Dual wielding volcanoes, killing through the west

"When he saw Hongzhong, he forgot all about the Wolf King, like a mouse seeing a cat! But I won't do that! Not only will I not, but I will also avenge these five people. This is the first order I have given since becoming the leader of the Shepherd Wolf Gang!"

Sandor wanted to point with his right hand, but his shoulder was injured, so he had to use his left. "The Red Army's camp is down below, by Lake Annabelle. That's also our Wolf Shepherd Gang's territory. They just set up camp there without a care in the world because they know our leader is a coward and wouldn't dare cause any trouble. But, but!"

"Times have changed, and so have we. Today, we are the true Shepherd Wolf Gang!"

"Brothers, grab your weapons and follow me down the mountain to capture Hongzhong alive. I'm going to chop him to pieces and keep his head for the bounty!"

“Ahhhhhhhh!!”

As an impromptu speech for a newly appointed official, it was quite inspiring, sweeping away the previous slump.

This level of fluidity couldn't have been conceived on the spot, which shows that Sandor has been eyeing this position for quite some time. He's secretly mastered this smooth, coordinated technique.

First, he'd pump them up, then paint a rosy picture, followed by a team-building event with everyone participating—in his view, Hongzhong had at most three or four people, while they had over twenty; it would simply be a one-sided massacre, a victory they were certain to achieve. Then, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief and truly become the new leader of the Wolf Shepherd Gang. And that lunatic who raised wolves would be forgotten within three months.

The crowd filed out, their faces beaming with the excitement of a world transformed. Their shadows, stretched long and distorted by the lamplight, seemed to point out that what lay outside wasn't a freezing, snowy landscape, but rather an endless hell.

……

On the wolfherd's corpse, a drop of blood flowed from his shattered eye socket, like a tear, trickling onto the ground and spreading.

Unfortunately, no one paid any attention.

The door was flung open again with a creak, leaving it behind.

----

“Ahhhhhhhh!!”

The classic wolf howl resounded, with Sandor riding at the forefront, and everyone was in a state of extreme excitement. To let everyone witness this moment, the entire force mobilized, charging out of the fortress and advancing downhill towards Lake Annabelle.

Sandor still had a wound on his shoulder, but at this moment, as the new leader, he had to endure the pain and see this show through. Fortunately, the journey wasn't too long, and the horse galloped through the snow, quickly descending the mountain and arriving at the Red Center camp.

The few dilapidated tents were completely dark and silent, without even a kerosene lamp in sight.

"Search for me!"

Despite the pain in his shoulder, Sandor was the first to jump off his horse, roaring, "Remember this: I want them alive, alive!"

……

The members of the Wolf Pack leaped off their horses and excitedly stormed into the camp.

However, after only a short while, the cheerful atmosphere subsided. The sounds gradually became sparse, and after a few dozen seconds, the camp fell into complete silence. They brought kerosene lamps and torches, illuminating the camp brightly, and Sandor only saw them bustling around and searching, but they didn't seem to have found anything.

He felt as if something was weighing on his heart, and his expression turned grim.

“Sandor, we’ve searched everywhere.” After a long while, they elected a senior member with similar experience to him to speak on their behalf, “Nobody’s here.”

"The camp is empty."

Chapter 96: You little thief, you've fallen for my golden knife trick! (Bounty 23)

empty?

Sandor's mind went blank for a moment, but he still managed to maintain his composure and asked, "We haven't found the people, but surely we have supplies? They're camped here, they need to eat and drink, where are those things?"

"We've searched everywhere, but there's nothing here except these few tents. The supplies and wagons were probably moved away beforehand." The subordinate sighed and continued, "Forget supplies, there aren't even any horses. This place is just an empty shell. We've probably been tricked..."

"shut up!"

Even Sandor himself hadn't expected that in just a few short minutes, it would be as if the soul of a wolf shepherd had possessed him, causing him to angrily rebuke his own companion in order to uphold the dignity of his "leader." He hadn't even thought about it; the mere fact that he had been refuted in front of everyone was so unbearable for him, as if ants were crawling inside him.

