That guns are dangerous goes without saying.

  That much had been proven by the bloody incidents in the quarry’s history.

  So to keep everyone safe, anyone entering had to pass a check to make sure their guns were “unloaded.”

  Truth was, all of Eden’s East District had the same rule. Some desperate types just ignored it. The quarry enforced it with absolute, iron authority.

  That meant loading was both the final prep for the match and the start of the show.

  As the announcer’s ceremonial voice faded, the roaring noise in the whole arena dropped by ninety percent.

  The few sounds left from the stands were mostly whispers now—soft but impossible to smother.

  And in that sudden “quiet,” that almost dead silence,

  it was “The Scalpel,” the guy who looked like an average neighbor, who moved first.

  He pulled out an empty mag but didn’t load it yet—it was empty. The real bullets lay in his other open palm.

  Fifteen rounds total, brass gleaming.

  “The Scalpel’s” moves were slow. Steady.

  He picked up one bullet, lined it up with the mag’s mouth, and with his thumb, pressed it in firm and sure.

  Click.

  One. Then another.

  It took him a full fifteen seconds to fill the mag.

  But by the time he slid the full mag into his gun with a final clack, his whole presence had changed.

  From the normal, even friendly neighbor, into… something sharp, imposing, almost too intense to look at.

  He just stood there calm, but the focused, lethal vibe around him felt like the bare edge of a blade, chilling the air.

  This was the real seven-time champ, the quarry’s top star—“The Scalpel”!

  Compared to that, Pandora’s side

  had none of that fancy, ceremonial stuff.

  Almost the second the announcer finished, she was done—grab mag, swap it, stow the empty.

  Three moves. Simple. Clean.

  She didn’t need a ritual to get her head right.

  If this weren’t a match, but a real fight—

  she could fire that first killing shot right now, in peak form.

  But…

  this was a match.

  “Challenge—begin!”

  As the announcer’s voice boomed, “The Scalpel” moved.

  He didn’t rush out like the others.

  He moved more like… a gray bolt of lightning skimming the ground, shooting silently but with blistering speed into the complex course called “The Serpentine.”

  “The Serpentine” was the moving target zone.

  A maze built from old shipping containers, rusty barrels, and scrap. Above it all, precise pulleys hung, ready to drag zombie or enemy targets along set tracks at high speed.

  “The Scalpel” flew through such a path. Just hitting the first corner, a target dropped from a container top at brutal speed, barely there—

  Bang! Bang!

  Two sharp, clean shots.

  Bullets hit the target’s head dead center.

  He didn’t even slow down.

  His body twisted at an angle that looked biomechanically wrong,

  dodging perfectly a swinging obstacle that attacked from the side, grazing way too close.

  At the same time, he flicked his wrist, firing a shot backward behind him!

  Bang!

  The bullet smacked another target that popped up on the rock wall right behind!

  “Whoa—!”

  An unstoppable gasp ripped from the crowd.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “So fast!”

  “He’s not aiming—he’s predicting!”

  “The Scalpel’s” movements were like a machine running the most optimized code.

  Not one single extra move.

  Slide, roll, sudden stop, fire…

  Every action, every call, pushed “efficiency” to the max.

  In barely a minute, he’d already taken down over a dozen targets along the way, hitting the final turn smooth.

  Here, a bunch of targets came in a dizzy combo, one after another.

  But between them, they left the slimmest gap, just enough for a top shooter to work with.

  And those targets dropped almost the second they appeared.

  When the last bullet fired in a uncanny, physics-defying way, tracing a near-perfect arc through the air, then curved around an obstacle ahead all on its own, hitting a zombie target hidden right next to the last hostage target—

  it was done.

  “The Scalpel’s” score was locked in.

  The whole quarry seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.

  Then, a sound more feverish than anything before erupted like a volcano, swallowing everything.

  “The whistle of bullets is his only language; the sound of spent shells is the song he writes! Let’s hear it again for the absolutely mind-blowing show ‘The Scalpel’ just gave us!”

  Up on the high announcer’s stand, spit flying, face red with hype, the announcer threw out his fanciest, most exaggerated lines to describe the insane, unbelievable scene they’d all just seen.

  “Check his score… Wow, incredible! 1 minute… 33 seconds!!!”

  The cheers broke completely then.

  Wave after wave of sound, like it was trying to smash down the quarry walls.

  As for that “impossible” curved shot, something that couldn’t happen in Pandora’s old world,

  nobody questioned the science.

  This was a world where magic was real.

  Same way, nobody cared how “The Scalpel” did it; they just knew—he did.

  Cheers filled the whole arena now.

  For a second, Pandora almost felt the illusion—like everyone was for “The Scalpel,” like everyone wanted to see “The Scalpel” crush her, this new girl, underfoot, to keep writing his legend.

  Right then, even the pro announcer dropped his act.

  His words sounded neutral but were dripping with bias:

  “Alright! Now, let’s all watch our rising star, ‘The Baroness’! Ah! Looks like all the pressure just landed right on her shoulders...”

