Chapter 35 - Hunt for the Hour

The people inside the stronghold had all been taken out by themselves, but Russell knew that it would only delay the Ten Rings gang's knowledge slightly.

　　When they can't reach the stronghold, they must be suspicious.

　　It's unlikely that they'll know that he did this and will instead blame the U.S. military for it, but they'll probably take Tony and run for the night just to be on the safe side.

　　Russell doesn't plan to stay in Afghanistan for long.

　　He wouldn't put it off until the next day if he could settle the matter that day.

　　Not to mention, there's a soft, fragrant Diana waiting for him back home in New York.

　　The distance between the two strongholds is not very far.

　　If it was a wild ride in an SUV like before, Russell was confident that he would reach his destination within an hour.

　　But now, the pickup truck, with the appearance of Iraqi war damage in color, severely limits his play.

　　He had been a little upset about the buggy prepared by the Afghan Continental Hotel.

　　Now, however, he felt he had misjudged the staff at the Continental.

　　In Afghanistan, the SUV he just drove is the boutique car here.

　　If the SUV that had just made him grumble could have 60 points, the pickup truck, now, couldn't even make it to 40.

　　In order to enhance the driving experience, he had to gush out some symbiotes from his body, which he used to transform the seats.

　　The driving experience can be enhanced by morphological changes in the symbiotic body.

　　Vehicle performance, however, can't be helped.

　　This extremely bad driving experience made him look forward to the "Inner Symbiotic Battle Armor" bonus.

　　If he had the Inner Symbiotic Armor right now, he wouldn't need to experience this kind of bad driving experience that makes people want to curse.

　　Although he had tried to "love" the pickup as much as he could, he had not pushed it to its limits.

　　But after a wild ride of 40 or 50 minutes, the pickup truck came to the end of its life.

　　There was a loud bang and the pickup blew up.

　　Fuck!

　　Only the last ten or so kilometers to go!

　　After cursing, Russell opened the door and got out of the car.

　　Glancing at the map and GPS locator, he threw away most of his gear and traveled light.

　　Two pistols, a dagger, four magazines, satellite phone, GPS locator!

　　He threw everything else away except for these things.

　　The pickup had blown a cylinder, and he didn't need to think about traveling down the mountain to the stronghold where Tony was being held.

　　Venom form!

　　Just a few steps out, he cast Venom Form, turning into a Venom lookalike that was nearly three meters tall and full of fangs.

　　Between two points, a straight line is the shortest!

　　After casting Venom Form, he penciled in towards the stronghold where Tony was being held.

　　In the cave-turned-workshop, Tony and Ethan kept disassembling the missiles.

　　Outside the cave, Raza, who was the leader, was patrolling the valley.

　　There's a stronghold out there that's completely lost.

　　In the past hour, Raza's men have confirmed this.

　　Although he had sent his men to the lost stronghold, the uneasiness in his heart not only did not diminish, but became more pronounced.

　　Did word get out?

　　The thought flashed unconsciously through Raza's mind.

　　Soon, though, he dispelled that speculation.

　　The fact that Tony was in his hands was known only to Obadiah, apart from him and his men.

　　He had confidence in his men.

　　There's no way Obadiah is going to leak this out either.

　　As for the U.S. Army, he didn't think the U.S. Army's intelligence officers would be that competent.

　　After so many years of fighting, he knew very well what kind of strength the U.S. Army in Afghanistan had.

　　If the U.S. Army's intelligence officers could even inquire about such things, then the U.S. Army would have eliminated the terrorists hiding in the mountains long ago.

　　The mountainous terrain of Afghanistan is a very important reason why the U.S. military, which is far better equipped and battle-savvy than the terrorists, has not been able to wipe them out until now.

　　There is no way to conduct large-scale military mobilization, resulting in the U.S. military not being able to take full advantage of its superiority in firepower.

　　Smaller forces and no good way to fight terrorists hiding in the mountains.

　　All these terrorists have to do is find a random cave to hide in and they are as good as gone.

　　Raza is thinking about what went wrong.

　　And at the top of one of the hills in the valley, Russell in his Venom form was looking down on the valley from a high vantage point.

　　It was a bit of a distance away, but he could clearly see the Stark Industries weapons that were set up in the military camouflage tents.

　　He could even see the words "Made by Stark Industries" on the box.

　　Out of the box, not out of the box.

　　Man-portable rocket launchers, small missiles of various types.

　　The Ten Commandments gang members in the valley were dressed a bit scruffy, but it had to be said that the heavy firepower they got was still pretty high-end.

　　The members of the Ten Commandments Gang that could be seen now were about thirty to forty in number.

　　If you add in the fact that no one came out of the cave, the total number might reach seventy or eighty.

　　At the entrance to the valley, a heavy machine gun was mounted.

　　The members of the Ten Commandments Gang, in twos and threes, gathered in various parts of the valley.

　　There was sitting around chatting, and then there was cruising around looking around.

　　Not too many people, not too much of a problem!

　　Surveying his surroundings in the valley, Russell maneuvered his black tentacles and brought out the only two pistols he had on him.

　　Let's get started!

　　Hunt for the moment!

　　Without any hesitation, Russell pushed his legs hard and leapt from the top of the mountain, falling like a black meteor toward the valley.

　　Before he even hit the ground, a huge shadow on the ground caught the attention of the members of the Ten Commandments gang.

　　Just as they look up into the sky, Russell, who is still falling, maneuvers his black tentacles and pulls the trigger.

　　Gun flinging!

　　Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! ...

　　A bullet thundered out, flying towards the Ten Commandments Gang members in the valley.

　　Some of these bullets, following their normal flight path, flew in a straight line towards the target.

　　More than that, they arced unreasonably through the air, flying towards those Ten Commandments gang members who were hiding behind cover.

　　Boo!

　　Almost as soon as the bullets flew out, the demonic Russell landed right in the middle of the valley, coming to a one-knee superhero landing.

　　With the reinforcement of the venom symbiote, his knee didn't hurt at all.

　　In fact, even without the symbiotic enhancements, his knees wouldn't have hurt.

　　The height wasn't so high that he couldn't handle it.

　　As he hit the ground, the black tentacles didn't stop pulling the trigger, and the gunshots continued to ring out.

　　As he maneuvered his black tentacles to fire, he let his body gush out new black tentacles towards the man-portable bazooka and other weapons in the camouflaged tent.

　　How could these members of the Ten Commandments Gang not expect a black monster to fall from the sky on an uneventful afternoon?

　　What they didn't expect was that this black monster came out with a fierce attack.

　　Before they could raise their hands to fight back, more than a dozen of their companions died under Russell's gun.