Chapter 6 – The Collapsing Captain
Shao Zhan, fighting fiercely on the battlefield, had no idea that his image in the minds of his teammates had already crumbled beyond repair.
Due to being surrounded from multiple directions, what was supposed to be a casual match had inevitably turned into a brutal urban skirmish.
Bullets rained down from all sides. Shao Zhan crouched behind the ruins, using the cover of smoke. As everyone’s attention focused on a two-story building shrouded in mist, a shadowy figure suddenly darted through the smoke, vaulted over a wall, and disappeared into the maze-like structures beyond.
Behind him, sighs echoed through the all-channel voice chat.
No one could comprehend how, in the blink of an eye, a heavily wounded player had managed to throw two smoke grenades as a feint, and, relying on terrifying decisiveness and execution, charged toward his only path to survival.
All they knew was that the fleeting silhouette vaulting over the wall belonged to the man who had dominated the rankings for consecutive seasons. And in that split second, they had lost their final chance to pull a god down from his pedestal.
The “Puzzle Buildings“—named for their resemblance to interlocking puzzle pieces—were the perfect hiding spot in an uncoordinated siege like this.
Though there was a risk of a thorough search, for a player of Mars’s caliber, once inside, he would vanish like a mudfish into the sea. No matter how many people were sent after him, they would only be walking into their own demise.
Experienced opponents understood this well—if they wanted to stop him, they had to intercept him before he reached a terrain where he could fully exploit his advantage.
On the rooftop of a third-floor building not far away, a sharp-eyed figure stayed locked in Shao Zhan’s blind spot, watching his every move like a venomous serpent. The sniper aligned his crosshairs with Shao Zhan’s bloodied helmet and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot shattered the silence, sending shockwaves rippling through the all-channel.
In the split second he vaulted over the wall, Shao Zhan switched to a Thompson submachine gun. Though sacrificing some firepower, he sprayed bullets into every possible hiding spot within his blind spot, covering his leap through the air.
Shao Zhan had no idea how so many players had converged behind him, but his instincts told him that someone must have rallied the randoms at the start of the match to orchestrate this siege against him.
And in his mental database, there was only one cunning strategist with a rebellious streak and a hurricane-like charisma capable of such influence—Luan Feng, code name: Storm.
So, before breaking out of the encirclement, Shao Zhan had to consider not only the damage from stray bullets fired by random players but also calculate the possible position of the sniper beyond the wall, his own shooting range, the opponent’s weapon choice, and the potential lethality of hidden sniper nests…
Though seemingly complex, all these streams of data were processed and extended in Shao Zhan’s mind in an instant. As a top-tier player, his strength lay in maximizing his advantages even in extreme disadvantageous situations.
If time allowed, he could even deduce the enemy’s tactical strategy and devise multiple counterattack plans for each possible scenario.
However, in a situation where he was besieged from all sides, Shao Zhan had few choices. He could only maneuver within the limited terrain available.
The spot where he landed after vaulting over the wall was a crate—an object he had spotted through a crack in the wall while deploying the smoke. But that was not the cover he chose.
Because the rebellious Storm would never willingly put himself in a lone-wolf situation if he had a choice. At the same time, the hastily assembled encirclement was not reliable enough to gain the trust of the ever-suspicious Storm.
Shao Zhan was gambling. Gambling that those on the other side of the wall each had their own agenda. Gambling that Luan Feng, willing to expose his own position, would bet everything on the only teammate he truly trusted. Gambling that the pursuers behind him, lacking unified command, would fail to coordinate an effective attack in time. Gambling that his reflexes were fast enough. Gambling on his luck.
After leaping over the wall, he didn’t linger behind cover. Instead, using the crate as a pivot, he dashed toward a small, single-story tool shed at an angle—all the while suppressing Storm’s teammate positioned above with continuous gunfire.
Even while mid-air and moving unpredictably, he tossed a grenade.
But in that electrifying instant of movement, Shao Zhan paid the price—a brutal hit to the legs from an S12K shotgun.
In truth, the semi-automatic S12K only added to his already critical injuries. The actual damage to his dangerously low health bar was significantly less than he had anticipated.
Had Shao Zhan followed conventional wisdom and crouched behind the crate for cover, that 12-gauge round would have landed squarely on his Level 2 helmet—nothing more than a decorative piece at this point.
Put bluntly, if that shot had been a clean headshot, Storm’s team would have secured their victory right then and there.
But the battlefield doesn’t deal in “what-ifs.” Seizing the moment while Luan Feng was healing, Shao Zhan lobbed another grenade toward the garage on the left.
This thing might not have high lethality, but its flashy sparks and lightning effects were enough to fool novice players.
Judging by the way the attacks and chases had played out so far, the fan Storm had chosen for his team was about as skilled as the other one, who had been hiding in the house, lying prone to avoid the AI-controlled bots.
Storm’s prolonged absence from the earlier brawl likely wasn’t due to some noble sense of honor. Instead, he had probably been using the chaos to coach his fan on aiming with basic firearms—ensuring that the moment Shao Zhan appeared, the fan would be ready to land a headshot.
In fact, if Storm had put a fully intact helmet on his fan, positioned him on the rooftop as a decoy, and then hidden himself inside the garage to ambush Shao Zhan, there would have been no chance of survival for him.
