Chapter 1 The Apartment Building

This apartment building was shaped like a "匚," ten stories in total. The bottom five floors were rented out to residents, the sixth and seventh floors were occupied by Tama Riyadi's men, the eighth floor was an ice factory, the ninth floor was a warehouse, and the tenth floor was Tama Riyadi's residence and safe house.

If most of the residents in this building were junkies, then one had to consider the threat posed by these so-called "civilians."

Illegal firearms were quite prevalent here. Even if these junkies couldn't produce automatic rifles, they could still pull out a few small handguns or homemade blunderbusses. At the very least, everyone had a machete.

"Our greatest advantage right now is that the enemy can't use the surveillance system and can only communicate through a limited number of walkie-talkies.

As long as we don't get entangled with a large number of enemies, keep using guerrilla warfare, and wear down the enemy's strength, we can eventually grind them to death."

Li Ang organized his thoughts, holding his gun as he slowly walked to the door.

First, he moved the muzzle left and right to make sure there were no enemies in the corridor before stepping out and advancing along the wall.

A series of footsteps echoed from the stairs in the distance, presumably gang members attracted by the gunfire.

Li Ang flipped his hand and took out the Swiss Army Knife 300 from his inventory, using its lock-picking tools to quickly open a door near him.

Inside the house was a family of three: a man, a woman, and a child, hugging each other at the end of the living room, watching the operator who broke in with trepidation.

Li Ang coldly swept his gaze over them and waved his hand.

The family was relieved and hurriedly ran into the side bedroom, slamming the door shut.

Li Ang closed the front door and listened to a series of footsteps coming from the stairwell, running through the corridor.

He stood sideways, hiding next to the concrete wall beside the door, holding a gun in his right hand and a grenade in his left, which he took from his waist.

The moment the footsteps passed the door, Li Ang shot diagonally at the wooden door, killing two people.

The enemies in the corridor fired in a panic, but all the bullets hit the concrete wall, causing nothing but concrete debris to splash.

"There's someone here—"

The yellow-shirted man in the lead shouted loudly, but a bullet tore through his throat, and he could only stare with wide eyes, helplessly clutching his throat as he fell backward.

Two companions tried to drag him away, but two bullets that flew in from nowhere accurately hit their eye sockets.

Three dead, seven left.

Li Ang crouched down, letting the concrete fragments splash above his head, calmly assessing the current situation.

Contrary to what most people imagine, there are very few things in real life that can withstand rifle bullets.

Furniture, appliances, doors and windows, stairs, cars, vans, trucks... Everything that can stop bullets in movies and TV shows will be easily penetrated by rifle bullets in the real world.

Only dense wood, steel, or building materials can withstand rifle bullets.

Li Ang had some knowledge of architecture and noticed during his observation that

the walls on both sides of the corridor in this building were load-bearing walls, with a thickness of about 300mm, which could easily withstand rifle bullet shots within a hundred meters.

Moreover, the position Li Ang chose was just at the corner of the doorway and the master bedroom, so even if bullets penetrated through the wooden door, they would not form ricochets that could cause damage to him.

In the corridor, the thin wooden door had been completely torn apart, gunfire roared, bullets flew, and gravel splashed.

Li Ang listened to the position of the seven rifles, silently pulled the pin of the grenade, hooked his hand, and threw it into the corridor.

Two seconds later, an explosion echoed through the corridor. Li Ang took out the Swiss Army Knife 300 and extended it outside the door, using the smooth steel surface of the knife as a mirror to observe the scene in the corridor.

The corridor was full of blood, with a pile of charred bodies scattered around.

Li Ang extended his handgun and fired a shot at each body to make sure there was no movement before walking out of the corridor.

"Smells like barbecue."

He indifferently stepped over the pile of corpses and walked up the stairs.

————

On the tenth floor of the apartment, inside the safe house, the top gangster of Marawi City, Tama Riyadi, was sitting in a chair, leisurely reading a newspaper.

The safe house was quite large, with homogeneous steel plates embedded in the ceiling, walls, and floor.

The door was built to bank vault specifications, made of 10mm steel, extremely thick, and could withstand machine gun fire.

Inside, the decorations were understated and luxurious, with shelves, tables, computers, and weapon racks all available. A round table was placed in the center of the living room, with various dishes on the table.

At this time, all the giant monitoring panels at the rear of the safe house turned black, but the emergency gasoline generator still provided lighting for the safe house.

Surrounded by a dozen loyal subordinates, Tama Riyadi sat behind the round table.

He was a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, with some baldness, dark skin, a round face, and a kind appearance, looking quite gentle. He wore a floral shirt on his upper body and loose casual pants on his lower body.

Tama Riyadi looked no different from the ordinary middle-aged uncles who ran small shops on campus, but those who knew him knew that this was just his disguise.

He came from an extremely poor background. His father was a cripple who was drunk and violent all day long, and his mother was mentally challenged. He boxed from an early age, trying to fight his way out through boxing.

At the age of fourteen, Tama Riyadi accidentally killed his father, who routinely abused his mother.

After escaping to the city, he gained the appreciation of a small boss by relying on his bravery and ruthlessness.

He climbed step by step in the Marawi City gang organization, eventually reaching his current position.

As time passed, the elderly Tama Riyadi, like other gang bosses, began to believe in religion.

But perhaps even he himself did not believe that he, who had done all kinds of evil and bad things, could really go to heaven after death.

"Sorry, Santos."

Tama Riyadi put down the newspaper in his hand and said to the man in a suit in front of the table, "It's a bit noisy downstairs."

The young man named Santos Aquino smiled slightly and said nothing.

Santos was the brother of the rebel leader Cruz Aquino. Unlike his brother, who joined the army, Santos studied abroad, majoring in medicine and holding a dental license.

After returning home, Santos was responsible for helping his brother to contact the major drug lords in the Philippines.

Through the secret ports controlled by the rebels, the "special drugs" in the Philippines were sent overseas.

"Chacha, go downstairs and see how things are being handled." Tama Riyadi waved his hand, and a short man standing behind him nodded, picked up the walkie-talkie, pushed open the door of the safe house, and went downstairs.

The two bodyguards at the door closed the door again. Tama Riyadi looked at the closed door and smiled at Santos, "These special operations personnel are indeed a bit annoying, but after three days, this city will be ours."

"Heh."

Santos shook his head, tugged at his suit tie, and said slowly, "Don't get your priorities mixed up, Tama.

If your previous assassination of the mayor of Marawi hadn't been so blatant, attracting official attention and threatening this batch of 'goods,' my brother wouldn't have needed to rush out and engage in a direct firefight with the official Philippine army."

The rebel forces represented by Santos, and Tama Riyadi, the big drug lord, were just ordinary partners in the eyes of the Philippine government.

But listening to what Santos meant now, the two seemed to maintain a relationship above that of partners.

Even the large-scale offensive launched by the rebels this time was not to occupy Marawi City, but for a batch of "goods" in Tama Riyadi's apartment building!

For this reason, they were willing to engage in a direct firefight with the official Philippine army, regardless of the encirclement and suppression that might come afterward, just to protect these things.

Hearing the implied accusation in Santos's words, Tama Riyadi still maintained a smile, but his eyes were faintly gloomy.

He glanced almost imperceptibly at the bedroom behind the safe house, at the pile of boxes made of alloy, neatly stacked together.

All the boxes were printed with a pattern of Epiphyllum flowers on the side.