Liu Haoming stared at the glaring word "DEFEAT" on his screen, thoroughly annoyed.
With a toxic teammate like Three Hands, winning was never in the cards.
He requeued, and on a whim, picked Viktor himself. As far as he was concerned, last game's Viktor had been absolute garbage, with nowhere near his own understanding of the champion.
Whether by coincidence or fate, his team's top laner also picked Garen this game, making the team comp eerily similar to the last one.
It didn't take long after the game started for Liu Haoming and the Garen to be at each other's throats:
"The enemy Renekton went MIA from top — why didn't you call it?!"
Garen fired back indignantly: "Whether Renekton goes MIA or not, you think I can control what he does?!"
Liu Haoming: "??"
Is that even what I said?
Garen: "Quit your bitching. I hate keyboard warriors like you the most — all tough behind a screen. If you've got the balls, drop your number and address. I'll come find you in real life!"
With a cold laugh, Liu Haoming posted the phone number and address that Three Hands had given him last game.
Once it was sent, he felt a guilty twinge, like a thief afraid of getting caught. He glanced around. Li Xi sat bolt upright at her monitor, fingers clacking nonstop at the keyboard, eyes locked unblinking on the screen.
"You have to hand it to her — that's a real gaming addict for you. Completely in the zone."
Liu Haoming thought.
***
Jianglin Fortress.
BRRRRRRT!
Every soldier on the wall stared in utter disbelief at the female soldier spraying down monsters with a sniper rifle. Einstein's coffin lid was about to fly right off its hinges. Their understanding of the world had taken a devastating blow, and their jaws nearly hit the ground.
This was beyond comprehension. How could a single sniper rifle hold that many rounds? And how could it possibly withstand such ferocious sustained fire?
Even in a novel, you've got to give me SOME logic! Otherwise who'd read this crap, you hack author?!
Had Li Xi known what they were all thinking, she would have been baffled and shot right back: "Why would a virtual world need to follow logic? Just modify the computer program, and can't you have whatever you want?"
As far as she was concerned, this virtual world already came remarkably close to reality. At the very least, the feel of shooting and the way the monsters reacted to being hit were indistinguishable from the real thing.
The 【Blue-Fire Gatling】 she'd bought from the shop held 30,000 rounds in all, and all 30,000 were gone in under three minutes. That terrifying deluge swept a huge swath of the densely packed Beast Tide below the wall clean in an instant, though new monsters quickly swarmed in to fill the gap.
【Killed 980 monsters. Earned 2,988 gold coins. Earned 290,000 EXP.】
【Player leveled up to Lv. 14. Earned 3 skill points.】
The system tallied the results of that Gatling barrage.
Li Xi split her three skill points across Endurance, Stamina, and Agility. By now she understood that leveling got harder as you went: at the start, a single monster had been enough for a level, but now she'd killed nearly a thousand and gained only three. Skill points didn't come easy, and she couldn't afford to waste them.
As the blue flames at the muzzle sputtered and died, the soldiers, strangely, breathed a collective sigh of relief. And here we thought your sniper rifle had infinite ammo...
But the very next moment...
BRRRRRRT!
Li Xi purchased another round of 【Blue-Fire Gatling】, and the blue flames roared back to life, raining tongues of annihilation down on the monsters below.
Chen Lei sucked in a sharp breath. This female comrade... was goddamn terrifying!!
"Focus on engaging the monsters! Under no circumstances do you stop firing!"
Chen Lei barked the order at the soldiers around him, who were gawking even as they fired. It was meant for Li Xi too.
He had a gut feeling that the hope of repelling today's Beast Tide no longer lay with the reinforcements from Sector Two, but with this mysterious female soldier. Now he prayed she would work an even greater miracle for Jianglin Fortress.
Li Xi had become a tireless meat grinder of war. Every second, more monsters were shredded to pieces under her Gatling barrage. All the hatred she bore the monsters of the real world, she poured into this game, and every time a magazine ran dry, she bought another without a moment's hesitation.
【Killed 1,120 monsters. Earned 3,372 gold coins. Earned 352,100 EXP.】
【Killed 1,092 monsters. Earned 3,133 gold coins. Earned 32,210 EXP.】
【Killed 999 monsters...】
After seven or eight barrages, the monster corpses below the wall were piled into mountains of mangled, bloody flesh. Li Xi alone had killed more monsters than all the other soldiers combined, a number that was downright frightening.
"There's way fewer monsters now!" the male soldier beside her shouted in excitement.
"We've held Jianglin Fortress!"
Looking down at the thinning ranks of monsters, the soldiers were beside themselves with joy, and every eye that turned toward Li Xi burned with fervor.
They knew full well that this female soldier had been indispensable in tonight's defense of Jianglin Fortress. With nothing but her rifle, she had gunned down over ten thousand monsters! Without her, things would have been far more dire.
At first, Li Xi's inhuman performance had truly shaken them. But as her kill count climbed, their alarm turned by degrees into reverence, and some soldiers even began to believe she was a divine messenger sent to save Jianglin Fortress.
"We did it!"
"Goddamn monsters! You think Jianglin Fortress is that easy to invade? Come back for more if you've got the guts!"
"Mom, Dad, we did it. We actually held the fortress..."
Some soldiers wept, some laughed, and some cursed at the top of their lungs, but every one of them was swept up in the same overwhelming surge of emotion.
Li Xi's expression was conflicted. As the single greatest contributor to this battle, she couldn't bring herself to share in their joy.
Because she knew — none of this was real.
She had only helped Jianglin Fortress repel the Beast Tide in a virtual world. The real Jianglin Fortress had probably already fallen.
She could even picture the fortress after its fall: the earth split open, fires raging everywhere, countless civilians running and screaming, the vast shadows of monsters covering every inch of land.
She didn't even know if she would ever see her parents again in this lifetime.
Li Xi wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and turned her grief into resolve. She raised her sniper rifle again, took aim, and pulled the trigger without mercy. With every shot, another monster crumpled into a pool of its own blood.
She had over 30,000 gold coins now, but the battle was nearly over. Only a few dozen stragglers remained below the wall, and there was no need to buy powerful weapons for them. She was a frugal girl; one shot, one kill with an ordinary sniper rifle was plenty.
"Hey, comrade."
Chen Lei patted Li Xi on the shoulder. She turned her head and saw a radiant smile on his face — one that came straight from the heart.
"You're goddamn amazing!"
The Supreme Commander of Jianglin Fortress offered the young woman his heartfelt admiration.