Chapter 961 - 131: Death Throes

"Fuck! Go to hell!"

A voice dripping with venom rang out. Under Chen Wen’s gaze, the Barbarian, who’d been passed out, suddenly snapped his eyes open.

He let out a roar that didn’t sound human, then yanked out a tiny pistol from his waist!

"Careful!"

Vicram reacted insanely fast.

He put everything into his body, exploding into motion and trying to dive to the side.

But right at that moment—

Whoosh!

A sharp, violent gust tore through the air!

Vicram only felt something scream past right beside him.

The next second.

No gunshot. Instead, the Barbarian inside the truck bed let out a howl of pain.

"Argh!"

Vicram froze, body locking in place.

Just then, Chen Wen shot up to the truck’s window in a blur.

He reached in and yanked the pistol from the Barbarian’s hand. Bone cracked as he tore it free.

"I was waiting for you to try that."

Chen Wen looked at the Barbarian, a mocking grin on his face.

That bit with Vicram earlier had just been messing around. The moment he’d glanced at Vicram, he’d realized the Hunting Owl situation might not be over yet.

Right then he’d started taking precautions, slinging the spear onto his body.

"Hey, kid, you really got some skills! I didn’t even notice!"

Vicram bent down, giving the Barbarian a look.

By now the Barbarian’s pistol had been taken, and his arm had been skewered clean through by the spear Chen Wen had thrown, pinning him to the leather seat.

"That was damn accurate."

Vicram turned his head toward Chen Wen. The distance was close, sure, but hitting just the arm like that wasn’t something just anyone could pull off.

Chen Wen chuckled. "Just a little trick. Anyway, drag him out. We’ll ask him a few things later."

Vicram nodded.

He’d been waiting to squeeze some intel out of the Barbarian, to see where the most deeply hidden boss of Hunting Owl was holed up.

Chen Wen yanked the spear out of the Barbarian’s wound, making him scream again.

The two of them dragged him out. Chen Wen cut through the seat belt and roughly tied off the wound on the Barbarian’s arm—hurt like hell, but it stopped the bleeding fast.

At the same time, Chen Wen used the remaining seat belt to lash the guy’s body down.

As for the ones in the cab, there were still a few, but none of them had buckled up. By now they were all unconscious—alive, but not likely to wake any time soon.

They dragged those guys out and tied them up too.

Chen Wen thought of the off-road vehicle.

After telling Vicram to stand guard here, Chen Wen had Golden Eagle gather the animals, then took the horse herd and the weapons toward the off-road vehicle.

Once there, Chen Wen saw two people sitting near the off-roader.

He didn’t give them any time to react, spurred his horse, and charged straight at them. The two were San and his Fourth Brother.

They had hunting rifles, but before they could so much as twitch, Golden Eagle stooped once and cleanly snatched the guns away.

Ever since that run-in with Hunting Owl, Golden Eagle had gotten damn good at disarming gunmen.

The two still tried to fight back, but up against Chen Wen, mounted with a spear in hand, they didn’t have the slightest chance.

Chen Wen dropped each of them with a single thrust.

Same as before, he ripped out the seat belts and cut strips of leather from the seats. Then he trussed the two up and slung them over horse backs.

He also dragged the two Hunting Owl members from the rear out.

Their breathing was still there.

Chen Wen simply bound them as well and hauled them outside the vehicle.

Very soon, Chen Wen was back with four Hunting Owl members in tow, dumping them near the truck, each one at least fifty meters away from the others.

That way they wouldn’t be close enough to talk and say things that Chen Wen and the others couldn’t hear.

Once Chen Wen and Vicram had scattered all the Hunting Owl members around in different spots, dawn broke over the reserve.

A vibrant newborn sun rose in the east, its golden light spilling over the snow peaks, laying a gilded sheen over the pristine mountains.

Chen Wen leaned against Xiong Ma’s flank, gazing at the distant snow range, a faint sense of relief flashing through his chest.

Hunting Owl, the outfit that had plagued the reserve for over a decade—

As of today, it no longer existed.

...

Staying in place, Chen Wen started scavenging, dismantling some cages from the back of the truck.

Besides iron cages, there were some wooden ones.

Once he’d taken those apart, Chen Wen hauled the wood out.

Then he used rocks to build a stone stove.

He piled the wood inside, then dug out the fuel blocks from his military rations.

He lit a fuel block and tossed it onto the pile.

In no time, the wood caught and flared up.

Chen Wen pulled out the big pot he’d captured earlier.

He found plenty of drinking water in Hunting Owl’s truck and poured it into the pot.

Then he rummaged around some more.

He found some food in the truck—a sack of rice.

Rice!

Now that was the good stuff.

Chen Wen hefted the sack down, didn’t bother washing it, and dumped it straight into the pot to cook into porridge.

To go with it, he set out some canned food beside the stone stove. Some of the meat cans were his, some were taken from other contestants, and some had been gifted earlier by the reserve.

No prep needed for those cans—they were ready-made dishes.

Finally, Chen Wen tossed a few dried fruits into the rice porridge and sprinkled in the rest of his sugar packets to sweeten it.

The porridge and cans didn’t need watching.

Once he had them going, Chen Wen went back to rummaging in the cab and the truck bed.

The search turned up more stuff.

Fuel, food, drinking water, and even a few sleeping bags.

"All of this is gold."

Chen Wen thought, hauling everything down.

After all, he was still in the Mountain Extreme Challenge, with more than a month left before it ended.

The reserve sure wasn’t going to reclaim this gear, so keeping it as survival supplies for the rest of the challenge made perfect sense, and the association definitely wouldn’t object.

It counted as spoils Chen Wen had captured himself.

Once he’d sorted all that, Chen Wen remembered the off-road vehicle and the valley. The Hunting Owl crew seemed to have left gear there too.

Especially the valley—seemed like there were still one or two tents there.

Those tents had probably been lived in earlier, but later were used as bait to lure Chen Wen in for an ambush.

After that, Hunting Owl had all shifted to living in the vehicles.

"Nice."

Chen Wen chuckled, a satisfied grin flickering across his face.

Hunting Owl wiped out in one sweep, plus a haul of survival gear this big.

All in all, the operation against Hunting Owl had been both complete and successful.

With that thought, Chen Wen sat down by the big pot, content, and waited for Vicram.

Right now Vicram was in the middle of extracting intel from the Barbarian.

...

"Talk. I’d rather not have to get rough."

Vicram looked at the Barbarian with a half-smile. He’d already seen through how weak this guy was.

This one bullied the weak and feared the strong—no hardened killer, no iron-tough man.

Vicram had plenty of experience with that type.

The Barbarian stayed silent.

But soon enough, once Vicram drew his combat knife and pressed it to the guy’s crotch, the Barbarian’s face changed completely.

What came next was exactly what Vicram expected.

Once he started asking, the Barbarian started talking.

Vicram quickly went through everything he wanted to know.

To his surprise, the Barbarian did know some things—but not much.

To make sure the intel was solid, Vicram finished the first round of questioning, then chatted with the Barbarian about random stuff.

Ten minutes later, he went through the questions a second time.

This time, a few of the Barbarian’s answers didn’t match.

Vicram let out a feral grin and went to work.