The young man lay behind the windowsill, squinting one eye as he surveyed the terrain in the distance.
Their team had been stationed outside the equipment depot since early morning. As the official opening time of the warehouse drew nearer, the group discussed how they should relocate their battlefield position and launch a surprise assault on the central zone.
The weapons in the depot were scarce – they absolutely had to grab the rifle grenades, or else the long-barreled rifles and muzzle converters they’d been carrying for two days would be for nothing.
With rifle grenades in hand, they’d have the capital to turn the tide in the later stages.
Those military students were practically animals – if they couldn’t guarantee being among the first wave to storm the depot, they wouldn’t even get a scrap of the leftovers.
The young man had his speech prepared, counting down the time on the map. Just as he was about to rally his teammates, they saw yellow smoke billowing in the distance, followed by two shockwaves of explosions traveling across several hundred meters to reach their ears.
This sudden development was, without a doubt, like when everyone had already played their biggest hands, only for someone to inexplicably drop a pair of royal flushes – utterly unreasonable.
It seemed a major battle was brewing.
The density of players nearby was high, and almost everyone instinctively backed away from the combat zone, terrified of meeting a grim end on the eve of dawn.
The young man stared at the explosion point. As one of the few survivors from the eastern mountain area, the mere sound of that tight, rhythmic blast sequence now conjured up vivid scenes from the night before last in his mind.
Though less than forty-eight hours had passed, it gave him an uncanny sense of having lived through a lifetime.
Soon, the rising dust was compressed by a third shockwave, twisting into an even more grotesque shape.
Three explosive rounds in succession turned what had been a vague, distant nightmare into something abruptly real.
The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Just as he was about to agree with his teammate’s suggestion to relocate, he swallowed the words: “…There’s something about this scene that feels awfully familiar. No way. They can’t still be alive, can they? Are those bastards here?”
His teammate hurriedly replied, “Look on the bright side – there are plenty of people who look alike in this world, and even more madmen who act alike. Maybe someone’s just playing mind games?”
The sound of submachine gun fire crackled through another teammate’s channel. Faint, but audible if one held their breath and listened closely.
Perhaps it was meant as intimidation, or maybe the shooter was just an aggressive fighter – judging by the rhythm, the person had let off over twenty rounds in just a few seconds.
In these times of scarce supplies, when every bullet was hoarded like gold, such behavior was nothing short of outrageous.
Through the comms, the young man could even hear his teammate swallow hard. The man gritted his molars, his barely concealed panic showing through.
“Don’t come any closer – holy shit!”
No one called him a coward, because those lunatics truly were terrifying.
Seconds later, from less than a hundred meters away, came two more devastating explosions.
The young man stiffly turned his neck and shut the window, questioning his existence.
What the hell was wrong with this world? There were only five grenades in total, and it was already day three – how did these people still have extras to waste?
…
Xin Kuang had just stopped Jiang Linxia from wasting ammunition, telling him not to use the submachine gun like that, when a responding explosion came from diagonally across the way.
Jiang Linxia said arrogantly, “Who’s that? Someone else as loaded as we are?”
Cheng Feng thought for a moment and said, “It might be Zhong Yijie providing cover fire for us.”
Jiang Linxia curled his lip.
The gift from her underling made Cheng Feng very pleased. She praised, “Zhong Yijie is a good comrade.” Smarter than her own teammate, at least.
“Cheng Feng…”
Jiang Linxia was walking ahead of the group. He glanced back furtively, afraid of being caught by Cheng Feng, then quickly turned forward again.
He switched off his communicator and whispered to Xiang Yunjian beside him, “Why is she growing in such a weird direction?”
Other people grow up – she’s growing up in rank.
This was a puzzle that even Xiang Yunjian couldn’t answer. “Maybe her factory settings were just a bit different.”
Jiang Linxia and Xiang Yunjian’s display of wealth and firepower allowed the group to pass through unhindered, arriving smoothly at the position Cheng Feng had designated earlier.
Two hundred meters to their front left stood the weapons depot, surrounded by a ring of empty concrete ground. The warehouse was only a hundred and fifty square meters, five meters tall, with a gray metal blast-proof exterior. Aside from a San Yao icon on the wall, there was nothing else – plain and unassuming.
The team that had originally been stationed at this spot sensed trouble and fled early, scrambling to seize someone else’s stronghold, which caused a small-scale commotion in the vicinity.
The innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire were all somewhat displeased, but with the depot still unopened and supplies running low, they didn’t dare provoke a conflict and could only swallow their resentment.
Jiang Linxia could empathize with their frustration and anger – and he reveled in this sense of being the local tyrant, hoping it would last a little longer.
If he could stay this wealthy forever, he would definitely fall in love with every form of point-farming.
