Reever waited. He did not rush. He could not afford to. He stayed still among the chaos, his rifle steady, his sensors focused on a single target. His first Tag was still available, and that made it his most valuable card. If he used it right, he might be able to one-shot the enemy, or at least inflict enough damage to shift the flow of the fight in his favor.
But Tag had a cooldown period of three minutes, and three minutes was far too long, even for someone like him. In the first ten minutes alone, the player had already wiped out over five hundred bots. The field that had once seemed crowded now felt strangely empty. Broken bodies, shards of metal, and spilled oil littered the ground, evidence of a massacre carried out with terrifying efficiency.
The player finally slowed down, not because he was tired—exhaustion clearly wasn't an issue—but because the work had become monotonous. There was no challenge in killing paper tigers. No risk. No thrill. Reever noticed the change immediately. He read the opening and prepared to exploit it before the player did something unpredictable.
The player raised his scarlet pistol again, firing rapidly, clearing wide paths through the remaining bots with deadly precision. Each movement was controlled, calculated, purposeful. Reever had to move constantly, dodging and weaving as bullets tore past him, scattering bots left and right. There was no time to test the resilience of his armor, and one misstep could have been fatal.
Minutes dragged by, and soon ninety percent of the bots were destroyed. Reever had yet to fire a single shot. The battlefield felt empty and wrong. Silence stretched between the sporadic echoes of gunfire.
The player paused and swept his gaze across the field, scanning the wreckage, scanning the few remaining bots, and for a brief, unnerving moment, his eyes lingered on Reever's hiding spot. Reever froze, every system in his body alert. He could feel the awareness, the sharp focus.
The man smiled, and that smile told Reever everything. He had been spotted.
"Interesting," the player muttered softly. "There is something different here."
Reever did not wait for another word. He fired.
The bullet streaked forward, guided by Tag, warping instantly and striking the player's chest. The impact rang out sharply, metal clashing against metal, and the player staggered slightly.
His smile did not fade. In fact, it widened.
"Oh," he said softly, almost to himself. "So you are special."
Reever felt his pulse quicken. That single, calculated acknowledgment told him more than words ever could.
"That worked," he thought, forcing himself to stay calm. "Not enough, but it worked."
The player's attention snapped fully toward him now. He moved with purpose, drawing closer, his calm voice cutting through the smoke.
"Come out," he said. "Show me."
Reever did not answer, but he fired again, then again, each shot striking with precision. Each impact chipped away at the player's defenses—not enough to kill, but enough to earn his respect, enough to shift the dynamic of the fight.
The player laughed.
"Hahaha. An aim bot with teeth."
A strange sensation ran through Reever. Excitement mingled with fear, and somewhere in the middle, just a small spark of fun.
"This might suck," he muttered under his breath. "But at least it won't be boring."
The remaining bots continued to fall around them, bodies dropping, metal clanging against the floor, until the chaos thinned and only two figures remained.
"With the two of us left, you have nowhere to hide, little bot," the player said, his tone deceptively calm. "Just come to me, and maybe I'll make this painless."
He advanced steadily. Reever moved backward, keeping his distance, careful not to give himself away. His Tag skill was still cooling down for another two minutes, which left him relying only on his normal bullets to survive.
He summoned all the gadgets he had won from the previous match. Nothing fancy, mostly common gear with a few uncommon items, but each piece carried the weight of risk, the memory of battles fought and survived.
He deployed smoke bombs first, blanketing the field in a thick, gray haze. Visibility dropped almost to zero, but he did not hear the expected coughing or signs of discomfort. Instead, a voice cut clearly through the smoke.
"So this bot has developed some survival mechanisms and wants to last a little longer. Not bad," the player said with amusement. "I'm in luck. This will be fun before it grows."
Reever acted immediately, summoning hundreds of flash bombs. They detonated in unison, a blinding cascade of light that caught even the elite player off guard, momentarily disrupting his aim. Reever seized the opportunity to fire his next shot as Tag had cooled down.
The bullet appeared next to the player's head and struck the armor with a dull dent, a small but undeniable mark.
The player's voice rang out through the smoke, angry and sharp.
"Now you've made me mad. Denting my armor? You will not survive this. You are meant to be scraps. Stop resisting and die for me."
A bullet slammed into Reever's leg, piercing through armor and flesh. He cursed, not from the pain, which was impossible for a bot like him, but because his mobility was compromised. His leg was slower now, his dodges a fraction less fluid, but he remained upright and in control.
He quickly assessed his options, noting that while the enemy's bullets could pierce armor, they were likely standard for his rank. If these had been special rounds, Reever would already have been finished.
He shifted position and activated the mirage skill, scattering five copies of himself across the smoke-filled field. Using the chaos, he fired his third bullet toward the dent left by his first shot. The player immediately countered, neutralizing the attack mid-flight.
Reever did not waste time. He activated his armor's camouflage skill just as the mirage effect expired, vanishing from plain sight. The player continued to scan, fire, and advance, none the wiser that the real Reever had moved.
When the smoke cleared and the mirage disappeared entirely, the player stepped forward expecting a body. There was nothing.
"Interesting," he said, smirking. "This bot can also disappear. Makes my hunt even better."
A drone appeared in his hand, and a small screen hovered before him, signaling that the next stage of the confrontation was about to begin.