The login screen was stark and simple. Create character ID.
Blake's fingers moved automatically, typing in the handle he'd used across a thousand games in his previous life. Muscle memory from another world. Ivy, sitting beside him with noticeably less confidence, simply typed "V" — short, anonymous, minimal effort.
A brief loading screen flickered past. Then the world materialized.
The gloomy sky stretched overhead, bruised clouds threatening rain. The deafening whir of helicopter rotors filled their headphones, so realistic it raised goosebumps. And then the ground rushed up — and everyone was yanked out of the sterile testing room and dropped into the oppressive, dangerous world of Delta Force.
Ivy stared at her screen, breath catching beneath her mask.
The environment was realistic. Not "good graphics for a game" realistic — actually, genuinely realistic. The textures, the lighting, the way rain slicked across concrete and pooled in broken pavement. The oppressive atmosphere pressed down on her like a physical weight.
This was nothing like the "bad game" she'd imagined. This immersive sense of dread was something she'd never experienced in any entertainment product. Her fingers tightened on the mouse.
What the hell did Blake actually make?
[Tutorial Starting]
System prompts appeared, walking players through FPS fundamentals: movement, camera control, interaction, aiming down sights, shooting, grenade throws...
BANG! BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG!
A chaotic symphony of gunfire immediately erupted across the training area. It sounded like a warzone — which, technically, it was supposed to be.
For players whose entire gaming history consisted of matching colored bubbles or tapping screens, the simple act of simultaneously managing movement with one hand, aiming with the other, and firing at the right moment was an enormous challenge. Most bullets sailed into the void. Some players emptied entire magazines into the sky. One guy shot himself in the foot three times before figuring out the controls.
"Recoil control... recoil control..." Vinny muttered to himself on the other side of the room, his streamer instincts kicking in even without an audience.
Years of playing bizarre, experimental games had given him decent hand-eye coordination. He was the first to figure it out — besides Blake, who hadn't needed to figure anything out at all.
"You gotta pull the mouse down while firing," Vinny said to no one in particular, eyes locked on his screen. "Can't just lock onto one spot and spray. The gun kicks. You gotta compensate."
His spread was still ugly — shots scattered across the target like buckshot — but at least most rounds were actually hitting. Progress.
The tutorial progressed step by step.
Players learned to loot — they scavenged a standardized training item from an Ahsarah Guard's corpse:
[Spy Pen (Purple)] — Value: 24,000 HAF coins.
"Wait, wait, wait." A player's voice cut through the ambient noise. "This little thing is worth twenty-four thousand?!" He held up the virtual pen like it was made of solid gold. "Grab a few of these and we're rich!"
After combat and looting came extraction training, then selling loot on the market for HAF coins, then using those starter funds to purchase the system-specified basic loadout:
Tier 1 helmet. Tier 1 vest. UZI submachine gun. 180 rounds of Tier 1 ammo.
The system explained the armor penetration mechanics in clinical detail:
Tier 1 bullets penetrate Tier 1 armor normally.
For each tier higher the armor, Tier 1 bullets deal 50% reduced damage.
Tier 3 armor completely negates Tier 1 bullet damage — but incoming fire still depletes armor durability. Once durability hits zero, protection is lost.
Certain tactical actions bypass armor entirely: leg shots deal reduced damage but ignore protection.
The hardcore mechanics left most players looking dizzy, eyes glazing over as they tried to process the information. They mostly just filed away the important parts: "high-tier armor is tanky" and "shoot the legs if you're desperate."
Good enough.
Tutorial complete.
Real combat begins.
Including Blake and Ivy, 102 players were automatically sorted into 6 matches.
Normal games ran 18-19 players — six full squads plus maybe a solo or duo. But with limited testers, the math didn't work out cleanly.
Current setup: 17 players per match. Five full squads of three, plus one duo or solo-trio.
Blake and Ivy naturally formed the duo team.
On the operator select screen, three options appeared with detailed stat cards:
D-Wolf — Assault
Short Smoke ×2
Hand Cannon ×2
Overcharge: Kills regenerate health
Stinger — Support
Long Smoke ×1
Stim Pistol
Directed Smoke Screen
Vyron — Assault
C4 ×2
Jet Dash
Tiger Cannon: Forced knockdown
Over eighty percent of players immediately locked D-Wolf. He looked the most aggressive, the most direct. Point and shoot. Kill things. Get loot. Simple.
