CHAPTER 328: DESPAIR.

Markus located the tent and then he spotted Leo walking over with a calm look on his face. The young man said, "You people, give up the night vision, use the thermal sights on the guns. Locate the men from the opposite team, and wait for command."

Markus smacked his face and said, "I had almost forgotten that we had thermal scopes."

The people quickly changed the way they observed the slopes and they managed to locate and tag all the enemies. They seemed to have taken over five spots and one of them was moving around in rotations to prepare to face Leo and his team.

Markus said, "These people have set up mines and other things. That big tent we spotted, it has three people, and just now Trip heard a buzzing sound. I suppose that was a low flying drone."

Leo nodded and said, "That should be the case, well, for the coming five days, let us stay put and make sure that you mark all the spots where they have placed mines and other things. Then Markus, lead the teams to take out their positions one by one. Don’t kill anyone until you are spotted. Simply knock them out and tie them up. Only Matilda Luger deserves to face such wrath. The rest are passer bys."

Markus smiled and said, "Boss, how can you be like this? What if these men come back to attack us, or make some claim in the media?"

Leo shook his head and replied, "They won’t because they are bind by the rules of the mercenary world. If they wish to brag about their failure, they would be taunted and later hunted by us. Since we know who they are, we also know who their families are, makes sense?"

The people nodded and Leo said, "Make sure you mention this to them when we release them. Also, I don’t want Matilda to die under our bullets or beating anymore."

Markus raised his brow and asked, "What do you mean, Sir?"

Leo replied calmly, "I want her to suffer torture, anguish of being helpless as we hunt her, and then, have her die somewhere in the mountains from falling into a gorge or rather, ending up in the stomach of a Snow Lion."

The people shivered, they saw him speak such sinister thing without a change on his face, this was certainly ruthless, and along with fear, they looked at him in awe. The young man didn’t mind this, he returned to the far end of the summit where they had dug out an eight feet deep pit. That was how deep the snow was in this place, and inside that thick snow was a hide out that was used by them.

Five people kept watch, hidden under snow, using thermal scopes and noting down everything, while the other five rested inside the snow pit. They all had been keeping themselves warm with thick jackets and lowers, and they were all veterans in the battlefield and have braved enough storms to stay fine in such conditions.

They used dry rations and used water very frugally. If they ran out of water, then they had a small solar powered immersion heater, that didn’t produce heat, and provided them with boiled water.

Life was tough, but it wasn’t insufferables. Every morning, the people got to see Leo stand on the summit facing the winds with just his bare torso as he worked out. His exercises were intense and all the veterans even wanted to try them but the cold wasn’t something they could brave. It was negative ten degrees on the summit and with blizzard like winds chipping at their bodies.

Five days passed in a blink for them. Leo had never once slacked off, and used his nights to train inside the virtual realm. On the morning of the so called judgement day, he looked at Markus and said, "Ready?"

Markus nodded, and Leo replied, "Then go on, I expect good news in an hour from all of you."

The people nodded and carefully began to descend the mountain. They were also split into teams of two, however, only four teams were headed down. While Leo had two people stay behind Red Sparrow and Trip, they have somewhat became his friends, and Leo said, "You two know what to do, right?"

The two people nodded, they were tasked to make Matilda run around in fear. How will they achieve that? Leo had already told them about that. The young man also descended from the mountain, with Red Sparrow and Trip also began to descend but they followed the flanking route as they needed to go further down than Leo.

...

On the mountain, Leo moved akin to a monkey, his speed was fast and his steps were light, all thanks to his agility being hyped. If someone was to catch a sight of him, they would be shocked, because how many times can one see a human doing something that humans cannot do?

Leo reached the tent in a mere ten minutes, and then he hid behind a boulder and waited. He was sure that Red Sparrow and Trip were not in position yet. While he waited, he caught the sound of his enemy.

Matilda was speaking in a frustrated tone, "Five days, five fucking days in this shit hole, yet that bastard has yet to make a move? Was all that bravado of his just for show? Motherfucker, I want to skin that pig alive. Arghhhh!!"

Turns out she wasn’t having a good time in the lap of the nature. Leo almost laughed out loud, in the wind he could smell some food, and the consequences of that were to take a dump. Even on military grade dry rations and controlled water intake, they had to take a dump every two days.

Though they managed to cover their tracks but it was a truth, imagining this old lady, who lived a life of luxury, handling her business in the wilderness was disgusting but the look on her scrunched face, it was all worth it. After waiting for about half an hour, Leo located the drone flying in the distance.

He raised his assault rifle and fired a shot, the bullet went straight through the Drone and caused it to fall to the ground. From the tent fifty meters away from his hiding spot he heard a loud exclamation, "They are here, get ready."

However, he didn’t receive any reply from the people. Leo heard in the comm piece inside his ear, "Boss, all clear."

The first phase was handled with quick execution. Eight men had been captured, and only the two beside Matilda were left to be handled. Leo stood up, and while aiming the gun ahead, he calmly walked over to the tent where the three people were hiding.

He heard someone inside cock a gun and then slowly crouched down, then he saw two men rushing outside. At this moment, Leo received a message from Red Sparrow, "Sir, it is a trap, there aren’t ten men, but forty."

Leo opened his eyes wide, but he wasn’t surprised in the least. He didn’t reply the two first, he fired two shots, and the two people were killed. The guards didn’t even know how they were killed, but they were dead before they could guess.

Matilda saw this and she froze, she saw Leo standing up from the snow and she yelled, "You cheated!"

Leo didn’t say anything and just walked up to her. He stood one meter away from her and then he spat on her face. Matilda was shocked and disgusted at the same time. Leo said, "I cheated? Did you think I would not notice that you have called for forty more men instead of ten?"

Matilda was shocked and said, "How can you come over here when you knew about those men? They are all posted on the slope."

Leo slapped her and said, "Is it not simple? I have my ways, and do you think that only you have set up mines all around the place? You don’t know what you have gotten into. Having money and power doesn’t give you the right to defy death, and this is death."

Then he kicked her off, and said, "I will handle those men of yours and then handle you."

He went ahead without paying attention to her, before she could even stand up and grab a gun to aim at him, Leo had vanished. He really went to knockout those men. His speed and efficiency in this matter was higher than the others. However, Matilda in the meantime was not vacantly sitting. She tried to move around and find other guards, but all she met with was a bunch of unconscious people.

Leo and his team were going to have her die in despair and they had no qualms about it. Matilda didn’t expect this to happen, but the tables have turned and she was going to lose.