CHAPTER 446: CHAPTER 414: FINDING WEAKNESSES

Mountain Eagle was controlling Golden Cicada to eavesdrop on the conversation at the training ground when Crow suddenly sounded an alarm...

A large quadcopter drone took off from a hollow spot more than 300 meters above him.

The proximity startled Mountain Eagle. To buy time to cover up the disappearance of the giant wolves, Mountain Eagle ordered Crow to dive from above and claw at the drone’s rotors when it ascended to a certain height.

The out-of-control drone lost balance in mid-air, then crashed into the north end of the mountain in an irregular arc.

When Mountain Eagle shifted Golden Cicada’s detection direction upwards, he heard someone cursing angrily...

"Shit, another one’s gone down. Pinpoint the crash location, call the control team to retrieve the drone wreckage..."

The voices that followed became muddled; it seemed that the opposition had entered some space, rendering Golden Cicada’s detection almost ineffective.

This indicated there was a passage leading into the interior of the mountain...

Mountain Eagle did not move; instead, he quietly stayed within his shelter, waiting silently...

Soon, he saw a team of six riding quad bikes with two giant wolves emerging from a passage below, heading north along the stone-filled base of the mountain. After a while, the six dismounted and began climbing.

Mountain Eagle dispatched Crow to the drone crash site in advance and then waited quietly on a tree.

About two hours later, under the guidance of a GPS, the six men and two wolves arrived at the drone crash site.

It was clear they had adapted to the pace of work here. These members of the so-called control team, apparently seasoned military personnel, didn’t disperse for cover; instead, they left a sniper with a rifle at a high point on the mountain, while the rest escorted a technician to the drone wreckage.

Mountain Eagle observed through Crow’s eyes for a few minutes and soon noticed something unusual about these people.

It seemed like they all had issues, some subtle and some glaringly obvious.

One had a huge lump on his forehead, sagging down like a sack, pressing over his eye...

Another was even stranger; he not only had a bizarre and slightly deformed long face, but he was also skinny, hunched, and his limbs were distinctly different from normal humans, especially his fingers, which resembled spider limbs.

Moreover, there was a very discordant feel to his movements!

Ordinarily, hearing the soldiers’ conversation in the training ground, one might think these were some kind of genetically modified freaks...

But Mountain Eagle knew someone with the same condition in his childhood living in the steel factory’s housing area...

This thing is called ’Marfan syndrome’, an autosomal dominant genetic disorder mainly caused by a defect in the fibrillin-1 gene.

Moreover, people with this disease grow uglier with age and suffer from severe heart diseases.

The person from Mountain Eagle’s dormitory was often used to scare children because of his appearance; having gone through too much, he seemed to accept it and became the terrifying figure used by the whole community to silence crying children.

Eventually, he was taken away by a major hospital in the south, and everyone learned that he just had an incurable disease born with him!

People with this disease tend to be very frail due to bone and cardiovascular issues, but Mountain Eagle noticed that although this man was frail, his actions and mental state were particularly vigorous.

This was different from what he expected and gave Mountain Eagle some guesses.

He couldn’t hear their conversation, but it was clear these people were not in a good mood, with several urging the technician constantly. Half an hour later, crucial data from the drone was extracted, and the so-called control team packed up the drone...

The man with Marfan syndrome, struggling a bit, strapped the bag containing the drone wreckage onto a giant wolf and appeared eager to commence the return journey.

Mountain Eagle prompted Crow to take off for surveillance again, while he fell into deep thought back in the shelter...

Genetic modification, training animals, genetic disease patients, Super Soldiers, laboratories, massive amounts of gold...

These pieces of information combined led him into doubt.

Did this really have a connection with Black Fox?

From any angle, Mountain Eagle couldn’t see why Dimension Card Company would need to hire Black Fox to employ a bunch of mentally impaired soldiers from afar for this task.

They obviously did not treat the natives as humans, but they also didn’t intend to kill the natives directly. Otherwise, just the giant wolves alone could force the natives to relocate.

Hiring Black Fox wasn’t cheap, and Mountain Eagle couldn’t see any necessity for Dimension Card Company to employ Black Fox.

But in Alaska, Mountain Eagle couldn’t find anywhere more valuable or conflict-ridden than this!

Then, a sudden insight struck Mountain Eagle...

In terms of value, what could be worth more than conquering this place?

Perhaps the Jungle Ants were never intended for Arctic Fox but were prepared to attack this place.

With Anna as a high-value bargaining chip in his hands, Black Fox could use threats against Blood Fox to mobilize Arctic Fox to help him take over this place...

Once Arctic Fox gets blamed, they’ll be targeted by a United States senator, their haven in Alaska will be ruined, and they might even face a global onslaught.

Politicians taking the nation’s money for their personal business are always serious!

Only this theory aligned with the impression Black Fox had previously given to Mountain Eagle...

This cunning fellow seemed to be doing one thing, but was actually always handling two or even three things simultaneously!

Mountain Eagle was merely speculating...

Following the principle of maximizing benefits, he was searching among numerous possibilities for the most hopeful one and preparing in advance.

Once successful, the situation would be reversed in an instant!

