Chapter 176: Titanic Crossfire: Dead Heat

"Crush, damn iiiit!"

"Too slow, too slow! I'm not falling for that anymore... Whoops!"

Tch, she even dodged the max-speed slam I was saving. Katzo would have fallen for it on his first time seeing it. Crap, I caught her off guard last round, but she's already adapted. Does she have a TAS built into her head or something, goddammit.

It's no good. High-Mobility Cursed Prison has horsepower, but the movements are inherently wide and telegraphed. I'm barely masking it with short bursts using pivot turns and drifting, but she'll fully adapt to it before this round is over. I've got two ways to break through: one is Cursed Prison's Super Art, which is almost charged... It'd turn into a short decisive battle, but I'd gain a guaranteed advantage.

And the other is... it should be coming right about now. Did I not do enough property damage?

"Nice, nice! That's really good, Cursed Prison! It's not about being strong or weak—fighting you is just so exciting!"

"Thanks for that!"

"But that's no good. Cursed Prison needs to be more arrogant!"

You want me to stick to the lore? I only know his basic character synopsis, lady... Left!

Gliding across the ground, she steps on the empty air with unnatural grace to reverse her momentum. As Metius instantly shifts from my right to my left, I immediately fold my left arm inward, solidifying my guard. The next instant, two consecutive impacts rock my left arm, and I desperately fight to maintain my crumbling posture.

"I'm getting used to those movements too! Here I come!!"

"How kind of you to declare your attacks!"

What do I do, push with the Super? Or...

...It's here.

"It's here, it's here, it's heeeeeere!!"

"Whoa!"

I can afford to eat a little damage. Changing plans! Emergency evacuation!

Guarding against an onslaught that blends elegant dance with sheer brutality, I step right into her guard the exact millisecond she throws a wide roundhouse kick.

Oh yeah. In the end, we're just fighting game characters with roughly equal baseline specs. I can't enforce an absolute hierarchy on her like he could. It was precisely because he possessed the power of the "cyberbrain"—something a human mind could never replicate—that his techniques displayed such terrifying lethality.

"Imitation..."

Her roundhouse kick slams into the side of my head. I take a hefty chunk of damage, but as a heavyweight character, Cursed Prison isn't going to get blown away by a single kick. Spewing flames from my exhausts, I thrust my hand forward and grab Metius by the neck.

I'll be borrowing this, Wethermon!

"Heavy Seas!!"

Close in, lift, and execute a throw using the entire body. The original Wethermon resolved all of those steps through pure, overwhelming power, but since I don't have that kind of absurd strength right now, I'm using technique to pseudo-replicate the Unique Monster's throw.

The defining trait of Heavy Seas is its terrifying speed from the moment of the grab to the slam. By the time you realize you've been grabbed, you've already been smashed into the ground and died. It was a brutal noob-trap designed to perfectly target the exact moment players felt relieved after finally disarming his katana—but it's an incredibly troublesome, incredibly charming technique.

By actively stepping in, I cut down the frames from the grab to the throw. Furthermore, by spinning my tires, I assist the bodily rotation required to hurl her. From Metius's perspective, she probably felt like she was slammed into the concrete the exact second she tried to swat my hand away.

I throw her. Even after releasing Metius's neck, I continue my rotation, and the moment my back is fully turned to the slammed Metius, I gun both my left and right tires in the same direction at maximum output. In other words, I'm executing a rapid retreat. I swear I could hear a voice from behind me yelling not to run away, but whatever, just shut up and wait.

Time for a wardrobe change.

Good! Very Good! Amazing!

She was grabbed, and by the time she registered it, she was already smashed into the ground. She understood the mechanics behind it, but to actually pull it off using a split-second opening in that situation?

She had fought countless Cursed Prison mains. Amelia was strong but lacked that one final step. Alex didn't main him, but was decently good. That guy too, and that guy. They were certainly strong, and some were even faithful to the roleplay. But none of them were enemies of Sylvia—of Metius. In that regard, the Cursed Prison she was fighting right now didn't possess overwhelmingly standout technical skill either.