Cheng Feng asked, “Why are they so short on bullets? Didn’t they snatch any kills on the first day?”
The four of them had no idea how to answer that.
Jiang Linxia let out a long sigh. “Wealth has limited her imagination. I forgive her.”
The group hunkered down and waited, chatting softly over the channel.
As the system time ticked over to 3:55, Jiang Linxia’s expression gradually turned serious. He stopped joking around and focused intently on the direction he was responsible for guarding.
Candidates who were farther away had already begun to move. Gunfire and interweaving footsteps rapidly drew closer from a distance, and the environment instantly became complex and chaotic. Indistinct shouts and curses echoed from all sides.
In the final two minutes, two blue beams of light lit up on the warehouse door, racing along the frame before converging at a circle in the center, where the word “Unlocking” appeared.
The candidates at the central position could no longer hold back either.
Everyone had gone mad for the supplies inside the equipment depot.
Jiang Linxia tossed a smoke grenade to his left, quickly dodged aside, and dropped to the ground. His voice taut, he said, “Cheng Feng, we’re counting on you from here on out!”
Cheng Feng asked, “Aren’t you counting on me right now?”
Feeling the weight of his backpack, Jiang Linxia found it hard to argue.
…When did this kid get so fond of talking back? Yan Shen must have taught her that!
Bastard!
The time jumped to 4:00. A crisp notification tone came through the communicator, but the sound was scattered by the violent shockwaves and completely drowned in the air.
Countless muzzles were aimed at the warehouse door. Firepower reached its peak in that moment, bullets pouring out like a flood as everyone tried to claim the heads of the first wave amid the smoke.
All sorts of stockpiled explosive weapons were also thrown out without reservation at this critical moment.
Several people’s eardrums ached from the deafening blasts coming from every direction. They could no longer hear any other noise – not even their teammates’ voices. They could only shut off their communicators and activate the highest level of noise cancellation.
Including the two thrown by Cheng Feng’s team, five smoke grenades shrouded the area around the equipment depot, obscuring visibility within a hundred-meter radius.
But this barrage lasted only a few seconds before the candidates immediately ceased their assault, switching to sporadic blind fire in the general direction.
Most teams still held onto a small number of explosive weapons, planning to ambush any candidates who emerged from the warehouse. If their teammates were unlucky enough to fail in securing supplies, perhaps they could still scrape by a little longer.
“These guys have some real skills – hiding away all those explosive weapons. Perfect timing, we got them to blow their whole load in one go.”
Jiang Linxia crouched in a corner with his gun, having spent too long in the smoky environment. Even with goggles on, his eyes were starting to sting.
He glanced back, though the gesture was pointless. Then he asked a question that would get no answer. “Did Cheng Feng make it in? Is she still alive?”
Cheng Feng hadn’t gone in yet.
Even if someone got lucky and slipped in at a time like this, there was no way they’d make it back out.
She waited a full three minutes with extreme patience, holding off until this wave of firepower – reminiscent of a frenzy of celebration – had died down before making her move.
Near the entrance, she bumped into someone. With both of them visually impaired by the smoke, neither dared to make a rash move.
The other person threw a punch at Cheng Feng by feel. The strike brushed past her face, narrowly missing. He didn’t pursue and instead stumbled his way toward the warehouse door. Cheng Feng, counting her steps, charged in ahead of him.
The interior of the warehouse hadn’t yet been completely overtaken by smoke, so she could still make out the general layout.
In the center stood neatly arranged metal shelves, three tiers high, stocked with various supplies labeled by category.
Near the front and back doors were food and water. Farther in were grenades and explosive devices. And right in the middle, in the smallest quantity, were the rifle grenades that countless candidates coveted.
Two students were already inside, ahead of Cheng Feng, sweeping the shelves clean.
Cheng Feng didn’t wait for the people ahead to turn around – she tossed a smoke grenade straight in.
That faint trace of visibility was instantly swallowed by white fog.
The candidates inside started cursing loudly, “Did you leave your brain outside? Who throws smoke in an equipment depot? Nothing but harm with no benefit – who the hell are you?! Don’t you know the rules?!”
Everyone had come here for the common goal of getting supplies. Usually, once you made it inside the depot, there was an unspoken truce – no interference, no fighting – to avoid unnecessary losses.
Cheng Feng sprinted along the route she had memorized moments earlier, while simultaneously unhooking her backpack and tossing explosive devices off the shelves one by one.
She made a full lap, then bolted back out without looking back.
Cheng Feng shouted, “Pull out!”
Xiang Yunjian and the others hadn’t restored their comms yet, but seeing Cheng Feng’s red dot moving outward on the map, they tacitly prepared to withdraw.
