Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology - Chapter 1161

Capítulo 1161: WW1: Cape Town (7)

Sweat dripped from his face, and the heartbeat began to increase wildly. But Pratik persisted; he gritted his teeth and hurriedly perused the whole city from the sky. He found several more places where a large European activity could be found, but it looked like the balloons had startled them, leading them to break into chaos.

‘Got to hurry,’ he muttered.

His eyes darted around from left to right like a pendulum clock, and his brain worked overtime, putting the devilish pattern recognition training he had done to use.

“Bang!!”

Suddenly, he heard gunshots, and he felt something pass by him, whistling at high speed.

As he looked down, his heart sank. Four to five European soldiers held rifles in their hands and shot at his balloon relentlessly. Looking around, his companions were experiencing the same fate.

“Time’s up!”

Without hesitation, he pulled up a large circular metal egg from his bag and dropped it.

The next moment, he heard a loud explosion coming from below. He even heard a few screams and shouts, but he was in no mood to pay attention to the Europeans anymore, as he could feel the altitude was slightly decreasing. Looking up, he was horrified as he saw through the gap that a few holes had been formed in the balloon, and the air was leaking out. His heart dropped to his stomach, and he felt a chill run down his spine, but at this moment, he became exceedingly calm, displaying the true essence of a veteran.

The plate of the photograph had been developed, so after dropping the remaining bombs, which resulted in a few more explosions and more screams, he quickly stuck the image plate into the deepest part of the bag, stuffed the graph chart into his inner pocket, and turned the flame to its maximum.

As gasoline poured onto dried wood and set it alight, the flame erupted into a brilliant blue blaze, bursting into life like the breath of an azure dragon. It burned through the fuel without restraint, and the balloon, which had been descending moments earlier, began to rise, climbing higher and higher.

That was when the Europeans opened fire again. Many shots missed, but a few punched fresh holes into the balloon. Thankfully, the hot air balloon was made from a new and improved material, so even with punctures, it did not suddenly collapse into nothingness. What nearly shattered his composure, however, was that several bullets struck the basket itself, tearing holes straight through it. He escaped unharmed, but through those gaps he could clearly see that the Europeans were relentless.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he kept muttering as the altitude increased at a snail’s pace.

In the end, the altitude did not rise anymore, and it even showed signs of lowering. The fuel was almost depleted, and the flame was not as intense as before.

‘tch!’

It would have been better if he had gone 100 metres, or at least 50 metres, higher, but there is nothing he could do about his misfortune.

The next moment, he dropped all the remaining bombs to the ground, completely disengaged the fuel line, letting the fuel fall into the basket, and simultaneously flicked a lighter into the basket as he jumped out nearly 800 metres up in the air.

Everything happened in a split second. Right as Pratik jumped, the sounds of explosions were heard on the ground, but no screams were heard. It looked like the Europeans had found themselves some cover. The basket completely ignited, making the fire rage vigorously, and Pratik, without a moment’s delay, violently pulled open the last compartment of the bag and threw its contents out with force.

The moment he threw the parachute out, his heart skipped a beat as he felt the threads had become tangled, but fortunately, maybe the Son of Wind’s blessing was really with him. Right at the moment, a gust of wind hit the parachute and untangled itself, and it stretched open like a dragonfly taking its flight.

“Boom!”

Right at this moment, the flame that had lit the basket reached the fuel line, causing a small explosion, and the next second, the high tensile strength ropes holding the basket could no longer resist the temperature and snapped, one by one.

The attached bicycle, the cylinder, and the camera were the first to fall, and then the basket gave way as the wires were immediately cut, and as the balloon itself caught on fire, its height actually increased, and driven by the wind, it continued to go inland.

But Pratik no longer bothered about the balloon. As long as the wind did not actually push the balloon towards his escape route or even make the balloon fall on him, he was happy. ‘Looks like my luck is not that bad.’

He let out a sigh of relief. The scenery he saw mesmerised him, exactly like the dozens of times he jumped off with a parachute before, but this time on an actual mission, his feelings were completely different. For some reason, he felt more fulfilled, and the view was much more beautiful. Maybe it was a psychological thing where hard-fought things are more precious, but unfortunately, he could not enjoy the scenery any longer.

“Bang!”

The damn Europeans started firing again, and Pratik, coming back to his senses, violently changed directions from left to right as if he were a drunk man on the road about to fall into a ditch. Anyway, his extremely dangerous yet straightforward strategy worked. He became extremely hard to hit, even for the Europeans who seemed to be chasing him on fast horses.

But as he got closer and closer to the ground, he could not remain calm anymore, because he felt like he could only barely cross the perimeter.

“Damn it!”

