Rewind With A Superstar System

Chapter 156: Post Game Review

<🎧 Song Recommendation: AURA by Ogryzek>

...

1. Starfall - 74 Cores.

2. Abyss - 52 Cores.

3. Nemesis - 42 Cores.

4. Ironclad - 41 Cores.

...

50. Kingslayers - 0 Cores.

The main screen on the broadcast transitioned away from the massive holographic leaderboard and focused directly on the casters as they began their post-game analysis.

"What a round!" one of the casters announced, completely out of breath. He adjusted his headset, his eyes wide with adrenaline.

"What a round? That was magnificent!" the other caster screamed with emotion. "The stakes were incredibly high, the skill level was completely off the roof! Our players didn’t disappoint, leaving us at the edge of our seats every single minute. But there is one team that completely stood out today. Isn’t that right, Timothy?"

Timothy didn’t even try to disagree. He raised both of his hands in the air in pure surrender. "I admit it! Going into this game, all eyes were on K-Z0 and Team Abyss. And I mean, they didn’t disappoint at all. K-Z0 still managed to rack up the second most kills in this entire round. But oh my days, Team Starfall was absolutely ruthless!"

Max let out a loud laugh, leaning forward on the analyst desk.

"Talk about a literal Starfall, right? They came crashing down from the sky and were hell-bent on causing an extinction event in that lobby!"

"Yes! I mean, you’re not even wrong, Max!" Timothy exclaimed, using his hands enthusiastically to describe just how unforgiving they were.

"They were literally harbingers of destruction. And even when we thought they had finally been stopped by a coordinated camp, their retaliation was just as cruel as the hindrance."

"But hold on a second," Max laughed after acknowledging Timothy’s praise. "Don’t you have something you need to say? Earlier today, you predicted that Aura of Starfall, who is our MVP player right now, by the way; would be dead weight. Do you acknowledge that you completely missed the mark there?"

"Oh, I missed it entirely!" Timothy exclaimed, not even waiting for Max to finish his sentence. "Forgive me, my aim was way off! I’m not a sniper goddess!"

The two casters burst into laughter.

"Oh, come on, I’m not even lying right now," Timothy continued. "That girl literally cannot miss. I don’t even believe she’s a singer anymore. She should drop the mic and join the military ASAP."

Timothy pressed a button on his desk, and the big screen behind them pulled up a flurry of live tweets from verified professional players.

The tweets were full of pros acknowledging that the shots Aura was hitting were completely abnormal.

"You know what?" Timothy said, looking directly into the camera. "I think she’s officially my favorite contestant now. She’s won my trust and my heart. I am fully rooting for Starfall for the W."

Max laughed at Timothy’s dramatic announcement. "Aura was really amazing. I mean, she secured the most kills in the game from a single stationary point. That is insane positional awareness. Let’s have a look at the kills leaderboard once again."

Max waved his hand, and the big screen instantly changed to display the top fraggers of the match.

1. Aura - 129 Kills

2. K-Z0 - 64 Kills

3. KingVon - 62 Kills

4. IronSurd - 35 Kills

5. MadDoctorRough - 33 Kills

"It’s honestly incredible," Timothy said, staring at the numbers in disbelief. "The Cores they harvested, which was the most out of every single team; doesn’t even do justice to the sheer carnage they inflicted. One hundred and twenty-nine kills for Aura alone! That is beautiful."

"Right on the spot," Max agreed with a nod. "But since you chose your favorite player, I’ll go ahead and choose mine. KingVon is a menace."

Timothy banged his hand on the desk in full agreement. "You can’t say less! Did you see the way he was using his grappling hook? He was tidying up 1v1s against world champions like it was nothing. Sneaking in on people from the shadows, closing the gap in milliseconds... you’d think he’s a real-life assassin. It’s honestly not fair for one team to have two players of that caliber."

Max laughed loudly. "Rightfully said. But we’ve been focused on Starfall for too long. Let’s talk about Ironclad for a second. They were the second team to be wiped out in the round, yet they still managed to crawl their way back up to fourth place in the final rankings. Isn’t that a redemption story we just love to hear?"

It was at that exact moment that Von finally stopped watching the post-game review on his secondary monitor. He leaned back in his ergonomic chair and stretched his arms high above his head until his joints popped.