A few rush-happy types picked Vyron for the mobility.
Stinger? Barely anyone. The handful who did included Vinny.
His gut told him that in a survival-extraction game, sustained combat ability and long-duration vision denial might matter more than raw firepower. Healing meant staying in the fight. Smoke meant controlling when you fought at all.
Blake selected D-Wolf without hesitation. He glanced over at Ivy's screen. "Just stay close to me. Watch how I operate."
Ivy hummed acknowledgment, fingers clumsily navigating her menus with the unfamiliar controls. She'd picked Vyron purely because the operator model looked cooler. No strategic thought whatsoever.
Match start. The insertion helicopter's flight path cut diagonally across the map.
"Administration Building," Blake said, pinging the large vault icon on their shared map. His voice was calm, confident. "That's where we're going."
The most resource-dense zone in Zero Dam. Also the most contested. Where all the best loot spawned — and where all the best players would be hunting.
Not every team had Blake's clarity of purpose.
A random trio that landed at the Visitor Center spotted the "Large Safe" marker on their maps the moment they touched down. Dollar signs practically appeared in their eyes. Greed overwhelmed everything else — common sense, caution, basic survival instinct.
"Quick! Open the safe! We're gonna be rich!"
They sprinted toward it like kids chasing an ice cream truck, completely ignoring their surroundings. No checking corners. No listening for footsteps. Just run run run grab the loot.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Gunfire erupted from around a corner without warning.
Several Ahsarah Guard soldiers in makeshift tactical gear materialized from a doorway, cheap submachine guns spitting deadly fire. Their movements were mechanical, precise — AI enemies, but dangerous AI enemies.
"I'm taking damage!" One player's voice cracked with panic.
"Where the hell is that coming from?!"
"It's just bots, shoot them!"
The three newbies panicked instantly. Mice flailing wildly, crosshairs bouncing across the screen, bullets spraying everywhere — walls, ceiling, the floor, absolutely nothing useful.
But the Ahsarah bots? Their aim was disgustingly accurate. Each burst landed clean. Damage wasn't massive per hit, but under sustained fire, health bars melted like ice cream on hot pavement.
"I'm almost dead already?!"
"I'm down! Someone save me!"
"I'm down too! It's over! IT'S OVER!"
Twelve seconds. That's all it took.
The trio — heads full of dreams about instant wealth and easy loot — got sent back to the lobby by a handful of "trash-tier" bots before their fingers even touched the safe. Screens went gray. 36,000 HAF in combat readiness value evaporated into nothing, along with their dignity.
First lesson of Zero Dam: greed kills.
Vinny, running solo-trio as Stinger, played a completely different game.
After landing on the outskirts of the Administration Building, he didn't rush the main structure like an idiot. Instead, he patiently explored the perimeter, moving slow, checking corners, treating every shadow like it might contain death.
"According to the trailer and tutorial, this area has the most loot and the most players..." he murmured under his breath, eyes scanning his screen. "Can't just sprint in like a moron. That's how you die."
He slipped through a broken first-floor window into the East Wing, glass crunching softly under his character's boots. Found a janitor's closet. Crouched inside in the darkness.
Listening.
Sure enough — gunfire erupted deeper in the building moments later. The sound was muffled by walls but unmistakable.
SMGs chattering. The heavy thump-thump-thump of an LMG. Explosions. Screaming — players or voice lines, hard to tell. Pure chaos.
But the fighting ended as quickly as it started. Silence returned, broken only by Stinger's breathing and faint, distant footsteps. Survivors looting the dead? Repositioning for round two?
Vinny waited another full minute, heart pounding in his ears. No new shots. The building had gone quiet.
He crept out of the closet and began moving toward where the heaviest fighting had been, one careful step at a time.
Turned a corner into a wide connecting hallway.
Froze.
Seven loot boxes lay scattered across the floor, glowing softly in the dim emergency lighting.
