Li Qingyu hadn't forgotten why he was here – to improve his sniper rifle proficiency. His ability grew when he performed "effective actions."
If you want to shoot better, shoot at living targets. One hit – one skill point.
There were, of course, slower ways: disassembling, cleaning, assembling the weapon – all of this yielded crumbs of experience. But no mechanic could compare to combat use on a living target.
There was also a crazy method – like from a PMC in Tarkov: find a rifle with a magazine, cycle the bolt, eject the round, reinsert it, cycle again… That also worked, but to no avail. Your hands would dry out, and the skill wouldn't grow.
Now he was positioned at the very top of the strategic storage facility. Only a couple of meters to the plastal ceiling, and the entire warehouse below lay in plain sight. An ideal shooter's position.
Through the scope, he observed two locked-in groups.
One group had about eighty fighters. In one hand, a torch or lantern, in the other, a machete or cleaver.
From their rags and dirt, Li Qingyu understood: these were "Rats" from the Underhive – scavengers who had ventured into the strategic warehouse zone for spoils.
Recently, the Fertilizer Gang had fought the Chem-Dogs Gang here. Half the field was strewn with corpses and weapons – a real treasure for scavengers. That's why the "Rats" came here every day.
These eighty seemed to be acting together for safety. But they were unlucky – they ran into the Chem-Dogs.
On the other side, no less than two hundred opponents were raging – the Chem-Dogs Gang, carrying their monster named Chem-swine in stasis on a platform. Among them, several brutes stood out – pumped-up mutants. These creatures had also come to collect trophies: the previous battle had left too much weaponry on the ground, and they had gained new recruits who needed to be armed.
The two gangs clashed over the right to loot. The numerical advantage was with the Chem-Dogs, but among the "Rats" were tough, wiry men. And yet, the brutes were giving them a hard time – swinging their cleavers so hard that splinters flew. Four or five blows – and a man was minced.
Assessing the chaos below, Li Qingyu decided it was time to intervene.
He placed the rifle on its bipod, increased the scope magnification, and leveled his breathing.
The PDF – his sniper rifle – had a 1x to 20x scope and used 9.9×75mm rounds with increased powder gas pressure. Their power almost reached that of heavy machine guns.
The bullet flew flat, with no noticeable drop even at six hundred meters. Effective range – two kilometers, but it could penetrate further.
No wonder – by the fortieth millennium, the gunpowder formula had been perfected. The energy density of the propellant charge was much higher than that of its third-millennium ancestors.
He estimated the distance – about eight hundred meters. The scope allowed for distance measurement using the height scale.
The average height of an adult in the Warhammer 40k world was one meter eighty. It was enough to catch a silhouette in the scale frame, and the number was ready. You could also check by the shoulders – the same risks were calculated for a man of average height. Everything matched: eight hundred. No adjustments were needed, just aim slightly above the target.
The rifle had been zeroed by Lieutenant Rudolff, so Li Qingyu trusted the mechanics and shot with an offset.
The bolt cycled – the round was chambered, the barrel locked. One of ten rounds was ready.
He disengaged the safety and pressed the first tight trigger, cocking the set trigger. Now any touch of the light trigger would result in a shot. A microscopic error here would cost meters at that distance.
Li Qingyu caught a Chem-Dog thug in his crosshairs. He stood like a post in the middle of the mess, injecting himself with a needle right on the battlefield.
Everyone around was running, but this one was frozen. A sin not to shoot.
A roar, a flash of flame, recoil. The target disappeared from the scope.
He didn't look for the body – experience told him that after a shot at such magnification, finding the target was difficult. It was easier to check the result through the system.
Opening the panel, he saw the sniper rifle proficiency line: it had become 17. It was 16 before. He hit.
He cycled the bolt, ejected the casing, caught the second target – and shot again.
The second one was slacking off in the rear, watching the fight. The bullet hit him instantly: his chest cavity burst like a tin can. The entry wound was the size of a fist, the exit wound the size of a head. The thug fell without a sound.