nagisa (translator): Happy New Year everyone!!! Wish you all the best for whatâs to come
Qiu Yuâs vision darkened. When he could to see again, he found himself in a turbulent plane cabin.
The cabin was dim, with only a red light flickering on and off, accompanied by a piercing siren. Four passerby players appeared around him, looking around before asking about the randomly selected game mode.
âSurvival mode.â Looking beyond the plane windows, the teammate continued, âSnowy Mountain map.â
âDamn it, is the first round really going to be on such a perverted map? Am I the frickinâ chief of bad luck?â
âDrawing survival mode in a rank-determining match, Iâm totally screwedâŠâ
Xiyan Snowy Mountain was one of the more⊠special maps in âCenturyâs Finaleâ.
This map was suitable for survival mode and battle royales. In a game, a total of 20 teams would parachute into the map. A player had no other weapons except for a dagger, and there was no âbaseâ to exchange for weapons either, so players had to scavenge all their resources from around the map.
The edges of the map were surrounded by miasma, which would gradually move towards the centre of the map as the game progressed. Once a player was in the fog, they would die of poisoning if they didnât escape in ten seconds.
Moreover, according to the settings of âCenturyâs Finaleâ, oneâs enemies were not only the other 19 teams, but also the mutant beasts wandering around everywhere. Through killing mutant beasts one would obtain crystal nuclei, which can be used to strengthen weapons and protective equipment. Hence, in this game mode, killing mutant beasts was still an extremely important job.
Since there is no âbaseâ, players who died in battle had no way of revival, however they could choose to continue viewing the game from a teammateâs perspective. If all their teammates were eliminated, they could also choose from the perspectives of any other player.
Of course, communication was blocked between both sides both verbally and through text, as to avoid people taking advantage of the rules and cheating.
Qiu Yu had played a couple games in survival mode when he was rushing to rank up, but since there werenât many of these maps, they didnât come up often in ranking competitions, so he hadnât been in them much either. However, he had been to this particular Snowy Mountain map in practice mode before, and still retained some impressions of the terrain.
The reason this Xiyan Snowy Mountain map was termed a ânightmare mapâ by players was because, in this map, if you stayed in a spot without a source of warmth for a long time, youâll gradually freeze to death. However, if you moved, youâd leave footprints that expose your position. Moreover, the location of warmer places were fixed, so it often became a fiercely contested battlefield, or expert players would use it as a trapâŠ
Anyhow, for most players, it was a difficult task to even survive in this map.
âWhat are you scared of? If itâs hard for us, itâs also gotta be hard for everyone else. Itâs the same for everyone!â A player sporting a headful of bright red hair patted his chest and to cheer everyone up, âCome on everyone, one more that survives is another step closer to victory!â
In a team of five, as long as one player can survive until the end and become the winner, it counted as a victory for the entire team.
Hearing Red Hairâs words, another player also calmed down, asking, âThen how should we play? Go together, or split up and try to survive solo?â
Weâre sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so weâre going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
After some discussion, their team reached a consensusâeveryone would split up and go solo, while remaining in contact through the channel at any time.
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As soon as they finished discussing the plan, preparation time was over. A shrill alarm rang throughout the cabin, and immediately the cabin doors opened. A mechanical voice began to countdown the time allotted to skydiving.
Qiu Yu took the lead, unhesitatingly stepping out of the cabin door, dropping down towards the snow covered pine forest.
At this moment, due to the broadcasting platformâs front page promotions, other audiences slowly trickled into Qiu Yuâs broadcast room, livening up the barrage:
[Anchor, where are you jumping?]
[Immediately looking for city ruins? Arenât you worried about turning into someoneâs lootbox the moment you land?]
[Ooh ooh ooh! It actually started with a Snowy Mountain map! What a coincidence⊠No way, is this the same game next doorâs God Mu is in?]
Qiu Yu slightly adjusted his direction, aiming towards the ruins of a stone house bordering the pine forest. He unhooked his parachute before his feet even touched the ground, following his momentum to drop towards a window frame in a broken wall.
Following his perspective, the broadcast audience were floored with shock:
[Fuck!]
[Is this for real?]
[What kind of bad luck is this?]
âOnly to see Qiu Yuâs angle of drop was just right. Just as he reached the window, Qiu Yu reached out, hanging onto a crooked stone ledge above the window before throwing his body onto the house and smoothly rolling to absorb the excess energy.
The thing was, throughout all of his movements, not a single flake of snow settled on the window frame moved from its original spot.
[Holy frick! If I didnât see it for myself just then, there is no way Iâd believe that just happened!]
[Was he just lucky? Itâs too coincidental to be true!]
[I also think this has got to be a coincidence⊠this parachuting skill and precision, not even a handful of professional players would be able to do it!]
Qiu Yu glanced at the barrage, ignored it, stood up and walked downwards towards the lower floors.
There were no fire sources in this section of the ruins, nor were there any guns. He searched once more, only finding a hunting knife and two packs of wound medicine.
