lost his sword while trying to steal Jang Shin’s Beretta.

The lackey was someone with great survival instincts. He must have crawled out of his hiding place after the battle ended. Black Mamba realized he didn’t care. People like Mike, who ran about regardless of one’s lack of skills, were those he truly hated.

Sun WooHyun approached with a rustle. He stared at Black Mamba with a blank expression. His chest felt stuffy. He could see the demon covered in blood clearly. Black Mamba didn’t even turn to look at him. He was busy embedding a red-hot knife in his shoulder.

Ssst—

White smoke rose, and the tangy smell of burning flesh spread.

“Wakil, were you shot?”

“Somehow.”

“There’s no need to burn the skin since we have a compression band. Give me that knife.”

Receiving the knife, Sun WooHyun began to cool it down by pouring alcohol all over it.

“Are you not going to bite on something? Your teeth are going to break.”

“Hurry up and pull that metal out,” Black Mamba replied petulantly at Sun WooHyun’s question.

Sun WooHyun sliced the muscles with experienced hands and rummaged around the skin with pincers. Cold sweat dripped down Black Mamba’s face. He would have pulled it out in one go had he done it himself, but this b*stard was driving him mad by poking around all over the place. Sun WooHyun clicked his tongue after pulling out the bullet with the pincers.

“Why’d the bullet go around instead of driving right through? I’ve never seen a bullet wound so large. It’s a tumble.”

“Shut up and bandage it.”

Pulling out a bullet from raw skin was no easy feat. Even the great Black Mamba spoke with a strained voice.

A bullet took on a streamlined shape to reduce air resistance. Streamlined, the center of its gravity moved towards its back. If the gravity shifted to the front, the orbit became unstabilized during its flight.

The story of turning to bullets to make a wound larger was false. The reason for rotating the bullet by inserting a steel wire was to stabilize its flight frequency.

When a bullet’s advance was blocked, it’s front struggled to go ahead. The bullet would then shake as though it would flip. It was called a rollback or tumbling phenomenon. It meant that a bullet without its penetration power would spin in its place. Naturally, the surrounding tissues would shred.

It was cleaner for the bullet to pierce into the skin straight. A penetrating injury left fewer marks and was fast to treat and recover from. Black Mamba’s injury was similar to twirling an embedded knife.

Sun WooHyun poured alcohol into the wound and sprayed a styptic agent. There weren’t enough compression bandages. Black Mamba loosened the litam around his head. Sun WooHyun wrapped the blood-dripping wound with the blood-soaked litam. Both the patient and helper didn’t protest. Suturing was something that Bellman had to do. Of course, only if they returned alive.

“F***, it’s hard to earn money.”

Two people complained silently at the same time. Working for one’s food was truly difficult. Flies gathered in a black swarm at the smell of blood. The corpses thrown around the forest were soon covered with flies. They entered all the holes they could, through their wounds and face.

Gold flies laid their eggs on the corpses, while fruit flies poured their larvae as though they were attacking. Regardless of victor or loser, all flies needed were corpses to lay their eggs on.