Led by Number Five, the new war wolves squad arrived at the military camp in Liberty City. An elite unit of two hundred soldiers stood in formation before him, fully assembled. Half of them were crossbowmen, while the rest were armed with forged steel spears.
Looking at this elite detachment, Number Five couldn't help but recall his own early days in the army. He gave a satisfied nod.
"Tonight is your first night raid. Follow orders to the letter, and do not drop your guard," Number Five instructed briefly.
"Yes, sir!" The two hundred soldiers replied in a crisp, unified chorus.
Tramp, tramp, tramp... The troops moved out under the cover of darkness, slipping stealthily out of Liberty City.
When they were about a kilometer away from Duke Kerrac's encampment, Number Five signaled for a halt. He called the squad captains over, gave them their final instructions, and ordered the two hundred soldiers to hold their positions and stay hidden.
Meanwhile, he led the rest of the war wolves squad forward. Their primary objective: silently eliminate the enemy patrol.
Kerrac had arranged a detail of twenty knights for patrol duty, comprising both visible guards and hidden sentries stationed about three to four hundred meters from the main camp.
As Number Five's team closed in, they spotted several snipers—hidden sentries perched three to four meters up in the trees about three hundred meters out—along with a dozen or so knights patrolling the ground below.
He flashed a hand signal. The entire war wolves squad melted into the shadows. After a rapid exchange of tactical signs, a few operators split off to take out the sentries in the trees, while the rest followed Number Five to deal with the ground patrol.
They had mastered these tactical hand signals to perfection back in the special forces training camp; a single glance was all they needed to coordinate seamlessly.
The night was their greatest ally. Five soldiers advanced slowly through the darkness, their footsteps whisper-quiet, not making a single sound—a testament to their grueling daily training.
Prowling like feral cats, the five men slipped through the dark to their respective targets beneath the hidden sentries. They drew their crossbows—highly lethal weapons capable of instant kills if they hit a vital spot.
With the operators in position beneath the lookouts, they waited for the synchronized strike time, ensuring that any muffled sounds from the kills would be masked.
Number Five made his move, leading the remaining operators through the pitch-black terrain. Against enemies suffering from poor night vision, the war wolves's eyesight was leagues ahead. As long as they stayed dead silent, they were practically invisible ghosts.
Besides, Aiden had deliberately avoided launching any night raids over the past few days. This was a calculated move—partly to test the city's defensive capabilities, but mainly to lull Kerrac's forces into a false sense of security after dark.
Everyone was in position. They waited in dead silence for the zero hour.
Seconds ticked by. The moment arrived. Number Five flashed the execution signal and initiated the strike.
Thwip, thwip...Swish...
The war wolves operators lunged like coiled springs. They clamped their hands tightly over the mouths of the ground patrols, instantly slicing their throats open with cold combat knives.
Simultaneously, the operators below the hidden sentries pulled their triggers. Crossbow bolts thunked sickeningly into the skulls of the five tree-bound knights. The sentries didn't even have time to process what hit them, plummeting lifelessly without a single cry.
The five operators were already in motion. Diving forward, they caught the falling corpses mid-air and eased them gently to the ground, preventing any loud thuds.
The purge was complete. The squad regrouped at Number Five's coordinates.
Witnessing the flawless, synchronized executions, Number Five nodded in sheer satisfaction. Their hellish, high-intensity training had paid off in spades.
"Bobcat, Hare, Warhorse, Tiger—you four are with me. We're going in to capture Kerrac and Tove alive. The rest of you, hold the perimeter and prepare to extract," Number Five ordered in a low whisper.
The new squad upheld the operational protocols of the original war wolves: using call signs during missions. This was to prevent enemies from tracking down their real identities and going after their families—an unspoken rule of the underworld.
"Copy that," The four men nodded in unison.
Number Five led the four operators toward the center of the camp. They quickly pinpointed Kerrac's command tent. It was the largest and tallest structure in the encampment, practically sticking out like a sore thumb.
"Our HVTs are inside that tent. Hare, Bobcat, you two are on overwatch. The rest of us are going in to bag them alive," Number Five murmured, keeping his voice hushed.
