Not long after, Jiang Feng felt as if a typhoon had swept over his head, carrying debris, leaves, and broken branches all tumbling past the massive boulder where the three of them were hiding.
The dust that blotted out the sky also obscured the moon, like a devil flying overhead, stirring up a storm of death.
Jiang Feng found it difficult to breathe, and he was already over a kilometer away from the center of the explosion. It was unbelievable that he would feel such effects at this distance.
Thermo-baric Bomb, Jiang Feng had encountered them before.
But the thermo-baric bombs he had known were artillery shells and rocket-propelled grenades.
He had never seen a thermo-baric bomb of this magnitude.
Especially a live one exploding nearby, guided to its landing point by himself no less.
He thought this must be a dream!
"Fuck! That was really something!"
A dozen seconds later, the storm subsided.
The temperature around seemed to have risen by a degree or two. Looking up at the trees in front of him, they were all leaning haphazardly, as if a tornado had ravaged a wheat field.
The three crawled out from the boulder and looked toward their target.
The small town, which originally had a dozen buildings, had now vanished.
No buildings were in sight.
Above in the sky, a giant mushroom-like plume of smoke covered the heavens, looking eerily suffocating under the moonlight.
"No wonder they say this thing has just a bit less punch than a 'mushroom egg'..."
Jiang Feng mused, picking up the Night Vision Goggles to take a closer look.
In the center of the explosion, buildings were gone, trees snapped off.
In a massive circular epicenter, nothing remained, while around it lay some rubble and broken walls.
Huge trees lay on the ground like lifeless corpses.
The other two members of the group couldn't find the words to speak.
As ELN militants, they had never seen anything like this in all their lives.
They had heard the leader, Morins, had called in reinforcements, but they didn't believe it.
A couple of bombers, a few bombs, enough to rout the AUC militia?
It sounded as laughable as a tale from the Arabian Nights.
But now, they were unable to laugh.
The AUC had established its command headquarters here, with over two-thirds of its senior officers gathered, and there were two battalions of troops just for security nearby.
Now, after the explosion, not a single AUC survivor had emerged to seek out the living.
Could it be that there were no survivors?
Jiang Feng pointed to the distance, "Let's go and check it out, confirm the extent of the damage."
Team Member A expressed concern, "I think we should just stay here and watch. They had two battalions of people. If even a few of them survived, going there would be asking for death."
Jiang Feng said, "You've been watching here for so long, have you seen anyone alive? If there were survivors, they would have come out long ago to check on their own."
Team Member B's curiosity got the better of him. He hadn't seen anything like this before.
A bomb had flattened a small village in an instant.
And the deployment of two battalions nearby was completely silenced.
It was too damn absurd.
He wanted to take a look, so he said, "I agree with the team leader's suggestion, let's go check it out."
Team Member B spoke in English, Jiang Feng understood and gave him a thumbs up, "GOOD!"
After saying that, he led the way toward the direction of the AUC headquarters.
"Just be careful, keep your eyes wide open, don't let someone really take us down."
The group made their way down the hillside to the bottom of the mountain and slowly approached along the edge of the trees.
When they reached about 600 meters from the command post, they saw corpses.
"There's something in the trees..."
Team Member A was startled.
Jiang Feng raised his gun barrel, aiming it at the treetop.
Then he froze.
A dark, indistinguishable corpse...
No, it shouldn't be called a corpse.
It should be called a fragment.
It hung in the tree in an extremely strange posture.