Chapter 958: Why Won't You Just Die?

Rein had taken three bullets, but the advantage was that they were all in his torso. To him, though his injuries looked severe, he knew his condition was slightly better than Wolf’s.

Wolf’s bad luck was in that final exchange of fire. Rein’s bullet had hit him in the stomach. A torso wound meant his injuries were no less severe than Rein’s. Although he managed to stay on his feet, he could only clutch his wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

No one spoke. Exchanging verbal barbs at a time like this wasn’t the style of either man, and besides, they no longer had the strength for sarcasm. They just watched each other quietly, waiting to see who would recover first from the agony of being shot.

In the end, it was Rein, whose limbs were mostly unharmed, who raised his pistol first. This was the logical outcome. Rein’s last hit had been to the outside of his leg, giving him a slight edge over Wolf, who had been shot in the abdomen.

Wolf was no fool. The moment he saw Rein raising his pistol, he made the smartest decision: before Rein could aim, he disregarded the bleeding wounds and threw himself to the ground. Now both men were lying flat, hidden from each other’s view.

Because Rein was an armored crewman, he could only be equipped with the smaller Browning pistol designed for them, not the larger, more powerful infantry model. So Wolf could still fight; a single shot to the abdomen hadn’t taken him out.

However, throwing himself to the ground so violently had aggravated Wolf’s injuries. The pull on his wound made him grunt in pain. But the habits ingrained over long years didn’t let him stop. The moment he hit the ground, he began to roll.

Rein, having recovered slightly, fired without aiming at where Wolf had gone down. After firing, he also moved, the wound in his thigh screaming in protest. But to stay alive, such pain was no longer an issue.

His first shot kicked up dirt next to Wolf, some of it even spraying onto Wolf’s face, but it had no real effect. Rein, however, clearly had no intention of stopping his attack. Just as Wolf completed his first roll, the second bullet arrived as expected.

Wolf was injured, after all. No matter how fast he reacted to the second shot, there was bound to be a flaw. Sure enough, the second bullet struck right beside his arm, tearing through his sleeve but not touching his body.

But anyone could see that this was pure luck. If Rein fired again, Wolf would inevitably be hit, and to be hit again in this situation was to be a step closer to death.

Wolf, now desperate, did not hesitate. He simultaneously raised his own revolver and yanked the trigger in Rein’s direction. The bullet sped towards Rein’s position, leaving a crater where Rein had been just a fraction of a second before. At that moment, Rein’s third shot also arrived, missing Wolf by about half a meter.

Seeing that his distracting fire had worked, Wolf once again fired blindly. The bullet still missed Rein. He had to endure the searing pain of his wounds with every movement; his shots could have no accuracy. The mud beneath him was churned up as he rolled, sticking to his uniform and making him look utterly wretched.

Rein’s condition on the other side was no better. His beggar-like appearance gave no hint that he was an armored ace who had once single-handedly faced a thousand. The blood flowing from his wounds had stained his trousers, and after being mixed with mud, they had become disgustingly filthy. The Iron Cross at his collar was long gone. The current Rein was no different from a broken, wounded soldier.

The tanker’s Browning pistol had only a 7-round magazine, and the revolver issued to Soviet tankers also held 7 rounds. In terms of power, they were not much different, and the calibers were comparable. Rein now had two rounds left in his magazine. Wolf had three.

Of course, Rein wasn’t counting his bullets, and Wolf didn’t feel he had any advantage with one extra round. Both were firing continuously, trying to finish off their opponent as quickly as possible with their remaining ammunition.

But their bullets only left one crater after another beside each other, and they never hit their target again. In the end, Rein emptied his magazine while rolling, and Wolf, in the next second, also fired his last shot.

Rein stopped rolling. The violent rolling had left a trail of blood over the seven or eight meters. Wolf was no better off. The severe blood loss had left him in a cold sweat. Neither of them moved again. In this situation, even if they had both prepared daggers, no one would use them.

Their bodies were covered in gunshot wounds. This was not as simple as a scratch from barbed wire, nor as easy as taking a couple of kicks. Neither had the strength to struggle up, to draw his dagger and deliver the final blow. The two of them, at such a close distance, were gasping for breath, gathering their strength for any small movement to come.

Staring up at the sky, which was filled with the black smoke of the burning, Rein placed the pistol on his chest, then, with great effort, he used his good right hand to fish out a new pistol magazine from the pocket on his left side. He then, with his trembling, wounded arm, pressed the pistol against his thigh and, enduring the pain, slammed the magazine into the grip with his good hand.

With a soft click, Rein had reloaded with seven rounds. But not far away, Wolf could not, for the life of him, get a single round into his revolver. In a fit of anger, he threw his pistol away and drew the bayonet from his belt.

Rein smiled. As he endured the sharp pain and chambered a round with his wounded arm, he saw Wolf struggling to get up from the ground. Rein watched Wolf struggle to his feet and aimed his gun at him.

“I win.” At the very end, Rein seemed to hear some sound approaching in the distance, but he really had no energy to investigate anything else. After all, Wolf was his last enemy for the moment. If other Soviet soldiers were to arrive, he could only accept his fate.

So, as if squeezing the phrase from his throat, he declared that he had, in the end, achieved the final victory in this frenzied slaughter. But Wolf clearly did not think so. He was still struggling to his feet, his terrifyingly scarred face turned towards Rein not far away.

As if he had discovered something, Wolf suddenly stopped his movements. He raised his head, stared into the distance, and then, with difficulty, spoke. “You’re going to die here too. Your wounds won’t hold for more than a few minutes.”

“It’s alright… in the end, to use my own… my own life, to put an end… to the Wolf Knight Academy, I am willing… more than willing,” Rein said, a grin spreading across his face, as if he had discovered something amusing. “That place that twists people, it will finally become history.”

“What’s there to be happy about? People like us can only live in that kind of environment! After all this time, haven’t you had nightmares? Haven’t you dreamed of the children and the old people you’ve killed, just standing there, shooting at you without stopping?” Wolf asked, his eyes back on Rein. “Haven’t you discovered that only when you’re killing does your heart beat most peacefully?”

Rein shook his head slightly and said to Wolf with great effort, “When we get… to that… other world, we can continue to… to repent… to those people! Wolf!”

He was not a man of many words. To have forced out these two sentences was naturally to recover his strength. Since he now had the ability to fire, he would naturally not speak any more grand principles or spout any more damn nonsense. So he resolutely pulled the trigger and fired his bullet.

Wolf had, at the same moment, thrown his dagger. Rein’s bullet struck Wolf’s right shoulder, and Wolf’s dagger sent Rein’s pistol flying. Wolf staggered and fell to the ground again, but his upper body was still upright. Rein was not injured by this, so he turned to try and retrieve his gun.

The two seriously wounded men struggled in the dirt, one fighting for his life, the other struggling to get his weapon back. Wolf had lost, but he didn’t know it yet. He was still fighting for his victory, like a lone wolf, fighting with his teeth and claws for a chance to survive.

He had done his best to kill his opponent, Rein. Even if he had shamelessly used more tanks at the beginning, it was just a necessary means to achieve victory. These Soviet tanks had not been aimed at Rein’s crew. Their primary target was actually to outflank the Das Reich Division.

Nearly a hundred tanks of various models had first been sniped and destroyed by five German tanks, one after another. After a great deal of effort, he had used cheap shots to take out a few Tiger tanks and had turned the tide of the battle, only to end up on this tragic path of a pistol duel.

Wolf, covered in wounds, stared at Rein, who was also covered in wounds, and really wanted to shout, “Why won’t you just die?”

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