‘If only I wasn’t forced to make so many useless manoeuvres,’ he couldn’t help but curse.

But in the end, being a seasoned veteran, he calmed down. He quickly made the decision not to cross the perimeter, since if he did, he would be asking for his death. After all, at the perimeter, there were not only a larger number of European soldiers, but his altitude would also be very low. Maybe he would only be a few dozen feet off the ground. Even if he knew that the sharpshooters from his side could provide cover fire, with the number of Europeans, he would definitely get shot.

With the decision made, he pulled the wires in the parachute closer to make its surface area smaller and the dipping angle tighter.

Soon, he began to dive. He made sure to avoid the trees as he did not want to be stuck on a tree and aimed for buildings.

“Ah!”

“Fuck!”

He sprained his leg, and he was in excruciating pain. It looked like his tendons snapped, making him sweat out from all over his body, but he gritted his teeth, disengaged from the parachute, took out the image plate from the bag, quickly stuffed it in his inner pocket right along with the graph paper, and dragged himself to the edge, trying to see if there was a safe way to get down.

He was relieved as the guys at the perimeter seemed not to have noticed his location because of the tall trees blocking the vision, but he still remembered a few annoying bastards had been chasing him from the centre of the city to the part that is closest to the harbour.

His luck seemed to have run out. There were no soft shrubs or even a bush for him to jump down, and even amidst the chaos of the people fleeing in panic, he heard a group of horse hooves approaching him from a distance.

“Alright, fuck it.”

“Come on, assholes.”

His expression became ruthless, and he pulled out a small pistol from the holster on his waist. The bullet was already in the chamber. He pulled the hammer, aimed at the street below, and waited with bated breath.

Pratik was like a wound-up spring. As soon as he saw the red uniform, it was as if a button to release the string was pressed, making his instincts act faster than his brain, contracting the twitch fibres in his hand at unimaginable speeds.

“Bang!”

Smoke rose from the pistol, and the British soldier clutched his shoulder in immense pain as blood gushed through his hands and fell down.

Without hesitation, Pratik started to reload the pistol, but unfortunately, a few Dutch soldiers seemed to have spotted him and had already taken aim at him.

He was finally scared, and in the end, he closed his eyes.

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

The expected gunshots rang out, but miraculously, he was still alive. When he opened his eyes, he was shocked. The two Dutch soldiers had fallen to the ground, dead in one shot each.

Very soon, he heard a loud commotion from his right, filled with blood-curdling screams and a barrage of machine gunfire.

Right before his eyes, several English and Dutch soldiers ran into the city as if they had seen a ghost. Some escaped, while others, just like his assailants, were shot dead. Looking at them run so close to him, Pratik was about to instinctively pull the trigger, but at the last moment, he held back. Now that he saw a glimmer of hope, he did not want to court death.

Soon, more Europeans ran into the city, and he tried his best to crawl back and lie low to make sure that he would not attract any attention. To be sure, he even pulled the parachute that was dangling outside onto the roof so that people would not find anything amiss.

Several minutes passed, and he heard the sound of a large group approaching from the right, but this time he was not nervous. He bravely struggled to the edge of the roof and waited.

A group of commandos moved forward cautiously. When they heard a laugh coming from their left, they pointed at the place where the sound came from. To their shock, it was a person wearing the Bharatiya military uniform, and he even had a star on his shoulder. Looking at the insignia, the expression on the commando’s face changed.

“Pratik Karya, 4th Squadron, 1st Parachute Brigade.”

As soon as he informed his identity, he was brought down, and the lieutenant general came to meet him. But he came straight to the point, without any greeting. “Do you have the location?” General Mugund Padmanabam asked.

Pratik understood time was of the essence, so he was as concise as possible. “The coordinates and the reference image are both here, sir.”

Mugund quickly opened up the graph coordinates and overlapped them on the actual image taken by the camera. His eyes lit up. The other soldiers from the parachute squadron were much luckier than Pratik, and they had landed within the harbour controlled by the empire, but the coordinates they had gotten were much less than Pratik’s.

“You did an excellent job, Captain.” In a good mood, Mugund said a few words, but the very next second, his expression turned sober and stern.

“Take him to the infirmary, and dispatch all five bicycle battalions. We can’t let the Europeans disperse. Scorched earth is the last resort.” Mugund understood it all too well. His Majesty had no desire to resort to such a tactic, and so Mugund would do everything in his power to crush the Europeans swiftly, before the situation spiralled out of control.

P.S. Thank you, Siddhesh_Sawant_2828, for IceCola x3

P.S. Thank you, abby_garg, for IceCola

Like it ? Add to library！

P.S. Thank you, Siddhesh_Sawant_2828, for IceCola x3

P.S. Thank you, abby_garg, for IceCola