Two legs are ultimately slower than wheels.
While Song Heping was still sprinting rapidly across the wild, unexpected trouble had already erupted in Uelda Village.
Three pickup trucks rudely screeched to a halt in the village's central clearing, engines still roaring, as over a dozen ferocious armed men jumped out.
One of the militants raised his hand and shot a burst into the sky.
Bam!
Bam!
Bam!
"Get out here! Quick!"
"Hand over the food and money! Men stand to the left! Women to the right! Kids stay out of the way!"
Leading them was a burly man with a scarred face, swinging a sword around and roaring in a mix of broken Arabic and local dialect.
They were a newly risen armed faction from the nearby mountains, self-proclaimed "Freedom Fighters," but in truth, they were merely bandits exploiting the chaos to loot, burn, and plunder.
Before the war, Siria had ample food supplies.
At its peak, Syria was renowned as the "Granary" of the Middle East.
The agricultural GDP accounted for up to 26%, with an annual wheat yield of 4.8 million tons, exporting 2 million tons, feeding the domestic population without issue, and even "fleecing" some foreign exchange from the international market.
But these past two years of raging warfare had turned agriculture into a chaotic stew.
Especially in northeast Siria, where government's scorched earth policy and anti-government armed forces sought to leave no survival path for the opposite side, resulting even in farmland devastation.
Forget about planting wheat; right now, many rural areas in Siria have nothing left but barren earth, beyond the yellow soil, there's nothing.
Uelda, in the northern wheat production area of Deir Ezzor, was amidst warfare, and further north, the wheat-producing areas fell into the hands of the American-backed Kurd forces, leading to severe food shortages in some southern towns and villages.
The flatbreads they once relied on for survival were now a luxury, with boiled wheat paste mixed with other grains being the best they could hope for, filling their stomachs just to survive was the greatest wish for most people.
When the world is chaotic, bandits arise.
It's easy to understand why these armed organizations, sprouting like bamboo shoots after rain, robbed food, money, and property.
Terror-filled cries instantly filled the small village.
The villagers were roughly herded from their homes, like lambs to the slaughter.
An elderly person moved a bit too slow, got knocked down by a rifle butt from one of the armed men, blood flowing freely. Several young women were dragged away, letting out heart-rending screams.
Two youths attempting resistance were forced to kneel at gunpoint.
Faris was shoved into the group of men, protecting the trembling Sayina tightly behind him, his face filled with desperate anger.
"Damn it! Is this all the food you've got? Trying to feed beggars?!"
The scarred-faced man kicked over a small half-bag of wheat the villager had handed over, scattering the grains across the ground.
His greedy eyes scanned the terrified women, licking his lips with a lecherous grin: "Brothers! Take all the women!"
The bandits erupted in beastly laughter, starting to pull at the women.
Crying, cursing, and sinister laughter mingled together.
Meanwhile, at the village's east side, Song Heping had already leaned against a mud wall, deftly pulling out his only weapon from his waist—a butterfly knife.
Because of the low-altitude parachute jump from Gelbi Mountain, to reduce weight and avoid accidents, Song Heping had discarded everything during the sprint, except for this small knife he had hidden on him.
The butterfly knife, as a close combat weapon, is the second essential tool for many Special Soldiers, not only easy to conceal but also extremely handy for killing.
He moved along the mud wall, the village was small to begin with, and now everyone had been driven to the center, leaving the houses empty.
The most important task now was to acquire a weapon.
He had to find a lone guy to target.
There were over a dozen opponents, merely relying on a butterfly knife would be insufficient.
Passing through a few houses, Song Heping quickly identified his target—a militant holding an AKM assault rifle standing at the village's road intersection, looking around.
He surveyed the surroundings.
Song Heping opted to climb over a courtyard wall into a villager's backyard, traversed the house and exited via the front door, approached the tall, thin guy from behind along the courtyard wall.
The opponent seemed to hear footsteps, turning his head to see what made the noise.
No sooner had he turned his gaze, a butterfly knife pierced into his chin, directly penetrating the lower jaw, pinning the tongue and upper jaw together, like skewering a pig's tongue.
"Huh huh—"
The tall, thin figure's eyes bulged an inch, emitting strange sounds from his mouth, unable to call out.
As the butterfly knife pierced the opponent's lower jaw, Song Heping's other hand grabbed the handguard of the opponent's AKM, twisting—
The gun slipped out.
"Die..."
Song Heping pressed harder, directly pinning the opponent to the ground, the knife remained firmly embedded in the jaw.
At last, Song Heping withdrew the knife, slicing it effortlessly across the opponent's throat once the blade came out.