With the aid of her equipment, Cheng Feng covered over a hundred meters in ten seconds. She lunged forward, dove behind cover, and pressed the detonator while covering both ears.
Over twenty explosive devices detonated simultaneously inside that cramped space. Even the specially reinforced metal exterior walls, designed by the system, were torn apart under the immense blast.
Though the walls absorbed most of the lethal force, some fragments were still propelled outward by the shockwave, wounding a group of candidates who were just about to enter.
The candidates had no idea what had just happened. Cheng Feng had already grabbed her teammates and was pulling them away from the most dangerous zone, setting up sniper positions on the perimeter.
By the time the next wave of candidates groped their way inside, they tripped over boxes that had been blown out into the open. Picking them up, they discovered that every single box had been locked down by the protective mechanisms – unopenable, unusable. It finally dawned on them, and a furious roar erupted. “Fuck! Someone blew up the supply depot!”
“What’s there even to fight for now? The depot is gone!!”
“Which bastard did this?! How the hell did they pull it off?!”
These boxes were made of special blast-resistant materials, and forcing them into a locked state required a lot of firepower – at minimum, close-range grenade detonations. Nothing like this had ever happened in previous sessions.
After all, there were rarely many candidates inside the warehouse at once, and no one in their right mind would waste over twenty precious explosive devices in such an enclosed space just to render the entire arsenal useless.
They couldn’t figure it out!
That person had been among the first to enter – they could have safely taken the supplies, so why detonate?
Each player’s pack started with only two explosive devices. How did they still have over twenty by day three?
They truly didn’t understand!
The viewers outside could have answered that question for them, but right now, the livestream showed nothing but a thick white haze.
The candidates’ heated shouting, however, came through loud and clear.
Things like “What? The depot got blown up?”; “So are there any boxes that weren’t locked?”; “Who would bomb the depot? It’s a trick – don’t believe it!” … all sorts of conflicting opinions mixed together.
Of course, the most frequently heard refrain was still those three heart-wrenching letters – WHY?!
“Because Cheng Feng is just too loaded! As long as no one else can get new supplies, they’re the strongest!”
“I was so narrow-minded – before the explosion, I really thought Cheng Feng was going in to grab supplies.”
“You can’t even imagine how stacked Cheng Feng’s team is. She’s a woman who conquered an entire mountain.”
“What are we even watching here? We’re watching pure solitude.”
“Please go ahead and pin the words ‘cunning and treacherous’ on Cheng Feng – the Alliance students don’t want to carry that bad rap anymore.”
“The mountain king has returned to the scene!”
In the office, nothing remained but sheer applause.
What more was needed? Everything else was superfluous.
What followed unfolded with hardly any suspense.
Though Cheng Feng came out of the blast covered in dust and grime, she was back in top form after taking fresh supplies from her teammates.
The whole squad wore wicked grins as they chased down the poor remaining candidates, showing them what it meant to do whatever the hell they wanted.
By the time the match officially ended, only 62 players were still alive on the field.
The overwhelming one-sided suppression had forced ordinary candidates into a pathetic game of hide-and-seek, while Cheng Feng and her crew ran rampant without resistance.
In the end, Cheng Feng’s team racked up 172 kills, breaking the league’s 50-year record. Zhong Yijie’s team secured second place on the leaderboard with 62 elimination points.
The closing shot froze on the warm, cheerful scene of the ten of them gathered together in conversation.
The top two teams in the team competition were both from UFU, which solidified Cheng Feng’s foundation for clinching the league’s gold cup. As long as UFU’s performance in the grand battle wasn’t ridiculously off the mark, that gold cup was already in Cheng Feng’s grasp.
This scorecard was brilliant and eye-catching – it could be said that the biggest winner of this league was Cheng Feng and UFU behind her.
Yu Sihe was one of the fortunate candidates who managed to survive until the very end.
However, his team’s results weren’t particularly good – they placed eleventh. Though he lasted long, there was practically no opportunity for a counterattack in the later stages.
Yu Sihe removed his gear and let out a regretful sigh. Having gone several days without proper sleep and spent the final stretch in constant fear and tension, his mental and physical energy had been excessively drained. As he stepped down from the equipment, he nearly stumbled – an examiner caught him just in time to keep him steady. He went to a corner to sit and rest for a while before wearily leaving the examination hall.
His roommate was already waiting outside in advance. He had prepared hot drinks and snacks for him and shoved them all into Yu Sihe’s hands the moment he appeared.
After taking a couple of bites and feeling somewhat revived, Yu Sihe asked, “How come I didn’t see Cheng Feng at all? I kept trying to find her at the start, but never spotted her. It seemed like no other teams saw her either. Are they the MVP team?”
Having been defeated by Cheng Feng in the last heavy-armor match, he’d been wanting to settle the score all along—unfortunately, he never got the chance.