And yet, out of all the Cursed Prisons she had ever fought... he felt the most authentic. It wasn't about strength or weakness. It made her truly feel that Sylvia wasn't fighting an opponent, but that Metius was fighting Cursed Prison.

Sylvia Goldberg is the strongest. Her strength and incredibly faithful portrayal of Metius were so profound that the author of the Metius comic himself had declared, "She is the real Metius." And because of that, she had always harbored a certain underlying dissatisfaction.

A Hero cannot be a Hero alone. Only when an enemy—a Villain—exists can a Hero truly shine. If I am the real Metius, then where is the real Cursed Prison?

Because she loved the character of Metius more than anyone else, and because she had mastered Metius so thoroughly, she had been searching for a long time. For her sworn archenemy. It wasn't the fondness you feel when loving someone, nor was it the hype of facing a strong opponent trying to shatter her undefeated record. She was searching for an existence worthy of having Metius scream at them from the bottom of her heart: You are the one I absolutely must defeat!

"I finally found you, Cursed Prison."

By the time she recovered from the throw, Cursed Prison was already completely gone from her line of sight. Did he go secure the Chaos Cube? She frowned for a split second, but something inside her immediately rejected the idea. No, that's not it. A sneak attack, then? She rejected that too.

She felt an intuitive certainty that he wasn't the type to half-ass a fight just to scrounge up a cheap win. Then why did he abandon the area? He had yelled, "It's here!" That meant he was waiting for something.

It couldn't be his Super Art. If it "came," then it wasn't something the player could actively trigger; it was something he had to wait for passively.

(What was he waiting for? Something that only triggers in Round 3? I don't recall hearing about anything being added per round... No, that's not it.)

What she needed to count wasn't the rounds, but the time. How much time had passed since Round 1 started, carrying all the way through Round 2? Chaos City operates in real-time. What was Cursed Prison waiting for—no, what did he summon?

"Don't tell me."

Unlike vehicles, it takes time to prepare. It's incredibly useful for Cursed Prison, but hard to retrieve while actively fighting her. And most importantly... it comes from the sky!

"Don't tell me!"

The sound of destruction. It wasn't to the left, right, front, or back. Looking up, right there—!!

"I've been waiting for this, Main Weapooooon!!"

"...Haha, ahahahaha! You're the best, you're the absolute best, Cursed Prison!!"

Somehow, having climbed all the way to the very top of a skyscraper, Cursed Prison was soaring through the air, slamming a mid-air dunk straight into a news helicopter that had lowered its altitude dangerously close to the buildings to get a better camera shot.

The sheer mass of his body clinging to it instantly destroyed the helicopter's balance, sending it plummeting to the earth.

The moment the metallic chunk smashed into the asphalt, a massive explosion erupted, hiding both the helicopter and Cursed Prison behind a curtain of roaring flames.

Cursed Prison possessed the ability to destroy and absorb inorganic objects. Therefore, the fiery explosion was simply a curtain hiding his changing room. Pushing aside the smoke, he emerged.

"Sorry 'bout that. Just a quick wardrobe change."

If absorbing the police motorcycles made him a bare-handed white knight, this form was a Japanese Samurai.

He had two helicopter rotor blades sheathed at his waist like katanas, and held one in each hand. Wearing the helicopter's armor plating like samurai armor, he looked like the ultimate Eastern Knight.

"High-mobility wasn't bad... but if I'm going all out, this suits me way better."

"All out? No, no, no, Cursed Prison."

Unless specifically requested otherwise, Sylvia Goldberg always fought with everything she had. But in this battle, merely using all her techniques wasn't enough. It wouldn't satisfy her.

"We're doing this for real."

The Hero always wins. And the Hero shines brightest when battling the Villain.

Guns aren't enough. Bare hands can't reach. Therefore, only by being fully armed does it finally become an even playing field.

The Special Object "News Helicopter" spawns after a certain amount of property damage and a set amount of time passes. It all started when I wondered why that one helicopter was flying so obnoxiously low. I shot it down as a test and used Cursed Prison's ability to wear it as armor, which is when I finally realized exactly why a Special Object was "Special."

