The Strongest Brain in the Interstellar

“What’s going on? Where are they getting so many bullets from? And with only five people, how are they managing such dense attacks?” Tader said, her tone tinged with frustration.

She had remained calm and composed throughout the competition, finally managing to shake off the group ahead of her and make it into the top ten. However, the opponents in this stage proved just as formidable as before.

Not to mention R186 and R256, whom she had never faced directly, even her supposed allies, R197 and R87, were no easy opponents. The top ten had essentially boiled down to these few elite teams.

Yet, despite her best efforts, these adversaries were proving impossible to overcome in the short term. This reality had severely hindered her aspirations of breaking into the top five, making it an unattainable goal.

Still, having come this far, Tader knew she needed to achieve something significant. Even if she couldn’t secure a dazzling position on the overall leaderboard, she at least needed a tangible accomplishment. Taking down one of the top three scorers, for instance, would make for a highly convincing achievement.

As a classmate of both Jiang Hui, the top scorer, and Clarens, the third, Tader didn’t believe she was significantly weaker than either of them.

As for the means to achieve her goals, that didn’t matter. After all, in the art of warfare, victory often isn’t just about strength; a triumph achieved through clever strategy is just as worthy of respect.

Lin Maowu’s proposal served as an opportunity of sorts. The so-called advantages of alliance he mentioned didn’t truly appeal to her. Those promises were superficial. Now that the top ten positions were nearly locked in, the remaining scattered participants could easily be dealt with individually without the risks associated with collaboration. After all, when a group becomes too large, internal discord and hidden agendas often spell trouble, no matter how strong the team is.

Setting aside those sugar-coated words, the truth was that there wasn’t much to gain from such a partnership—if they were to go through with it.

However, one particular point mentioned by Lin Maowu managed to convince Tader.

Since the start of the competition, Tader’s greatest regret had been never having a proper confrontation with the top-ranked contestants. Time and again, she had narrowly missed them, left with nothing but the rising and falling scores on the leaderboard to mark their progress.

For the Lava siblings, who prioritized maximizing their gains, avoiding direct conflict with the top players was ideal. This allowed them to preserve their strength as much as possible.

But for the ambitious Tader, things were different. Watching her classmates Jiang Hui and Clarens steadily climb the ranks and earn the admiration of all the participants inevitably stirred her own aspirations.

Tader was calm and rarely reckless, maintaining a consistently low profile both in her rankings and her actions. Yet this same person, leading a team of average capabilities, had broken through the competition to survive until now—securing a spot in the top ten alongside another teammate.

When it comes to top-tier combat power, teams R197 and R87 didn’t quite measure up to theirs. None of the five members from R197 even made it into the top ten, and in R87, only Lin Maowu was somewhat noteworthy.

Although individual scores and rankings didn’t represent absolute ability, they were undoubtedly the most straightforward indicators of personal skill.

Having come this far, how could Tader resign herself to staying in the shadows until the competition ended? Since climbing further in the rankings was now impossible, she was determined to face off against the very best at the top.

The recent pursuit of Huo Qi’s team had boosted their confidence significantly. Tader even began to think that perhaps those top-ranked players weren’t as invincible as she had once imagined…

But seriously, could someone explain what was going on with team R186?

When their target suddenly stopped moving, the three allied teams gradually regrouped, keeping a careful distance while surrounding the enemy. They planned to encircle the target and launch a coordinated attack at the right moment—shooting from multiple angles to restrict their movements. The goal was to force the cornered prey into making a desperate move, exposing weaknesses. At that point, they’d let their best snipers finish them off and claim the points.

In simple terms, it was a siege tactic, leveraging overwhelming numbers—a straightforward strategy with little sophistication.

Yet in a competition where the team compositions were so basic, even a simple tactic like this could be extremely effective. Since external factors that could affect the results were minimal, everything depended on individual abilities. When most competitors were evenly matched or not far apart in skill, numbers mattered.

How could they lose in a brawl?

That was how they took down team R256. Even someone as strong as Huo Qi had to retreat, forced to flee the battlefield to preserve their last chance at survival. By that logic, even if team R186 proved to be more challenging, the gap shouldn’t have been… ‘this wide’, right?

But as it turned out, the gap was ‘far wider’ than they’d imagined. Things were playing out completely differently from their expectations—

There were over ten of them against just five, yet from more than a mile away, they were caught in an intense exchange of fire—and somehow, their numerical advantage seemed to mean nothing. Could someone explain how a team of five could create the overwhelming effect of a dozen people firing simultaneously?

Did they have an endless supply of equipment and ammunition? Were they somehow immune to bullets?

The opposing team would fire nonstop, seemingly without even pausing for breath, sending a barrage of shots so precise it made their group wonder if R186 had installed surveillance cameras. How else could they accurately hit anyone who so much as peeked out from behind a rock at such a distance?

If not for Lin Maowu’s foresight in selecting an area with tall rock formations for cover, their three teams might already have been wiped out by this point.

It was terrifying.

At last, they understood why team R186 had dominated the competition thus far. If this was their level of skill, it wasn’t surprising at all.

—

“So, this is what you meant by ‘his’ ability?” Nancy leaned against the rock behind her, still recovering from the shock of narrowly avoiding a bullet to the face. She directed her words to Lin Maowu, who had also silently retreated behind the rocks at some point.

The taciturn young man gave a barely perceptible nod, though he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her.

Nancy was already accustomed to his detached demeanor. Although she was technically trying to start a conversation, her mind was still stuck on that split-second moment of being locked onto—as if she were prey under the gaze of a natural predator. A cold chill swept across her back, her nerves tingling in alarm.

At that moment, an overwhelming sense of danger surged through her. Her instincts screamed at her to retreat, and she reflexively abandoned her firearm, ducking back behind the cover of the rock. The maneuver had been clumsy, but it had saved her life, helping her avoid what would have been a fatal shot.

If she hadn’t managed to evade it, her team would likely have lost their second survival chance by now.

It was truly terrifying—

Even though quite some time had passed, Nancy knew logically that the other side couldn’t possibly see her through the rocks. Yet, she could still feel that suffocating sense of being completely locked in, as though all her movements were being sealed off.