Just as he finished scavenging and was about to leave, Qiu Yuâs steps suddenly paused, then he quietly and nimbly moved towards an angled column by the âdoorâ of the ruined house. Using the rebound force, he launched himself upwards, reaching towards the gap between the top of the column and the ceiling, and just like that, positioned himself in the ceiling of the room.
The barrage:
[âŠâŠplease pardon me, may I ask who among the retired great gods this anchor is?]
[Holy frick! I just sneezed and closed my eyes for a fraction of a secondâwhat is this perspective? What just happened?]
[To tell the truth, I didnât even blink just then but I also have no idea what happened.]
At this moment, the sounds beyond the door drew closer until it could be clearly identified as someoneâs careful footsteps in the snow.
A few seconds later, the footsteps paused at the entrance. Soon after, a silhouette carefully peeked through, very cautiously raising the dagger in his hand and alertly inspecting his surroundings.
And so, like most people, he ignored the danger from above.
The instant the man stepped through the doorway, Qiu Yu loosened his grip, dropping down. Without even pulling out his knife, he held the playerâs wrist and cleanly swiped the dagger against the playerâs own neck.
A single blow to snuff out a life, silent like the dead of night.
The barrage:
[âŠâŠ]
[âŠâŠFuck!]
[Everyone! Letâs guess which retired great god or current godâs training acc this anchor is!]
Xu Qingqing had only just reacted, joining in on the scene: [Oh my god! Brother Ghost, watching from your perspective, Iâve only just found out youâre so! A! Ma! Zing! Why do I feel like youâre even stronger than god Mu?!]
Who knew, her words immediately set off a bloody storm in the barrage:
[Just this? Youâre comparing this to god Mu? Hilarious. Is this your first time watching broadcasts?]
[Praising someone to the sky as long as theyâre not too crappy. If God Mu was in this situation, he wouldâve faced the intruder head-on, while this anchorâs using subterfuge. Hah, itâs totally obvious whoâs stronger!]
[Get out, god Muâs anti-fan! Donât touch porcelain, ok?]
Xu Qingqing: [âŠâŠ]
But she was obviously a Mu-fan.
Qiu Yu still didnât pay attention to the noise in the barrage.
Taking the deceased playerâs dagger for himself, he crept out from a gap in the ruins, using the pine trees for cover to move towards the peak of the snowy mountains.
The centre of this map was at the peak, and so was the only safe house.
In survival mode, each team possessed a section of the key code; once the entire squad was eliminated, the code would be sent to all other remaining other players. Hence, it is only when there is a sole surviving team on-field would the key code be complete, and used to open the door to the safe house. So, there was only one team that could emerge victorious in survival mode.
In the next section of the journey, Qiu Yu had pretty good lock. After killing a mutant beast, he found a set of bones in its cage. Beside the bones was a primitive hunting bow, and three arrows scattered around it.
Qiu Yu picked up the bow, testing its string. It seemed that the equipment in the game remained unaffected by the harsh environment, as the bow remained adequately elastic, and the arrows were still gleaming sharp. Unhesitatingly, Qiu Yu used the mutant beast core to strengthen the hunting bow by a star, happily hanging it on his body before continuing to explore the areas around the pine forest.
The barrage was baffled:
[Does the anchor know how to play? Giving a star to a bow? Isnât this a waste of crystal nuclei?]
[I also think itâs better to save the crystals and wait until he finds a gun.]
[Tsk, itâs just a crystal nucleus. God Mu once used one to strengthen a dagger, just to make it easier to kill mutant beasts in the early stages. This is called, âsharpening an axe doesnât delay chopping woodâ ok?]
However, in the next ten minutes, Qiu Yuâs operations became harder and harder to understandâ
[Holy frick! Anchor, Iâll turn a blind eye if you strengthen a hunting bow to three-stars, but why tf are you strengthening the arrows?!]
[The heck is strengthening arrows? Arenât ya scared of losing them?]
[Anchor, when you killed players why didnât you take their guns? You actually dug a hole and buried their guns what kind of operation is this ahhhhh I donât understanddd!!!]
[âŠâŠAre you new? I can very responsibly inform you, this anchor is really good at archery! He can accurately hit the target every time and even absolute-100-percent-ly retrieve the arrow! This anchor is the best at archery out of all the anchors Iâve ever seen, and I mean, the best, not âone ofâ!!!]
As the audience chatted noisily in the barrage, Qiu Yu crept onto a high ground in the ruins, raised his bow and nocked an arrow, pointing towards two players who had just finished their bullets and were about to battle with knives.
There was no hesitationâit was as though he didnât even need to aim. He skillfully drew the bowstring and shot two arrows towards the hearts of the two on field playersâone after the other, they crashed onto the ground, scattering into fragments of light before they could even make a sound.
Qiu Yu cautiously approached and successfully retrieved his arrows before ducking back behind cover. Reaching behind him, he took out his PDA, confirming the newly-received chunk of code.
The game had only progressed for fifteen minutes, yet there were only 5 teams remaining from the original 20. And he was currently the sole survivor from his team,
This progress was way too quick, even for a survival round. It was clear that, on this field, there were other âgods of Deathâ with skills and capabilities far above regular players, not just himself.