Fortunately, that hurricane-like player hadn’t resorted to such an underhanded tactic. Even at the critical moment of deciding victory or defeat, he maintained the dignity of a professional esports player.
Burned by the flames, the panicked fan jumped out, completely exposing himself to Shao Zhan’s crosshairs. But before Shao Zhan could even take a shot, the terrified fan dropped to the ground and started crawling forward across the open dirt.
Pretending not to see him, Shao Zhan focused on healing himself. Meanwhile, Luan Feng—Storm—who had stabilized at 70% health, was already impatiently repositioning.
The two were long-time rivals on the battlefield, well-versed in each other’s thought processes and tactical habits—down to the smallest habits they had when driving in-game.
Storm knew Shao Zhan wouldn’t just sit there waiting to die. Staying in the flimsy, single-story tool shed would be suicide, so he was most likely already outside, using the wall as cover and preparing to snipe him.
To counter this, Storm threw grenades to the left, right, and behind the tool shed, hoping for a hit notification on Shao Zhan.
But the good news he anticipated never arrived.
Still, Storm wasn’t discouraged. He kept moving, fully aware that his opponent was the reigning champion of the entire league—victory wouldn’t come easy.
In other words, if Shao Zhan were the type to get taken out that easily, that would be the real disappointment.
As he repositioned, Storm also used team voice chat to direct the downed fan toward cover while preparing to provide suppressing fire himself.
Shao Zhan’s exact condition was unknown, but after enduring a chaotic siege that could have overwhelmed even a veteran, he surely wasn’t in great shape.
At that thought, the seasoned Storm suddenly felt a chill.
It was too loud, yet too quiet. There was none of the tension that should come with a life-or-death showdown.
At this point, Mars should have been holding an angle, locking his sights onto every movement Storm and his teammate made. But there was nothing—only an eerie silence brimming with untold possibilities, pressing down on him like an invisible weight.
At the same time, as Luan Feng—Storm—struggled against the invisible pressure weighing on him, Shao Zhan was indeed “watching” him. But not with his eyes—with his ears, discerning Storm’s positioning and movement through the sounds of footsteps upstairs.
He was well aware of how deeply Storm understood his playstyle. No experienced player would willingly trap themselves inside a flimsy, cramped tool shed with no real defensive capability in a situation like this.
That was precisely why Storm had chosen his grenade placements based on the most likely spots Shao Zhan would have moved to. In truth, if Storm hadn’t been so hesitant to waste his limited explosives and had thrown just one more, or if Shao Zhan had been any average player who instinctively retreated into the building, he would have already become just another death notification on the kill feed.
But there are no “what-ifs” on the battleground of PUBG. Shao Zhan had deliberately exploited the fact that his opponent was a professional player. Even though every instinct told him to run, he forced himself to stay put, lying motionless inside the room.
This time, he was gambling on Storm’s deeply ingrained competitive instincts—and the instability of the hastily assembled team beyond the wall.
The chaotic firefight outside and Storm’s careful repositioning were all part of Shao Zhan’s plan. When the player on the second floor abandoned their height advantage, jumping down to support their teammates and end the fight in close quarters, their defeat was already sealed.
Seizing the moment Storm went airborne, Shao Zhan vaulted out of the building, leaping past the fan who was still crouched by the crate with most of his body exposed. He landed at the side of the garage, immediately aiming to snipe Storm mid-movement.
He wasn’t worried about the downed fan giving away his position—what he feared was that Storm wouldn’t move fast enough for him to end the fight quickly.
Yet, this supposedly foolproof ambush was gradually unraveling, disrupted by a series of small, unexpected disturbances.
The chaotic battle that had once engulfed Shao Zhan was finally coming to an end. The victors, brimming with confidence, vaulted over obstacles in pursuit of their fleeing targets, eager for revenge.
To avoid exposing himself to enemy fire, Shao Zhan jumped into a makeshift garage, using an inoperable car as cover.
Now, elite players flanked him on the left, while a sea of opponents closed in from the right. Once again, he found himself trapped in a dire situation.
Just as he was rapidly calculating which direction offered the best chance of breaking through, two gunshots rang out. A notification flashed across the screen:
[NewbieMercy used 98K to knock down Arrogance—Storm]
Shao Zhan knew this name all too well. It was that seemingly meek and well-behaved student-girl.
Seeing an opening in what had been a dead-end, Shao Zhan immediately relayed an order through team comms: “Keep firing! Don’t stop.”
“B-but I… I can’t aim properly,” NewbieMercy stammered.
Even at the most critical moment, when Shao Zhan had been on the verge of being overwhelmed, he had still taken the time to reassure his nervous teammate. Even while she had been running in frantic circles, chased around the room by bots, he had found a way to steady her emotions.
Yet, for her to have navigated across the map, found his exact position, and taken down the most dangerous enemy—Storm—was something he had never even considered possible.
But since she had made it this far, Shao Zhan wasn’t going to hold back. He was more than willing to entrust her with bigger responsibilities.
At that moment, an unfamiliar feeling surged in NewbieMercy’s heart.
For the first time, she truly felt that she was being treated as a teammate—not a burden, not a fangirl needing protection, but a real part of the team.
Besides, it wasn’t like he was asking her to land precise shots. All she had to do was keep firing. Who knew? Maybe she could even do something that would make him see her in a new light!