246: Chapter 244: Life and Death with a Single Shot 246: Chapter 244: Life and Death with a Single Shot Gao Yang threw himself forward in an instant at a loud shout, dragging Maide down to the ground with him as he grabbed Maide’s right hand.
As Gao dived forward, he spotted a flash of light ahead and then heard the distinctive sound of a bullet hitting flesh.
Gao was face down on the ground, while Maide lay there, screaming only after Gao had made contact with the ground.
Realizing it was an enemy attack, Gao immediately let go of Maide’s hand, opened the night vision on his helmet with his left hand, and pulled down the eyepiece in front of his left eye.
Simultaneously, he grabbed the EBR rifle from behind with his right hand and rolled on the ground to the side, quickly turned on the thermal imaging night vision device on his rifle.
Gao’s movements were smooth and continuous.
As soon as he hit the ground, he took evasive action, an instinctual response, but before he could even lift his head to use the night vision to scan, he heard bullets striking the sand.
Gao rolled to his left once again, and as he paused, there was a soft pfft from the left side of his body.
Had he rolled twice as far, he would have collided with that bullet head-on.
He was up against a real pro, a true expert.
Gao couldn’t even lift his head to spot the enemy’s location, his only option being to madly crawl diagonally forward before immediately dropping and rolling to the right.
As expected, the bullets landed just in front of him to the left.
The shooter was a supreme expert, gauging lead times down to the millimeter.
Gao couldn’t even think about returning fire; he couldn’t even look up to see where the shots were coming from.
Any pause would inevitably result in being hit.
Gao’s escape was extremely awkward.
He’d just stopped when he immediately rolled to his right again, but this time, as he lay facing up, he immediately rolled back the way he came, then once again, he heard bullets digging into the sand.
Gao focused all his attention on the side, his nerves stretched to the brink, oblivious to the sound of gunfire around him because he had to concentrate all his energy on dodging bullets.
Any slight lapse in concentration would allow the enemy to predict his movement, and he would be unable to avoid the subsequent bullets.
There was nothing on the bare beach to provide cover; other than erratic evasion, Gao had no options.
The moment he heard a bullet burrow into the sand, he resumed crawling hands and feet, and then suddenly took off running.
Although he found it hard to stand, after two steps, Gao immediately threw himself down to the right again.
After the breeze of a passing bullet, Gao opened the cover to the rear of his scope, and with a roll to the left, he simultaneously flipped open the front cover of the scope.
After crawling to the ground, Gao didn’t roll but waited half a second before rolling half a circle to lie on his back.
The bullets stirred up sand that hit Gao’s face, the sharpshooting enemy hidden in the darkness was terrifyingly skilled, at least to the greatest extent Gao could have imagined.
It was only by hastily, unpredictably evasive maneuvers, coupled with a bit of luck, that he had so far managed to dodge the most lethal sniper he had ever encountered.
After opening the lens cap of the thermal imaging night vision device on his rifle, Gao was left with no choice but to take risks.
After several shots, he could no longer rely on dodging to avoid the bullets; they were getting closer and closer to his body.
The enemy was now firing during his rolls, not just after he had settled down, which meant he had to gamble on moving left or right; a wrong guess would result in him being hit during a roll.
Gao’s mind had never worked so fast in his life.
He chose to roll to the right, because rolling left would give him more time to work the bolt, and if he were the shooter, he would shoot towards his own left side.
Therefore, Gao chose to roll right.
As he rolled, Gao focused on listening for the gunfire.
Only then did he notice the gunfire had become a barrage, but out of the unbroken sound, he distinguished a gun report that was different.
Immediately after, Gao heard a bullet penetrate the sand to his left.
He had guessed right; the enemy was aiming for his left side.
However, at that moment, Gao’s mind was void of the concept of life and death, or rather, his mind was utterly clear.
He was a shooting machine that had to make a retaliatory move in three-tenths of a second.
He could hide no longer on the naked beach, with the enemy being a top-tier sniper.
To continue dodging was to embrace a certain death.
Gao lay on the ground, his left eye open but seeing nothing, as he extended the sniper rifle, already coordinated with the night vision and scope, and rapidly chambered a round with his right hand, then flicked off the safety with his thumb as his hand moved to the grip.
