She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 751

She couldn't collapse now. He was relying on her.

Clinging to consciousness, Loyce leaned against the barricade, mentally tracking the remaining enemies.

There were at least four scattered around her. Backup wouldn't take much longer, but time was rapidly running out.

Footsteps closed in from both sides, trying to flank her.

Loyce took a deep breath, lunged out to the left, and fired. A soldier who had just peeked out took a bullet straight to the chest and stumbled backward.

Almost simultaneously, a bullet from the right grazed her shoulder. It was unavoidable.

She let out a muffled groan and quickly pulled back into cover. Hearing the footsteps on the right accelerating, she knew she couldn't wait.

Loyce dropped low, sliding out from the opposite side of the tree trunk until she was practically flat against the mud. The soldier on the right hadn't expected her to appear from that angle and froze for a split second. In that single moment, her bullet shattered his knee. As he screamed and dropped to the ground, Loyce fired a second shot, finishing the job.

Three left.

Bullets rained down from two converging directions, pinning her down so heavily she couldn't even lift her head. One of the men had switched to a shotgun. With a deafening boom, a spread of buckshot shredded the bark of her tree into flying splinters.

Loyce reached for her waist. She only had one flashbang left, scavenged from a soldier she had silently taken down earlier.

She pulled the pin, counted down in her head, and rolled the grenade through the underbrush toward the shotgun blasts.

"Grenade!" someone yelled.

Bang!

A blinding flash of white light and a deafening explosion erupted almost simultaneously. Even shielded by the tree, Loyce felt a wave of dizziness and a sharp ringing in her ears.

Fighting through the disorientation, she seized the chaos and vaulted out of cover.

The last man, clutching a bleeding gash on his face, tried to scramble away. Loyce turned to shoot him, only to realize her clips were empty. Unfazed, she picked up a heavy rock from the ground, marched over, and brutally smashed it into the back of his neck. The sickening crack of his spine severing echoed through the trees.

The world fell deathly silent.

The only sounds left were the pouring rain and Loyce's ragged breathing.

She stood in the downpour, tilting her head back to let the rain wash the blood from her face. After a moment, she wiped her cheeks with her soaked sleeve, turned on her heel, and headed toward where Lucian was hidden.

The gunshot wound on her left shoulder burned fiercely, every breath tugging at the frayed nerves. Her right leg throbbed with a dull ache from the close-quarters fight.

Stumbling slightly, Loyce pushed aside a curtain of slippery vines and saw the severely injured man lying back against the mossy rocks. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she broke into a run.

Lucian's tactical gear was soaked through with blood, caked in so much mud it was impossible to tell its original color. His left leg was a mangled, bloody mess, the shredded fabric of his pants revealing the pulverized flesh beneath.

Providing cover fire for her had drained every last drop of his strength. Even though he heard footsteps approaching, he couldn't move a single muscle...