Chapter 974: Combat Beyond Visible Range (Part II)
“How far is the first target?”
“Twelve kilometers.”
“Other directions?”
“Clear.”
Sylvie’s answers came without lag—the mind resonance had collapsed the distance between thought and response until the exchange felt like consulting herself. In the beginning, Andrea had found the sensation deeply unsettling. Now she moved through it like a second language she’d stopped translating, and enjoyed it in a way she couldn’t explain to anyone who hadn’t experienced it. Her perceptions were sharpened. The world breathed. Everything felt more present than it did in ordinary consciousness.
She found herself wondering, briefly, what it would feel like to be in resonance with Princess Tilly.
She pushed the thought aside.
“Flight Squad, this is Ark Squad. I have visual.” Lightning’s voice crackled through the Sigil. “Can you confirm my position?”
Andrea scanned the sky. “Confirmed. Move behind the cloud cover.”
“Copy.”
“Coo.”
The arrangement was simple and ugly in its efficiency: when Andrea couldn’t acquire a target or lacked the power for another shot, Lightning and Maggie would drop from the clouds and handle it themselves. At full sprint, Lightning ran three times a Devilbeast’s top speed. Maggie could transform into anything she needed on the descent. From directly above, there was no defense that worked.
But they got one pass. One surprise. After that, they had to withdraw.
Andrea had no intention of using them.
She was a marksman without peer—she’d outshot Ashes across every tested range, which was the only comparison that mattered. She was here to demonstrate what a professional looked like, and she planned to do so thoroughly.
“Six kilometers,” Sylvie said.
“First target is locked.”
In theory, her range extended beyond five kilometers. In practice, beyond that threshold the magic cost climbed faster than she could sustain it—push hard enough and she’d be unconscious before the shot counted. Five kilometers was where the math balanced out: maximum range consistent with remaining functional afterward.
She settled into the familiar stillness, and felt her power move.
It didn’t flow toward the target—it wrapped her, dense and close, and then from within it, a line of silver light extended outward. The targeting line. She’d watched it hundreds of times now and still found it strange. It arced outward like a suspension bridge over empty sky, then dissolved into a sinuous, wavering thread that moved constantly—bending, straightening, drifting—yet its far end remained fixed to the Devilbeast with the certainty of a nail driven home.
Nothing like a bullet’s trajectory. Nothing like a line of sight. Something else entirely.
She’d asked Roland about it once.
He’d been waiting for the question. She could see it in how quickly he’d shifted forward.
“Your ability isn’t what you think it is,” he’d said. “You assume you’re an exceptional marksman—that you calculate angle and wind and drop better than anyone. But that’s not it. Consider: a skilled sniper adjusts for everything he can measure, and still misses. Once the bullet leaves the barrel, wind shear, air density, a thermal shift—any of it can carry the round off target. At five kilometers, even the rotation of the earth matters. No human being can account for all of it consciously.”
“Then what am I doing?”
And Roland had smiled—the expression of someone who’d been holding something in his pocket and enjoying the waiting. “You flip a coin. A thousand factors determine where it lands, and somehow you always know which face comes up. That’s your ability. Not calculation. Not compensation. Certainty. You can determine the outcome before it happens.”
“Then why do I lose at cards?”
He’d laughed. “Cards are different. But do you want to grow stronger? There’s a framework that would give your ability real shape.”
“What framework?”
“Probability Theory.” He’d handed her the book with a smile. “From the perspective of conditional probability—many things affect where the bullet goes. You can learn to control or eliminate those conditions systematically. Understood properly, your potential is without ceiling.”
She still remembered the warmth in her chest as she’d taken the book. The smooth road she’d thought she could see stretching ahead of her, all the way to Transcendent.
That feeling had lasted until that night, when she’d opened the cover and read the first three pages.
What is this? No one can understand this.
She’d closed it and had not opened it since.
—
The silver line dissolved.
Andrea pulled the trigger.
