Fifty meters to go.
Su Wei lowered his center of gravity, his knees scraping against the hard frozen ground and gravel, each step having to be precise and firm to avoid making a sound.
Black, five meters behind him, maintained the same hunting posture.
Forty meters.
Thirty meters.
The outline of the pile of rubble ahead was now clearly visible.
It was a few naturally stacked granite blocks that formed a perfect firing bunker in the middle.
Just then...
A low, mournful cry came from behind the bunker, filled with pain.
"Yo!"
Su Wei recognized that voice all too well.
It's Roosevelt's elk.
Moreover, it was a fully grown, enormous male deer.
Su Wei stopped what he was doing.
He readjusted the focus of the thermal imager.
This time, he saw it clearly.
Behind that bunker, there was a huge red heat source.
It was a male red deer weighing over a thousand pounds.
It neither ran nor moved; it simply knelt there like a mountain of flesh, occupying the entire space behind the bunker.
And behind that enormous heat source.
Under the cover of the deer's warm body.
Hidden within is a tiny, almost completely concealed humanoid cold source.
That madman.
He broke the stag's spine, paralyzing it, but didn't kill it immediately.
He used this living behemoth, whose body temperature was close to forty degrees Celsius, as his human shield and heat source disruptor!
All the thermal imagers could see when they scanned the area was a deer that was resting.
He hid under the deer's belly.
Using the still-breathing creature as cover, he held up the.338 caliber scythe.
Su Wei felt his teeth chattering, and a chill he had never experienced before, one that seemed to penetrate to the bone, made him feel cold all over.
This is the "madman" that Black mentioned.
This madman has no bottom line.
Driven by a thirst for killing and a desire to evade capture, he was willing to trample and crush all the rules of the wilderness under his feet.
The deer is still calling.
The voice was faint, barely a whisper.
It could feel the human hiding beneath it, the demon who had broken its spine, pressing a cold gun barrel against its neck.
"Did you see that?"
Black had somehow gotten close to Su Wei, his voice as soft as a ghost's.
"I saw it."
Su Wei's voice was completely flat.
That's the lord deer.
Su Wei recognized the enormous antlers.
Last time I came, it was swaggering around in the middle of the valley, driving away other male deer and protecting its herd.
Now it has become a hideout for the killer.
"How do we do it?" Su Wei asked.
The helicopter's searchlight beam had already swept over the vicinity, and the deer, stimulated by the bright light, tried to struggle to its feet.
But the paralysis of its hindquarters meant it could only frantically paw at its front hooves.
"He knew we were here."
Black pulled a flashbang grenade from his waist.
"This kind of madman won't care about being surrounded."
"He's waiting for the helicopter to descend, or for someone to rush up."
Black dropped the pull tab.
"Since he likes to hide behind living things."
Without any hesitation, the old hunter exerted force in his arm and hurled the black iron lump violently towards a pile of rocks forty meters away.
"Then let him experience what it's like to be thrown into a frying pan."
"Boom!"
The blinding white light instantly engulfed the darkness.
A tremendous explosion echoed through the U-Shaped Valley, causing the snow on the treetops to fall in a flurry.
The previously paralyzed stag, in extreme terror, unleashed its last burst of strength.
It frantically raised its head, wildly waving its heavy antlers, and desperately stomped its forehooves on the ground.
The once perfect cover collapsed instantly.
Amidst the chaotic dust and the cries of deer, a figure suddenly darted out.
He was dressed in white polar camouflage and moved as fast as a startled snow leopard.
He wasn't holding a gun.
To be precise, the gun was still trapped under the deer.
But the moment the figure burst out of the smoke, instead of retreating into the woods behind it, it charged towards Su Wei and Black.
A cold glint flashed in his hand.
It is a hunting knife with serrated edges.
The distance was less than thirty meters.
For these desperate criminals, two seconds is enough to cover that distance.
"Bang!"
Su Wei didn't think about it.
The stock of the Browning rifle slammed against his shoulder.
A burst of orange-red flame shot from the muzzle.
Chapter 92 Gunfire and the Hunting Grounds (Bonus Chapter)
The orange-red muzzle flash was particularly glaring in the dim light of the day.
This was followed by a tremendous roar.
The desperate man, dressed in snow camouflage and wielding a hunting knife, charged forward as if struck by a heavy hammer, his momentum abruptly halted.
A cloud of blood erupted from his right thigh.
The impact of the kinetic energy caused him to tilt violently to the left and fall heavily into the thick snow.
The serrated hunting knife flew out of his hand and stuck into the frozen ground nearby, buzzing.
The piercing screams instantly drowned out the sound of the wind.
Black moved.
The old hunter did not let his guard down just because his opponent had fallen to the ground. He took a few steps across the pile of rocks, pressed his knee firmly against the man's back, and skillfully twisted the man's hands behind his back with his large, tactical-gloved hands.
Click.
The specially designed engineering plastic restraint straps lock in place instantly.
"Safety."
Black's voice pierced through the screams and traveled clearly through them.
Su Wei remained in the gun-holding position, the muzzle pointed at the figure convulsing on the snow, his finger resting on the trigger guard.
It wasn't until he heard the word "safe" that Su Wei felt his heart pounding violently against his ribs in his chest.
This was the first time he had pulled the trigger on someone.