Gao Yang only had one chance to shoot; he had already been stationary for far too long, even though that time was just under 0.3 seconds.
The sniper must have already been ready to pull the trigger again, and Gao Yang didn’t want to leave his fate to a 50/50 chance of choosing left or right each time.
He decided to make it a life or death shot because he firmly believed he was also one of the best marksmen in the world.
As he pointed the gun in the direction of the origin of the gunfire from memory, Gao Yang placed his right eye behind the scopeless sight.
The trigger was pulled to a position where just a tad more pressure would fire the weapon, and then he swept the gun sideways.
A red silhouette quickly passed through the scope, but Gao Yang knew those people were not his targets, until the field of view in the not-so-large scope revealed a prone figure; when he could not see the gun barrel, Gao Yang finally pulled the trigger.
The gun barrel would heat up after firing a bullet, causing it to appear brighter than a human figure in the thermal imaging night vision device.
If the enemy’s aim was not on him, then one could see the side of the gun barrel, and that was what Gao Yang relied on.
He identified his opponent the moment he saw the smallest frontal projection of a figure and could only see a white, glowing spot.
Whether the target he chose in that split second was indeed the sniper shooting at him, and whether shooting at such a high velocity with a sniper rifle would hit the target, when both extremely difficult elements were stacked together, the difficulty increased exponentially.
Hitting the enemy in such circumstances would be nothing short of a miracle.
And a miracle happened.
Relying on superb marksmanship, and a bit of luck, Gao Yang didn’t receive the fatal bullet after firing.
He immediately knew he had succeeded, because if his target were unharmed, he would have been dead by now.
Since he hadn’t been shot after waiting so long, that was enough to prove that his shot had just killed his target.
When Gao Yang realized he had accomplished a miracle, the world suddenly came alive.
Yes, it became alive.
Before Gao Yang pulled the trigger, the world was silent.
But when he realized he had eliminated his target, his ears were suddenly filled with disordered gunfire, explosions, cries of people, and the frantic shouts from the brothers in the headset.
“Brother Yang, respond!
Respond!”
“I’m fine.
Maide’s been hit.
We’re on the beach; we need support!”
After shouting, Gao Yang realized his own voice sounded like two styrofoam boards rubbing against each other, but he no longer cared to ponder why his voice had changed.
He aimed the gun at the person next to the target he had just taken down.
The enemies were in a loose formation, each about ten meters apart.
After aiming at a new target, Gao Yang immediately pulled the trigger.
The gunshot rang out, and the blood carrying the body’s heat splattered everywhere.
In the thermal imager, it flashed like fireworks and then disappeared.
Gao Yang quickly switched to another target and hit again.
He rolled away to the side several times and then lifted his gun and took down another enemy who was firing.
Just as the enemies realized that a sniper had already killed four of them and began to pour their firepower in Gao Yang’s direction, he seized the opportunity and shot another one.
The sniper had six men with him, and in a brief moment, Gao Yang had already shot five of them.
As the sixth man began firing his automatic rifle at Gao Yang, Gao Yang seemed oblivious to the bullets hitting around him, just aimed a bit and fired again, hitting the last man.
It all sounds slow when described, but everything happened in an instant.
From the time Gao Yang was ambushed, to dodging back and forth, and then turning around to kill the enemy sniper and all six men in the group, a total of only twenty seconds had passed.
The sniper hadn’t hit Gao Yang, so Gao Yang now had twenty seconds to kill the sniper’s entire group in return; that was the sniper’s duel.
More accurately, it was a duel between two top-notch marksmen with extremely high rates of fire because only a marksman would use a high rate of fire semi-automatic sniper rifle and not a more accurate but slower bolt-action sniper rifle.
However, whether you say Gao Yang and his opponent were snipers or marksmen doesn’t matter anymore.
At their level, whether they play the role of sniper or marksman, both are top-tier, depending solely on what the mission requires them to do.
Gao Yang hadn’t expected to encounter one of the rare top-tier marksmen in his life, but his opponent was even more surprised that his target was a marksman as well.
Thus, a duel between the two top-tier shooters unfolded unexpectedly.
Gao Yang’s enemy had the upper hand; if he had been luckier and chosen the right side for Gao Yang’s roll, Gao Yang would have been the one to die.
But he chose the wrong side, so the one who survived was Gao Yang.
(To be continued.
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