MM Racing Chapter 427 Once a king, I will die standing!
Chapter 427 Once a king, I will die standing!
Chapter 427 Once a king, I will die standing!
"One," Nanuk's voice was like a whisper in the wind.
Lin Yu'an's finger was already on the trigger, sensing the critical point of the second spark.
Hans, standing beside him, had also set up his R8 rifle, equipped with a Zeiss scope, and his breathing became long and steady.
three!
'
"Bang!"
"boom!"
Two gunshots shattered the silence of the wasteland almost simultaneously.
The crisp, short, thunderous sound of the .56 semi-automatic rifle, combined with the deep roar of the .300 Magnum cannon in Hans's hand, created a death duet.
The immense recoil slammed into Lin Yu'an's shoulder through the butt of the rifle.
But he didn't blink.
Through the scope, he clearly saw the moment the bullet hit the target behind the old bull's shoulder blade. The thick, shaggy hair trembled violently, and a cloud of pinkish blood mist exploded in the backlight.
That's a sign that the alveoli have been shattered instantly, and the high-pressure blood and gas in the chest cavity have gushed out.
It hit! And it was a fatal wound.
Meanwhile, Hans's target, the strong, solitary bull, was met with a devastating blow from the precision manufacturing of modern industry.
The immense kinetic energy carried by the .300 Magnum bullet was like an invisible giant hammer, slamming hard into its side.
The 400-kilogram behemoth didn't even have a chance to shake before its entire body was pushed half a meter sideways, its hooves buckled, and it crashed to the ground.
The central nervous system was severed; it didn't even twitch and died on the spot.
However, Lin Yu'an's old ox with a broken horn displayed an awe-inspiring vitality.
It did not fall.
Although his lungs had been ripped apart by the soft-tipped bullet, and although bubbly blood foam had begun to spray from his mouth and nose.
But it still spread its four hooves apart, gripping the ground tightly, raising its head, and letting out a mournful and desolate low roar.
"hold head high-!!!"
This roar instantly awakened the oldest instincts in this wasteland.
"Karrak! It's a defensive formation!" Nanuk abruptly grabbed Wang Hu, who was preparing to fire a follow-up shot, and shouted, "Don't fire! Everyone stop firing! Watch!"
What happened next sent a chill down the spines of everyone present.
The more than twenty cattle that were grazing haphazardly in the valley did not scatter in panic like the reindeer when they heard the gunshot and the old cattle king's scream.
On the contrary, they exhibit a collective intelligence ingrained in their genes.
There was no hesitation, no confusion.
Several strong cows rushed to the center, tightly protecting the terrified calves in the core.
The remaining adult bulls and cows stood side by side and back to back, forming an impenetrable circle.
They turned their massive heads outwards, their sharp, curved horns rising like a jungle, forming an impregnable wall of horns.
Twenty pairs of deep eyes were fixed on the direction from which the gunshot rang out, their nostrils flared and their front hooves pawed the ground.
At this moment, time seemed to have flowed backward two hundred thousand years.
"My God—" Hans put down his gun, his voice hoarse, "That's why they survived the Ice Age."
This is their ultimate tactic, developed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, to fight against wolves and polar bears. Faced with this circular formation, even the original rulers of the Arctic are helpless.
However, when faced with firearms from 120 meters away, this instinct evolved to protect the species appears so pale and so tragic.
They thought their enemies were still those beasts that needed to be fought up close; they didn't know that death was now coming from an unseen distance.
What is most touching is Lin Yu'an's old ox with a broken horn that was shot.
It did not try to squeeze into that warm protective circle.
Perhaps it was because it knew it had been driven out of its tribe.
Or perhaps, it was its last bit of pride as a former king.
Or perhaps, it instinctively knew it had suffered a fatal wound and didn't want to bring that unseen death to the child behind it.
It stood alone outside the circle, its back to its pack, facing Lin Yu'an.
Its body trembled violently, blood staining the moss beneath its feet. Yet it stubbornly held its heavy head high, using its broken body to stand between its tribe and the hunters.
He was the king of the old era. Even in death, he would die standing!
Finally, after a dozen seconds, the towering mountain of flesh could no longer hold on.