If we assume this is Black Fox’s target, what would he need to take it over?

Manpower, he has Jungle Ants!

Next, he would need transportation and munitions, with munitions being the most crucial!

The Horned Demon Billy he had eliminated earlier had weapons from the same high-end stock confiscated by him in Kamui, suggesting that a batch of weapons might have already been smuggled into Alaska through other channels.

As long as we locate that batch of weapons, we can just wait for Black Fox to walk into the trap!

However, Mountain Eagle, being proactive and aggressively so, wouldn’t be satisfied with just rescuing Anna.

He could kill two birds with one stone!

By carefully controlling the timing, there’s no way Black Fox would abandon his original mission just because Anna was rescued, Mountain Eagle could definitely increase the difficulty of Black Fox’s mission.

Triggering the alarm at the mountain area laboratory ahead of time would significantly increase the difficulty of Black Fox’s mission.

When two tigers fight, in the end, it’s always the hunter who cleans up!

Those scraps would be valuable!

Dimension Card Company has bought the land surrounding the mountain; whatever they are doing, the laboratory set up inside the mountain is illegal...

If there’s significant activity here, and then Mountain Eagle, along with the government and natives, exposes this place thoroughly, Dimension Card Company’s reputation in Alaska would be ruined.

Then, they might be willing to resell that land to some eager buyer at a very low price!

Thinking of this, Mountain Eagle was reminded of the gold mentioned by those people before...

At this moment, he suddenly felt that the daytime in Alaska was really too long. He had limited time and had to complete his plans before the others discovered that the giant wolves had been taken care of.

While Mountain Eagle was waiting for nightfall huddled in a hideout, a group of fully equipped soldiers emerged from the mountain exit below.

He had a large backpack, wore a combat vest, and carrying various weapons, began to run silently through the valley.

Unlike the noisy trainers from before, these soldiers numbered over thirty, but from the moment they started, they didn’t whisper to each other or look around; they just ran silently under the urging of a few instructors on quad bikes.

Mountain Eagle observed the soldiers’ equipment and estimated their load to be around 25-30 kilograms...

The perimeter of the triangular valley is about 15 kilometers. If this group of silent soldiers could run a lap and complete it within an hour and a half, Mountain Eagle would turn around and leave immediately without touching this place before Black Fox’s men arrived.

In the midst of his chaotic thoughts, those soldiers had already run nearly two kilometers...

Their pacing wasn’t exaggerated, but their breathing rhythm was excellent, and none of the thirty heavily laden soldiers fell behind.

Mountain Eagle realized that these might be the ’freaks’ he had heard about; he focused his attention on observing these soldiers...

With an average height of over 175 cm, their strong build suited what most people would imagine of US Army soldiers...

Normally, soldiers with such builds aren’t known for their endurance, but this batch broke the norm.

At the five-kilometer mark, Mountain Eagle timed them at about 17 minutes...

This was already beyond human levels!

East’s soldiers have always been known for their hard work and endurance, and their training focuses on stamina; their highest record for weighted running was 15 minutes and 40 seconds set in 1964, with the current best score of Special Forces’ Soldier King around 18 minutes.

Although Mountain Eagle might have slightly miscalculated the distance, it definitely wouldn’t be too far off; it was still rather exaggerated for this group of obviously strong individuals to collectively finish within 18 minutes!

However, anomalies soon appeared among those people; first, a soldier collapsed suddenly without any warning, then their overall speed began to plummet, persisting up till 8 kilometers when two more soldiers fell to the ground...

By the 10-kilometer mark, the soldiers couldn’t run anymore, large patches of purple appeared on their faces and bodies...

However, as they slowly walked around, the unnatural color receded completely by the time they returned to the starting point, and several soldiers who had fainted on the path were helped up and reintegrated into the group.

Mountain Eagle glanced at the time, one hour thirty-five minutes; it was okay, still within human capacity.

If these were the so-called Super Soldiers, Mountain Eagle felt that a group simply boosted in physical endurance and strength by drugs was really nothing special.

Watching a group of so-called Super Soldiers resting for a while after completing a very ordinary strength training session and then returning inside the mountain, Mountain Eagle slightly shook his head...

From a common person’s perspective, these soldiers equaled the Soldier King level, but from his perspective, these people’s physical conditions could only be considered quite good.

What really made him curious, and even slightly chilled, was that these people remained silent throughout training...

Compared to their physical endurance and strength, their silence during training was the real abnormality!

No special events occurred in the valley afterward, but as the Shepherd Dog began to drive the animals back to the valley, the day gradually darkened.

Taking advantage of the noise of the animal migration, Mountain Eagle quietly packed up his camouflage sheet and then slowly moved about three hundred meters up the mountain to the location where the drone appeared...

The exit was clearly camouflaged by the opposition, but with Golden Cicada’s assistance, Mountain Eagle quickly located the passage.

After confirming that there was no one below, Mountain Eagle lifted a camouflaged lid covered in gravel, revealing the space below...

Seeing the faint light below, Mountain Eagle couldn’t resist whistling...

"What kind of genetic experiment? Mining is profitable too!"