Zodhis tilted his head slightly, dodging the howling sniper round. Then he casually fired a shot forward, and a prone camper lying more than seven hundred meters ahead had his head blown apart.
"The streamer's eyes are basically microscopes!"
"What the hell, I didn't even see anything and it was already a headshot!"
"I was the one who just got my head blown off. This makes no sense. I was wearing camouflage, lying flat on the ground, and had my sniper rifle set up. How the hell did he still headshot me before I could shoot?"
"Otherwise, why do you think he's called a human cheat?"
Bang!
With a single gunshot, two players who had just quickly popped their heads out to scout went limp. A bloody hole had appeared in the middle of each of their foreheads.
They had both been killed with one shot to the head.
A double kill.
By this point in the battle, Zodhis had already taken out more than sixty people. Spider-Gwen still had not fired a single shot, because almost everyone had run off to surround and suppress the human cheat.
But a human cheat was a human cheat for a reason. Even after killing over sixty people, Zodhis himself was still completely fine.
He tossed aside the empty M4A1, picked up a 7.627.62-millimeter rifle, and swept up another round of ammunition.
Even if every shot hit and none missed, ammo scattered across the entire map was still limited. This was also why Zodhis had deliberately prevented any full-on firepower builds from appearing. He wanted these people to consciously practice their aim so that one day, when everyone met face-to-face, it would be all headshots. Only then would the game really feel fun.
As for now, they missed nine out of every ten shots.
Boring.
But right after that, Zodhis ran into a powerful opponent.
She could actually dodge his bullets.
"Interesting. That reaction speed isn't something a normal human should have. A superhero, or a supervillain?"
Zodhis's game strictly followed real-world rules. So if someone could dodge bullets in the game, they could dodge bullets in reality too. The only difference was whether their neural reflexes and physical movement speed were fast enough to actually pull it off.
Gwen immediately fired back.
Zodhis dodged her bullets as well, moving at an equally bizarre speed.
After playing this game for so long, this was the first time Gwen had ever run into someone who could dodge her shots. It caught her off guard, but it also piqued her interest.
She drew both pistols and pulled the triggers with astonishing speed. With her hands moving that fast, the pistols spat bullets like machine guns.
Zodhis flickered behind a building. The bullets shattered part of the wall, then stopped. After all, Gwen did not have that much ammo either.
She chose to circle around using the terrain.
But Zodhis felt she was still too inexperienced.
After leaning out and taking a quick look at Gwen's position, Zodhis extended his gun and aimed in a completely different direction before pulling the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet struck a chunk of metal at a precise angle, then ricocheted onto another UU-shaped structure. Just as Gwen happened to pass that spot, the bullet bounced a second time inside the UU-shaped object. Tumbling through the air with the last of its force, it slammed into the back of Gwen's head.
"What the fuck!"
"What just happened?!"
"Is this the legendary ricochet technique?"
"Study geometry well and you can go anywhere without fear!"
"Am I the only one more concerned that this game is actually so damn realistic that even ricochets work?"
It was only after Gwen died and watched the replay that she understood how she had been killed. After all, her spider-sense did not work in the game. She had to rely entirely on her reaction speed. But who could have guessed a bullet would come at her from that angle?
"As expected, the game world is way more fun."
Zodhis felt an exhilarating rush, along with a long-lost sense of tension and excitement.
But after getting sniped by him once, Gwen would have to spend a long time again before she could earn another qualification for the match.
After finishing the game, Zodhis began dealing with the aftermath of the suicide truck incident.
The impact of this matter was not something that could be easily smoothed over. After all, there had been several hundred casualties, and the direct losses exceeded several hundred million dollars.
And since it had happened right at the Superhero Association building, it gave certain ill-intentioned people an excuse to question the superheroes' capabilities.
They claimed that even when gathered together, the heroes still could not protect the safety of civilians.
So why should the Superhero Association even exist at all? This private armed group should be disbanded!
On this point, Zodhis felt he bore some responsibility as well. He had trusted too much in the plots he had seen in his previous life.
After all, whether it was the world of One Punch Man or the Marvel universe, there had never been any incident where a suicide truck attacked the Hero Association headquarters or Avengers Tower. Because of that, Zodhis had overlooked this possibility, which was why Blade Technology Industries took responsibility for compensating the several hundred injured and dead fans.
At the same time, the two major capitalists, Zodhis and Tony Stark, exerted their influence and suppressed most of the public opinion that was unfavorable toward the Superhero Association.
This was where the benefits of the Spider Web platform that Zodhis had created began to show.
By now, most people had already accepted Spider Web as their daily channel for communication and information. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube had all been crushed by Spider Web, with their user numbers plummeting to just a few million. And even those few million were mostly the nostalgic types, though they would probably switch sides soon enough because of Spider Web's convenience and efficiency.
Since most people were using Spider Web, it meant that what they saw and heard was also subject to Zodhis's control. If he did not want them to see something, hear something, or know something, keeping it from them was effortless.
Because of that, those malicious people with ulterior motives quickly realized something was wrong.
How come this time, public outrage had not exploded at all?
Once they asked around, they discovered that most people did not even know the full story. All they knew was that the Superhero Association building had suffered a terrorist attack, and that the superheroes had resolved the attack. As for the casualties, it had only been mentioned in passing.
As for the "truth" and "facts" these people tried to spread, Spider Web users only mocked them for being overly dramatic.
"That damned Zodhis. So he had planned this all along. The day he created Spider Web, he was already thinking about controlling the public's right to know and manipulating public opinion!"
"He is trampling on citizens' freedom. The development of Spider Web must be restricted!"
In response, Zodhis casually released some dirt on certain officials and negative news about Hollywood celebrities on Spider Web. Public attention shifted instantly. Before long, people had forgotten all about the terrorist attack on the Superhero Association building and were instead enthusiastically discussing those new scandals.
As for restricting Spider Web's development, that was nothing more than talk. Anyone who had climbed high enough to sit in those positions knew perfectly well that it was impossible to make a move against a behemoth like Zodhis.
/-\
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