"Holy shit." His voice came out strangled, barely above a whisper. "How many teams died here? Three per squad — that's at least three teams wiped in one fight!"
He stared at the carnage, mind racing.
"Who the hell did this? What did this?"
The temptation was overwhelming. All that loot, just sitting there, waiting to be claimed. The previous owners certainly weren't coming back for it.
His caution fought a brief, losing battle against his greed.
He scanned his surroundings one more time. Listened hard. No obvious footsteps. No gunfire. The building seemed empty.
Decision made — Vinny pulled Stinger's long smoke grenade and lobbed it into the center of the pile. White clouds billowed out, filling the hallway with concealing fog. Under the cover of the smoke, he rushed in and started looting.
"I'm rich... I'm rich... I'm so rich..."
Box after box. Blue gear — better than his starter trash. Even some purples, their icons glowing with promise. Armor pieces. Weapon attachments. Medical supplies. Miles better than what he'd dropped with.
He was halfway through the second box, guard finally starting to relax, fingers flying across the keyboard as he stuffed his inventory full, when—
Tap... tap... tap...
Clear, steady, deliberate footsteps. Coming from the far end of the corridor. Someone approaching. And they weren't in a hurry.
Vinny's heart slammed against his ribs so hard he could feel it in his throat. He immediately froze, closed the loot menu, held his breath.
Who?
The previous fight's winner, coming back to claim their spoils? Or another predator — a "mantis stalking the cicada" — drawn by the sounds of chaos?
He moved Stinger to the wall, pressing flat against the concrete, gun trained on the corner. Ready to prefire the moment a head appeared. His palms were sweating. The mouse felt slippery under his fingers.
Footsteps getting closer. Almost at the turn.
Now or never.
Vinny leaned out from cover, mouse already positioned on the predicted angle where an enemy head should appear, finger mashing left-click—
BRRRRT! The UZI unloaded, spraying bullets into the corner.
But the enemy-drops-dead scene he'd imagined didn't happen.
His bullets sparked uselessly against... something. An invisible wall of armor. The shots just stopped, like they'd hit a tank.
And then he saw the newcomer clearly, stepping through the muzzle flashes like they were nothing.
That hunched, massive silhouette. The tattered cloak draped over armored shoulders. The M249 light machine gun gleaming under the emergency lights, barrel already swinging toward him.
"You've fallen into a trap!!"
"Feel my wrath!"
"SAEED?!"
Vinny's brain short-circuited. Every coherent thought vanished, replaced by raw animal panic. He tried to duck back into cover, legs scrambling, mouse jerking wildly—
Too late.
BRRRRRRRRRT—
The M249 roared like an angry god. A stream of bullets hammered into Vinny's character, punching through his garbage-tier armor like it was made of wet paper. His screen shook violently, red filter flooding his vision, and then—
Gray.
[EXTRACTION FAILED]
[Killed by: Guard Captain — SAEED]
"Hssss..." Vinny stared at the death screen, watching the kill replay pop up in the corner. He sucked air through his teeth, the tension slowly draining from his shoulders.
After a long moment, he laughed — a helpless, almost delirious sound.
"Well. Mystery solved." He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "That's who wiped out three teams."
"No wonder there were seven boxes..."
Saeed had been there the whole time. Waiting. Hunting. And Vinny had walked right into his killzone.
Across the testing floor, gunshots, explosions, frustrated curses, and occasional triumphant shouts rose and fell in waves like some chaotic symphony.
A hundred pioneers experiencing Zero Dam for the first time were rapidly learning the cruel, fascinating rules of this epoch-defining game — through repeated, humiliating, expensive deaths.
Blake listened to the distant chaos filtering through the sound-dampened walls. Sporadic gunfire. Someone screaming about bots. A groan of despair as another player got sent back to the lobby.
He smiled, a small, satisfied expression.
"Sounds like everyone's having fun."
He checked his loadout one final time. D-Wolf. Full kit. Ready to go.
"Alright." He cracked his knuckles. "Our turn."
Ivy nodded silently beside him, her knuckles white on the mouse as she clumsily guided her Vyron to follow behind Blake's D-Wolf.
Time to enter the building.
Time to show her what a real game looked like.
PLZ THROW POWERSTONES.