LSDWTWHA chapter 46

Chapter 45

The second round of the competition was about to start, and Su Su was waiting in the preparation hall for his entrance.

Today, the atmosphere was particularly lively, with participants, friends, and some players who had come to experience the excitement up close.

Su Su sat alone on a waiting chair, looking rather lonely.

It wasn’t until a shadow blocked the light above his head that he noticed someone approaching: “Are you… are you the White Scale Shark?”

Su Su looked up and saw a player who had come over to strike up a conversation.

His ID was [Oolong Peach], dressed in a skin that obscured his real appearance. However, judging from his voice, he seemed to be a young boy, probably still in middle school.

“Is there something you need?” Su Su asked.

“It’s really you! You were amazing in yesterday’s competition. I never knew a starship could move that fast,” the boy said shyly. “So, I’m also a participant. Today’s competition focuses on team coordination, and I saw you sitting alone here, so I wondered if you’d like to join our team?”

“Your team?” Su Su followed the direction of the boy’s finger and saw two other players huddled together not far away. When they noticed him looking over, they immediately waved enthusiastically.

One was named [Yam Pudding], and the other [Mango Mousse], as if they had run out of a bubble tea shop.

“We three are classmates and usually get along well, so we signed up for this competition together,” [Oolong Peach] explained. What he didn’t mention was that their performance yesterday hadn’t been ideal; they barely scraped by at the end within the time limit.

That was why they hoped to gain some points advantage in today’s competition. If they continued like this, there was no way they could break into the top 100.

Seeing Su Su sitting alone, they thought of trying their luck. Su Su’s performance in the first round was witnessed by all. If they could join him, it would indeed increase their chances of winning.

But Su Su didn’t see it that way: “If we’re teaming up, you need to discuss some plans with me. What’s the strategy when the competition starts? How will we work together? How do we divide the points?”

“Ah?” [Oolong Peach] looked a bit flustered as if he hadn’t really considered such questions before. He stumbled over his words, nervous and blushing: “Uh, well, we’ll all take off together, and then focus our fire on the players with high scores. You’re fast, so you can intercept them, and I’m a turret player who can provide fire support. My friend specializes in slowing down and controlling, while another excels in defense. We usually coordinate well. As for the points, we can just split them evenly…”

Su Su shook his head: “This is a chase game, and it’s impossible for all players to spawn at the same position. I guess it’s more likely that they randomly refresh the spawning locations.”

“You’re suggesting we focus on whoever has the most points, which isn’t a bad idea. The other players likely think the same. Therefore, with my starting 20 points, I’ll likely become the target for focused fire. Have you thought about how to protect me? In other words, if I have to escape, can you keep up?”

“You might be able to coordinate well, but I’m not talking about that kind of coordination.”

“Also, I won’t be splitting the points with you. Because from my perspective, you’re much weaker than I am.”

Su Su’s rejection was rather merciless. After all, no one had ever taught him how to speak tactfully. In his logic, there was only survival of the fittest; helping the weak was not his habit. A fierce shark wouldn’t share its catch with a weaker fish.

Team up? Su Su glanced around the hall and realized that having more people does provide significant advantages in this game.

But not now; these people weren’t the ones.

[Oolong Peach] listened to Su Su’s words, silently tugging at his clothing as if feeling a bit embarrassed.

“Why do you talk like this? You performed well in the first round, but you don’t have to look down on us so much!” [Yam Pudding] was a bit fiery and immediately stepped up to defend her friend.

“Yeah, we might not be as fast as you, but so what? This competition isn’t just about running fast. Alone we might not be able to beat you, but if we coordinate, we might be on par. If you feel that splitting points is a loss, we can negotiate. If you have any strategies, you can share them as well. We just wanted to help you when we saw you alone. What you just said was really hurtful.”

With [Yam Pudding] making a scene, many players turned their attention to this side, curiosity, and excitement evident in their expressions.

Including members of the [Heavy Clouds Guild]. One of them immediately began to speak sarcastically: “I advise you not to waste your efforts. He even rejected an invitation from [No Return], and he’s got high aspirations, claiming he wants to take first place and looks down on the weak among us.”

