Master of the Stars

How embarrassing....Luo Nan never realized that the result would be like this. He couldn’t refrain from cursing under his breath while Mo Peng and the others in their circle laughed as a group.

Then someone went, "Hey!" and said, "Did another person just log on?"

Luo Nan didn’t pay attention to what this topic led to. The entire battlefield of people had all taken notice of his existence, thanks to the taunt. Whether it were the naive, the economic, or the casual players, most of them had started heading over.

Luo Nan didn’t just stand there like an idiot and wait for them to come over. He searched for the most suitable area to unleash heavy fire. He disregarded all other elements: a hill was enough.

He chose a nice spot at the top of the hills and he followed his familiar ways. He simply setup a platform to maximize his firepower, then he waited for people of every variety to come.

"A noob." When seeing this scene, the thousands of onlookers thoughts all synchronized: "He’s totally a noob."

To choose this sort of heavily armed fire power expert in this environment was already noobie enough. Luo Nan chose a place without any cover at all. He was out in the open. Setting up a frame with a huge grin on his face....he was simply making himself a giant target!

The effects of the smoke taunt was good. In a short thirty seconds, some targets had entered the range of the Fire-Eye platform and were captured by its search radar.

The electromagnetic radiation alerted the enemy as well, causing the enemy to timely react and perform evasive maneuvers. Luo Nan silently pulled the trigger without any hesitation in manual mode.

"Too early!" Mo Peng, Tian Qi, and Luo Biyao shrieked.

A low hill could be seen far in the distance. It was shaved flat by the projectile and smoke and flame erupt everywhere. The visual effects were nice, but the actual effect on the battle was near zero even after a wave of bullets were sent over.

Since Luo Nan didn’t hit, he just continued shooting.

Mo Peng couldn’t refrain from screaming, "Can you take your finger off the trigger for one second?"

Before he could finish speaking, the enemy panicked amidst the streaks of bullets that blotted the sky. The enemy made an accidental sidestep and was hit by the torrent of bullets dead on. He froze, then was simply carried away by the fire.

Luo Nan randomly got his first kill this way. There was also the background commentator who groaned in a weak, "First Blood."

But area A went into an uproar because of this. The unexpected elimination brought about an unexpected opportunity. It was impossible to guess how many people pressed the grab button, wishing to become one of the lucky ones.

Mo Peng choked in shock from the result. Then he determined, "You drowned him to death! Just look at your ammo reserves...."

The hero Heiya had the Fire-Eye platform as his core ability. It was built upon a large weight-bearing exoskeleton armor. Though he lacked in movement speed, he was the hero that carried the most ammunition out of all the Standby types. He was fully equipped with three reserves for each ammunition type. Plus there was one more reserve that Nubi carried, for a total of four. The total weight exceeded a ton.

However, Luo Nan’s heroic play had consumed one-fourth of a base ammunition reserve. This was the same as depleting one-sixteenth of his total ammunition reserves. This was truly a stupid newbie action.

He would have to face nearly thirty enemies. His methods would certainly leave him out of ammunition and in desperate straits near the end. Forget it, he was truly a stupid noob.

"Giant noob! Remember to leave a bullet for yourself. Otherwise you’ll be jumping into a ring of fire!"

The so-called ’ring of fire’ was a term used in the game. It meant that the player had lost the power to fight back, like they had become a circus animal, putting on a humiliating show for the public. There were all sort of marvels and oddities in the game, so Mo Peng was really scared about misfortune befalling upon his brother.

Because of this, he simply screamed at the top of his lungs, "Use burst fire! Burst fire!"

Enemies were approaching really close this time. There were five, six people who entered the range of the Fire-Eye platform one by one. These people weren’t stupid. They spread out in their approach, coming from different directions. The search radar alarm was going off endlessly. Luo Nan turned his head all around, making a general assessment of the situation. Then....

He didn’t say shit! He simply opened fire!