"The horsepower of a heli engine and four weapons. Hits way harder than a crappy gun."

I don't know what kind of magical nonsense powers Cursed Prison, but apparently, he can massively reinforce the durability of whatever he absorbs.

However, gun damage doesn't scale all that well; you get way better DPS landing a clean kick than blasting someone with a shotgun. But the propeller swords, enhanced as armor parts, calculate their damage hitboxes directly off Cursed Prison's raw STR stat. Meaning, they hit far harder than my bare fists.

"I've been maining a dual-wielding build lately, so this fits like a glove."

If I wanted to be greedy, I'd wish this armor was AGI-focused instead of STR-focused so I could move exactly like my ShanFro avatar, but I'll take what I can get.

"I'm gonna fillet you into three pieces."

"Bring it on!"

The helicopter engine on my back roars to life, pumping raw power into my entire body. I swing my left sword down, but she easily dodges it and instantly launches a counter-ambush from my flank.

But unlike that high-speed, zero-handling High-Mobility form from earlier, the current me can pull off stunts like this!

"Imitation... Severing Wind!!"

I abandon my left sword, completely toss away my right sword, grab the spare blade sheathed at my left hip, and execute a lightning-fast fast-draw straight from an Iai stance.

Incredibly, Metius dodges even this! Are you kidding me?! I completely caught her with that!

"But you left an opening!"

"Guh... Not yet!"

I clench my left fist, which I had kept at my waist, and smash it into Metius just as she crouches to dodge the Iai draw. It's a shallow hit.

I grip my drawn right sword with both hands and instantly close the distance. I swing down, sweep horizontally, thrust—and she dodges every single one of them while hammering counterattacks into me.

Whatever, it's Collateral Damage! Cursed Prison has HP to spare anyway, so I force my attacks through. I guard against the hits that look like they'll cause a stagger, and the exact millisecond she leaves an opening, I smack her right in the gut with the flat of my blade. Even though Metius is incredibly tall for a normal human, she's tiny compared to the hulking mass of Cursed Prison. Chasing after the violently launched Metius, I pick up the two swords I tossed earlier and resume my dual-wielding assault.

"This level of power won't... won't stop the Meteor!!"

"I'm gonna stop your breathing, you idiot!!"

I swing down with the right sword, add a few frames of delay, and follow up with a horizontal sweep using the left sword for a cross-slash. She dodges it with absolute minimal movement. Dropping into a handstand right on the spot, she bends her elbows and knees, compressing her entire body. The next second, like a coiled spring snapping loose, she unleashes a kick that perfectly uppercuts my jaw.

"Gu, oh...!?"

There's no pain, but my vision completely blacks out like a forced disconnect, and all the strength drains from my body. Crap, it's a stun animation!

"I've got you!!"

"Like hell you do!"

Getting treated as a punching bag right now is bad. The stun will break the moment I take damage, but eating a full combo is a disaster. Can I interrupt it?!

An impact hits my stomach. The stun lock breaks, and my vision and strength return. Before I even fix my posture, I predict Metius's next move... Here it comes! The combo where she hits the gut and instantly follows up with an elbow strike! If I eat this, it's practically checkmate!

"No way, you can interrupt that?!"

"It's the Iai Fist-style Interruption Art!"

Using my reverse-gripped left sword as an improvised shield, I perfectly block the elbow strike. One second slower and I would have been dead. Currently, I'm sitting at a little over 50% HP, while Metius is at 60%. I'm getting pushed back slightly... but I'm flipping the board right here.

Author's Afterword
The fact that the Ctarrnid fight is coming up after this, and above all else, the fact that we're nearing 200 chapters but summer vacation in the story still hasn't ended.
Ugh... is my novel's pacing... too slow...?

Clam Blitz... new gear added... new maps... (gulping sound) [*1]

Translator's Notes

• *[1] Clam Blitz: A reference to the popular Nintendo game Splatoon 2 (specifically the "Gachi Asari" or Clam Blitz ranked mode), playfully implying the author is tempted to go play video games instead of writing.