He rejected an invitation from [No Return]?

Onlookers silently glanced at the crowd surrounding [No Return]; seeing him silent and not arguing back, they started believing the claims. Those who had thought about testing the waters to recruit Su Su soon gave up on the idea. If he looked down on [No Return], what chance did they have?

Upon hearing this, [Yam Pudding] indeed stopped persisting and quickly pulled [Oolong Peach] away.

[No Return] subtly shifted his gaze away, as if the recent scene had nothing to do with him. Yet, in reality, without his cue, who would dare say such a thing publicly?

He wanted Su Su to be left without anyone to team up with, to become isolated and helpless. The more hate he could draw, making him a target for focused fire, the better.

He understood his calculations weren’t aboveboard. But he wanted victory, and whether the means were righteous didn’t matter.

“Who doesn’t participate in the competition to win first place? If you don’t search for strong teammates, are you looking for weaker ones? Is this a targeted poverty alleviation?” A girl with a high ponytail and dressed in a pure black combat suit crossed her arms and spoke calmly.

When she was silent, she had a low presence, no one noticing her, but once she spoke, she became the center of attention.

“It’s [Simplifying Complexity]!” Players murmured. Her reputation as the number one on the leaderboard was far higher than that of Su Su, this new dark horse.

[Simplifying Complexity] didn’t pay attention to those looking at her; instead, she raised her eyebrows at Su Su: “What happened to the invitation from [No Return]? Isn’t his favorite thing to form cliques to suppress the strong while sending the weak to become cannon fodder? A team with ill intentions is far more dangerous than a strong opponent; only a fool teams up with him. Right, [White Scale Shark]?”

“Mm.” Su Su didn’t care how others saw him, nor did he care if anyone wanted to recruit him. However, he did agree with [Simplifying Complexity]; he liked her more for her comments on the player who had snatched his first place in the previous round.

[Simplifying Complexity] withdrew her gaze. She usually didn’t seek the limelight or act out of altruism; she just disliked being indebted to others. Those words were her way of repaying the favor from Su Su in the last round when he had led the way.

The second round of the competition began.

As Su Su had guessed, all players spawned randomly on the map.

The arena wasn’t large; even after deploying over nine hundred starships, it still felt a bit crowded. No matter where someone spawned, at least a dozen or several dozen starships would be visible.

Su Su looked around; bright numbers appeared above all the starships. From what he could see, most players had yet to score points, except for one player far away, whose starship glimmered with 20 points shining brightly like a lighthouse illuminating the surroundings.

Su Su: …

He estimated he likely looked the same.

Thus, even though he hid in a central area between two celestial bodies, trying to conceal himself, starships from all directions were still rushing towards his location with clear intent.

The hiding spot became unrealistic; Su Su could only rely on agile movements to evade the incoming fire, lock hooks, and starships that came crashing in.

The logic behind these starships was simple: although [White Scale Shark] was fast, within the limited map, it was hard to escape being surrounded by players.

His starship was fast and lightweight, so its defense system must be lacking. If he got hit even once, he could directly lose ten points.

Fine, they all thought he was easy to bully. Su Su ground his teeth, excitement glinting in his eyes. He scanned the surroundings with his mental force through his starship.

As long as low-scoring starships made an offensive move against him, he could retaliate.

While dodging attacks, Su Su adjusted his position and chose a heavy defensive starship that was rushing towards him, ready for a collision. With a single shot, he sent it off. Then he elegantly spun in the air, evading a barrage of pursuing fire and escaping far away.

The pursuers were momentarily taken aback. That was a heavy starship! It was gone with a single bullet?

Wasn’t it said that lightweight starships couldn’t withstand heavy weapon recoil, and their attack power was generally weak?

Before they could recover from the shock, the system announcement echoed across all competing players’ starships: [Player White Scale Shark has eliminated Player Ten Generations Ten.]