The shout seemed to transcend time and space; his voice overlapped with that of the wolf shepherd, leaving everyone somewhat taken aback and staring at him in astonishment.

"No, I mean..." He realized his attitude was wrong, his mind raced, and he finally came up with an explanation, "Hongzhong must have run away!"

escaped?

According to Sandor's previous statements, Red Center and Wolfman were in cahoots; they had struck a deal together and decided to "optimize" out the rest of the Wolfman gang. It was precisely because of this betrayal that they chose to side with him and support his rise to power. Red Center couldn't possibly have known in advance that Wolfman would be killed by his own people at this time, so why did he run away? Logically, it doesn't make sense.

However, since the new boss said he ran away, let's just assume he ran away; at least that will put our minds at ease.

They searched the campsite thoroughly, finding nothing but a few tents, but at least no one had died. The New Wolf Pack's first operation had come to a successful conclusion. Continuing to wander around the area seemed pointless.

Sandor quickly racked his brains and decided to use a grand banquet to reignite the somewhat gloomy atmosphere. He wanted the dwarf half-man to prepare some good dishes, not the usual stews and soups, but something better, more upscale, that would better reflect his extraordinary status as the new leader.

As for ingredients and time, these are not issues he needs to consider. Just put a gun to his head and he'll have to do it whether he wants to or not!

Thinking this, as he rode back to the fortress, he felt as if something was different.

The doors were tightly shut, and all was silent.

This wooden building has always had a main entrance, but after being occupied by the Shepherd Wolf Gang for a long time, the door has always been open for the convenience of coming and going.

Sparrow Hills was a remote and sparsely populated area. Even if one or two people occasionally wandered into the vicinity, they wouldn't dare to venture into the bandit's headquarters, so the gate was always left open. They were used to the main gate being wide open, so when they suddenly saw the two tightly closed wooden doors, they were all stunned and didn't react for a moment.

"Boss Sandor, this door..."

"Nonsense, do you need to tell me? I'm not blind!" Sandor was furious and didn't care about his image anymore. He muttered to himself, "It shouldn't be like this. Everyone has come out. The only ones left in the camp are those slave laborers in the basement who haven't been sold yet, and that half-human..."

A sudden realization dawned on him: he had left his undefended base wide open for nearly fifteen minutes! As a first-time leader, many of his orders were given for the sake of immediate gratification, including the order to go down the mountain to cause trouble for Hong Zhong—more like an emotional outburst to establish his authority. Both tactics and strategy lacked long-term planning.

Let alone fifteen minutes, on the battlefield, even a five-minute miscalculation is enough to change the course of the war by 360 degrees!

Cold sweat dripped down his forehead. At this moment, what he feared most was that his companions would also realize how absurd what he had done was.

"Shoot!" He pulled out the gun with his still-functioning left hand and said viciously, "Shoot!"

"But Sandor, there's only one door here." His men found this utterly incomprehensible. "What are you going to fight?"

"Break down this broken door, turn it into a sieve!"

"boom!"

Having said that, he fired the first shot, setting a good example. Seeing their leader do the same, his underlings, though puzzled, had no choice but to follow suit. Bullets struck the wooden door indiscriminately, leaving it riddled with bullet holes, splinters flying everywhere, and even shaking down the snow that had covered the outer wall. Amidst the dense gunfire, everyone swallowed their questions, unable to voice them.

The underlings only need to fire their guns, but as the boss, Sandor has a lot more to consider.

For example, right now he was thinking, how long can this last? Bullets can't open the front door. What if everyone runs out of bullets and there's still no reaction from inside? What should he do then? Burn the whole place down?

……

Fortunately, the knocking that echoed through the mountains finally got a response. An old man appeared in the corridor connecting the watchtower and the wooden wall, holding a rifle in his hand. He was accompanied by two girls, each holding a lantern, who also looked down at them from their elevated position, as if they were a group of lowly rats.