The Fire-Eye platform radiated a circle of beautiful curve shaped trajectories. Even if the battlefield environment was set to be day time, the trajectory was extremely dazzling to the eyes.

Raining fire down on all sides... Well, Luo Nan actually did listen to Mo Peng’s suggestion. He used burst fire. It was just that when the speed was so fast, what was the difference between burst fire and automatic fire?

For the sake of keeping up with the paces of the six targets, Luo Nan even put Heiya’s most powerfully equipped individual weapon, an electromagnetic sniper cannon, to use. It flashed out, and amidst the crackling sound of electrical currents, Luo Nan used up over half of its precious special ammunition.

Area A’s onlookers all laughed, "He didn’t run. What a super duper noob!"

In just a few breaths of time, two base reserves of ammunitions were completed depleted. Everyone watching let out breaths of amazement, "He’s truly bold!"

But Luo Nan was not the only player in this game. Within the trajectories of bullets that came cutting in from all directions, Luo Nan reaped a double kill. The enormous might of the electromagnetic sniper cannon had smashed a Mutant player character into pieces.

At this time, some people were able to tell that there were some good points within Luo Nan’s crappy gaming skills. His recoil control was decent, and his calibration ability was sufficient. He didn’t really need to go great lengths to get a kill. Otherwise, even with the support of the Fire-Eye platform, it would be that easy to get a double kill.

The problem was that there truly wasn’t enough space.

More and more people still continued to amass around Luo Nan because of the taunt skill he displayed earlier. Attacking people coming from all sides was very inefficient. There were too many chances lost to control the pace. There were at least five enemies entering the five-hundred meter range near simultaneously.

This was the effective attack area of the Fire-Eye platform, but with enemies coming from many sides, Luo Nan became someone with his hands and feet tied together.

Though none of the enemies were heavily armed firepower expert characters, there were still characters of the long-range specialty. Luo Nan’s Fire-Eye platform was completely stationary. It was the perfect target. Bullet trajectories began to streak by him, some of them smashing against the defensive armor of the Fire-Eye platform. Sparks and smoke came flying out, and damage was caused to parts of the equipment.

Whether it was Mo Peng, Tian Qi, or Luo Biyao, all were listless. It took a while before a sentence was squeezed out in a half-dead manner, "First get the long-range...."

Luo Nan continued to follow the advice coming from his friends. He completely ignored the fire coming from all directions and concentrated his own fire. He depleted through half of his third base reserve of ammunition to finally submerge his target in bullets.

Third kill! And it was a kill chain achievement!

The system announcer’s voice turned thick and powerful, "Heiya has activated killing mode!"

All right. This fighting style was not bad, at the very least.

Mo Peng and the other ’staff’ didn’t know whether they should be relieved or sullen.

Then Luo Nan asked them for help for the first time, "How does Heiya deal with close-range attacks?"

This terrible question, akin to sharpening a blade just before a battle, made Mo Peng angry to the point of falling over, "Close my ass! When an opponent gets close, they can do whatever the hell they want with you. Switch targets. Quick! Switch!"

The closest enemy had already pressed into a distance of a hundred meters.

It was a Deep Blue Walker character, an exoskeleton armor possessing both power and beauty. The mechanical rigidity couldn’t be seen at all as it unleashed a weaving movement in its approach. It danced like a butterfly, which meant the player must be an expert. It was impossible for the Fire-Eye platform’s search radar to lock onto this player.

In situations like this, one could only rely on manual control, but Luo Nan was left with only half a base of ammunition reserves thanks to his ammo consumption rate. He might not even be able to touch the opponent at all.

Luo Biyao sighed, "You can say ’gg’ now."

"Heiya doesn’t have close-range attacks?" Luo Nan stopped using his absolute technique of drowning his enemies in bullets and instead dug into his equipment search for a way to attack at close range.

Mo Peng watched with burning eyes. He hated not being able to simply reach out and take control of the Fire-Eye platform.

In the end, it was Tian Qi who said, "There’s a handgun in the right-leg holster. The default fire mode is burst fire, but it should be changed to single shot. Otherwise, the recoil would be too strong...."