This announcement was like a cold splash of water over the heads of players who had been blinded by points and frantically pursuing Su Su, awakening them from their stupor.

It was elimination.

Only then did the players chasing Su Su realize that low scores were not a life preserver; rather, those with points could die and still respawn, but if they had zero points, they would be directly eliminated upon death.

Su Su eliminated several zero-point players consecutively. The number of starships recklessly chasing after Su Su gradually decreased. Most players would prioritize safeguarding their safety while attacking. Some smart players would immediately turn and switch to a new target if their attack missed, ensuring Su Su had no chance to retaliate.

Su Su took advantage of this, cleverly attacking while fleeing. Luckily, he encountered a few players with points attacking him, and he sent two off, gradually increasing his score from the initial 20 points to 22 points.

Su Su sighed; this game truly made it harder to increase points the higher they got. If he killed someone with lower points, he would only gain one point, while eliminating those with higher scores would average out the point differences. If he was killed by zero-point players, his hard-earned points would instantly drop by half.

Players who grouped together were even harder to deal with. In the competition, they would assign some low-scoring starships as defensive starships, whenever Su Su was ready to retaliate, they would block the offensive starships of their team. Since those starships had not attacked Su Su, attacking would be deemed a foul for him, making his attack ineffective and resulting in direct elimination, further restricting his ability to counterattack.

[Simplifying Complexity] had it worse than Su Su. Her massive points exposed her position completely, nullifying the advantages of her stealth starship.

She was targeted by [No Return]’s team, initially getting entangled by several starships from the opposing team, quickly becoming a target for their siege. Added to that were some opportunistic players who failed to escape in time. By the time [No Return]’s team successfully regrouped, twenty starships, under one command, focused their fire solely on her.

This was vastly different from those scattershot teams. [No Return] had seen through the game’s rules during the selection process. He deliberately left behind some zero-point players.

After entering the game, he had those with points lose to zero-point players, redistributing the points so each of them would have just over ten points, preventing immediate elimination. Facing other players with 20 points, they could represent the initiative.

Those scattered groups, seeing his team’s numerical superiority, dared not provoke them rashly.

With this advantage, [No Return] quickly regrouped his team and launched a siege against [Simplifying Complexity]. He used the same tactics as other low-scoring players, allocating some personnel to create distractions rather than attacking.

If [Simplifying Complexity] didn’t fight back, those ranged attacks could easily wear her down. If she did retaliate, the starships that hadn’t previously attacked her would come in front to block her.

After a round of restrictions, [Simplifying Complexity] had not gained any points, and within half an hour, she was eliminated once. Her score dropped to 10.

Then, when she managed to kill a high-scoring starship, bringing her score back up to fifteen, [No Return]’s team found her, dropping her score to 7.

After running for an hour, Su Su finally faced his own misfortune.

One thing other players hadn’t wrongfully assumed was that while Su Su’s starship had high attack power and speed, its defense was genuinely lacking. So when he unfortunately caught the brunt of a heavy artillery shot just as he was escaping, and the nearby escape routes were being blocked by other attacks, he ended up being killed within a range attack that an ordinary starship could withstand. His points dropped from 22 to 11.

The mental connection to the starship instantly broke, and Su Su entered a gray space. In front of him was a large countdown, going from fifty-nine, one second counting down.

It was his respawn time.

Less than three hours remained until the game ended.

Su Su had realized that fighting solo was not going to work. When scores were low, it wasn’t too dangerous, but once scores exceeded twenty, he would almost certainly become the target of everyone’s focused fire. It was hard to widen the score gap, but losing points once could happen quickly.

Unless, like [No Return], he had someone to back him up.

When the respawn time ended, Su Su emerged from the respawn point.

Ten points still attracted attention, but compared to before, he had some advantages, at least he could go hunt players with higher scores.

However, this time, Su Su didn’t rush to hunt. He swiftly moved through the arena, soon locating his desired target.

[Simplifying Complexity], score 7.

Tch, she was worse off than him. But Su Su wouldn’t think of her as weak because of this.

Su Su sent her a message: “Want to team up?”