His roommate, who had been studying him, suddenly wore a strange expression upon hearing this.
Yu Sihe asked, “Did she slack off in the team? Or did she get eliminated early?”
His roommate didn’t answer; his attention seemed to drift, as if he was struggling to figure out how to respond.
Yu Sihe thought he had guessed correctly. He stuffed the empty wrapper from his snack into his pocket and said with feeling, “I’m so envious. You have no idea how brutal it was for us in the later stages – we were practically throwing our lives into the line of fire. Those people refused to communicate at all; they killed anyone they saw.”
The young man opened his mouth, finally figuring out an angle to approach the topic. His facial muscles tightened, and his brow furrowed slightly, making him look serious and solemn. “Do you know who had the highest individual kill count in this league?”
Yu Sihe had been about to leave, but he stopped at the question and answered matter-of-factly, “Xiang Yunjian.”
His roommate extended one finger and wagged it in the air.
Yu Sihe asked, “Then Yan Shen?”
Wrong.
Yu Sihe pressed his lips together and asked, “Is it someone from their team?”
His roommate nodded. “Yes.”
Yu Sihe guessed, “Then Xin Kuang?”
His roommate still shook his head.
Yu Sihe refused to believe it. After a pause, he continued guessing, “Jiang Linxia?”
His roommate’s expression turned sympathetic. “No, no, no.”
Yu Sihe said, “That’s impossible! I didn’t even see her. Where was she? How many kills did she get?”
His roommate let out a heavy sigh and said, “Her total individual kills came to 59. The second-place team had a combined total of 62 kills among all five members.”
Yu Sihe’s head was spinning – that same dizzy feeling from when he’d just gotten off the machine came back.
His roommate asked again, “Do you know who the second-place team was?”
Yu Sihe had had enough of his questions. The smug, teasing tone was way too obvious. He spat out a single word with little patience. “Who?”
His roommate said, “Zhong Yijie’s squad.”
“They performed that well this year?” Yu Sihe had a fair understanding of candidates around his own skill level. He thought for a moment, then asked, “Did they form an alliance with Xiang Yunjian?”
His roommate hesitated before nodding. “Sort of, but not entirely.”
Yu Sihe wanted to say, What the hell does that even mean? The more he asked, the more confused he got.
His roommate leaned in closer, looking mysterious, and asked, “Do you know what Xiang Yunjian’s squad kill count was? Do you know who gave Zhong Yijie’s team their kills? Do you know who was chasing you down in the final stage?”
Yu Sihe, for the sake of his own sanity, turned and walked away.
His roommate chased after him, speaking rapidly, “Do you know where their supplies came from? Do you know where Cheng Feng actually was? Do you know why you couldn’t find Cheng Feng?”
Yu Sihe broke into a jog, trying to shake him off, and shouted, “I don’t want to know! What the hell got into you today? If you’ve got a grudge, go settle it with whoever owes you – don’t come after me!”
“Don’t watch the replay!” His roommate stretched out his arm and called after him. “Let me tell you instead! If you watch the replay, you’ll definitely regret it! Bro, I’m doing this for your own good! Trust me!”
…
At that moment, Xiang Yunjian and the others had just walked out of the examination hall, their expressions brimming with pride and triumph. But before they could enjoy it for long, they ran straight into the instructors who had come to apprehend them.
Xiang Yunjian and the others stood still, sensing something was off. Jiang Linxia caught the look on the two instructors’ faces and bolted, only to have both arms twisted and pinned down by them.
One instructor said in a gentle tone, “Don’t run off. Let’s go watch something interesting.”
“What are you afraid of? Would your instructors ever do you wrong?”
Jiang Linxia yelped in pain and asked them to loosen their grip, but they remained unmoved. He had no choice but to steel himself and protest loudly, “Why, instructors? We won! And it’s definitely a landslide victory! Is this how you treat the winners?”
The instructor curled his lips into a brilliant smile. But to the four of them, that expression somehow looked downright sinister. Still maintaining his easygoing demeanor, his tone left no room for refusal. “That’s exactly why we’re taking you to see the winners’ exclusive prize – and to give you a little physical reward while we’re at it.”
They had barely stepped out of the computer room when they were herded right back in, this time into an empty office.
Several more instructors were already standing inside, all wearing expressions of terrifying benevolence, leaning against the desks with gazes as calm as still water fixed on them.
The last instructor through the door pushed the lock down behind him, cutting off any escape. The temperature in the room seemed to drop by over ten degrees in an instant, chilling them to the bone.
Under the four’s barely concealed looks of terror, the instructors advanced together, pressed down on their shoulders, and seated them in the chairs at the center.
…And then pulled up the most-watched replay highlights.