Hare and Bobcat gave a quick nod. The five men slunk soundlessly past the dying campfires, clinging to the deepest shadows until they reached the command tent. With brutal efficiency, they silently neutralized the guards stationed at the entrance. Leaving Hare and Bobcat outside to hold the perimeter, the remaining three moved in.
Number Five parted the tent flap a fraction of an inch and slipped inside, followed closely by his two men. Kerrac and Tove were dead to the world, snoring in their cots.
He pulled out a vial of liquid—a highly concentrated anesthetic capable of knocking a full-grown man out cold for over an hour. Dousing two rags in the potent formula, he handed them to Warhorse and Tiger, jerking his chin toward the targets.
The two operators crept up to Kerrac and Tove. With lightning speed, they clamped the chemically soaked rags down hard over the men's mouths and noses.
Kerrac and Tove's eyes snapped open in sheer panic, but before they could even thrash or struggle, their eyes rolled back in their heads, and they slumped back into a deep, drug-induced coma.
Without missing a beat, the operators hoisted the unconscious forms of Kerrac and Tove onto their shoulders. They followed Number Five back out of the tent, melting into the darkness with Bobcat and Hare covering their rear.
Within minutes, they regrouped with the rest of the war wolves at the perimeter where they had dropped the sentries. With the targets secured, the squad executed a flawless, silent exfiltration.
The fifteen-man special ops unit reconvened with the main force hidden in the brush. Number Five threw a hand signal to the infantry commander, giving him the green light to move in and mop up the rest...
The orders had been finalized well in advance. The war wolves' mission was accomplished. Now, it was up to the infantry to sweep the encampment and eradicate Kerrac's knight order. The directive was simple: spare those who surrender, slaughter those who resist.
Job done, Number Five and his war wolves squad melted back into the shadows, heading back toward Liberty City.
Led by their respective captains, the two hundred regular troops advanced on the enemy camp. Despite their numbers, their disciplined march was eerily quiet, making barely enough noise to stir the deeply slumbering knights.
Less than fifteen minutes later, the main force reached the edge of Kerrac's encampment. The captains fanned their units out, throwing a tight cordon around the perimeter. Not a single soul was going to escape.
There were over thirty linen tents in the camp, each housing nearly twenty knights. But now, they were completely boxed in by two hundred heavily armed men.
"Kill them all!"
The infantry captains bellowed the command. The soldiers materialized from the darkness, raising their crossbows and unleashing a deadly volley.
Thwip, thwip, thwip—!
"Arrrghhh!!"
Scores of knights were slaughtered in their sleep, while the survivors were jolted awake, screaming in blind panic.
"Who the hell are you?!"
"Where are the perimeter guards?! How did you get in here?!"
"Ah! It's the arrows from this morning!"
"..."
A cacophony of terrified screams erupted from the tents. Afflicted with poor night vision, the bewildered knights were practically blind in the dark. They grabbed their swords and stumbled out of their tents, only to find themselves utterly surrounded. The blood drained from their faces.
"No, wait... argh!"
"Mercy! Help me!"
Any knight foolish enough to attempt a breakout was instantly turned into a pincushion by a barrage of crossbow bolts. In just a few short minutes, over three hundred knights lay dead or wounded. Amidst the chaos, a handful of surviving knights sprinted toward Duke Kerrac's command tent. Throwing open the flap, they found it completely empty.
"Where is the Duke?! Where the hell did they go?!"
"Did... did His Grace abandon us?!"
"Goddammit!!"
"..."
Stripped of their commanding officer, the remaining knights descended into utter chaos. Anyone who raised a blade was instantly put down by a hail of recurve arrows and crossbow bolts. Barely three hundred knights were left standing, and not a single one dared to move a muscle. Over the past two days, they had learned to fear the deadly accuracy of those weapons.
"DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND LIVE!" The soldiers bellowed.
"We surrender!"
"Yes, we yield! We surrender!"
"Please, don't kill us!"
"..."
Hearing that their lives would be spared, the broken knights frantically threw their weapons to the ground.