Luo Nan simply discarded the electromagnetic sniper cannon; it was in the way. And he reached for the outer-side of his right side. The corresponding equipment was triggered and a sinister looking handgun appeared in the palm of his hand. By the time he took it, the Deep Blue Walker had already entered a range of thirty meters. The Deep Blue Walker was pushing faster and faster, breaking through the sound barrier.

"Fuck. Not even enough time to lift the barrel!"

Luo Nan didn’t even try raising the gun barrel. It pointed diagonally to the ground as a series of gunshots rang forth. The barrel, which was large enough to fit an infant’s fist inside, jiggled slightly as a cloud of dust exploded from the ground. Flame and fluids burst amidst a scream.

The chaotic red earth suddenly swelled up, and a contorted and fragmented arthropod insect came screaming and struggling out. This action exhausted the last of its blood. It fell down, never to get up again.

"Heiya is killing people like the reaper! Who can stop him?!" The system announcer powerfully emphasized.

Area A’s onlookers went into an uproar. Like the winds of the prairies, the grass-like emotions were pressed into a form shaped by momentum.

"Monstrous Mole Cricket! So there was an assassin player like this in this game!"

"Then he died."

"Did you see it? The radar didn’t go off!"

Regardless of what character this player used, the player was able to conceal himself from the onlookers who had God View. This made the onlookers admire the player. But in the end, he was blasted into paste by Luo Nan’s handgun. He died bitterly and miserably.

But, how was he discovered?

The intense progression of the battle situation didn’t wait for the audience to clear up their doubts. The Deep Blue Walker was moving at supersonic speeds, pouncing before Luo Nan.

Its alloy blade pointed forward with the Format of Fire circulating upon it--cycloblade! This was already near the realm of fantasy. In reality, no one had seen such a thing used before.

The power of this blade could cut through anything like a hot knife through butter. The blade-light flashed, and the Fire-Eye platform’s defensive armor was simply cut in two, like it was softer than a block of tofu. As for Luo Nan, he fell backward as his exoskeleton helmet split open to reveal a sorry state.

But the instant he fell, the powerful recoil of his handgun naturally pushed him back up, and the special ammunition burst forth with flame. He fired endlessly, simply emptying the remaining half of his base ammunition reserves.

In such close range, bullets would always achieve something as long as the trigger was pulled. The Deep Blue Walker let out a pained scream, and the impacts on the supersonic level gave quite the painful sensation even with the exoskeleton armor the reduce the impact.

Luo Nan used the recoil to create more distance between them. When his feet touched the ground again, he picked up the electromagnetic sniper cannon he had just discarded before, raised it, and aimed.

The Deep Blue Walker endured the intense pain in his chest and performed a classic evasive maneuver. At the same time, the muzzle of Luo Nan’s gun ejected the metal projectile that was fully-charged with electricity.

The heavy projectile penetrated the neck-joint of the Deep Blue Walker’s exoskeleton armor. The trajectory faced slightly upward, causing the head that was connected to the upper half of the chest to explode into smithereens.

One hit to hell!

The system announcer exploded, "Penta-Kill! Heiya is unstoppable! He’s filling the garbage dump with the corpses of his enemies."

Luo Nan let out a breath of relief, lowered the barrel of his gun, and laughed.

The movement patterns of other characters might be hard to grasp for Luo Nan, but Luo Nan had taken Quantum Corporation to be one of his enemies. How could he not have studied their exoskeleton armors over the course of a month?

Plus, he had observed the Deep Blue Walker in frontal combat before. He really understood their typical movement patterns.

Grasp the rhythm and seize the timing!

Area A practical explode while Luo Nan smiled.

Luo Nan’s series of movements, on-the-spot shooting, shifting his position using the power of recoil, dropping his gun and reclaiming his gun, and killing with a single strike was done over the course of a five or six seconds. He had killed two people, one after another, like a falcon swooping down the moment a hare is flushed out.

