Bai Chunian watched Lanbo’s back slam into the wall, blood soaking his uniform and the bandages wrapping his upper body, dripping onto the floor. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth; his pupils gradually dulled.
The scene felt terrifyingly real. Bai Chunian’s chest thumped wildly, a visceral ache of worry gripping him.
“Crawl under the chair, hide. Little bunny, get the recovery serum in full.” Bai Chunian grabbed the .44 Magnum and pulled an SA80 rifle from a fallen body, slipping both into his tactical vest.
Bi Lanxing, receiving updates over the comm, rushed from another corner with the last recovery serum, inserting it into Lu Yan’s pocket. He raised the Uzi toward Bai Chunian. “Go?”
Bai Chunian stared silently at the distant sniper’s last position. “Hold. The sniper crippled two of us; as we recover, they’ll come to finish us off.”
Distracted, Bi Lanxing ran his vine fingers over Lu Yan’s head, releasing calming pheromones to ease his pain. He scanned both Lu Yan and Lanbo’s wounds. The bullet holes were peculiar—if the sniper was merely inaccurate, these two shots wouldn’t have hit the same spot on both collarbones with such precision.
“Did they hire some top-tier pro to help them?”
Bi Lanxing’s suspicion was not unfounded. Judging by the sniper’s precision, he could have easily taken headshots to kill Lu Yan and Lanbo outright, yet he didn’t. Both were left with only a sliver of health, and the kill feed for the team Wind Whispers had never reported Xiao Xun’s name, suggesting he was letting the rest of his team claim kills.
“Doesn’t seem like it,” Bai Chunian said, crushing the cigarette pack in his hand. He recalled meeting Xiao Xun before the match—around twenty years old. Given how harsh their team captain had treated him, it didn’t look like he was there to help anyone cheat. Even if he were, it wouldn’t make sense to find a sniper more accurate than Lanbo; it wasn’t logical.
Bi Lanxing glanced at the heavily injured Lanbo, who had curled up under the chair like a small fish, trembling from the pain of his gunshot wounds. “It doesn’t matter. Do you… want to comfort him?”
“He’s not really hurt. Let him reflect—why didn’t his shots counter that guy?” Bai Chunian deliberately looked away from Lanbo. “Three years gone, gotten soft.”
Bi Lanxing bit back his words and stayed silent.
Just as Bai Chunian expected, Wind Whispers drove straight into the kindergarten’s main building, taking advantage of the two low-health teammates. The three alphas, excluding Xiao Xun, split into two paths to surround them, aiming to wipe them out in one go.
Bi Lanxing quickly released his vines, growing two sets of poisonous vine armor around the weakened Lu Yan and Lanbo to prevent them from being eliminated.
The three rushing alphas were mediocre in their coordination. Their leader’s commands were neither timely nor precise, hardly comparable to Xiao Xun’s sniper-assist situational awareness. Bai Chunian guessed the team’s evolved traits probably enhanced vision and speed, like a Greyhound-type Omega. Abandoning the position pinned by the sniper, he and Lanbo moved to the second-floor music room. Bi Lanxing sealed the exits with toxic arrowwood vines and pushed Bai Chunian into the ventilation duct, from which he climbed back to the steel beams on the third-floor ceiling, holding his breath.
Rapid footsteps approached. Bai Chunian’s expression remained unreadable as he gripped the .44 Magnum. When the footsteps passed directly below him, he gently squeezed the trigger.
Bang.
The leader of Wind Whispers clutched his exploding collarbone and tumbled down the stairs, health plummeting.
Bai Chunian didn’t finish the kill, squinting and firing another round. The second bullet landed perfectly in the first, spraying blood. The alpha leader screamed in pain but wasn’t immediately eliminated—the collarbone wasn’t a vital point.
The remaining two alphas panicked at their leader’s cries, failing to notice the sudden surge of vines. They were ensnared, poison seeping through the sharp vine tips, igniting excruciating pain. Screaming, they crawled desperately to escape the thorny trap, froth forming at their mouths from the toxins.
Bi Lanxing tightened the vines, hearing the alphas’ cries, feeling a grim sense of satisfaction.
Lu Yan injected a full dose of recovery serum, pale, and got up. Grabbing his Desert Eagle, he followed the sounds and ran into Bai Chunian. Bai Chunian shook the blood off his right hand. “These ones are yours. I’ll teach that damn sniper a lesson.”
