181: Silent cannon muzzle

The air was thick with the pungent smell of burning and gunpowder.

The wreckage of the Land Cruiser was still burning, the thick black smoke rising against the azure sky like an ugly scar.

"Fatty, stick close to me. Follow my footsteps exactly, don't miss a single step." Lin Feng's voice pulled Wang Dalong back from his daze.

Wang Dalong swallowed hard, his legs already turning to jelly as he looked at the "safe passage" ahead, which was cratered by explosions and littered with vehicle fragments.

"Brother... Brother Feng, is this... is this really safe?"

"Theoretically."

"..." Wang Dalong wanted to cry.

Shi Tou and five members of his Special Air Service team had already entered the minefield.

They split into three groups of two, one responsible for probing and one for vigilance. Holding slender Mine Probes, they bent low, inserting the probes into the sand at a thirty-degree angle, inch by slow inch, with extreme slowness and concentration.

Every movement was as gentle as touching a lover's skin.

But everyone knew that beneath this "skin" lurked fangs capable of instantly tearing a person to shreds.

Time passed minute by minute.

These short twenty meters felt longer than a century.

Wang Dalong's back was completely soaked. Sweat ran down his temples into his eyes, stinging and painful, but he didn't even dare to raise a hand to wipe it away. He could only stare at Lin Feng’s heels in front of him, moving his legs mechanically and stiffly.

"Clear."

Finally, when Shi Tou’s low voice rang out, Wang Dalong felt all the strength drain from his body. He collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.

They had successfully crossed the Death Minefield.

Looking back, the Gobi remained tranquil, as if everything that had just happened was merely an illusion.

"Rest here for five minutes," Shi Tou ordered.

Lin Feng did not rest. He walked to the other side of the minefield, squatted down, and picked up a pinch of black grit.

This was not sand.

He held the grit up to his eyes, examining it closely. The particles were hard, sharply angular, and had a metallic sheen.

"Granite..." he murmured to himself, "It has been artificially ground and compacted."

He stood up and looked around.

The area they were standing in was an extremely open and flat black plain, its smoothness far exceeding that of natural terrain.

"This is the runway," Lin Feng stated with certainty.

A secret airport runway, hidden deep in the desert, protected by a minefield and volcanic craters!

Wang Dalong had recovered. He stood up, looking at the vast black ground in shock: "My goodness... what a massive undertaking! Are these Germans planning to take off bombers here?"

"No," Shi Tou walked over, his gaze sharp as he swept across the distant, crouching volcanic craters, "They aren't preparing for takeoff; they are preparing defenses."

He waved his hand and ordered into the radio: "Grey Wolf, Hound! Head up to the high ground at two o'clock and ten o'clock! Report back!"

"Copy that!"

The two most agile members of the Special Air Service team immediately rushed toward the two highest extinct volcanic craters in the distance. Their figures moved quickly over the rugged volcanic rock and soon disappeared behind the ridge line.

The remaining few stayed put and maintained vigilance.

The radio was silent.

Five minutes later.

"...Captain?" Grey Wolf's voice came through the radio, laced with barely suppressed panting and extreme shock.

"Report!" Shi Tou roared.

"You... you had better come up and see for yourself."

Shi Tou's brow instantly furrowed. "Report what you see!"

There was silence on the radio for two seconds; he seemed to be organizing his thoughts.

"I see... cannons."

"Cannons?"

"Yes, Captain. An 88mm Anti-Aircraft Gun. No, not just one... it's a complete anti-aircraft battery position!"

What?!

Everyone present, including Lin Feng, showed expressions of astonishment.

"What is the condition?!" Shi Tou pressed.

"Perfectly preserved... Captain, they... they look like they were deployed here just yesterday!" Grey Wolf's voice was strained. "The gun covers are intact, the ammunition boxes are stacked neatly, the camouflage netting... the camouflage netting is still there! My God, this place... it's like a ghost position!"

The group exchanged glances, seeing the horror in each other's eyes.

"We found them too!" Hound reported from the other side. "The same 88mm battery position! Crossfire! They have locked down the entire airspace!"

Shi Tou didn't hesitate anymore. He grabbed his rifle: "Fatty, stay here and guard the equipment! Mr. Lin, come with me!"

Lin Feng nodded.

The moment Lin Feng and Shi Tou breathlessly climbed the ridge and saw the sight before them, they were profoundly shaken, even though they had prepared themselves mentally.

The mountaintop had been artificially leveled into a platform. Four 88mm Anti-Aircraft Guns, painted desert yellow, were arranged in a standard quadruple anti-aircraft formation, distributed like plum blossoms. The dark muzzles pointed straight towards the sky at a sixty-degree elevation.

Dust plugs covered the muzzles. The gun covers were somewhat damaged by eighty years of wind and sand erosion, but they stubbornly remained draped over the gun bodies. Beside them, ammunition boxes covered by tarpaulins were stacked neatly in piles.

Everything was in perfect order.

It was as if the soldiers on the position had only temporarily stepped away and would return the next second to continue their duty of defending the airspace.

Lin Feng slowly walked up to one of the large cannons, reaching out to gently touch the cold gun body. Based on the model and layout of these anti-aircraft guns, their purpose was obvious.

"They were defending against Allied aircraft..." Lin Feng murmured.

His gaze swept across the boundless sea of sand. His expression was initially puzzled, then enlightened.

"Deploying an anti-aircraft position of this scale in the uninhabited heartland of the Sahara has only one explanation—there is a secret base here that absolutely cannot be discovered, a target Allied bombers would destroy at any cost. Most likely, this is the legendary secret Nazi test flight site."

He noticed that the seals on the ammunition boxes were still intact, and there was no trace of gunpowder smell inside the gun barrels.

"It seems this place was never discovered until the end of the war." Lin Feng withdrew his hand and sighed softly. "These steel behemoths stood guard here for eighty years, yet ultimately never had a chance to roar once. The secret they protected, just like them, was forgotten by the world."