The Strongest Brain in the Interstellar

Jiang Hui and her team were completely baffled by Huo Qi’s latest setback. Without a map, the only reference was the large scoreboard displayed on the sky screen. However, the board could only show which players had been eliminated, offering no insight into the specifics of what happened.

With so many participants in the training ground, those who had lasted this long were either highly skilled, exceptionally cunning, or a combination of both. Huo Qi wasn’t the only formidable player, so it wasn’t surprising that someone else managed to overpower him.

To Jiang Hui, dealing with Huo Qi or any other opponent was essentially the same. However, facing a familiar adversary was easier than encountering a new, unknown threat. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the luxury of choosing their opponents.

The countdown showed “four star-hours and fifty-one star-minutes” remaining until the match ended—

“Something’s off. Something’s not right!” Jiang Hui suddenly muttered under her breath.

She had been studying the scoreboard and felt a strange sense of inconsistency. Though each squad operated independently and scored points individually, leaving little room for coordination, subtle patterns could still be discerned from the rankings.

However, the flow of points could still be traced, depending on each team’s luck in encountering prey.

Yet, Jiang Hui noticed something strange when she reviewed the scoreboard twice since regaining consciousness.

Huo Qi and his team, likely due to having only one chance left to stay in the game, had adopted a low-profile strategy and gone into hiding, unlike their previous high-profile approach.

Similarly, Huan Xian’s team had recently chosen a route that didn’t lead them to much prey—only a couple of squads and a few scattered participants.

Logically, with these two dominant teams lying low, the prey should have fallen to the second-tier powerhouses. Even then, the pattern should align with each team’s relative strength, as no matter how much someone pushes their limits, their abilities are still capped.

Moreover, the match had already gone on for over thirty star-hours. With the field now emptier, progress naturally slowed down.

Yet, within just one star hour, the number of participants had dropped from 160 to 97. This pace was shockingly fast—faster than the rate during the three-star hours after the second round of resupplies, which was already intense.

To put it into perspective, even during Huan Xian’s previous aggressive scoring spree while Jiang Hui was unconscious, he had only managed to climb to fifth place by earning 40-50 points over three star-hours. The prey density was too low at this stage to allow for massive eliminations.

So, with both Huo Qi and Huan Xian’s teams staying inactive, how did the remaining top-tier teams manage to eliminate over 60 participants in a single star hour? And the points were spread out relatively evenly among them.

To Jiang Hui, the chaotic scoreboard was no longer a simple list of individual rankings. The tangled data swirled in her mind, layer upon layer, forming patterns as she connected, compared, and rotated them. Eventually, something unusual began to emerge.

R197, R87, R117… These three teams clearly exhibited unusual behavior.

“Enemy approaching from the southeast, 2.7 kilometers away, moving very quickly—they’re coming straight at us,” Huan Xian said with a grim expression, urgently warning the others.

Jiang Hui immediately snapped out of her tangled thoughts and turned to Huan Xian. Moving very quickly?

Even Huan Xian confirmed it, meaning their speed was truly astonishing, and the enemy seemed to have spotted them already.

Without hesitation, the group began retreating in the opposite direction at full speed.

But before they’d gone far, Huan Xian stopped them abruptly. His face was now darker than before. “Southwest, northeast, and east… there are enemies coming from those directions too. They seem to be forming a line and closing in, roughly ten to fifteen of them.”

East, south, west, north—they were being surrounded. What were they going to do now?

Before panic could set in, Huan Xian made a decisive call: “You two, go ahead. I’ll handle them.”

What was this? Was he planning to act as bait to draw the enemy away again?

Jiang Hui was about to protest, but Huan Xian cut her off. “Trust us!”

“We’re an official team. We’re united. I won’t act recklessly like before. Don’t worry—we’ll be the last team standing,” he said in a firm voice.

There wasn’t much else to say.

Jiang Hui looked into his eyes and slowly nodded.

“Run!”

Xierman nodded to the other three, then carried Jiang Hui on his back and dashed in the direction Huan Xian had indicated without looking back.

“The southeast, about 3.7 kilometers away, seems to be where L11 previously landed,” Xierman said. “If things get too rough, we can dig up the soft trench there again to hold them off.”

Jiang Hui could no longer see Huan Xian and the other two, only managing to catch a glimpse of a shadow half-raising its hand as they disappeared from view.

—

“Hmm?” Lin Maowu frowned. “They changed direction?”

“Changed direction? What do you mean?” Sanda asked curiously.

Lin Maowu shook his head. “Maybe I felt it wrong.” But he could still sense that powerful aura moving in the predicted direction.

Nancy Sanda, a member sent from R117, was temporarily assigned to their team. Meanwhile, their teammate Jaidy had been sent to R87, and one member from R87 was transferred to R117.

So far, Nancy Sanda had proven to be very easy to work with. Her shooting skills were excellent, her perception sharp, and her cooperation commendable. Frankly, apart from her status as a “hostage,” she was far more useful than Jaidy.

Of course, Lin Maowu hadn’t forgotten that Nancy was merely a temporary “hostage” assigned to ensure the cooperation between the three teams. He remained cautious, keeping a close eye on her every move, confident that he wouldn’t give her any opportunity to act suspiciously.

Luckily, Nancy didn’t seem inclined to cause trouble. For now, she behaved quite obediently.

“Do you think they’ve discovered us?”

“…Probably.”

“Ugh. I don’t know if it’s bad luck or something else, but we’ve run into ‘that person’ of all people.”

Hearing this, the rest of the team, including Nancy, looked at him with curiosity.

Lin Maowu was usually composed and confident. To them, if not unfathomable, he was someone with a clear plan in mind.

Even when facing opponents as formidable as Huo Qi, he remained unshaken. In fact, under his covert guidance, the three teams had managed to strip Huo Qi’s team of their second survival chance without suffering any losses.

That victory solidified the alliance between the three teams and bolstered their confidence in continuing to work together.

Along the way, seeing Lin Maowu detect enemies but then hesitating to speak, appearing both hesitant and somewhat excited, the group couldn’t help but feel puzzled.

Now, hearing him speak like this, they couldn’t help but wonder—what kind of opponent could stir such conflicted emotions in someone as composed as Lin Maowu?