The report hammered her chest—far louder than a bolt rifle, the concussion punching through her sternum and spreading through her ribs. The recoil drove her shoulder back hard; the cushioned stock and tripod absorbed most of it, but not all. She reset. Before the dust of the shot had settled, she was ready for a second.
Magic poured into her from the circle behind her. The witches had trained the timing precisely: the moment a shot went out, the transfer began.
“Did you hit it?” The question came from multiple voices.
The round still had four-plus kilometers to travel. Nobody could track it—not even Sylvie.
“The bullet won’t miss.” Andrea said it without heat, without performance. Simply the truth, as clear to her as the floor under her feet. She already knew which face the coin would show.
She could map its path from here: traveling fast enough at first that gravity barely touched it, then the curve beginning, the arc starting to bow earthward—and then, several kilometers out, a gust crossing its path at an oblique angle. Not fighting the round. Lifting it. A flat stone skipped on water, she thought—yes, like that—the bullet riding the thermal upward, climbing, arcing over the two Devilbeasts at the front of the formation and curving back down into the one at the rear.
She’d chosen the rear one first deliberately.
Andrea pulled the trigger a second time, and this time didn’t immediately prepare a third shot. She let herself watch.
A cloud of blood erupted from the hindmost Devilbeast’s back. Its organs broke free of its body in pieces, and the demon riding it was cut in two at the waist—upper half thrown high, red mist spraying from the tanks it carried. The spray caught the light as it dispersed.
From this distance, it looked like a red flower opening in the sky.
Chapter 974: Combat Beyond Visible Range (Part Ⅱ)
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
“How far away is the target?”
“Twelve kilometers.”
“What about the other directions?”
“Clear.”
Sylvie was able to answer Andrea’s questions in an instant, which made Andrea feel like talking to herself, since the Mind Resonance greatly improved their communication efficiency.
Although Andrea felt weird in the beginning, she really enjoyed this experience now. After her mind was connected to Sylvie’s, she felt as if everything in the world suddenly sprang to life. This connection not only enabled her to see far across the world, but also enhanced all her senses. It was a wonderful feeling.
She could not help wondering how she would feel if she was in a Mind Resonance state with Princess Tilly.
“This is Flight Squad. Lightning speaking. Ark Squad, can you see me?” Lightning’s voice came through a Sigil of Listening.
Andrea stopped wondering and concentrated on the task again. She searched in the sky and said, “I see you.”
“Is it alright for us to stay at this height?”
“Yes. You’d better hide behind some clouds.”
“Got it.”
“Coo.”
When Andrea missed a target or did not have enough power to shoot a demon, Lightning and Maggie, who hid above the enemy, would swoop down to take care of it. When Lightning flew at her full speed, she was three times faster than a Devilbeast, and Maggie could quickly transform into a beast. Under such circumstances, it would be impossible for the enemy to defend against an overhead attack.
But Lightning and Maggie were only able to launch one attack like that.
If there was more than one demon, they would have to retreat.
Personally, Andrea did not want to give the little girls any chance to fight.
She had absolute confidence in her own ability.
She boasted of being an unerring marksman. Even Ashes could not match her in this respect.
She wanted to show these little girls what a real professional was like.
“Six kilometers.”
Sylvie warned her again.
“Good, I’ve locked onto the first target.”
Andrea closed her eyes and focused her mind on her target.
In theory, she could shoot down any target she saw within the weapon’s range, which was longer than five kilometers, but the amount of magic power required made it impossible for her to do so.
Once she exhausted all her magic power, she would pass out.
After repeated testing, she found that five kilometers was the ideal distance.
As she was tracking her target, a rush of magic power flowed out of her body and wrapped her tightly. She quickly saw a targeting line stretch to the Devilbeast, who was completely unaware of the impending attack.
This slender, silver line was so distorted that it looked nothing like a bullet’s trajectory. The first stretch looked like an arched bridge stretching far across the empty sky and then it became a wavy line.