The entirety of area A’s onlookers, let alone Mo Peng and the others, had a moment of silence before exploding into clamor.

"Holy shit. What the heck happened!?"

"Motherfucker. Completely read."

"He’s a noob my ass!"

"Five empty spots, and I wasn’t able to snatch a single one!"

The chaos of area A didn’t affect the progress of the battlefield’s slaughter. Luo Nan’s actions, no matter how pretty, only resulted in two people killed. The remaining enemies didn’t see the beautiful scene. They only knew that the targets weren’t moving and that a barrage of bullets wasn’t starting up again. This encouraged them, making them press on, moving closer to attack.

Having taken a blow from the Deep Blue Walker’s cycloblade, the Fire-Eye platform had lost most of its functionality. It was difficult to self-diagnose and self-repair. Luo Nan was carrying an unwieldy electromagnetic sniper cannon in his hands as well as a handgun with empty magazines. His prospects were not looking good.

Another player rushed over in a mere five seconds. He had chosen a Mutant character. Fortunately, Luo Nan was familiar with it. It looked like an enormous wasp. Its name was Feng Huang. This was the hero character that Zhang Yingying had chosen way back on Ship Lanshan.

Luo Nan was really out of options now, but he ignored the imminent threat completely. Instead, he whistled. This was the signal for Nubi to load ammunition, as part of the system functions.

"Load your ass. Shut down!"

The player, who felt that victory was in his grasp, proclaimed this loudly. He would take Luo Nan’s place.

Blade-light dazzled in the next second, severing the player’s lower half as well as his poisonous needle in two. It was a fatal blow.

The blade-light banished, and a majestic figure equipped in simple exoskeleton armor appeared in the light’s place, standing there like a guardian angel.

Xue Lei had arrived.

No one had seen exactly how he had arrived. In the short few minutes, Xue Lei had broken through the people surrounding and chasing him and crossed a distance of seven kilometers to make it to Luo Nan, killing all that were in his way.

Though he was striking while on the run, Xue Lei had noiselessly accumulated three kills. He had already started a killing spree.

Of the thirty-four people who first joined, ten had already been eliminated with eight by Luo Nan’s and Xue Lei’s hands. Of the thousand of onlookers, some had even forgotten to take the chance to snatch a spot. They stayed idle watching the live broadcast, their minds not accepting reality.

Among all the onlookers, Papercut could be considered to be the most calm. Such a result was quite natural from his perspective.

Perhaps in this following month, Luo Nan’s basic qualities were still on the level of ordinary people, despite the terrifying accumulation of soul strength. However, his progress in cultivation stabilized his soul strength, causing his imbalance between body and soul to slowly find equilibrium. Luo Nan was certainly in a stage of rapid transformation.

His total strength was limited by his physical body; it couldn’t be said to be exceptional. But his endurance, balance, coordination, reactions, and other indicators were already beyond the scope of normal people.

The foundation of a skyscraper, when compared to simple houses, possessed a completely different essence, even if the height was almost the same.

Whether it was the random spraying of bullets earlier or the reckless consumption of bullets, all were part of the process where Luo Nan observed and captured the tempo. Otherwise, separated by hundred of meters, it would be hard to attribute three kills, one and another, as luck.

This single point was made clear in the moment he made his fifth kill. Though his opponent had entered the realm of supersonic, the difference in their reactions were a light year apart. They were two worlds apart.

However, there was one thing that Papercut wasn’t clear about. He simply asked, "That giant cockroach, how did you discover it?"

"Sensed it." Luo Nan was taking things leisurely. He slowly loaded himself with ammunition from the robotic dog Nubi while he answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Hehe, the sixth sense of a homebody. Do you want to compare with us sisters?" Mo Han mocked without mercy. Papercut would never have an understanding that superficial.

Sense? Luo Nan was in the virtual world, affected by the guiding software. His soul strength was withdrawn. What the hell could he sense under the layers of transformations of electrical signals?

Motherfucker. Confused yet again.