Rewind With A Superstar System

Chapter 153: Battle Royale (1)

<🎧 Song Recommendation: We Don’t Get Along by Juice Wrld, Marshmello>

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"I know, Mom! I’m logging in right now!"

A boy walked into his bedroom with a tired sigh. He had just spent the last four hours grinding ranked matches, and now it was time for his least favorite activity.

"Two hours, Darwin! Keep your door open!" his mother’s voice came back from the downstairs home office.

Darwin rolled his eyes. He used his elbow to bump the door so it swung back, leaving a few inches of space so she would know it wasn’t locked.

He adjusted his glasses and picked up the Calculus textbooks scattered on the bed, making his way to the desk near his window.

If Darwin was being honest with himself, the sudden H-19 lockdown was the greatest thing to ever happen to him.

Sure, the world outside was in a state of panic, and he hadn’t seen his friends in person for over two weeks.

But for a sixteen-year-old high school junior, the transition to virtual learning was the best experience imaginable.

He never liked school anyway. The early mornings, the boring classes, the gossiping, all of it was gone. Now, he could attend classes from the comfort of his own room.

He would have been perfectly okay with the new arrangements, if only it wasn’t a Saturday.

’Who would schedule classes on a Saturday?’ Darwin couldn’t help but facepalm in thought.

This wasn’t just any regular Saturday, either. Today was the opening day for the Global Siege Invitational. Since he lived in Los Angeles, the event was beginning at 2:00 PM his time, which was exactly three minutes away.

Darwin walked over to his desk where his pc gaming set up was. He ran a solid mid-range PC housing an RTX 2060, more than enough to run the latest titles at high frame rates.

It was easy to recognize his true priorities; his walls were plastered with framed esports posters, glowing LED strip lights, and weapon replicas.

He looked down at his gaming chair. It was currently occupied.

His miniature poodle, Buster, was curled up into a curly ball right in the center of the seat, fast asleep.

"Come on, buddy. You have a whole bed right there," Darwin muttered fondly.

He bent down, gently scooping up the small dog, and transferred him over to the mattress. He gave Buster a soft pat on the head before slumping into his reclaimed chair and sliding up to the desk.

As a junior, this semester was supposed to be the most critical for his college applications.

Because the H-19 virus had disrupted the syllabus, his calculus teacher, Mr. Higgins, was hosting a mandatory Saturday makeup class. There was simply no time left to cover the material before the state exams.

Darwin dragged his school laptop open and joined the Zoom meeting, instantly muting his microphone and adjusting his camera so his face wasn’t shown in full.

A grid of thirty tired, bored faces popped up on the screen, most of them staring blankly at ceilings or ceiling fans. Mr. Higgins was already clearing his throat into a headset mic as he welcomed the class.

But Darwin wasn’t paying attention. The beauty of the lockdown was that he didn’t have to.

He navigated straight to Glitch, pulling his headset over his ears and mixing the Zoom audio with his monitor’s own.

Through the split-screen mode, Darwin was able to watch the stream perfectly while keeping one eye on the lecture just in case his name was called.

In-game, the broadcast showed the massive, metallic interior of a flying dropship. All one hundred characters were lined up in their pairs, fully geared and waiting to be deployed into the map.

Suddenly, a booming, mechanical voice echoed through the dropship bay, explaining the rules of the tournament.

{Welcome, Warriors, to The Sprawl! This is a Core Rush! Unlike your standard battle royales, there is no shrinking safe zone. You must explore the ruins to uncover hidden Cores scattered across the map. But beware, when you eliminate an enemy player, you steal every single Core they have collected!}

{Asides harvested Cores, each player drops a Core when they’re eliminated for the first time.}

{Death is not the end, but it is costly. Upon elimination, players will respawn after a twenty-second penalty at a random location.}

{However, your lives are limited. Each player will be permanently eliminated from the tournament after five deaths. You have ten minutes. The top thirty-two teams with the most Cores at the end of the countdown will advance. Drop in, and claim your glory!}

Darwin was already aware of the rules. He had spent the last week studying the tournament format on SubVerse. He kept his eyes flicking to the lecturer on his left screen while eagerly waiting for the dropship doors to open on his right.

The gameplay mechanics for the viewers were incredible. Glitch had set up a dedicated main broadcast that functioned like a sports channel.

Two casters controlled a free-roaming camera, switching between various players to highlight special moments, early kills, and high-tier loot drops.

However, Glitch also offered a secondary viewing feature. A viewer could manually switch their POV away from the main broadcast to spectate any specific player in the lobby. When they did that, their screen would shift to that player’s exact first-person view and display their live webcam in the corner. Doing so automatically logged the user as a viewer on that specific player’s personal stream.

Darwin wasn’t interested in watching the main broadcast hop around randomly. The moment the dropship doors opened, he immediately switched his POV over to Team Ironclad.

