Chapter 66 Part 2

With Horne’s response, Wen Yu stood, returned the chair, picked up the Alien dummies Han Ya had kicked everywhere, and turned to him: “We’re heading out. Horne, you’re only twenty-two. Time’s on your side. Even a wild beast has to learn to lie low.”

Horne understood what Wen Yu meant.

Han Ya and Wen Yu left.

Night fell.

Fewer and fewer people remained on the training field, and the sounds grew quieter.

By eleven at night, only Hels was left doing the weighted long run. By midnight, only Hels remained fighting the Alien training machines in the sparring area.

At one in the morning, bang! A gunshot echoed from the shooting range, rippling through the air and fading into the sky.

Hels’s gun-holding stance mirrored Horne’s almost perfectly. He half-squinted as he aimed for the bullseye, hitting it most of the time.

When Horne finished handling all the applications and supply coordinations and emerged from the command room, he spotted that lonely figure at the shooting range from afar. After hesitating for a long time, he walked over.

Aside from training, they hardly exchanged a word. Even heading home at night, they left the training field separately.

Horne had never given Hels special attention alone, unless the boy approached him about training matters—which everyone did.

Only once they got home, behind that closed door, would Hels pounce and cling to him, coquettishly asking: Brother, do you think I’ve improved?

Hels’s progress was exaggerated, far surpassing Horne’s own at that age ten years ago.

The familiar sound of military boots scraping distracted Hels. He pulled the trigger, and the bullet veered off.

Horne stood straight behind him. Turning back, Hels saw him.

Hels refocused without a word, continuing to raise the gun and practice amid nonstop gunfire.

After a long while, Horne spoke, his voice unusually subdued: “They’ve all left. Why are you still training?”

Fully concentrated, Hels fired a shot, then lowered the gun, deftly swapped the magazine, chambered a round, raised it, and while aiming, replied: “I want to get stronger.”

Bang! Another bullseye.

Hels stepped back a few paces, wanting to try from farther away. The beginner distance no longer satisfied his competitive drive—it was too easy.

“Why?” Horne asked again.

Hels paused. He lowered his hand and turned to glance at Horne.

The training field was empty, utterly silent, so Hels’s answer rang out especially clear: “Because of conviction.”

It was the first time Horne had heard Hels say those two words. He lightly curved his lips in a smile of agreement: “People do need conviction.”

Hels immediately added: “You are my conviction.”

The timing and place weren’t right, and the words too bold, so Hels kept his voice very soft, but Horne still heard.

The final syllable lingered by his ear, scattered layer by layer on the wind, vanishing into the vast starry river overhead.

Horne casually picked up a training gun from the bench, methodically checked its internals, cleared the chamber, loaded it, and aimed.

Bang!

Flawless execution without a hint of hesitation—instinctive bullseye.

“If one day, you find I’m not as good as you thought, will you still believe?” Horne’s voice cut orderly through the echoing gunshot. He pondered, then continued: “For example, when you grow up and develop new interests, or… say you find someone you love, and one day your convictions clash—would you choose them, or your conviction?”

Hels furrowed his brow. He tilted his head, silent, eyes full of confusion.

Realizing the question might be inappropriate, Horne started to say forget it, but Hels spoke first: “Brother, your logic’s flawed.”

“Hm?” Horne hadn’t noticed Hels using the home-only term of address. “Where’s the flaw?”

Hels turned around, faced Horne, and said earnestly, “My beliefs guide me on whom to love, and the person I love in turn strengthens those beliefs even more. The two complement each other—there’s no need to choose one or betray the other. If I had to pick just one, I wouldn’t call that a belief, nor would I call it love.”

Horne was somewhat stunned. He hadn’t expected Hels to answer the question like that. His slightly bent finger, hooked on the trigger, never moved, and he didn’t fire the next shot.

Hels quickly figured out why Horne had asked. He lowered his head and said dejectedly, “They haven’t been good to you.”

Horne burst out laughing. He reined in his fleeting thoughts and fired rapidly as he replied, “They don’t need to be good to me. They’re responsible for all of humanity. It’s just that sometimes, their decisions go against what I stand for.”

“Brother, doesn’t it hurt?”

Horne finally noticed how this kid addressed him, but he sighed and didn’t correct it.

“It hurts, sure, but that’s fine. Suffering won’t destroy you—what destroys you is losing faith. You have to believe you can stay innocent and kind. Let it hurt. No matter what happens, I’ll just keep coming back stronger, unstoppable, sweeping all before me.”

