Chapter 507: I Am a Cursed Prison

Author's Preface
A god-tier pull where I snagged Light Mirin with a single soul-infused roll, and got Grand Ferry with a scraped-together 10-pull.

I can just Surprise Ticket Wind Sister anyway!!

"Acceleration! Explosive advance! Fierce pursuit!!"

"Dammit! There's absolutely no hesitation in your movements... Are you thinking with your spinal cord, you bastard?!"

You bet I am! Now that I've drawn the Iai-Fist, winning or losing comes down to the result! If I've got time to hesitate over the process, I'm gonna punch!

"This is what it takes for a regular guy to bite back against a pro!"

"Look who's talking!!"

Amelia Sullivan isn't the type to ramp up her tension like me or Sylvia. Her tone might be rough, but her playstyle is thoroughly calm. She might not be reading my mind per se, but there are signs she's already roughly figured out my tendencies in this short amount of time.

Furthermore, the difference in our experience as fighting game players is just too vast. At its core, a fighting game is basically just a fistfight. Someone who's strong in Full-Dive VR isn't necessarily strong in real life, but someone with real-life martial arts experience definitely has a certain degree of an advantage.
So what about someone with fighting game experience? Obviously, they're going to be strong in any fighting game.

Heavyweights have their own unique way of fighting, and hoping that the US #2—who fights toe-to-toe with Sylvia Goldberg using a heavyweight character—is bad at anti-heavyweight matchups is harder than finding a fish that can't swim.

"Do you know Venus Fight?"

"Like I'd know that!"

"Then this is your first time seeing it! El Thor (Descending Thunder Hammer)!!"

Well, if she even had Japanese beautiful-girl fighting games covered, I'd be terrified.
I unhesitatingly throw my only weapon, the mechanical hammer. The strike, fully loaded with centrifugal force and kinetic energy, is intercepted by the laser from her remaining single wing and deflected upwards... Perfect positioning! Thanks for helping me recreate the move!

"I'll spark your brain!"

"Like I'd take that head-on!!"

I charge forward and catch the blown-away hammer as it falls. In the original game, you'd jump, catch it, and swing it down... but unfortunately, I can't jump right now, so I'll just have to settle for a running start swing-down.

"Sei!!"

"Guooh!!"

My Cursed Prison, whose lower body is primarily reinforced and in a hover state, has a slightly higher eye level than her Cursed Prison.
Gripping the end of the hammer, I unleash a full-power downward swing that, combined with my acceleration, carries lethal-level power. However, her right arm, which had absorbed the "Colonel", blocked the hammer's trajectory, completely absorbing the impact with a defense fully prepared to take damage.

"I ain't dead yet!"

"Then die now!"

A cross-counter! But once again, our fists clash!! I've whittled her health down to a sliver again; I'll gift her a one-way ticket to the afterlife with free shipping!!

"It's a quick-draw!!"

"Get chipped!!"

Instead of the right arm used for the cross-counter, I unleash a drawing strike with my holstered left hand. In response, my opponent seems to be planning to twist her whole body to hit me with the wing laser. Fine by me, let's trade damage!!

Twisting her body and aiming the wing at me means she's bringing the wing itself closer to me. Paying no mind to my extended right hand getting burned, I grab the mechanical wing right in the middle of its laser volley.
Then, while pulling it towards me, I drive in a perfectly straight spear-hand strike so that it lands even a single frame faster!!

"Guhah!!"

The moment that strike pierces her throat, the beams of light firing from the wing stop dead.
A brief moment of silence. Confirming in the corner of my vision that my gauge has dropped to about 70%, I let go of the grabbed mechanical wing, and her massive body, seemingly out of strength, collapses to the ground.

"...Fine. I guess you're the real deal."

Crack, snap. The "Mechanitan" armor she was wearing breaks off and falls away. It was as if hinting at the demise of the headless "Mechanitan", yet the exposed corpse still burned with the flames of fighting spirit even on the verge of disappearing. Almost as if using those flames to reduce itself to ashes.

"But... the one who'll win is—"

The form of the 1P color Cursed Prison slightly blurred, and vanished.

"You didn't finish your sentence. I'll take it from here. The one who wins............ is me."

I'm normally so humble and modest, so acting cocky like this is probably just because I'm synchronizing with the character of Cursed Prison.
But well, pro gamers are half-celebrities anyway, so this kind of fan service should be totally normal, yep.

"Now then... here comes the crucial moment."

I never intended to lose in the first place, and it's not like I can set up any major traps now... If so, I should at least change the battle stage.

