Lynn's way of discharging himself from the hospital was incredibly brutal.
The cover of night was the best disguise.
Chaos and scarcity were the perfect passes.
He led Soldier Boy and just swaggered out of the field hospital's gates.
Along the way, the hurried wounded soldiers and Nurses ignored them.
No one had the leisure to care about a reporter who looked fully recovered and the tall, intimidating sidekick behind him.
The chaos in the hospital was far beyond Lynn's imagination.
A bloated head Nurse was holding a lantern, cursing at two lazy orderlies.
Her spit was flying, brighter than the lantern.
"Where are we going? To find a place with booze and babes?"
Soldier Boy followed behind, kicking a pebble at his feet out of sheer boredom.
"To find you a stage."
As a war correspondent, Lynn's memory stored a fairly accurate map of the battlefield situation.
Colonel Phillips of the Allied Forces' 107th Infantry Regiment was being tightly suppressed by a German Army machine gun nest deployed on high ground.
The offensive was blocked, and casualties were heavy.
This was simply a perfect stage delivered to his doorstep.
He needed a magnificent debut.
An audience of sufficient weight.
Colonel Phillips was that person.
Early morning, one day later.
A light drizzle mixed with the stench of soil shrouded a hilly area that had been repeatedly plowed by artillery fire.
Lynn and Soldier Boy were lying in a mud pit.
Rainwater dripped down their hair.
"This is your big plan? Letting me take a bath in this damned mud pit?"
"I smell like a pig that just crawled out of a cesspit!"
Lynn ignored his complaints and just raised a pair of binoculars stripped from a corpse to observe the German Army position, hundreds of meters away, that was giving the Allied Forces such a headache.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat!"
The unique roar of the MG42 machine gun rang out.
Orange-red tongues of Fire spat wantonly in the dim morning light, turning several U.S. soldiers attempting to crawl forward into piles of pulp.
Soldier Boy watched the Fire in the distance, his blue eyes shining with bloodthirsty excitement.
He felt the violent factors within him waking up, clamoring to go out and tear something apart.
"See those audience members huddled in the foxholes? They are nearing despair. Now, it is time for your performance."
Lynn's voice was very low.
"Remember, you are not going to slaughter, you are going to bring down divine punishment."
"They don't want to see a mad dog; you need to crush them in the most magnificent and shocking way, so that they will never forget the scene they see today for the rest of their lives!"
Inside the German Army position.
A machine gunner named Hans had just finished a long burst and was pulling his head back, preparing to change the scorching gun barrel.
The comrade beside him poked him and pointed outside.
"Look at that, what is that? A madman?"
Hans poked his head out and saw the figure running in no-man's-land.
He froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"Another idiot who wants to meet God."
He quickly changed the barrel, aimed the muzzle at the moving target again, and muttered contemptuously: "Let me send you on your way!"
"Da-da-da-da-da!"
A dense storm of bullets engulfed him.
Bullets struck the shield, sparking a series of blinding Fire.
The muddy ground was pressed into deep indentations under his feet.
The soldiers in the German Army position were stunned.
They had seen fearless charges, but never such an unorthodox sight.
That man...
That monster with the metal shield was actually resisting a storm of steel with his own flesh!
"Fire! Fire! Stop him!!"
The German Army officer roared hoarsely, his voice full of terror.
On the other side, in the U.S. foxholes.
A young soldier named Tom had just been so scared that he buried his face deep in the mud, repeating his mother's name over and over, praying for God to bless him so he could survive today.
At this moment, listening to the dense sound of metal clashing, he couldn't help but quietly lift his head, and then he saw a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.
A figure like a god of war was walking forward leisurely while withstanding the torrential rain of bullets.
Bullets were like raindrops before him.
Tom's mouth opened wider and wider.
He didn't even notice his rifle slipping into the muddy water.
His comrade beside him.
The veteran who had been bragging yesterday about taking down three military police officers in a bar was now wearing an expression as if he had seen a ghost.
He was unconsciously murmuring: "Holy Maria..."
Under these gazes, Soldier Boy crashed into the German Army trench with an overwhelming posture!
With one punch, he smashed a German Army soldier along with the MG42 in his hands into the wall.
Steel and flesh were mashed into a pulp.
The triangular shield in his hand became the most lethal tool of slaughter.
Every swing was accompanied by the crisp sound of shattering bones and shrill screams.
In just a few dozen seconds, this machine gun position that had made it impossible for the U.S. forces to advance had turned into a meat grinder.
When the last German Army soldier trembled and raised his hands to surrender, Soldier Boy stepped forward with a grim smile.
"No... no..."
"Snap!"
The crisp sound of a neck bone breaking rang out, putting a period to this bloody performance.
Soldier Boy stood in the pile of corpses.
The bloodstains on his face made him look even more ferocious.
He looked around, enjoying the silence he had created with his own hands.
...
Lynn was not in a hurry to see Phillips.
He quietly left the battlefield with the still-unsatisfied Soldier Boy and found an abandoned farmhouse to duck into.
He needed time to put a stronger leash on this Beast that had just tasted the scent of blood.
Inside the farmhouse, Soldier Boy was still savoring the battle just now.
He was excitedly bragging about how he crushed the bones of those "Germans."
"Ha! Did you see that? They were like a bunch of ants, too weak! Simply fragile!"
Lynn was silently roasting two cans of beef, not speaking.
It wasn't until the cans were sizzling that he looked up and said calmly: "Your performance just now was simply that of a perfect killing machine."
Soldier Boy's bragging was interrupted, and he raised his eyebrows triumphantly: "Of course!"
"But machines are cold."
Lynn wrapped a scorching can with a cloth and handed it to him.
"And gods need believers."
Soldier Boy frowned in dissatisfaction.
"What do you mean? I took care of them, didn't I? I listened to you and wiped out that crappy position!"
"I made you a hero, not a butcher."
"That soldier who raised his hands, he could have been a touch of mercy for you. If you had spared him, he would have knelt and kissed your boots; he would have told everyone he knew in the POW camp everything he saw today."
"He would say he saw a god, a god who possesses both the wrath of thunder and the heart of God."
"People will spread your story; they will discuss your power, and even more, they will praise your forgiveness. That is what a hero's halo should look like."
Lynn paused, his voice becoming lower.
"By killing him, you were telling everyone that you are an uncontrollable Beast."
"I am uncontrollable!"
Soldier Boy was poked in a sore spot and roared irritably, slamming the can in his hand onto the ground hard.
The scorching chunks of meat and broth splattered everywhere.
"But the Allied Forces don't need an out-of-control Beast; Beasts only belong in cages."
"You must display strength and mercy so that they will both respect and fear you."
"They will treat you like an ancestor, offering you the best wine and the most beautiful babes, satisfying all your bullshit demands, just to keep you happy."
Soldier Boy fell silent.
He stared intently at the campfire, his irritable expression hiding hard-to-conceal contemplation.
Vought International...
Weren't those PR people and agents nagging in his ears all day about this bullshit stuff like "image" and "persona"?
Now this kid was using the most naked reality to tell him that even on this bloody battlefield with no media and no cameras, these rules still F--King applied!