72: Chapter 73 A breathtaking leap!

The pain system seemed to have shut down at this moment.

Or perhaps the pain had reached its absolute limit, and his nerves had gone numb.

Jack looked at the figure collapsed on the ground.

His fingers dug fiercely into the frozen earth, his fingernails peeling back, blood gushing, but he felt no pain.

He only felt cold, a coldness seeping out from the depths of his bones.

Xiao Guang was still moving.

He wasn't dead.

But his current state was even more tragic than death.

His left arm hung limply by his side.

The bone in it had been shattered by shrapnel just now.

His left leg was unnaturally twisted.

His trouser leg was soaked through with blood, turning a dark purplish-black.

He was awake.

He was woken by pain, and also by the roar of that machine gun.

That machine gun was still firing. Da-da-da, da-da-da.

Every shot seemed to be striking the spine of this land,

every sound proclaiming the absolute dominion of industrial steel over flesh and blood.

Xiao Guang shook his head, flinging the dirt from his face.

He tried to prop himself up with his right hand, but failed after several attempts.

Excessive blood loss left him without the strength even to lift his head.

"Don't move... Brother, don't move..."

Jack muttered behind him, tears carving clean tracks down his face.

"That's enough... It's truly enough..."

This was just a game.

Su Yun, what kind of devil are you?

Why design a plot like this?

Why make an NPC endure suffering that no human being could possibly bear?

In the livestream room, the five hundred million viewers were deathly silent.

No one sent comments. No one sent gifts.

Everyone held their breath, watching the small figure struggling in a pool of blood on the screen.

Xiao Guang finally managed to pull himself up.

Not stand up, but prop up his upper body.

He looked back once.

This glance was directly in line with Jack's perspective, and also aimed at everyone in front of the screen.

What a face that was.

It was covered in smoke and bloodstains; one eye was already glued shut by blood.

But the remaining right eye was terrifyingly bright.

There was no fear. No despair. Not even pain.

There was only one thing in that gaze.

Fire.

A fire that sought to burn through the endless ice and snow, this steel fortress, and this damned dark night.

He managed a smile toward Jack.

The smile was light, faint, yet more blinding than the flare from moments before.

Then, he pulled out the last grenade from his chest.

It was a Soviet anti-tank grenade, their last hope.

He held the pin between his teeth and yanked it hard.

"For victory!"

This roar sounded less like a slogan and more like thunder erupting from the depths of his soul.

He used the last shred of strength in his entire body and threw the grenade out.

The grenade carved a parabola through the air, precisely diving into the sandbag pile in front of the bunker.

Boom!

The massive explosion hurt Jack's eardrums.

A corner of the bunker collapsed. Smoke and dust billowed up, obscuring the view.

The machine gun stopped firing.

"Did it work?" Jack's eyes widened, his heart pounding.

It worked! It finally worked!

That damned machine gun was finally silenced!

Jack even wanted to jump up from the ground and cheer.

But in the next second, his smile froze on his face.

"Da-da-da... Da-da-da-da-da!"

That despair-inducing sound rang out once more.

The smoke and dust dispersed.

The bunker had only collapsed halfway.

The barrel of that m2 heavy machine gun was slightly skewed by the blast,

but the American gunner was still there.

His face was covered in blood, yet he pulled the trigger with even greater frenzy.

Moreover, because a corner of the bunker had caved in, the field of fire had actually widened!

Bullets swept over like pouring water,

splattering mud around Xiao Guang.

It was over.

Completely over.

The grenade was gone.

The explosive charge was gone.

The man was gone.

The eastern sky was already showing the pale gray of dawn.

In a few more minutes, the sky would be bright.

The main force was just down the mountain.

As long as that machine gun remained,

when the charge horn sounded,

thousands of comrades would become the souls lost under that machine gun.

Jack closed his eyes in despair.

This feeling of powerlessness while watching hope shatter was worse than death.

Just then, a strange sound reached his ears.

It was the sound of fabric rubbing against the ground.

Shhh. Shhh.

Jack snapped his eyes open.

He saw the most incredible, and the most shocking, scene of his life.

Xiao Guang was still crawling.

He held no weapon in his hands.

He couldn't even lift a stone.

But he was still crawling toward the muzzle.

Eight meters. Seven meters. Six meters.

The American gunner had clearly seen the tenacious Chinese soldier.

He turned the gun in terror, bullets pouring down wildly around Xiao Guang.

Thwack!

Jack clearly saw a bullet pierce Xiao Guang's thigh.

Thwack!

Another bullet hit his shoulder.

But he did not stop.

He was like a moth rushing toward a raging fire—

no, he was a fireball blazing, rolling resolutely toward that black hole spewing death.

"What is he doing? Get back quickly!"

"He has no weapon! What else does he intend to do?"

Someone in the livestream room finally cried out in collapse.

Su Yun sat before the control panel, his fingers hovering over the 'Pain Suppression' button, trembling, yet never pressing it down.

"Watch," Su Yun's voice was terrifyingly low.

"The entire world, watch this."

"This is the backbone of Huaxia."

In the game.

Xiao Guang crawled to the blind spot of the bunker.

It was a place the machine gun couldn't reach, and also the spot closest to the muzzle.

He stopped.

He strained to prop up his upper body.

At this moment, his body was mangled beyond recognition, blood flowing like a small river.

But he stood up.

Wavering, yet standing perfectly straight.

The first ray of sunlight from the horizon pierced through the clouds and shone directly upon him.

In that instant, Jack felt he wasn't a man.

He was a monument.

A towering, upright monument cast from flesh and blood.

Xiao Guang spread his arms wide.

That gesture seemed like an embrace of the land he deeply loved, and also an embrace of the approaching dawn.

Then, he made the move that would make heaven and earth change color, and ghosts and gods weep.

A fierce pounce.

Toward that fire-breathing muzzle.

Toward that black hole swallowing life.

Toward death.

Toward eternity.

A Heaven-Shaking Leap.