They were his absolute favorite team. Darwin was specifically spectating IronNight, a legendary esports veteran.

IronNight’s character was a massive, hulking tank class clad in gunmetal-gray armor. In his right hand, he wielded a glowing war hammer, and his left arm was equipped with a heavy blast shield.

Despite his immense weight and size, the character possessed an ability that allowed for surprisingly fast, short-distance evasive dashes.

His duo partner, IronSurd, was the exact opposite. Surd played a hyper-agile, dual-wielding attack class, darting around with plasma submachine guns.

They were a highly popular esports duo. While they’ve never been world champions, they have made the podium in three different competitive shooters over the last four years.

Going into the Global Siege Invitational, the betting odds placed them as the third strongest team among all the competitors. But Darwin firmly believed they were much stronger than that.

’They’ll finish number one. I believe it,’ Darwin thought to himself, watching IronNight and IronSurd plummet from the sky and steer their parachutes toward a high-tier loot zone known as the Neon District.

IronNight’s heavy boots slammed into the neon-lit pavement. IronSurd landed smoothly right beside him. Almost immediately, a glowing blue Core caught their attention, resting on a pedestal in the center of an open plaza.

But they weren’t alone.

Two figures dropped from the rooftops. It was a highly skilled mage duo. Darwin recognized their tags: SpellCaster and ArcaneWidow.

The fight broke out instantly. IronNight dashed forward, his massive shield absorbing a barrage of explosive fireballs from SpellCaster.

The impact effects lit up Darwin’s screen in brilliant flashes of orange and red. IronSurd used the distraction to flank, wall-running along a billboard and raining plasma fire down on the mages.

ArcaneWidow managed to tag IronSurd in the shoulder with a heavy ice lance, draining a chunk of the the attacker’s health bar.

But the teamwork of the duo was simply too perfect. IronNight threw his war hammer like a massive boomerang, shattering ArcaneWidow’s magical barrier. In the exact same second, IronSurd slid across the ground, unloading his clips and finishing both mages off.

The in-game kill feed immediately lit up the corner of the screen.

{Ding! Player SpellCaster has been eliminated by Player IronSurd}

{Ding! Player ArcaneWidow has been eliminated by Player IronNight}

IronNight stepped forward, grabbing the glowing blue orb from the pedestal, as well as the two Cores dropped by the defeated mages.

{Ding! Team Ironclad has captured 3 Cores!}

Darwin glanced at the live leaderboard graphic that popped up on the side of the stream. Team Ironclad was officially sitting in the number one spot.

"Yesss! We’re winning this! Let’s go!"

Darwin ducked his head below his computer monitor and screamed..

He popped back up, his heart racing with excitement. IronNight and IronSurd healed up, their characters reloading their weapons and preparing to move out of the plaza to hunt for more points.

Then, a strange sound cut through the audio of the stream.

Pfft!

{Ding! Player IronSurd has been eliminated by Player Aura}

Darwin blinked, leaning closer to his monitor. ’What?! That’s impossible. In one hit?’

He was feeling the exact same wave of pure shock as everyone else currently tuned into the stream.

IronSurd was at eighty percent health. He had top-tier armor. And he had just been instantly deleted from the map without even seeing where the shot came from.

Before IronNight could scan the map, the terrifying sound echoed again.

Pfft!

Sparks flew across Darwin’s screen. Luckily, the heavy, armor-piercing sniper round only chipped a huge chunk out of IronNight’s shoulder plating. The shot had struck a joint, dealing massive damage but failing to secure the instant kill.

Realizing he was caught in the open against a lethal sniper, IronNight reacted with professional speed. He slammed his heavy shield into the ground and activated his ultimate defensive ability: Bunker Mode.

His character went completely immobile, surrounded by a glowing, impenetrable dome. It was a flawless defensive move designed to buy time.

Just as the impenetrable shield flared to life, Darwin saw something move on his screen.

It was a streak of hazy, translucent purple.

It bypassed the shield entirely, slipping through the hard-light barrier like a ghost.

In its hands was a dagger, and with a fast and flawless sequence of motion, the purple streak struck the tiny, exposed joints of IronNight’s heavy armor.

The strikes were so precise and rapid that IronNight’s health bar melted in a fraction of a second. He didn’t even have enough time to cancel his Bunker ability to retaliate. His massive character crumpled to the ground, dissolving into pixels.

{Ding! Player IronNight has been eliminated by Player KingVon}

The purple streak smoothly grabbed the dropped Cores from the ground, its stealth cloak fully deactivating to reveal Von’s character.

{Ding! Team Starfall has captured 5 Cores!}

Without missing a beat, KingVon fired a grappling hook into the air and zipped out of the plaza, vanishing into the skyline like he was never there, leaving all the viewers in disbelief.