"Damn! It's a sandstorm!"
Having left the ambush point and headed south for about 20 kilometers, the sound of "Wrench" came through the radio.
Song Heping stuck his head out the car window to look south.
In his sight, the Sahara finally revealed its most ferocious fangs.
A yellow cloud appeared on the distant horizon, and the entire world seemed to be stripped of color, leaving only a despairing, turbulent yellowish brown.
The fierce wind whipped up a sand wall dozens of meters high, stretching from heaven to earth, like a mythical moving mountain range, crushing down from the northwest!
"What do we do, boss?"
In the lead vehicle, "Wrench" asked Song Heping a bit nervously.
"Protect yourselves and drive through! We don't have time, can't stop!"
Song Heping made the decision after only hesitating for two seconds.
He was familiar with the desert.
When crossing Egypt's desert before, he had experienced sandstorms.
Generally speaking, when a sandstorm arrives, it's best to choose to stop and find a sheltered spot to hide, or if you can't find favorable terrain, you should protect yourself on the spot, enduring until the storm passes.
But now they couldn't wait.
There were pursuers behind them.
Stopping means giving the enemy time to close the distance.
Compared to the danger of passing through the sandstorm, Song Heping preferred the latter.
"Everyone protect yourselves, close your windows, turn on the fog lights, reduce speed, and continue south!"
After sending the order over the radio, Song Heping stared at the sandstorm ahead, gritted his teeth, pulled up the scarf to cover his mouth and nose, and quickly closed the window.
A groan came from the back seat.
It was the wounded "Hunter."
"Hunter, hold on!"
Song Heping turned to encourage him.
"As long as we hang in there, there's hope. I've already ordered Ferrari and White Bear to immediately gather everyone from the company to cross the border northward, promising to meet at Kurtan Oasis. Only 30 kilometers left to go."
"Boss, I'm... okay..."
Hunter weakly blinked, not even daring to move his head.
That shot almost took his life.
"Wrench, steady! Keep all vehicles together, don't fall behind! Charge in!"
Song Heping's voice penetrated the radio, carrying an undeniable decisiveness even amidst the howling winds.
Following the command, five battle-worn armed pickups and an off-road vehicle acting as a temporary ambulance plunged headlong into the towering yellowish-brown wall that stretched from heaven to earth.
The barely discernible horizon vanished in an instant.
The world was compressed into a narrow, suffocating, crazily shaking yellowish-brown box.
The light was completely devoured, the midday sun reduced to a blurry, bleak, sickly halo hanging overhead, unable to offer any warmth or illumination.
Visibility plummeted from several hundred meters to less than ten meters, then five meters, three meters...
Finally, Song Heping couldn't even tell how far his stubbornly flickering yellow fog lights penetrated into the distance.
The vehicle shook violently, bumping along, as if the next moment it would be flipped over, dismembered by this invisible might.
Tiny grains of sand hammered against the windows and the vehicle body like speeding bullets, creating a teeth-grating "pop" and "rustle," while the metal skin groaned under the continuous impact, making one worry it might be pierced at any moment.
Those sitting in the car couldn't help but feel a chill down their spines, nerves tightly wound.
The air was suffocatingly dense.
Even with the windows tightly shut, the strong dust-laden odor insidiously infiltrated the cabin.
Song Heping raised the scarf higher, covering his mouth and nose completely, leaving only his sharp and vigilant eyes fixed on the front.
Every breath became extraordinarily difficult, each inhale felt like the lungs were filled with coarse grains of sand.
The cabin was pervaded with the smell of dust, and a thin layer of yellow sand soon covered the dashboard.
"Boss! The wind's too strong! It's hard to keep a grip on the direction!"
"Wrench's" voice came through the radio, with obvious symptoms of breathlessness and tension, the signal intermittently disrupted.
"Maintain direction! Slow down! Steady! Follow the car ahead closely!"
Song Heping tried to keep his voice steady but was also under enormous pressure inside.
The intensity of the sandstorm seemed to be rising.
Whether they could truly hold out until the end without incident, he himself wasn't sure...
Right now, all sense of direction was lost, everyone in the vehicles had to rely on the compass on the dashboard and their remaining sense of direction to fight against the gusts and the total lack of visibility.