Chapter 1746 - 1358: Blood-Red Dawn

6:20 AM.

The first ray of morning light struggled to cut through the heavy clouds in the East, casting an ominous dark golden hue over the Nasur Fortress.

The morning fog was not a gentle white veil, but a murky gray-yellow curtain, laced with smoke and dust, churning heavily in the valley.

Visibility was compressed to less than five hundred meters, as if the whole world was stuffed inside a frosted glass jar.

"Company A observation post report—"

The voice from the encrypted radio was tense like a steel wire, with the background of whistling mountain winds:

"Eastern highway! Smoke and dust! Large clouds of smoke and dust! Approximately eight kilometers away! Confirmed as a large armored convoy, tanks in front, infantry fighting vehicles and trucks behind... Number... Many! Calculating... At least company-level size, no, battalion-level! It's a complete armored battalion! No... more than one battalion!"

Inside the command post, the air instantly froze into ice.

Song Heping and Little Masoud almost simultaneously rushed to the observation point, raising their binoculars.

Cold metal pressed against their eye sockets, the icy mountain breeze poured into the firing holes, carrying bone-chilling cold, yet both of their foreheads were covered in fine cold sweat.

Through the binoculars, deep in the eastern fog, a murky yellow dust cloud appeared in their view.

"It's coming."

Song Heping's voice was pressed very low.

The mist was being stirred.

First, vague shadows wriggled behind the gray-yellow fog wall.

Then the outlines gradually became clear…

The wedge-shaped turrets first pierced through the fog barrier, in the dark golden dawn light, the rough metallic surface of the reactive armor glistened with a cold sheen.

The barrel of the 125mm smoothbore gun hung low, like the head of a poison snake, pointing at Nasur Fortress.

The first leading vehicle was a T-72.

Then came the second, the third…

A total of twelve main battle tanks, lined up in two compact columns, bulldozed across Highway 80 at a tactical speed of less than twenty kilometers per hour.

With each turn of the tracks, the tanks came a meter closer to the Death Corridor.

Behind the tanks, the silhouettes of eight BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles loomed faintly in the fog, their low profiles and the turrets of the 30mm automatic cannons barely visible.

Further back, were countless military trucks, crammed under canvas canopies with infantry in khaki combat uniforms, the contours of steel helmets tightly packed.

The entire leading force stretched into a long steel centipede nearly one kilometer long, winding along the highway.

"Judging by the vehicle numbers, confirmed it's the 'Mountain Cat' Battalion of the First Armored Brigade."

Major Faisal's voice came through the radio.

"They are the sharpest teeth of the First Brigade, equipped with the best, and all personnel are veterans of over five years. Looks like Barzani has spared no expense!"

Song Heping's binoculars slowly swept across the entire convoy, his brain frantically processing the information obtained: formation, speed, spacing, possible weak points…

"Let them all come in."

He issued the command into the radio.

"Wait until the rear wheels of the last truck pass the No. 3 Turn before taking action. Combat engineers, prepare."

"Understood!"

"Combat engineers in position!"

The orders were instantly transmitted across all positions via the encrypted channel.

Nasur Fortress fell completely silent.

Behind every firing hole, there were eyes with constricted pupils; beneath every camouflage net, gun barrels were slightly adjusted.

The tank column of the 'Mountain Cat' Battalion continued advancing.

The two leading T-72s had already entered the most dangerous stretch—the eastern entrance of the "Death Corridor."

The terrain here was treacherous like a natural trap.

The highway was squeezed to less than twenty meters wide, with steep cliffs filled with eroded rocks on the left, and a dried-up, cracked anti-tank trench over three meters deep on the right.

The tank commanders evidently realized the danger.

The turrets began nervously turning side to side, gun barrels of the coaxial machine guns sweeping over the slopes along with the turret's movement.

The top hatches occasionally opened, heads with tank helmets would emerge out, nervously peering binoculars.

But they did not slow down, much less stop.

Because stopping in such terrain, the risk factor geometrically increases.

Speed was their only chance of survival.

When the rear wheels of the last troop truck rolled over the conspicuous white boundary stone at the No. 3 Turn—

"Detonate!"

Song Heping's command was short and clear.

A blinding flash erupted from behind a massive eroded rock at the first turn—

Not one point, but four points, almost simultaneously lighting up!

Then came the sound!

"BOOM BOOM BOOM—!!!"

BOOM—

BOOM—

BOOM—

The deafening noise made eardrums ache.

The fiery balls of the explosion were not directed upwards, but guided by the meticulously designed direction of the explosive charge, the shockwave aggressively pushing aside the massive natural boulders weighing several tons piled there!

In an instant, the earth shattered.

Cars-sized boulders were lifted by the shock wave, tumbling in the air, carrying destructive momentum, crashing onto the highway fiercely!

Dust billowed skywards, instantly engulfing the turning point.

The sight made the hearts of all the rebel soldiers tremble——the highway entrance was completely sealed off by a chaotic barricade of nearly three meters high, consisting of boulders and soil!

Only leaving a side gap, just enough for a single person to squeeze through!

Almost in the same millisecond when the explosion's firelight hadn't fully dissipated, two meticulously camouflaged anti-tank missile launch points on the upper layers of Nasur Fortress spewed deadly tongues of flame.

Whoosh—

SWISH—!!

The characteristic whistling sound of 'Grim Reaper' missile launches silenced the echoes of the explosion.

Two thick white smoke trails, like the Javelin of Death, from different angles, at almost 300 meters per second, directly charging at the two T-72s at the front of the tank column that had become sitting ducks!

Time seemed to be frozen.