"It's the final battle. I'll prepare a grand stage for us, straggler."

Let's get hyped up in true WΔ fashion, shall we?

◇ 

The real world (Augmented) was going wild.

"It's decided! 1P Cursed Prison is defeated! I guess you could say the Real Cursed Prison is truly here!"

"Congratulations! Amelia and No Face were both amazing!"

"Ah〜 Staff, can we get a bleep sound here? No?"

While watching the bystander Silver high-fiving Eito for some reason, Kei cast his thoughts back to the spectacle that had just unfolded.

"That was incredible. I guess you could say No Face's side had a massive explosion of foreshadowing he'd been setting up since the very beginning."

"I figured he was doing something off-camera, but to think he was preparing a new version style!"

"Yeah, I looked it up secretly just now, and it really is a Special Form that hasn't even been discovered for a full day yet. Talk about lucky, or whatever..."

The decision of which of the three NPC factions appears is made after character selection. Meaning, at the start of the game, it was merely a one-in-three chance.

"Crushing Display early on was likely to stop her from using the cameras to figure out his hiding spot. In fact, the longer the match goes on, the more of an information advantage Display gains, so..."

"If he was gathering materials while Display was still around, in the worst-case scenario, there's a risk they could have been absorbed by Hannya-san's Cursed Prison."

"There's also the fact that the style taking in the 'Kernel' (Colonel) and the 'Commander' was mid-to-long range. If he closed the distance that fast, she wouldn't have any advantage at all."

That said, what was causing a massive uproar in the comment section flowing with words from the viewers watching this program in real-time wasn't that.

"The comment section is getting super hyped too〜"

"I'm not too familiar with it so it didn't really click for me, but the move names No Face-san was shouting were..."

"Mortal Lariat is a special move from a character in Death Ma 4... I mean, Death Match 4. You grab the opponent with a lariat, spin around, and send them flying... The camerawork is unique, making it a very flashy move. El Thor is... well, the form is a bit different, but I'm pretty sure it's a special move from a character in Venus Fight, a game that turns various mythological gods into beautiful girls."

"Umm... Since it's not exactly Cursed Prison's actual move, is there any meaning in going out of his way to do it?"

"Hmm... Honestly, no, but... in this specific case, there are two merits. One is that it confuses Amelia."

Momentarily recreating battle styles from all times and places—that basically means his fighting style itself becomes highly irregular.

"Even when using a hammer, your positioning changes depending on whether you throw it or swing it. With her health that low, wasn't it basically inevitable that she'd be defeated before she could adapt to it?"

"What's the other one?"

"If it succeeds, his tension goes up."

"Eh...?"

"No, I'm completely serious. This gu— Ahem! For players like Sylvia Goldberg and No Face, the higher their tension gets, the better their performance becomes."

"Yeeaaah, is Everybody watching〜?"

"Hey, hey, Silver. Don't wave your hand just because you reacted to Sylvia Goldberg's name."

With this, the battle situation was nearly completely even. Although Cursed Prison had lost about 30% of his health, he still maintained the advantage of quadrupedal mobility. Against him, Hannya (Amelia) had brought her third character—Xenoselgus, her main since the GH:B... Galaxia Heroes: Burst era—into the fray in perfect condition.

"Who do you two think will win?"

"Who knows?"

"What do you mean, 'Who knows'..."

"I'll tell you, Eito. Not even God can decide the results of an exciting battle. The only ones who decide it are the two people fighting, and the only thing that knows it is the future."

The battle unfolding in the triangular city was finally rushing toward its final phase.
Facing off were the cursed armor and the heterogeneous castaway. And... the defeated "Valkyrie".

Author's Afterword
Silver Mask's Seven Transformations seen from spectating the Cursed Prison Mirror Match:

• Making a fuss in English.

• Mysterious high-fives with Eito.

• Smacking Kei's shoulder over and over.

• Nodding silently with a "I feel that on a deep level..."

• Gesturing at the camera like, "Did you see that? Did you see that?!"

• Guts pose (Fist pump).

• Yelling Hannya's real name at the top of her lungs.

Doing things like this is why her fanbase grows. BTW, the global viewership just broke 100,000. She's practically a worldwide idol now, Sasakura Eito...!!

Rust & Mold: "Hnnm??"
Pencilgon (Watching & cracking up).
Saiga Sisters (Not watching the program. This is exactly why you guys are like that).
Akitsu Akane (The type of pure, innocent girl who completely loses track of someone's identity just because they put on a mask, so she hasn't noticed).
Kyogoku (Just got her head blown off by that guy (adjusts glasses)).