"Damn it!" Sandor's heart skipped a beat. He gritted his teeth and roared at the top of his lungs from his horse, "This has always been New Shepherd Wolf Gang territory! Who are you people? If you don't want to die, get out of here right now—!"

“No longer.” Mike’s voice was as steady as ever, like an anchor dropped into the storm, giving people a strong sense of security. “From now on, this base will be taken over by the Red Center Gang!”

……

You can use threats and inducements to silence your own people, but your enemies won't understand your feelings.

These words caused an uproar, and Sandor's face turned from pale to ashen. Although no one had discussed it in front of him yet, he could almost hear the rustling sounds and feel the piercing, extremely distrustful gazes.

After struggling for a while, all he could manage to utter was a weak and feeble "What did you say?!"

“You fell for Hong Zhong’s ‘luring the wolf away from the mountain’ trick. It’s that simple. From beginning to end, the whole thing—the bank, the contract, this and that—was all fake. He made you run around in circles.” Mike was in a position of absolute advantage, so his tone was very relaxed, like an adult explaining knowledge to a child. “Even so, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a bandit leave his door wide open.”

"The original plan was to climb over the wall with ropes to get in, but now it's great, we can just come in through the front door, saving us that much effort."

Having lived for so many years, Mike's ability to speak in a sarcastic and unsettling way was in no way inferior to Zhang Renfeng's.

"I have a sincere piece of advice for you: you're not cut out for this line of work. You should disband the gang as soon as possible; it would be a better outcome for everyone."

……

"ah---!!"

Enraged, he raised his gun, but Mike on the watchtower was much faster.

"boom!"

With high ground providing cover and wooden walls and crates, survival was virtually guaranteed. Mike and Xiaomei were both combat-tested sharpshooters; Xiaomei, however, couldn't handle the rifle's recoil and had to fire from a kneeling position. Even so, a single volley had reduced the number of men below to half.

The blood and screams brought Sandor back to his senses amidst the chaos.

He almost ground his teeth to powder before he managed to utter those two words.

"retreat--!!"

Chapter 97: You Are Still Among the Wolves (Bounty Still 24)

Igor stood by and watched the whole time, holding a tray with two bowls of stew in his hand.

However, because he was too short, his body was completely hidden by the wooden wall made of pointed wooden stakes. Until the very last moment of his retreat, no one below noticed him.

When a large group of people rode down the mountain on horseback, heading straight for the Red Army camp, it certainly startled him. But as a dwarf, even if he ran, he might not be as fast as the others on foot, let alone on horseback. Even if he wanted to send a message, there simply wasn't enough time.

From Sandor summoning him for questioning, to confronting the Wolfman, to the shootout, and the shift in gang power... it all happened so fast that he couldn't keep up.

By the time he realized what was happening, two fast horses had already burst in through the main gate. Sandor had never expected anyone to raid his base, as there wasn't a single combatant inside. The two riders had no trouble getting through.

“Igor, right? Don’t be nervous, we’re from the Red Center Gang. He mentioned you to me.” The elderly man leading the group looked to be in his fifties. He dismounted and exuded a very reliable aura. “Is there anything heavy here?”

For the next few minutes, they acted as if they had rehearsed it beforehand, wasting not a single second. The first step was to pull out the gate, which hadn't been touched for years, close it from the inside, and then use the heavy objects they had moved out to block the doorway. Afterward, they organized their weapons and ammunition, sat on the watchtower, and took turns observing the New Shepherd Wolf Gang's foolish behavior through binoculars.

After searching through an empty campsite for ages, they couldn't find a single needle, so they had no choice but to slink back with their tails between their legs.

And at this moment...

Igor brought over a dusty wooden crate, placed it under his feet, and then stood on tiptoe to see what was below.

Although it wasn't quite to the point of "corpses strewn everywhere," a careful count revealed that there were about a dozen bodies abandoned there.

"Amazing! Just three people wiped out more than half of the Shepherd Wolf Gang's fighting force." Igor's pupils dilated slightly, a strange elation flashing in his eyes as he muttered to himself, "The Red Center Gang... they're truly remarkable!"