The kill feed flashed again:
[Whatever Squad] Lu Yan kills [Wind Whispers] Xiao Zhe
[Whatever Squad] Lu Yan kills [Wind Whispers] Xiao Yao
[Whatever Squad] Lu Yan kills [Wind Whispers] Xiao Chi
Seeing these three entries, the Greyhound Omega paled. He stowed his sniper and jumped down from the poplar, attempting to flee—but a strong hand gripped his neck before he could turn.
Bai Chunian held the Omega by the neck, not letting him breathe freely but not letting him suffocate either, dragging the lean figure closer to inspect. “Let’s see whose little dog you are. Trying to run? Come here, then.”
Like a male lion bringing prey back to the den, Bai Chunian captured Xiao Xun alive, dragging him to a corner.
Xiao Xun twitched. Bai Chunian lifted a rifle with one hand, pressing the muzzle to his forehead. “Move, and you’re done.”
“You could just shoot me,” Xiao Xun said coldly, glaring as though insulted, fingers trembling.
Bai Chunian nudged him with the rifle again. “Think carefully. You’re the last one left on your team. You’re the village’s hope now. Behave, and answer my questions.”
Xiao Xun closed his eyes. “Ask.”
“What is your J1 ability?” Bai Chunian asked.
A pause. Then in a soft voice: “Universal dashboard.”
Bai Chunian’s eyes brightened. “Makes sense.”
Greyhound Omega J1 differentiation—Universal Dashboard: wind direction, wind speed, range, target dynamics analysis—every sniping parameter instantly visible.
Where a skilled sniper’s advantage lies in faster target analysis, this Omega didn’t need to analyze; it was as if handed a math problem—others see the question first, Xiao Xun sees the answer immediately.
“Second question,” Bai Chunian said, lowering the rifle from Xiao Xun’s forehead, “how old are you?”
Xiao Xun turned his head, unwilling to answer. Bai Chunian raised the SA80 and fired a round at the rubber floor between Xiao Xun’s legs, the hot muzzle moving upward. “Stubborn, huh? Let’s see about neutering you later, little pup.”
The threat made Xiao Xun shiver, his face flushing and paling repeatedly. After a long pause, he barely whispered, “Nineteen.” Tears slowly welled in his eyes.
“Scared now?” Bai Chunian rested his cheek on the rifle and smiled. “Not like when you sniped our little Omega, taking them down one shot at a time. You’ve got skills—if I didn’t tease you a bit, it wouldn’t be fair.”
Having had his fun, Bai Chunian stripped three detonation inhibitors off Xiao Xun’s belt, leaving only one with forty minutes until deactivation. “Let’s go. Let’s see if you can drag the three useless remnants of your team through to day two.”
Xiao Xun’s eyelashes lifted in surprise, realizing Bai Chunian genuinely intended to let him go. Tentatively, he reached for his sniper, found no one stopping him, and dashed out the window, disappearing quickly.
Bai Chunian ignored him and crouched under the chair to check on Lanbo. Lu Yan glared at Xiao Xun’s retreating figure, not understanding why he’d been spared.
It was just an exam; Bai Chunian had no reason to truly punish an Omega taking the test seriously. Besides, Xiao Xun wasn’t a hired pro—just teasing him for a while sufficed.
Lanbo’s situation was more complicated.
Though his health bar had been replenished by the recovery serum, he still hid under the chair, wrapping his tail tightly around himself, eyes alert. In true tactile VR, the sensation of pain was as real as the physical world. His body instinctively activated defensive and self-healing mechanisms, curling into a “fish ball” to gradually recover—a unique merfolk ability.
Bai Chunian had to lift him out, gently patting his back while releasing calming pheromones. “It’s okay, nothing’s wrong. Open up, I’ll hold you.”
Weakly, Lanbo gazed at him, hesitantly touched his tail, found a blue-glowing scale, lifted it despite the pain, and placed it in Bai Chunian’s palm. He repeated this, handing over more scales, until the most beautiful ones were stripped bare in Bai Chunian’s hand.
Bai Chunian finally understood—Lanbo was leaving a keepsake, convinced he might die.
How do you explain to a linguistically incapable, exotic species that this was merely an exam? Online, awaiting instructions—impossible.