Its forelegs buckled, and its massive body, like a collapsing mountain, crashed to the frozen ground, raising a cloud of dust.
The valley was deathly silent.
The only sounds were the wind and the heavy breathing of the cattle.
After a long while, once it was confirmed that the two companions were dead and that the enemy in the distance had stopped attacking, the defensive circle slowly loosened.
The lead cow took a deep look at Old Wang lying on the ground and let out a low moo.
Then, it led its herd, with heavy steps and maintaining a guard formation, following the new bull king, slowly retreating into the depths of the valley.
"Let's go." Nanuk stood up, dusted himself off, and spoke with a solemn tone, devoid of any thrill of killing.
The four of them walked down the valley, stepping on the gravel and soft, damp moss.
When he finally stood before the fallen old musk ox, Lin Yu-an once again truly understood what "the weight of life" meant.
It was so big that even an old, thin bull lying on the ground looked like a small black car.
Lin Yu'an reached out and touched its thick, long fur, which resembled a raincoat. His fingers sank deep into the fur, unable to reach the bottom.
The warm touch made him realize that just a minute ago, this was a living being.
Looking at this enormous creature, Wang Hu's earlier tension subsided, and his optimistic spirit returned.
He took out his phone, gestured at the bull's head a couple of times, and couldn't help but exclaim, "My goodness, this thing looks really bulky, like a giant plush toy."
"Hey Nanook, if we had gotten a little closer to shoot, wouldn't it have been easier? I saw someone online say that if you're good at stealth, you can hunt this thing from 40 meters away with a recurve bow."
"Closer?"
Nanook, who was inspecting the bull's horns, suddenly stopped. He looked at Wang Hu with the same gaze he would give a dead man.
"Tiger, your idea is dangerous. Very dangerous."
Nanook pointed to the dead bull's thick, root-like horns, and then to a large black rock next to it.
"Two years ago, in this valley, about two kilometers upstream, an American tourist died because of this kind of foolish idea."
Wang Hu's hand holding the phone froze in mid-air, his smile instantly freezing. "You mean—dead?"
'
Everyone stopped moving. The cold wind howled through the empty valley, as if confirming this cruel past.
"That person is a huge fan of 'Living Alone in the Wilderness'."
Nanook took off his sunglasses, wiped them with a cloth, and spoke with a hint of helplessness and sarcasm towards a layman.
"Have you guys seen that season? That tough guy named Roland, in this wasteland, stabbed a musk ox weighing several hundred kilograms with just a knife."
"I've seen it! It's a miracle!" Hans interjected, a glint of fanaticism in his eyes. "It's practically a legend in the history of modern hunting."
"Yes, Roland is a legend, a top predator. But that tourist isn't."
Nanook put his sunglasses back on, his voice low and menacing, carried by the sound of the wind: "He watched the show and thought he could do it too. He figured if someone could take care of this thing with a knife, what did it matter if he got close with a heavy-duty rifle?"
"He was too confident and was fooled by the appearance of these big guys."
"Musk oxen usually look clumsy and slow, moving slowly with their heads down, like—like a pile of hairy, dull stones."
"That day he also encountered a lone bull. Driven by a desire for the so-called 'warrior's' glory and to capture the most impactful video, he used the terrain to his advantage, reaching a distance of forty meters."
"He saw that the cow had its head down and was not moving, and assumed it was grazing or was just slow to react."
"But he was wrong. The cow was 'feigning sleep.'"
Nanook suddenly made a tactical maneuver, his eyes sharp as knives, as if the beast were right in front of him: "Listen, never be fooled by a bull's appearance. The four-hundred-kilogram bull completed its turn and burst of speed in 0.5 seconds when he raised his camera and gun."
"Do you know how fast a cow can sprint? 60 kilometers per hour! Faster than a grizzly bear! Faster than your snowmobile starting!"
"For a musk ox sprinting at full speed, the distance of forty meters only takes a little over two seconds."
Nanuk held up two fingers and waved them in front of Wang Hu, his tone icy: "One, two. Just this short time."
"The poor fellow only had time to fire one shot. And in his panic, the bullet missed a vital spot and struck the thick keratinous shield of the bull's horn."