She had never seen any targeting line like this before she got this new rifle. It was a connected sequence of irregular line segments. It kept changing all the time and the middle part of it seemed like a spider silk thread waving in the wind, but the end of it was always fixed to her target.
She had asked His Majesty about this mysterious targeting line and his answer was totally beyond her expectation.
According to him, her ability was not about aiming. No matter how carefully a sniper aimed his weapon at a target, he could never predict whether he could hit it when he fired. Once a bullet was shot, its speed would decrease as it flew and the external environment’s influence on it would increase. A strong cross wind was enough to make the bullet hit far away from its target. Even with the aid of the best scope, a sniper could never guarantee that he would be able to make each shot hit the target.
And when the target was five kilometers away, a normal sniper would have great difficulty hitting it.
“So, what’s my ability?” She had asked Roland at that time.
Back then, she thought he seemed to have been bluffing and waiting for her to ask such a question, but she didn’t mind it. “Actually, you’re good at a coin toss. Many factors determine where a bullet will land, but surprisingly, you can always hit your target. Why? Think about this. If you toss a coin into the air, you somehow know which side it will land on. That’s why you can always be sure that a bullet you shoot out will hit your target.”
“Are you sure? How come I never get what I want when I’m playing cards?”
“Well, they aren’t the same thing. Do you wish to get stronger? There’s a theory that may greatly increase your ability.”
“Really? What’s it?”
His Majesty had replied smilingly, “Probability Theory.”
“From the viewpoint of conditional probability, many different factors can affect your shooting results, but you’re able to control or remove the effect of these conditions. Trust me, you’ll have unlimited potential as long as you can master this theory.” Andrea still clearly remembered that His Majesty had handed her the book with a smile on his face.
During that moment, she had been thrilled as if she could see a smooth road to a bright future and had thought excitedly, “I’m going to be a Transcendent.”
However, this excitement had only lasted until that night.
She had opened the book, “Probability Theory”, and failed to understand anything in it.
What the hell is this? Normal people could never understand this book!
“Crack—”
Andrea pulled the trigger when the silver guiding line dissolved into the background.
With a flash flames, the shot rang out. It was much louder than a bolt rifle. The sound wave was so strong that she felt as if it had hammered her chest and the heavy recoil kicked her shoulder. Thanks to the impact-resistance coatings on the stock and the cushioned tripod, she didn’t experience a severe impact from the recoil. Before the dust settled, she was ready for a second shot.
A flow of magic power poured into her body.
The witches acted according to their training. Besides Margie and the witches assisting Andrea, all the witches, including the combat witches who came to protect everyone, would provide magic power for Andrea.
“What happened? Did you hit it?” Everyone asked with concern.
After all, the first shot was the key to determining the success or failure of this operation.
“The bullet has a long distance to travel, but it won’t miss the target” said Andrea, confidently.
That’s it, just as His Majesty said.
I’ve already known how the coin will land.
The bullet was traveling at such a high speed that even Sylvie was unable to track it, but Andrea could clearly describe its trajectory. After flying four kilometers, it would start to drop toward the ground. Although a stray bullet was still fast and lethal, it would miss the target if it continued to travel like that.
However, a strong gust of wind would change everything. She felt that it was like skipping a stone on water. When her bullet hit the wind, it would begin to ascend like a bird riding on the wind and would make an arc across the sky. This was the only way the bullet could avoid the two devilbeasts flying in the front of the formation and hit the last one in line.
Andrea pulled the trigger again, but this time, she did not hurry to prepare for the third shot. Instead, she turned her gaze toward her first target, the devilbeast at the back of the formation.
“Bang,” She whispered.
The next moment, the devilbeast shook violently, a cloud of blood erupted from it back, and its organs began to fall out of its broken body. The demon on its back was torn into two parts. Its upper body was thrown high and red mist began spraying out from the tanks they were carrying.
From a distance, it looked a red flower blooming in the sky.