Chapter 73: Pulling the Trigger—A Bullet to the Head, the Most Genuine Reaction to a “First Kill”

The R8 revolver, adorned with a four-link holographic Titan print, boasted not only an outrageous range of eight kilometers but also the power to penetrate 800 millimeters of rolled homogeneous steel. Not even a warship’s armor could withstand its might.

To take down an armored vehicle with it was child’s play.

The driver inside the BMP-1 armored personnel carrier could never have imagined, even in his wildest dreams, that while sitting in a vehicle designed to withstand heavy machine gun fire, he would be killed by a mere pistol round.

Such a death was truly unprecedented.

Xing Xiaolong and Tiger rushed to the armored vehicle, intent on rescuing the hostages trapped inside, while Black Fox’s team finished up their part of the operation at nearly the same moment.

With Baldy’s precise cover fire, they swiftly eliminated all eighteen government soldiers. Each team then adapted their positions according to their responsibilities, redirecting their weapons toward the village center.

Their goal was to intercept any government reinforcements or hostile insurgents with similar intentions, buying precious time for Xing Xiaolong’s group to rescue the hostages.

Luck was on Xing Xiaolong’s side!

He reached the armored vehicle first, pondering how to crack open its shell. Suddenly, the BMP-1’s passenger door swung open, and a government soldier, pistol in hand, crawled out—solving a major problem for him.

Xing Xiaolong spotted the soldier first and instinctively raised his weapon to aim.

But he didn’t pull the trigger.

This was Xing Xiaolong’s first time on a battlefield. In his life, the most he’d killed were chickens or ducks. Years of legal education had ingrained in him the idea that taking a life meant prison, making him hesitate at the critical moment.

He hesitated, afraid, anxious—a whirlwind of emotions.

He had never killed before, and that hesitation cost him the first shot. The government soldier, however, was of a different breed. Given what they’d done to the village, killing—even slaughter—came as naturally as breathing.

When the soldier saw Xing Xiaolong hesitate, the realization dawned on him that he was dealing with a “fool,” and his eyes lit up with savage delight.

He didn’t hesitate. He raised his gun and took aim at Xing Xiaolong.

“Bang!”

A deafening shot rang out.

The soldier’s head was blown apart, leaving only a portion of jaw and mouth. Blood, hot and steaming, sprayed more than eight meters into the air.

Relying on his quick reflexes, Xing Xiaolong made a split-second decision that saved his own life.

“I killed someone? Is this what it feels like to kill?”

Xing Xiaolong had imagined countless times how his first kill would feel—would he be terrified, break down in tears, vomit like in the movies, or go into a daze?

But now that he had actually pulled the trigger and killed a man, he realized all his former assumptions were wrong.

Completely wrong.

Aside from his heart racing at the moment he fired, and a sudden tightening in his chest at the visceral sight of a head exploding, there was nothing else.

No more fear, no overwhelming thoughts, no emotional turmoil. It felt like a simple, logical act.

In fact, he even felt a strange, inexplicable thrill.

It reminded him of accounts he’d read in Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down, where some American soldiers described their first kill as not nearly as terrible as they had imagined.

The only difference was that Xing Xiaolong had been more decisive in pulling the trigger than those American soldiers, who often hesitated due to their ingrained beliefs—sometimes enough to leave permanent scars on their psyche.

“Hey, Magician, well done. I like your decisiveness. For your first time firing a weapon, you really surprised me.”

When the government soldier raised his gun, Tiger had seen Xing Xiaolong freeze in shock. With his nerves taut, Tiger had almost raised his own weapon to intervene.

Fortunately, the outcome was better than expected.

To put it precisely, Xing Xiaolong’s exceptional performance far exceeded his expectations.

But if Tiger knew that not only had Xing Xiaolong fired so resolutely, but also felt little psychological disturbance—perhaps even a hidden excitement—his appraisal of Xing Xiaolong would have been very different.

Tiger’s praise left Xing Xiaolong secretly proud. After all, earning the approval of a former top-tier ALPHA commando was an exciting achievement for a battlefield rookie.

Seeing Xing Xiaolong’s excitement, Tiger recalled his own days as a new recruit in ALPHA, and his gaze toward Xing Xiaolong softened with genuine recognition.

Only then did Tiger truly accept Xing Xiaolong as a “foreign asset.”

Before this, he had been nothing but a “burden.”

“You have the potential to become an outstanding PMC. If you get the chance to undergo professional training, I could invite you to join my Beast Squad,” Tiger said, tossing the borrowed HK433 back to Xing Xiaolong and making his promise.

Then he strode toward the armored vehicle’s passenger door, grabbing the government soldier whose head was half-missing and dragging him out to climb in and rescue the hostages.

From the moment the government soldier opened the door to when Tiger pulled the corpse out, only about twenty seconds had passed, though it felt much longer.

In those twenty seconds, Xing Xiaolong underwent a transformation—from an ordinary veteran to a man who had fired his first shot and claimed his first life on the battlefield.

That moment would shape the rest of Xing Xiaolong’s life.

“Become a PMC? I’m not so sure…” Xing Xiaolong was still mulling over Tiger’s words when, just as he was about to help at the door, his combat assist interface suddenly flashed with a blinding red warning light.

The combat assist mode could display any life forms within thirty meters detected by sight or sound, and could warn of deadly attacks within a hundred meters.

“Damn, danger?”

The thought flashed through Xing Xiaolong’s mind. With no time to ponder, he dashed to the far side of the armored vehicle, using it as cover, and pulled Tiger—who was at the front—down with him, rolling them both to safety.

Tiger had no idea what was happening and was about to ask why he’d been tackled in the middle of a rescue.

Suddenly—

A screeching sound cut through the air. A projectile—whether a recoilless rifle shell or an anti-tank missile—blazed from the southern end of the village, hugging the ground at barely three meters high, and shot straight toward the armored vehicle carrying the hostages.