"Unfortunately, when I fired at him, the kid fell off his horse. Tsk, damn it." Mike regretted not being able to kill him with one shot. He took the two bowls of stew from Igor and naturally gave one to Mei. "If we could finish it all in one pot, it would save Red Center some effort."

"Thank you." Xiaomei nodded slightly to Igor, put the gun aside, sniffed it lightly, and immediately showed an expression of disbelief.

"Mmm... This is so delicious!" Alana was already holding the wooden bowl, eating the stew spoonful by spoonful, her eyes shining.

When she's excited, her voice rises slightly, not as low as usual, and takes on a touch of girlish charm, "Did you really make this? It's so delicious, what are you using to make it?!"

"This? Haha, it's just 'brown soup,' nothing fancy. Back in my hometown, this stuff is only for poor people." Igor waved his hand dismissively. "These bastards, making me cook for them... they only deserve this kind of stuff."

Xiaomei and Alana were stunned.

This kind of thing?

Compared to the boiled venison with onions in the camp, this stuff had such a rich flavor that it seemed like it came from a completely different world. But judging from Igor's tone, he seemed to think highly of this so-called "brown soup," and that he only made it to fool the members of the Wolf Pack.

“Brown soup, huh? Interesting. If I remember correctly, this should be a popular dish in Constantinople during the Byzantine period, right?” Mike, being much older and more experienced, had a different perspective on the dish. “I didn’t realize you were Roman?”

"Haha, no~~ My hometown is in the north. This commoner's dish that everyone can eat is actually more popular than you think, because it's very easy to make. The key is the seasoning. As long as the seasoning is right, no matter what kind of meat is stewed in the pot, such as venison, beef or mutton, or even dead cat or dead mouse, it will taste pretty much the same."

Seeing the two girls' faces turn ashen, Igor quickly waved his hand and said, "Don't worry, I'm using real venison. If you dared to feed them dead rats, you'd shoot me dead!"

"Dead...dead rat..." Xiaomei's worldview was utterly shaken. "Why would anyone eat a dead rat?!"

“Beef, pork, mutton, venison—these are ingredients that not everyone can afford,” Mike explained in a deep voice. “Indeed, as Igor said, in extremely poor places, it’s not easy to find even a little meat in people’s bowls.”

"However, there's no need to worry about these kinds of problems on this mountain. There's plenty of meat. Deer, wolves... and it seems there's even a very large white bison living by Lake Annabelle."

"If you can provide some good meat, I'll cook you a nice meal to thank you for rescuing me from these bastards. Of course, the person I should thank the most is actually that person..."

Changing the subject, Igor narrowed his eyes slightly and casually asked, "By the way, where's Red Center?"

----

On the other hand, Sandor was in a terrible situation.

When Mike was chaining his head, his shoulder injury flared up, and he fell off his horse at that exact moment. It seemed as if by some unseen force, the wound the Wolfman had inflicted on him saved him once again.

A hail of bullets poured down from the wall. Within seconds, he realized something was wrong. The enemy's marksmanship was too accurate; they were taking down his men one shot at a time, like target practice. To avoid being wiped out, he had no choice but to make a drastic decision. He forcibly pulled one of his men off his horse, mounted it himself, and shouted for a retreat.

But...where can we retreat to?

They returned to the Red Center camp, where the few tattered tents were still there, like a silent mockery of them by the Red Center.

Exhausted and badly wounded, Sandor didn't even have the strength to be angry. But he soon realized that staying there was tantamount to suicide.

Without warm clothes, blankets, or food, how long can a group of people survive in the wild?

So...should we go down the mountain?

Now? In the dead of night?

Sandor's mind was in turmoil. He seemed to have many choices, but he could only choose one, and he couldn't predict the final outcome. Making such big decisions was the most mentally taxing task, and only now did he realize that using his brain had never been his forte.

He finally understood why the wolf shepherd was so cautious: acting cautiously could help him avoid most of the situations that required exhausting his mental energy.

His companions remained silent, all watching him in quiet contemplation.