  “Honestly, we shouldn’t have let ‘The Scalpel’ go first. How can we make a young girl face pressure like this...”

  BANG!

  Right then,

  a sharp gunshot cut the announcer’s loaded words clean off, choking them back down his throat!

  Normally, she shouldn’t fire before the match officially started.

  But rules are rigid, people aren't.

  For instance, right now,

  Pandora totally ignored the so-called “rules,” aiming her gun straight at the announcer.

  The barrel, still warm and smoking,

  promised that if he dared say one more useless word, her next bullet wouldn’t hesitate to take his head off.

  A fine layer of cold sweat popped up on the announcer’s forehead.

  He wanted to yell, to condemn this rule-breaking scum!

  But...

  His opinion didn’t matter.

  Because the crowd outside the arena had already broken into cheers even wilder than the ones for ‘The Scalpel.’

  The audience loved this kind of lawless, high-tension drama more than anything!

  He was just a nobody!

  Swallowing hard, the muscles on the announcer’s face twisted into a smile uglier than a grimace.

  He waved his hands, trying to get Pandora to lower that scary gun, his voice almost trembling as he rushed out:

  “Okay! Okay! Looks like ‘The Baroness’ is done waiting! So, let's... let’s get ready...”

  “Challenge—BEGIN!”

  As the word dropped, every eye locked on Pandora.

  It was her turn.

  Her gun-pointing move had made a lot of people take a second look at this unpredictable newcomer.

  Many figured that with ‘The Scalpel’s' near-perfect run as the bar, she’d have to chase that insane speed at the very least.

  However, she didn't.

  Her start was steady, you could even say—“slow.”

  Her first step into ‘The Serpentine’ wasn’t a dash, but a “walk.”

  The first target popped out from behind a rusted oil drum over a dozen meters away.

  She didn’t fire right off. She sidestepped, gave it room, waited until the target, moving on its set path, hit the perfect firing line in her sight before calmly raising her arm.

  Bang.

  One clean shot.

  The high-caliber bullet, pushed by powder, hit the bullseye.

  A dull thud, wood splinters flying.

  Her moves weren’t “fast,” but “smooth.”

  She was like a top-tier dancer, gliding across this stage full of traps and sudden attacks.

  Yet, the sharp crack of every shot she fired was so... out of place.

  That sound wasn’t like clean drumbeats, it was more like a heavy hammer swung full force, smashing hard against every eardrum in the place!

  Every move she made was full of a weird, gripping, violent beauty!

  That intense clash of feelings

  was like a red-hot iron wedge getting hammered right into everyone’s minds.

  But, once you forced yourself to get used to it, you started to feel this strange... harmony?!

  The cheers, after a long, almost suffocating quiet, started to swell again.

  They stopped watching the constantly ticking timer that was clearly behind.

  Instead, they got totally sucked into this uniquely clashing yet perfectly mixed gunplay, this blend of violence and grace.

  ‘The Baroness’s' every shot looked like she was finishing a stunning painting.

  But her brushstrokes

  weren’t delicate at all.

  More like she grabbed a whole bucket of thick paint and threw it at the canvas with everything she had—

  But the final picture was... shockingly perfect!

  Still, even with the raw pull of ‘The Baroness’s' violent style,

  time was cold math.

  As the seconds ticked, by the time she finished the first half of the course, her clock had clearly passed ‘The Scalpel’s.'

  Mutters of doubt started in the crowd.

  “Too much flash. Speed is what counts. Pretty doesn’t win here.”

  “She’s lost. ‘The Scalpel’s' time is a god-tier run. No normal person beats that.”

  But in the crowd,

  there were also real veterans who knew great shooting when they saw it.

  Most of them had already frowned earlier.

  Because they could see

  that behind Pandora’s crazy shooting skill, there was always a trace of something really off and awkward.

  If they had to describe it,

  they’d probably say,

  ‘The Baroness’ in the arena, her shooting was like a world-class solo dancer... doing a dangerous tango made for two.

  She was missing a key “partner.”

  But all her moves were straining to fill the empty space where that “partner” should've been.

  And that was weird.

  Most ‘Death Sprint’ runners were solo. Combat teams almost never entered—for them, the ‘Ballistics Calculator’ event was the team playground.

  Plus, none of them had ever heard of ‘The Baroness’ having any fixed partner...

  Anyway,

  when Pandora, at the half-way split, picked the final, hardest branch of ‘The Serpentine’ course—‘The Chaos House’—

  Everyone held their breath again!

  ‘The Chaos House’ was the toughest track in ‘The Serpentine.’

  Inside were thirteen targets, placed in a mess with no clear pattern.

  ‘Zombie’ targets and ‘civilian’ targets dressed like real people popped up, all mixed together.

  Rule was: You had 7 seconds to take out all the ‘zombies’ in the ‘crowd,’ and you couldn’t hit a single ‘civilian.’

  Might not sound hard.

  But these thirteen targets were all moving. Fast.

  And the number of ‘zombie’ targets wasn’t fixed, randomly changing between 8 and 10.

  That meant the shooter had to spend extra time on spotting and calling the shots.