When the first volley finally stopped and the smoke dispersed,
the Fatui ambushed in the killzone were fully revealed to every player.
"What… how?!"
ArrowHeart—the strongest archer on the field, fully geared and highest-level—stared wide-eyed.
The Fatui squad looked scorched and dusty…
but nowhere near as dead as expected.
"Chicken! What the hell happened?!"
ArrowHeart immediately whispered.
"Wind shields!!!
The frontliners popped their wind shields early!!!"
ChickenWaterBubble replied frantically.
"What do you mean early?!
Why would they pre-shield before stepping into the trap?!
Do we seriously have a spy in our playerbase?!
Anyone betraying the player faction would've been insta-banned already!"
ArrowHeart was baffled.
ChickenWaterBubble went silent.
He… had a faint suspicion about why.
Meanwhile, his livestream chat was exploding in laughter.
[HAHAHAHA the streamer's acting skills are insane!]
[He was grinning like a maniac the moment they got close to the trap!]
[Bro's face literally said: "I am suspicious."
There's NO WAY the Fatui wouldn't be on guard!]
[Chicken playing Infernal Affairs—he walks into cop school and gets expelled on day one!]
The Fatui Anemoboxer Vanguards tanked the makeshift bombs with their wind shields.
The first rain of arrows also scattered harmlessly.
Upon hearing the situation, ArrowHeart shouted on world chat:
[Block their retreat! Prepare for second volley!]
Their shields couldn't be infinite.
If the first wave didn't break them—
the second would.
And the third if needed.
The Fatui quickly realized they were ambushed and tried to retreat.
"Smack!"
The Pyro Agent guarding ChickenWaterBubble slapped him hard.
"You've been acting strange this entire walk!
I KNEW something was off!
How did you signal them to set up an ambush?!"
"Uhh… even if I told you, you couldn't understand…"
Smack!
"Less nonsense! HOW did you communicate?!"
"We… voice chat on MicroSpeak™."
"Micro… what?"
"See? Told you. You wouldn't understand."
ChickenWaterBubble shrugged helplessly.
Up ahead, a Fatui soldier shouted:
"Not good! Our path is blocked—boulders rolled down from the cliff!"
"Watch out! Logs incoming!!!"
The players had rolled tons of cut logs downhill.
Wind Vanguards raised their nearly-broken shields again to deflect them.
The Electrohammer Vanguard hurried to smash apart the boulder blocking their escape.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Cracks began forming.
If they kept pounding, they might actually break out.
More logs came crashing down.
ChickenWaterBubble couldn't help smirking.
"What are you smiling at?!"
The Pyro Agent grabbed him by the neck.
"Kh… hah… I'm smiling because…
you've spread the wood out nicely."
"And that matters why?!"
"Heh… shame you've never read Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
When you're trapped in a valley like this—
any idiot knows what comes next."
"…What?"
"Fire attack."
...
ArrowHeart's command flashed on world chat:
[FIRE!]
The second volley flew—
all flaming arrows.
Upon seeing fire arrows, the Anemoboxers instinctively raised their shields again.
This triggered Swirl, spreading the flames instantly.
The scattered logs ignited at once.
A wall of fire roared up around the trapped Fatui.
HanXiaoMo, who had been prepping a poison-spraying drone, stopped operating it.
"Wow… this game is brutal.
They really don't censor people being burned alive.
Kids watching this are gonna pee the bed."
LittleWhiteNOldPowder shook his head.
"If kids saw this, peeing the bed is the least of the problems…"
"Please, with the backing this game company clearly has?
You think they care about parent complaints?"
HanXiaoMo snorted.
"Launching a '100% realistic' game like this?
Obviously reviewed by the authorities long beforehand.
Even if parents swallow all their report buttons—
nothing's happening to this game."
"Boss Liu, looks like they're done for.
All the Fatui HP bars are empty."
LittleWhiteNOldPowder checked and announced in voice chat.
ArrowHeart nodded and typed:
[Extinguish the fire! Loot time, everyone!]
"—Shhhhhh—"
Buckets of sand cascaded onto the burning area.
Players had planned for cleanup long ago—
this close to the base, letting a wildfire spread would be suicidal.
When the fire was finally put out,
a tidal wave of players rushed in, digging through the hot sand.
Before the ambush, they had all agreed:
Loot from the Fatui goes to whoever grabs it first.
Fast hands win. Slow hands cry.
But many players had overestimated their mental strength.
They dug for five seconds before vomiting.
100% realism meant the bodies looked… disturbingly real.
Bad enough normally—
but these had been burned to death.
Forget children wetting beds—
some adults had already wet their pants.
Still, money is a powerful motivator.
Even retching, they forcefully stripped gear off the corpses.
Many even tried dragging the bodies back to the Biotic Terminal to see if they could be converted to bio-energy.
After all—
to them, this was just a game.
And they'd all played 18+ gore games before.
This one was just…
"a teensy bit more realistic."
Settlali watched the carnage below, frowning.
"You Federal people…"
"You're not about to call them cruel, are you?"
Liang Chuan raised a brow.
"If we hadn't prepared,
we'd be the ones dead."
"I know mercy to enemies brings ruin,"
Settlali exhaled,
"but… they do not respect the dead."
Liang Chuan rubbed his temples.
"This is nothing…"
Thank the system ordinary human corpses convert into almost no bio-energy.
Otherwise,
some players would absolutely become grave robbers.
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus chapters for every 10 reviews. comment
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