Death, however, did not descend as anticipated.
The cold muzzle pressed against Lin Yu’s back lingered for only three or four agonizing seconds before it was abruptly withdrawn.
A moment later, she felt a rough hand seize her by the nape of her collar, flipping her over with the same dispassionate force one might use to reposition a cadaver.
Yang Xi’s face vanished from her field of vision, supplanted by an entirely unfamiliar countenance.
It was a typical Lanforthian face, their eyes a vivid blue, reminding her of an old lyric that spoke of ‘the devils’ azure gaze’.
In truth, those cerulean eyes were rather captivating, yet the sheer fury blazing within them, directed squarely at her, rendered Lin Yu utterly incapable of admiration.
The profound sorrow and rage simmering within those depths, however, appeared to rival her own in intensity.
Lin Yu, too, harbored her own grief and fury; grief born of imminent death, and fury stemming from profound regret.
Yet, her emotions paled in comparison to the raw intensity emanating from the Lanforthian gendarme before her.
She had long since steeled herself for this final moment, much as she had that desolate winter so many years ago.
Indeed, this individual wore a ghastly expression, as if they wished to flay her alive, a look so chilling it sent shivers down her spine with just a glance.
[‘I’m going to smash your face, demon!’]
The dark, menacing muzzle aimed directly at her face; should the enemy pull the trigger, she knew she would perish instantly.
Therefore… please… aim true, pierce my brain directly, and leave no room for suffering.
Do not let me writhe in prolonged agony like those unfortunate souls shot in the chest or abdomen; that would be excruciating.
A flash of blue, a final kick, eyes closing and then opening to a new world… Could such a blessing truly exist? Could she really transmigrate once more?
Whether her expression was too ghastly, or her youthful appearance gave pause, the Lanforthian gendarme, who had just branded her a ‘demon,’ did not immediately open fire.
The dark, deep muzzle remained inert, emitting no arcane glow, its bullet still nestled within the chamber, never having left the barrel.
[‘Found it! The detonator has been located! Retreat!’]
From a greater distance, Lin Yu heard the triumphant shouts of the Lanforthians, signaling that the object she and Yang Xi had fought so desperately to protect had, it seemed, been secured.
The Lanforthians had charged forward, heedless of their own casualties, in a relentless wave, all for the detonator they carried.
Only by seizing this crucial device could proper bomb disposal operations commence—for combat engineers, by definition, only begin their work once the threat of explosion is neutralized.
Those who brave mortal peril to disarm bombs that could detonate at any instant are not mere combat engineers; they are counter-terrorism specialists, locked in a deadly dance with terrorists and bomb makers.
With the device now firmly in their possession, their immediate priority was to retreat, preventing any further missteps that might lead to the accidental loss of the hard-won detonator.
Thus, the Lanforthian gendarme, deprived even of the time to fire a single shot, turned abruptly and followed the others, departing the scene.
[‘You’re not going to shoot?’]
[‘Allowing her such a swift death would be far too merciful.’]
[‘Indeed. To learn killing at such a tender age, to send a child so young to the battlefield—Diacla truly is a wicked nation. Our decision to wage this war was, without a doubt, the correct one…’]
[‘I couldn’t care less about right or wrong. If I could only take her with me, I would torment her until death claimed her…’]
The chilling pronouncements receded into the distance, leaving her behind.
For reasons she couldn’t fathom, she had not been summarily executed by the Lanforthian before her.
‘Had they judged her wounds too severe for survival, with so much blood spilled? Were they deliberately leaving her to bleed out, prolonging her agony?’
Regardless of the blue-eyed Lanforthian’s reasons for withholding their shot, Lin Yu knew she had to seize this unexpected opportunity.
The device they had so casually confiscated was something an entire squad of eleven had protected with their very lives.
It bore the immense weight of those eleven souls, and the hopes of the 104th Reserve Regiment, indeed, of the entire army.
Such a vital artifact…
‘How could it simply be snatched away from them like this?’
With her functional right hand, she groped desperately around her, discovering two more grenades.
Her small hands struggled to grasp both simultaneously, bringing them to her mouth to clamp down on the pins.