For the past ten minutes, he and his stream chat had been watching the caster segment together. He had been comfortably entertaining his viewers’ questions, giving his live reactions to the casters’ praises, and laughing at the endless stream of memes being generated about the Kingslayers.

He turned around to look at Max who was still sitting on the couch behind him.

"It’s actually mad to believe that this entire Battle Royale only took ten minutes," Von said with an exhale.

"It involved a lot of stuff, so it’s totally understandable that it felt long," Max replied, closing his laptop.

"Personally, watching you get spawn-camped made it feel like an hour at least. Are you still streaming?"

Von glanced over at his broadcast software. "I don’t think so, boss. Unless you want me to continue."

He looked at the viewer count. The numbers were staggering. During the peak of the match, his personal stream had peaked at a ridiculous 2.7 million concurrent viewers.

Von firmly believed that had to have broken some sort of platform record. Right now, as the post-game analysis winded down, there were still 470k live viewers in his chat. It wasn’t by any metric small.

Von leaned closer to his microphone one last time.

"That’s it, fam," Von said smoothly, giving the camera a relaxed two-finger salute. "I’m going to leave you guys now with my boss over here. Thanks for tuning in, thanks for the crazy support, and I’ll see you all next time when it’s time to kill some big dog gamers."

He added a confident, knowing smirk before leaving everything for Max to take over.

He walked back into the study of his suite, immediately pulling out his phone and dialing Aura’s number.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Hello, sniper goddess," Von greeted her with a wide smile on his face.

Aura’s bright laughter filled the speaker. "Hello, real-life assassin. Did you hear what the casters were saying?"

"I heard it all," Von chuckled as he walked toward his bedroom. "Congratulations, Aura. Seriously. Your performance was unbelievable. You carried us through that mid-game slump."

"Please," Aura scoffed playfully. "You did a lot of heavy lifting. You were the one down there and getting your hands dirty. So huge props to you too, partner."

"I think we make a pretty scary duo," Von admitted with a smirk.

They spent the next few minutes just making jokes, riding the lingering high of the match.

They laughed about the Kingslayers’ total meltdown, mocking how the toxic pro players had spent five minutes blowing themselves up just to secure a spawn formula, only to have it completely backfire and ruin their entire tournament run.

But after the laughter died down, Von’s tone shifted, becoming a little more grounded.

"We did good today," Von said, looking out his bedroom window at the skyline. "But we can’t lose our guard. The stakes are getting way too high."

"The game’s popularity is completely skyrocketing right now," Von continued.

He didn’t say it out loud, but within his own mind, he realized that Citadel: Breach was performing even better now than it had in his past life.

The addition of massive celebrity crossovers like him, Aura, and Leviathan had pushed the game into the mainstream stratosphere right from the start.

"If we win this whole thing and not just reach the finals, the hardstyle remix deal that Emily set up is going to do even better."

"I understand," Aura replied softly. "I’m not treating this like a game anymore. We shouldn’t get too overconfident. Tomorrow is the Knockouts, and it’s a completely different format. But we’ll wait for the brackets to be announced before we stress about it."

"Exactly... We’ll adapt to whatever they throw at us."

They talked for a little while longer, discussing random things to cool off. Eventually, Von checked the time on his wall clock.

"I should probably go down to the studio," Von said. "Patch called me earlier. He’s waiting to go over some of the new songs we’ve been working on."

"Wait, before you go," Aura said quickly with some excitement in her voice. "I actually had a song idea today."

"Oh? During the tournament?"

"Yeah," Aura explained, her words speeding up slightly. "The game actually inspired me. I think it would make a really cool concept for a track. I’d love for the two of us to collaborate on it."

Von raised an eyebrow, genuinely intrigued. Aura was a massive singing talent. A collaboration with her, especially capitalizing on their current gaming hype, would be another chance to make a second chart-topper.

"Woah, I’m definitely down for that," Von said, a grin returning to his face. "I believe it will be amazing. Send me whatever notes or melodies you have."

"I will," Aura promised. "But we work on it after we win the tournament."

"Fair enough," Von laughed.

"Oh, and don’t forget. We are both scheduled to be interviewed at 7:00 PM for the official post-game broadcast."

Von blinked, slapping a hand against his forehead after hearing that there was an upcoming interview. "Damn, I actually forgot about that."

"Well, now you remember. Go make some music with Patch. I’ll see you on the interview stream tonight."

"See you, Aura."