As he spoke, he hit the bullseye again.

Hels fell silent. His hands hung at his sides, his head slightly bowed, his eyes fixed on the dirt. Then they shifted up to Horne’s military boots, his long calves bearing the weight, and finally to his taut muscles and the focused look on his face as he shot.

It was as if he had found his conviction—he was invincible, unyielding no matter the setbacks.

“Buzz.” Half the lights in the training field shut off, plunging them into deeper darkness.

The gunfire didn’t stop. Hels watched Horne shoot in silence, and Horne said nothing more.

After a long while, Horne felt it was about enough and was about to say they should head home when he turned and froze again.

Hels was gazing up at him stubbornly, his head tilted back.

“What’s wrong?” Horne asked with a smile.

Hels reached out to Horne, palm up.

Horne didn’t understand.

“Give me the gun.”

Horne did as asked. He cleared the chamber and placed the gun horizontally in Hels’s hand.

“No.” Hels handed the gun back and reached out to Horne again. “Your gun.”

Puzzled but compliant, Horne drew his custom silver pistol from his waist.

Hels took it, reloaded with practiced ease, mimicked Horne’s stance, aimed, and fired in an instant—bullseye.

Horne was astonished. This kid kept delivering one surprise after another.

“I’ll grow up fast and protect you,” he said.

Horne didn’t get it. Why did everyone keep saying they’d protect him? Han Ya had said it, Ben Yian had said it, and now Hels too.

He walked over to the control panel and switched to moving targets. The front row of targets began shifting, picking up speed.

Hitting the bullseye at close range with targets moving at 200 kph was something Horne had never accomplished. Currently, in the entire Military District, only Wen Yu could do it—and even she managed it just once in twenty shots, with the rest merely grazing the edge.

The Aliens appeared in the air during every clash, demanding high-speed shooting while they darted about. Sometimes it involved running on the shooter’s part too. Even if you stood still, it wasn’t easy, and the Aliens didn’t move at uniform speeds—they required exceptional predictive skills and luck.

Horne grabbed a new gun and twenty rounds. The bullseyes on the high-speed targets blurred almost beyond visibility. He held his breath, pouring his full focus into that single red dot, as if it were an Alien’s heart.

Deafening continuous gunfire erupted.

One minute, twenty shots: one grazed the bullseye, the rest missed entirely.

Horne sighed and lowered his arm. “Now you see how tough it is?”

Hels pressed his lips together and silently watched the racing bullseyes.

In the quiet of the night, they were the only things in motion. After a moment, he said, “I can do it.”

Horne holstered his gun without a word, simply gazing at Hels with eyes softened by a gentle smile.

Of course he believed Hels could.

Hels raised the gun Horne had given him and aimed at the madly flashing red ahead.

He closed his eyes. Darkness enveloped him. The mechanical whir of the targets faded. In his mind, there was only Horne’s laughter, his encouragement, his kindness.

Then came the wind—fierce wind. The sound of sweat or blood dropping at high speed, the sound of all things growing, time slipping away. In the void of closed eyes, it was like countless Aliens spreading wings, surging into the sky, charging straight at him.

His grip tightened on the gun handle, calluses thick from practice.

“Bang! Bang! Bang…”

Twenty shots rang out in succession, echoes fading into the distance.

The sun blazed brightly, heat rising from the ground and evaporating instantly, the air thick with tension. The sounds of training in the distance grew faint; the only clear noise was the celebratory fanfare from the shooting record console.

“New record! 30.82 seconds, close-range 200 kph, bullseyes: 16.”

Hels slowly opened his eyes. Everything sharpened into focus. He set the gun down, walked to the record console, and wrote a note under his new score without a change in expression: blind sniping.

“Instructor, you broke the record again!”

It had been a long time since anyone surpassed him. This was Hels’s third time beating his own mark.

Hels glanced at the soldier behind him and let out a low “Mm,” his voice deep like the rumble from ocean depths.

“You could lead your own squad independently. For tomorrow’s defense, are you still just shadowing the colonel?”

Chit-chat increased during breaks. Hels stood in the sunlight, shadows and light carving his muscular frame, his tall build radiating the raw power of a grown man.

“Mm,” he said curtly. “I just help the colonel with things.”

“The colonel’s probably still stressing over the new regulations.”

Hels didn’t break stride as he walked away, offering no reply.