Pulling with all her might, she yanked one pin free, a searing pain shooting through the tooth that had anchored it.
The pin itself remained clutched between her bloodied, thin lips.
[‘You! Beach!’ (TL Note: ‘Shā tān,’ meaning ‘beach,’ is a phonetic substitute for a common Chinese expletive ‘shābī’, meaning ‘idiot’ or ‘moron,’ used here to express extreme frustration and anger.)]
As the girl’s furious shout tore from her throat, the two gleaming pins, released by the motion of her mouth, tumbled into the blood-soaked mire beneath her.
The grenades in her hands were then hurled with desperate precision: one backward, and another lightly tossed forward.
They landed, respectively, at the feet of the gendarmes both ahead and behind her.
They were only discovered by the Lanforthians a mere breath before detonation.
The fiery bloom of the explosions engulfed the figures, simultaneously flinging Lin Yu, who had been struggling to rise, back to the ground.
Her head struck the steel helmet of a nearby corpse, sending another wave of dull agony through her.
‘It hurts…’
Submerged in a gruesome mixture of blood and mud, her breath coming in ragged gasps, Lin Yu fought to steady her mind.
She unleashed a healing spell, guiding the ethereal mist to press against the gaping, incessantly bleeding wound on her left shoulder.
Disregarding the dire threat of infection, Lin Yu instinctively shoved the bandage from her hand deep into the wound, allowing the raw flesh to cling to it, to spread and grow, burying the gauze beneath the nascent skin.
Her cells strove valiantly to divide and proliferate, attempting to seal the wound anew, yet the gaping chasm left by a 10mm copper-jacketed lead bullet was simply too vast.
Her healing spell, alas, could only staunch the flow from ruptured blood vessels; it lacked the power to regenerate missing flesh and bone, to mend shattered limbs as if raising the dead.
As the ethereal light faded, a deep crater remained on her left shoulder, her collarbone starkly exposed, slowly weeping blood.
Perhaps a sufficient number of healing applications could mend it completely, but at this critical juncture, she dared not expend her precious mana on herself.
Yang Xi’s injuries were far graver than her own, immeasurably so.
Bracing herself with one hand in the bloody water, she painstakingly crawled toward Yang Xi.
Reaching out, she felt for his neck, and to her immense relief, detected a faint, fluttering pulse.
‘You’re not dead either, you really are tenacious…’
Kneeling beside Yang Xi, she softly murmured the incantation, channeling every ounce of her remaining mana into her hands, then unleashed her fourth healing spell.
She felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude for having chosen to learn this particular magic from Nangong; otherwise, she would have been forced to watch him perish, utterly helpless.
She was equally relieved to have utterly depleted her mana reserves before nightfall, as the automatic replenishment meant she now had one additional healing spell at her disposal.
And she owed a debt of gratitude to the bird whose name remained unknown to her.
Without its intervention, she would have found no time to meditate throughout the day, leaving her utterly devoid of mana, forced to resort to absorbing it by biting bullets.
The previous elixirs had been so potent, leaving her in a perpetual haze, and she dared not even contemplate the potential side effects of the industrial magic stones, which Nangong had repeatedly cautioned her against misusing.
If she were to collapse mid-use of a magic stone, as she had a few days prior in the train depot, she feared that upon reawakening, she would find only a lifeless corpse before her eyes.
This was an outcome she absolutely refused to countenance, neither publicly nor privately, neither rationally nor emotionally.
Only enough mana for one and a half healing spells remained; she resolved to deploy one immediately.
As the light of the healing magic flared, Lin Yu reached a trembling hand toward Yang Xi’s chest, probing deep into the gruesome wound.
She gently squeezed the ruptured lung tissue, allowing the healing mist to envelop and mend it.
This crude, invasive procedure for pneumothorax would, of course, invite potentially fatal infection—a risk mirroring the wound on her own left shoulder.
Yet, there was an old adage: ‘Only the living are privileged enough to suffer infection.’
The immediate, paramount task was to cling to her own life and preserve his precious one.
Therefore, her actions, however drastic, were undeniably the correct course.