Nanuk slapped the hard forehead of the dead bull in front of him, making a dull thud, like striking a piece of granite.
"Roland won because he used the terrain to trap the bull, and he had wolf-like instincts. But that tourist didn't."
"Finally, the bull lifted him up and slammed him against the rock. Like smashing an egg, it instantly crushed his chest cavity."
"It didn't leave immediately; it used its horns to repeatedly poke at the man's corpse, trampling him into the mud, venting its anger."
"When the tourists were discovered, their intestines were spilling out all over the ground, staining the frozen soil red. And the cow was still guarding that pile of rotten flesh until we shot it dead."
After Nanuk finished speaking, he looked deeply at Wang Hu, and then at Lin Yu'an.
"That's why I require you to fire from 100 meters away. Once you cross that line, the roles of hunter and prey can be reversed at any moment."
"Here, arrogance is a killer faster than the bitter cold. Heroism on television is often an epitaph in reality."
A gust of cold wind blew by, and Wang Hu felt a chill on his back.
He looked again at the dead beast on the ground, the excitement in his eyes fading, replaced by deep awe.
It turns out that the illusion of a "one-sided massacre" was simply because they strictly adhered to the rules.
Nature is never kind; it just keeps silent occasionally.
To break the heavy atmosphere, Hans squatted down and began to examine the wounds on Lin Yu'an's cow.
"Let's see the effect of this shot."
Hans drew his hunting knife and skillfully cut open the skin around the bullet hole.
"A perfect ballistic wound." Hans pointed to the entrance, which was only the thickness of a finger, and the bowl-sized exit that radiated outwards behind it, his eyes gleaming with a fascination with technology.
"Look here." He pointed to the broken rib. "The moment the soft-point bullet made contact with the first rib, the lead core deformed, and the diameter of the bullet increased by at least three times."
"It creates a huge cavity effect in the lungs."
"Although the muzzle velocity of the .56 semi-automatic bullet is not as high as my R8, its stopping power within 150 meters becomes excellent because I chose the right bullet."
Hans looked up and said earnestly to Lin Yu'an, "Lin, your shot proved the value of this old gun. It also proved that 'suitability' is more important than 'expensiveness'."
Lin Yu'an stroked the warm wooden stock of the old gun and nodded.
This old gun, which had been with China for half a century, defended its dignity on the icy plains of a foreign land.
At this moment, Nanook had already taken a water pouch made of sealskin from his waist.
He didn't rush to use the knife. Instead, he took off his hat, revealing his gray hair, and knelt on one knee in front of the bull's head in the cold wind.
At this moment, he was no longer the stern guide, but a devout believer.
He poured some water into the cow's mouth and some into its wound. The water droplets slid down its rough fur and seeped into the frozen soil.
"Have some water."
Although Wang Hu is usually carefree and loves to post on social media, he put away his phone at this moment, refrained from taking pictures, and stood quietly to the side. This is a ritual for hunters.
Nanook closed his eyes and whispered an ancient prayer in Inuit: "Thank you for your body that nourishes our village, thank you for your fur that warms our children. Your soul is free, go to the eternal ice fields, where there is no death and no hunger."
After doing all this, Nanook put his hat back on, and the compassion in his eyes instantly transformed into the sharpness of a hunter.
He stood up, pulled out the sharp skinning knife, brandished it on the cow's leg, turned to look at the three "city people," and a meaningful smile appeared on his lips.
"Alright, warriors. The sentimental time is over, and the photo session is over too."
He pointed to the two mountains of flesh that together weighed nearly a ton, then to the almost invisible parking spot a few kilometers away, and the dark clouds that were beginning to gather on the horizon.
"This is the real part of the hunt. If we don't hurry, the smell of blood will attract other things, like a polar bear that has just woken up."
"We have to butcher these two big guys. The hides, meat, bones, and the cow heads you want, we have to carry them all back to the truck, one trip at a time."
Nanook sliced open the musk ox's thick hide with a single stroke.
"laugh-"
Hot white steam instantly rose up, carrying a strong smell of blood, wildness, and the heat of entrails, rushing towards you.
"Come on, let's get to work!"
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