6:15, inside Ahmed's command vehicle.

When the first bad news came, Ahmed was in the middle of war-gaming the final assault on the Hulmatu Hospital strongpoint on his map.

He planned to launch the last strike at dawn, blast open the hospital walls with direct fire from T-72 tanks, then commit his finest reserve—five hundred of his most fanatical assault troops.

"Commander… the rear-guard… ran into an ambush…"

The radio operator's voice was broken and choppy, with a backdrop of dense gunfire and explosions, plus human screams.

Ahmed snatched the handset: "Speak clearly! What scale of ambush? Where is the enemy?"

"Don't know… they're everywhere… they've got machine guns, missiles, mortars… our artillery is wiped out… requesting support… ah—"

The transmission cut off in a single explosion.

Ahmed froze for two seconds, then hurled the handset at the vehicle floor in a rage: "Trash! A rear guard of several thousand men, and they can't hold for even half an hour?!"

Staff officer Khalid, face pale, said, "Commander, something's wrong here. Song Heping only has two battalions, eight hundred men. How could he be ambushing the rear guard and at the same time still…"

He was cut off by a second incoming transmission.

This time it was the garrison commander in Tuz Town, his voice almost a wail: "The Holy City Brigade has launched a full-scale attack! Naxin is leading in person, at least three thousand men! They've got T-72 tanks and BM-21 rocket launchers! The outer positions have already fallen, we've pulled back into the town, but we can hold at most three hours!"

"What?!" Ahmed's eyes bulged. "Weren't the Persians in Bayji? When did they…"

A third transmission came in almost simultaneously, from the Feihate observation post:

"Large numbers of unidentified troops are massing outside the town, numbering in the thousands…"

Three reports, three blades, pressing against Ahmed's throat from three directions at once.

The command vehicle fell deathly silent.

Khalid was the first to come back to himself. He lunged to the map, his finger darting across it: "Commander, Song Heping's target is our rear—Tuz, Feihate, and Titrick!"

"Impossible!" Ahmed roared. "How would Samir's militia dare attack Titrick? And attack Tuz and Feihate at the same time? Does he have that many troops?!"

"What if you add in the Holy City Brigade and the Abu You Brigade?"

Khalid's voice was trembling. "If that's the case, then we're in big trouble!"

Cold sweat was beading on Ahmed's forehead.

"The Liberation Forces"...

The Abu You Brigade…

The Holy City Brigade…

Goddamn it!

Add them up and it really is quite a number!

Just as he was racing through the numbers in his head, the fourth report arrived.

This time the signals officer didn't say a word, just handed over the message slip with a deathly gray face.

Ahmed took the dispatch, and with just one glance he felt the world spinning.

The Al‑Qaim – Lake Salsal supply line had taken a precision drone strike.

Three supply convoys were completely destroyed, and three concealed depots on the west bank were obliterated.

Losses included five hundred tons of ammunition, three hundred tons of fuel, two hundred tons of food, forty sets of anti-tank missiles, one hundred heavy machine guns…

It's over…

Without ammunition, fuel, and food, how the hell was he supposed to keep fighting this war?

"Was it the Americans?" staff officer Shafeek asked quietly. "Only the Americans have that kind of precision-strike capability…"

"No."

Ahmed closed his eyes, and that man's face floated up in his mind.

"I'm certain it was Song Heping. He's known about that supply line for a long time. He's been waiting… waiting for me to take the main force out of Titrick, waiting for me to mass all our materiel at the front… then wipe it all out in one go."

In that instant, all the clues snapped together.

Why had he given up Tuz and Feihate so easily?

To stretch his supply line and spread his forces thin.

Why had he stayed so quiet?

He'd been waiting for Ahmed and the Hulmatu garrison to bleed each other white, waiting for Ahmed to lay all his cards on the table.

That man was like a grandmaster at the chessboard, setting up from the very first move, while every step Ahmed took was along the path the other man had already calculated.

"The Devil…"

He murmured, "He's a Devil from the East…"

6:45, third floor of Huermatu City Hospital.

Colonel Ross counted the rounds left in the ammo crates.

Twelve magazines for his M4 carbine, thirty rounds each; four belts for the M249, two hundred rounds each; eight M67 grenades; and the last three AT4 anti-tank rockets.

