He spoke while looking around, his voice carrying a hint of uncontrollable questioning and sarcasm.

"Look at this place, look at this town! Can you still see any of your comrades? Even a corpse in a military uniform?"

Isam's face instantly lost its color, his lips trembling, eyes filled with embarrassment, pain, and a deep bewilderment.

He obviously figured out what happened—his proud army, the government to which he pledged allegiance, faced with the enemy, chose to disgracefully retreat.

He shook his head with difficulty, his voice dry and hoarse: "There... should be... here... but..."

Song Heping sighed.

There's really no need to ask too much.

After all, it's not his war, it's someone else's war, can't get carried away.

Moreover, it's not Isam's personal fault, it's the decay of the entire rotten system.

He patted Isam on the shoulder, the force not heavy, carrying the comfort of a veteran to a junior: "Forget it, Isam. It's not your fault."

This sentence was said to Isam, but also seemed to be addressed to this country.

He turned his head and ordered Jiang Feng, his voice clear as befits a commander: "Clean up the battlefield, see what ammunition and weapons can be used, especially heavy machine gun bullets and RPG rocket launchers, load them onto the vehicle. Hurry up, we don't have much time."

"Yes!"

Jiang Feng responded and immediately commanded his men to accelerate their actions.

At that moment, a soldier from the Death God Squad came running down from the third floor, panting heavily, clutching a captured, bloodstained portable radio walkie-talkie tightly.

The walkie-talkie was emitting a "shashasha" electric noise, but amid the noise, faintly audible was someone urgently calling out in Arabic.

"...Falcon! Falcon! This is 'Sandstorm'! Please respond if you hear! How is the situation in Isriye? Repeat, how is the situation in Isriye? Reply upon receipt! Over!" a voice kept repeating anxiously.

Song Heping's command of Arabic was sufficient for him to understand the content of these conversations.

His face instantly changed.

The other party was obviously calling the 1515 small squad (code name "Falcon") that had been annihilated by them.

And the caller self-identified as "Sandstorm", judging from the content and tone of their inquiry, they were the superior unit of this small squad!

"...'Sandstorm' calling all units, Falcon Squad's reconnaissance in Isriye has exceeded one hour, last communication report indicated town's garrison suspected to have retreated, large outflow of civilians... they may have encountered unexpected events... all units ready for combat! Proceed into town to establish stronghold as planned! Over!"

The pieced-together intermittent call information revealed a shocking fact—

This 15-man squad that had been annihilated was only a reconnaissance advance team sent by a battalion-level unit (code name "Sandstorm") of the 1515 armed forces!

Their task was merely to probe the defense situation of Isriye town!

And the result of their probing was just as Song Heping had anticipated—the garrison fled, civilians fled.

If not for this 15-man squad being unable to stop thousands of civilians, they would have likely started killing long ago.

They had reported this "within reach" situation to their superiors.

And now, the main force of "Sandstorm" was already close at hand!

Isam, holding the radio still crackling "shasha", had a pale face, his voice clearly trembling: "They... they say it's less than ten kilometers away... at most... at most twenty minutes by car..."

He looked at Song Heping, his eyes filled with panic: "What should we do? Mr. Song!"

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com