The searchlights from the armored vehicles blinded the eyes, reflecting a bluish-white glare across the dusty courtyard of the old chemical plant. The night air felt frozen, heavy with a suffocating tension ready to detonate in the blink of an eye. The mercenaries posing as a federal unit stood in a circle, leveling the muzzles of their long-barreled assault rifles straight at Jason and Leo's chests. Screams of victory and cold mockery were etched across those merciless faces.

"Medical support?" the fake unit commander's voice—a cold-faced man with a jagged scar sliced across his left temple—boomed mockingly, shattering the midnight silence. He stepped forward slowly, lowering his weapon muzzle level with Jason's head. "Sorry, Agent... our agency's budget doesn't cover healthcare for failed traitors."

Leo swallowed hard against his dry throat. Tears of terror dampened his cheeks, while his body shook violently as he propped up Jason's limp frame. "Don't... please don't shoot him..." Leo sobbed desperately, pressing his embrace tighter around the data laptop against his chest. "Just take the data! Don't kill him!"

Jason clenched his left hand with every ounce of strength he had left. Even though his consciousness hovered on the edge of oblivion from massive blood loss via the gunshot wound in his right shoulder, the former operative's eyes burned sharp as daggers. He refused to bow. In the rulebook of a black-ops operative, surrender was never an option, even on the brink of the grave.

"You talk way too much for a hitman, asshole," Jason growled in a raspy yet commanding voice, piercing the stillness between them.

The fake commander grinned broadly, offended yet relishing the moment. "So cocky for a guy who can't even stand straight without a kid's help. Ready weapons. Terminate them no—"

Before that execution sentence could finish passing the commander's lips, a miracle was born out of sheer desperation.

Jason capitalized on a split-second of enemy arrogance that slightly lowered their vigilance. Using the last remaining explosive reserves of his combat instincts, Jason suddenly shoved Leo's body aside with his left hand.

"Down, Leo! Fast!" Jason barked harshly.

Simultaneously, Jason's left hand lashed out lightning-fast, grabbing the assault rifle barrel held by the closest mercenary to his left. With a brutal yank leveraging his body weight and pivot angle, Jason ripped the weapon straight from the enemy's grip.

Bang! Bang!

Wasting not a single second, Jason squeezed the trigger. The bullets sped furiously through the first mercenary's ballistic vest, sending him blasting backward onto the ground. Instant chaos erupted across the plant courtyard.

"Attack! Kill him!" the commander screamed in panic, pointing toward Jason.

A frantic, chaotic close-quarters firefight broke out instantly. A storm of lead raked the night air, slamming into the bodies of the armored vehicles and kicking up flying shards of concrete. Jason, though grievously wounded and relying solely on his left hand, rolled rapidly behind a stack of rusted metal drums, returning fire with lethal precision amid billowing clouds of gunsmoke.

Cough! Cough!

Two more hitmen went down hard after Jason's rounds smashed into their legs and chests. In under ten seconds, the federal-disguised trap squad was thrown into utter disarray by the lone operative's desperate counterattack.

Leo, crawling frantically behind an armored vehicle's tire, stared wide-eyed. "Jason... you... you dropped them all?!"

Yet, that gunfire cut short instantly when a dark silhouette vaulted out from the tactical vehicle's side door.

The elite hit squad leader—the scar-faced commander—had survived the leadstorm. With nimble agility, he lunged forward, kicking the rifle right out of Jason's left hand so it skittered far across the courtyard, then smashed his pistol grip squarely into Jason's jaw.

Crack!

"Ugh!" Jason choked back a groan, his body staggering backward and crashing hard against the plant courtyard's cement floor. Fresh blood welled up once more from his torn right shoulder.

The commander stood over Jason's head, chest heaving as he leveled a Glock dead at Jason's forehead. The man's face was laced with veins of fury over how easily his men had been neutralized.

"Brilliant, Agent. A truly pathetic last stand," the commander hissed coldly, his thumb cocking the pistol hammer. "Now, let's end this rotten charade."

Jason lay flat upon the cold cement floor, staring straight into his enemy's eyes without a shred of fear. Instead of begging for mercy, Jason's lips curved into a thin, cold, mocking smile.

"You know what your biggest mistake was, Commander?" Jason whispered softly, his voice sounding entirely calm amid the howling night wind.

The scar-faced man furrowed his brow, holding his trigger finger for a beat. "What the hell are you talking about, bastard?"

"Your mistake was... standing in the wrong place at a very bad time," Jason answered coldly.

Before the commander could process the meaning of those words, a sharp, hissing sound abruptly rang out from the factory exterior wall nearby.

Ssssshhh... bzzt!

Due to the brief firefight moments earlier, a stray round had accidentally torn open the chemical plant's primary gas supply line linked to the outdoor compressor tank. High-pressure gas jetted out furiously, mixing with stray electrical sparks from a severed floodlight cable.

The commander's eyes blew wide as he recognized the hazard. "Damn it—!"

Boommmmm!

A cataclysmic explosion thundered violently, rocking the entire chemical plant grounds. A massive fireball billowed high into the night sky, breaking the silence and hurling a powerful shockwave across the entire front courtyard.

The blast didn't kill them, but its concussive force hurled building shrapnel and forced the commander backward several yards. Thick black smoke and roaring flames instantly swallowed half the plant's front yard, creating total chaos that sealed off the lower escape route.

"Jason! Over here!" Leo shrieked hysterically from behind a shattered wall barrier, waving his arms frantically amidst the flames.

Jason, pulling together the last fragments of consciousness left at the breaking point, crawled fast to avoid licking tongues of fire. Knowing the lower courtyard was completely unsafe and that incoming Ouroboros reinforcements were bound to converge on the explosion instantly, Jason pointed toward the side building's emergency iron ladder.

"Up... we have to head for the roof!" Jason rasped, forcing his legs back up while gripping a burning wall for leverage.

Amid the roaring fire and towering smoke, the hit squad commander—hauling himself up in tattered clothes with soot-smeared features—spotted their movement. The man unholstered a massive combat knife from his belt, grinning savagely through the flames.

"You're not running anywhere!" the commander roared in fury, stepping forward to climb the emergency iron ladder leading up to the rooftop structure.

That fierce battle now shifted to the pinnacle of the building, where the pitch-black night sky began to fracture, preparing to unleash a blinding torrential rainstorm that would erase the boundary between life and death.