That was the entire ammunition reserve in the hospital strongpoint under his command.

Beside him were sixty-three soldiers still able to fight, seventeen of them wounded.

The gunfire on the first and second floors had already fallen silent—not because the enemy had been repulsed, but because the defenders were all dead.

"Boss, over at the police station… nothing anymore."

A Mercenary named Miller edged over and said quietly, "The power plant sent their last transmission ten minutes ago. Said they blew the generators—they didn't want them falling into 1515's hands."

"Mm…"

Ross nodded and said nothing.

He knew exactly what that meant—of Hulmatu's last three strongpoints, only the hospital was still fighting.

And the hospital's resistance was about to end as well.

Outside, the roar of T-72 tank engines rolled in.

Ross crawled to a shattered window and saw two tanks coming in from the end of the street, turrets slowly traversing, their 125mm main guns trained on the hospital's main building.

"Anti-tank team!" Ross shouted.

Two soldiers rushed over with AT4 launchers on their shoulders, but their hands were shaking.

Ross knew why—the AT4's effective range was only three hundred meters, and the tanks were a thousand meters out.

They had to wait for the tanks to close, but before that happened, the tanks' main guns could already turn this three-story building into rubble.

"Boss, we…" Miller trailed off.

Ross knew what he wanted to say.

Surrender?

1515 didn't take prisoners—especially not American mercenaries.

The fate waiting for them if captured could be worse than dying in battle.

"Prepare for a last stand," Ross said, his voice unnaturally calm. "Everyone save the last round for yourself. Don't let them take anyone alive."

The soldiers nodded in silence.

Some began tearing off their ID patches, some tucked family photos close to their skin, some muttered prayers under their breath.

No one cried. Days of non-stop bloodletting had burned out every emotion, leaving only a numb resolve.

Ross took out the satphone and connected to the secure line in Baghdad.

He intended to make his final report, then smash the phone—deny the enemy any intel whatsoever.

But just then, something strange happened.

The tanks stopped.

Not only did they stop, their turrets started to rotate.

Not toward the hospital, but toward the rear.

Ross frowned and raised his binoculars.

What he saw was even stranger—the 1515 infantry advancing on the hospital suddenly began to pull back. Officers were shouting, but the soldiers weren't obeying orders, surging toward the outskirts of the city like a receding tide.

"What's going on?" Miller saw it too. "They're retreating?"

"No way," Ross said. "They're about to take the hospital, take all of Hulmatu—why would they…"

He was cut off by the explosions rolling in from the southeast.

These weren't ordinary blasts; they were chain detonations—the sound of heavy artillery positions being wiped out.

Right after that, dense gunfire and explosions erupted from the rear of the 1515 forces.

Their once orderly assault formation collapsed in an instant. Soldiers scattered like headless chickens, some even dropping their weapons and bolting for the side buildings.

"Sir! Listen!" a young soldier shouted.

Ross cocked his head to listen.

Yes—from the southeast, from 1515's rear, came sounds both familiar and strange—that was the sustained bark of M2HB heavy machine guns, the shriek of "Short Horn" anti-tank missiles, the growl of Hummer engines.

Those sounds didn't belong to 1515, nor to the government army.

"It's reinforcements!" Miller's voice cracked with excitement. "God, it really is reinforcements!"

A few minutes later, the signals officer stumbled into the room, face lit with wild joy: "Colonel! A call from Bayji! Song Heping's troops have annihilated 1515's two-thousand-man rear guard in Area 4! Now his forces are maneuvering on Hulmatu, attacking 1515's main body from the flank!"

Ross stared for a few seconds, then let out a long, complete sigh of relief.

He slumped back against the wall, closed his eyes, and felt the sunlight coming through the shattered window warming his face.

He was still alive.

His soldiers were still alive.

The city had held.

But after the surge of elation came a more complicated feeling.

Looking at the 1515 soldiers routing outside the window, he knew full well this victory didn't belong to Thunder Defense, nor to the Americans, and not even entirely to Song Heping.

It belonged to a carefully engineered strategic game.

A game between Song Heping and the White House and the Pentagon of the United States.

And he and his soldiers were nothing more than pitiful pieces on the board.