Firestorm Online

I looked into the main hall with anticipation, I was now certain. One person directly above me and one person to my right and up. This was going to be tough.

I holstered my P250 before slowly pulling out my smoke and decoy grenades.

'The moment the smoke is released I've got 10 seconds until the smoke begins to fade and 17 seconds until it clears completely. I've got to take at least one of them out in that time.'

I took almost a minute to figure out the finer details of my plan, at this point the game clock was down to 3 minutes and 12 seconds. In that time I had to either kill both of my opponents or eliminate the assassination target.

Without any teammates to provide covering fire reaching the room of the target let alone killing them would be tricky, thus that plan was ruled out. I could only go for a straight up 1v2.

I pulled the pin on the smoke grenade and rolled it across the floor, almost immediately it released a vast cloud of dark grey smoke which completely obscured the view in and out of the temple. And as if on que several shots pierced the smoke cracking the stone slabs of the temple floor.

The decoy grenade was thrown next, it landed to the left of the smoke creating the sound of deafening gun shots. Once I heard these I rushed through to the right while pulling out my pistol.

As I exited the smoke I saw a tall figure in brown desert camo firing blindly through the smoke with a high calibre pistol, hoping to hit the decoy. A quick double tap brought an end to his game.

I grimaced, although I would usually be quite happy with a 1/1 KD this was different. I needed this win, if I couldn't win with a cheating system on my side what was the point of playing?

I rushed across the room to reach the stairs, if I was a high schooler this would be considered quite a good sprint speed. I leapt up the stairs, skipping two at a time. Strangely there were no shots.

Where had the last guy gone? At this moment I saw one of the shadows in the room ahead of me move, it was a very small change but it was noticeable.

'He must be planning to ambush me as soon as I walk through that doorway.'

'How do I get through this? If I walk through that door there's no way I get the shot off first, in fact as this guy has a machine gun he'll probably fire a couple times before I get the chance to… shit!'

[Deploying Stress Mitigation module] the bored voice of the system called out.

Almost immediately my nerves settled.

'This isn't impossible, I just need to use my advantages and his disadvantages as much as I can. The high fire rate and large magazine his gun has makes an extended battle at range problematic. My agility increases my close combat capabilities whereas his large gun reduces his movement speed, if I can get close enough he won't even have the chance to aim his gun at me.'

Having formulated a plan I moved.

Holstering my pistol I rushed through the doorway, he's there!

A large silhouette loomed into view, the sun at his back. A massive machine gun swept towards me as he took aim.

I lowered by centre of gravity and ducked to my left, the ornate temple walls exploded in my absence as bullets rained down upon them. I unsheathed my knife as I took another step towards my target, rocketing across the room I saw fear in his eyes.

He held down the trigger and began to tense up, his aim was off and he knew it but at this point he couldn't correct. I dived under the barrage of bullets and surged forward once more before shifting my weight a final time.

My knife was directly under his head, I shot up like a jack-in-the-box, the blade plunging through his throat. There were no dramatics, no spitting of blood, he just dropped.

The standard victory HUD came up on my screen by I had no time for it, something more important had just appeared.

[User has successfully completed his first match +0.5 free attribute points, +1 free attribute point for winning]

The game screen shifted to show my rising rank, I reached Bronze 8!

[Congratulations for ranking up from Bronze 7 to Bronze 8, user is rewarded with a choice of three skills:]

Bullet time: Time is slowed for 1 second at a rate of 0.1:1 (1 use per match)

Sixth sense: Feel when killing intent is aimed towards you (Passive)

Experience (10,000 Desert Eagle shots): Gain the experience of firing the Desert Eagle 10,000 times (Consumable)

'Bullet time would be useful, but that's a single second per match, I'm not sure how impactful it would really be… Sixth sense would be good, I wouldn't get backstabbed anymore but… I'm leaning towards the experience, firing the Desert Eagle 10,000 times? Wouldn't that make me a pistol god? At my level experience is the most difficult thing to acquire, let's go for it. I choose the experience!'

[Reward selected, releasing experience now]

A torrent of information flooded into my mind, my vision went black.