The **Titans** were legendary for their cold, clinical play. Their captain, **Elias "Archon" Vance**, was a stone-faced veteran known for predicting opponents three rounds in advance. They were the perfect foil for Aris's calculated, if temporary, perfection.
The Hyperion Arena was even louder for this match. The casters buzzed about the **Null Set** underdog story, but the sentiment was heavy: *this is where the dream dies*.
Aris ignored the noise. He was focused on the calibration. He had $4.0$ seconds of rewind power, and he needed every millisecond of it.
---
### The Flawless Bait (Round 1)
Aris adhered to **Protocol 1**. He played a perfect, textbook round. No risks, no bizarre movement—just a calculated anchor on the B-site, utilizing basic cross-fire placements. He was flawless, even achieving a necessary $2$-kill entry, but **Vanguard** was simply better. They lost the round $13-10$.
After the round loss, Aris's teammates were subdued.
"Good job on the entry, Paradox," Liam said quietly. "But they are just too coordinated."
*Data acquired: Vanguard utilizes a slow-split push on round one, relying on Archon's flank timing. Prediction: Archon's flank will remain consistent for at least three rounds.*
---
### The Information Dump (Round 2)
This was the critical round. Aris moved with his team to the A-site, the most fortified objective. He waited until the inevitable mid-round pause, where both teams took a tactical breath.
"I'm pushing deep B-side now," Aris announced over the comms, his voice flat. "I will flank their anchor."
"Are you insane? B-side is locked down by **Torrent**!" Maya hissed. "You'll get instakilled!"
"The risk-reward ratio favors data acquisition," Aris replied, already moving.
He sprinted towards B-site, not caring about the consequence. He wasn't trying to win the site; he was running straight into a meticulously planned crossfire, and he knew exactly where **Torrent** was holding.
Aris exposed himself in the B-main doorway. Torrent's rifle immediately roared to life. Aris felt the $99\%$ certainty of failure wash over him—the perfect trigger.
*Death—Failure—Trigger.*
Torrent's first two bullets impacted his avatar's chest. The screen went red.
The familiar, ripping sensation of the temporal reversal hit Aris's brain, a sharp, cold spike of pain. He clung to the sensation, focusing not on his position, but on the **data that flashed on his monitor** in the $0.5$ seconds before the screen went black: the specific angle of Torrent's rifle, the precise placement of Archon's supporting grenade, the *entire tactical layout* of the Vanguard defense.
Then, the world resettled. The round timer was at **0:45**, exactly $4.0$ seconds before his intentional death.
Aris was still standing in the doorway. He was alive, his avatar unharmed, but the $4.0$ seconds of future knowledge had been imprinted on his mind like an architectural blueprint.
**He knew everything.**
He knew Torrent would be distracted reloading in $1.5$ seconds. He knew Archon's grenade would land $3$ feet to his left. He knew the precise moment the final Vanguard player would rotate.
He didn't have time to reposition or execute a complex maneuver, but he had time to *lie*.
"They are stacked B-site! Three players! I see the full stack! We need to rotate A-site NOW!" Aris yelled into his comms, a fabricated sense of urgency injected into his flat voice.
Liam, desperate and trusting, immediately bought the lie. "Rotate! Rotate A-site! Now!"
Null Set rushed A-site, finding it empty. They planted the objective unchallenged. Aris had successfully misled his opponents—and his own team—with the perfect, undeniable lie rooted in the data he had just extracted from the future.
---
### The Calculated Win (Round 3)
The Titans were scrambling. They were furious that their perfect B-site hold had been ignored, and they had just lost a round due to a baseless rotation.
Archon's voice, usually a dead calm, was heard briefly on the open mic feed: "Did they see something? How did they know we were stacked B?"
Aris smiled—a cold, thin calculation of victory. He hadn't just gained information; he had **poisoned the minds** of his enemies with false data.
In Round 3, The Titans overcorrected. They sent four players to A-site, preparing for a defensive push. This was the opening Aris had paid for.
"I'm going B, solo," Aris stated. "I will draw their attention."
This time, it was a genuine sacrifice. He ran into the single remaining defender on B-site. The fight was pure, unadulterated skill, untainted by the Rewind. Aris won the duel, planting the objective.
Meanwhile, the rest of Null Set was fighting the overwhelming majority on A-site. They were losing the fight, but they didn't have to win it.
"Paradox has planted B-site!" the caster screamed. "The Titans must rotate!"
The Titans were forced to disengage from A-site and run across the entire map. The frantic, disorganized nature of their rotation was the precise flaw Aris had engineered.
Aris, despite his fatigue, played the final minutes like a true master—a perfect counter-strike against a predictable, desperate rotation. He secured the final two kills.
**NULL SET WINS THE ROUND.**
The score was $4-1$. Null Set had broken the Champions, and Aris had confirmed his terrible theory: the shrinking Rewind was not a bug, but a necessary function. By spending a round to acquire perfect knowledge, he could ensure the victory in the next.
He looked at the scoreboard, his eyes burning with exhaustion. He had to keep this up for nine more rounds. The ultimate victory was within reach, but the price of each win was literally tearing him out of time.