novelsite Chapter 88 Three Rifles
Chapter 88 Three Rifles
Wang Zhengyang lowered his gun and let out a long breath. He could feel a certain energy flowing within him, not the emptiness after depletion, but the fullness after use—like the slightly warm, strong feeling of muscles after training.
He loaded three empty magazines, picked up three rifles, and headed towards the testing area at the end of the carriage. The twenty-meter-long space was divided by sandbags and steel plates, with thick rubber targets hanging at the end. This place was less a shooting range and more his private laboratory—a space for understanding what he was becoming.
Wang Zhengyang stood at the starting line, but instead of starting immediately, he first recalled the events.
Recalling the feeling beside the railway tracks. He was facing six enemies. Was he nervous? A little. But more than that, there was a strange certainty—a certainty that the hovering pistols would go where they were supposed to go, a certainty that the bullets would hit their targets. It wasn't blind confidence, but rather a complex understanding based on the weapons, the trajectory of the bullets, and the movements of the enemies.
Now, he wondered how far this certainty would extend. At 0.6%, he could easily handle three handguns. At 0.65%? Three rifles?
He let go.
The three rifles didn't land; instead, they hovered in the air, stably maintained at chest height. There was no tremor, no swaying, as if they were meant to be there. This wasn't magic. The sense of weight vanished—not physically, but the burden of control disappeared. The four-kilogram rifles felt as light as feathers to him, because the 0.65% affinity allowed him to counteract gravity, balance inertia, and maintain stability with minimal energy expenditure and maximum precision.
Wang Zhengyang walked forward with a steady pace. Three rifles advanced in sync with him, maintaining a tactical triangular formation: the AK-74 to the left front, the G3 directly in front, and the FN FAL to the right front. Their movement was not mechanical following, but organic coordination—as he rounded the oil drums, the outer rifles automatically shifted outwards to maintain their coverage area; as he sidestepped through a narrow doorway, the three guns adjusted their angles, moving as smoothly as a flock of birds turning.
It was so easy. Three days ago, maintaining this coordination between the three rifles would have made his brain overheat like an overloaded processor. But now, everything flowed as smoothly as breathing. The process of his consciousness splitting into three parallel threads was no longer a deliberate skill, but a natural occurrence. Just as his hands could perform different actions simultaneously without conscious thought, he could now make the three rifles perform different tasks without feeling burdened.
Wang Zhengyang stopped in the middle of the target lane.
The real test is now beginning.
Consciousness began to differentiate—not split, but expand. Like a beam of light passing through a prism, separating into different colors of the spectrum.
The first spectrum corresponds to the AK-74. This fully automatic rifle's mission is rapid suppression. In Wang Zhengyang's mind, the muzzle began to "see" multiple targets: three to the left front and two to the right front, distributed at different distances and behind cover. The trigger was pulled, and the hammer of the empty gun struck a rapid rhythm in the carriage: ratt-a-tat, ratt-a-tat-tat. The duration, interval, and target change of each burst were precisely choreographed in his mind.
The second spectrum corresponds to G3. This marksman rifle's mission is to snipe key targets. The crosshairs in my mind stabilize on the simulated target 300 meters away—a sniper peering out of a window. Ballistics calculations are performed automatically: bullet flight time 0.47 seconds, drop 42 centimeters, crosswind deviation 8 centimeters to the right, humidity effect negligible. The fluctuations in my breathing are automatically compensated for, and the rhythm of my heartbeat blends into the rhythm of aiming.
The third spectrum corresponds to the FN FAL. This rifle's mission is to provide cover in other directions. The muzzle slowly sweeps across a 180-degree sector at twelve revolutions per minute, pausing for 0.3 seconds at each potential hiding angle, waiting, and then continuing its movement. Simultaneously, it monitors ammunition levels: 28 rounds remaining, enough for four short bursts or a six-second burst.
Three guns, three missions, three rhythms, all operating simultaneously in Wang Zhengyang's mind.
Fine beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, not from the heat, but from focus—the kind of focus that involves simultaneously engaging his consciousness in three different dimensions and maintaining three different operations. But this focus was much easier than it had been three days ago. When he rescued Natasha, the burden of handling three pistols had nearly given him a splitting headache afterward. Now, with three heavier rifles and a more complex task, he felt completely at ease.
This is not simply "getting stronger," but a fundamental evolution. Just like the transition from taking one's first steps to running and jumping, it's not a matter of quantitative accumulation, but a qualitative change.
Wang Zhengyang ordered the testing to continue.
He simulated the worst-case scenario: being attacked from three directions simultaneously. The AK-74 turned forward to suppress the enemy with the strongest firepower, the G3 locked onto the commander on the flank, and the FN FAL rotated 180 degrees to deal with the squad flanking from behind. The three guns fired simultaneously, each with a different rhythm but complementing each other, weaving a three-dimensional fire network in his mind.
He simulated a cover retreat: moving backward while having three guns fire alternately, creating continuous suppression. Each step of the retreat was precisely calculated, and the pause between each guns was filled by the fire of another, like the meshing of gears in a precision machine.
He simulated a sudden disturbance during a precision sniping operation: the G3's crosshairs were stable on the target's head, and just as he was about to fire, an enemy suddenly appeared on his left. The AK-74 automatically turned, and three bursts eliminated the threat; the entire process did not cause the G3's sights to deviate by even a millimeter.
Every situation, every tactic, every possibility. Three rifles danced in his mind, a silent, deadly, elegant ballet.
Twenty minutes later, Wang Zhengyang finished the test. The three rifles gently fell back onto the worktable, the crisp sound of metal hitting metal echoing in the carriage. He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, feeling mentally exhausted—but deep within that exhaustion was a kind of reborn strength.
He walked to the wall of the carriage, where a full-length mirror salvaged from an abandoned office hung. The man in the mirror was somewhat pale, but his eyes were unusually bright. Deep within his pupils, there seemed to be a metallic sheen—perhaps it was a reflection of the light, perhaps not.
Wang Zhengyang knew that some things had changed permanently.
It's not a dramatic, sudden change, but a slow, irreversible evolution. Like a river changing course, it starts with the soil on the banks loosening, then a small patch of soil slides down, followed by more soil and rocks, until one day, the entire riverbed is flowing in a new direction.
He can now "feel" the fatigue of metal, "hear" the groans of machinery, and "see" the curvature of bullet trajectories. The handling of the three rifles is merely the surface; what has truly changed is his relationship with the entire material world—a more intimate, direct, and profound one.
He walked back to the worktable and took out the small metal box from under the stage. Inside were souvenirs from three battles: shell casings retrieved from a warehouse, fragments of firing pins found on the dock, and a military 9mm shell casing.
He picked up the 9mm cartridge case and twirled it between his fingers. The eccentric firing mark on the primer told him that the firing pin of the gun that fired it was 0.2mm off; the stretch marks on the neck of the cartridge case indicated that the propellant charge was 5% over-limit; the sharp edges of the numbers stamped on the bottom indicated that the stamping die was still very new, but there was a slight curl in the lower left corner, meaning that the material was not perfectly aligned during that stamping.
All this information flooded into my consciousness automatically, without analysis, like judging someone's emotions just by looking at their face. The shell casings told their history: they came from a well-maintained but slightly flawed pistol, loaded with an excessive amount of gunpowder by an impatient shooter, fired in a hasty moment, and then landed on the damp basement floor, waiting to be picked up.
This ability to "read" filled Wang Zhengyang with both power and unease. When metal began to speak, when machinery began to express itself, the world was no longer a silent backdrop. It became noisy, full of details, every wear telling a story, every scratch recording history.