Even with the match officially underway, neither Dan or Rachel made a move. Both of them stood like statues staring at each other, daring the other to attack. Dan had no idea how much time had passed or how long this staring contest had lasted so far. Through Rachel’s fully armored form, he didn’t notice anything resembling an opening.

While Rachel stood with her legs apart and her fists curled, ready to open up with any variety of attacks, Dan knew that her stats were far better than the readout in his HUD would tell him. She had proven time and time again throughout the Combat Games that she was abnormally strong for an upper tier one.

“Are we just going to stand here and check each other out? Or are you going to make the first move?” Rachel said mockingly.

Dan could feel the pressure in his eyeballs as he built up the hatred and rage to pull off one of his most deadly attacks he had in his magical arsenal.

Glare activated.

50% effectiveness. No disintegration.

Rachel’s armored form combusted into flames and the Prime Sword staggered back at the sudden fire damage to her armor. Dan had the window he needed to power up and activate his ultimate trump card.

Berserk mode activated.

Red static and energy spilled out of Dan’s limbs and torso as he felt the sudden surge of strength pumped throughout his body. As Rachel’s armored form continued to burn brightly in flames, Dan noticed something off.

Certain pieces of Rachel’s armor seemingly flickered, as if he were watching Rachel on a glitching monitor display. The flickering stopped and Rachel’s armor continued burning. But the Prime Sword did something Dan could never have anticipated.

Rachel raised her fist in the air. “Enough!”

In an instant, the flames that had engulfed her armor had completely vanished, extinguished through means Dan couldn’t understand. Haze still radiated from her armor from the flames but otherwise, she was still standing and in one piece.

“What the hell?” Dan shouted.

“I could say the same thing,” Rachel said in an eerily calm manner. “That’s quite the technique you have. Let me guess, it’s the same glare ability some Church agents possess.”

Dan’s eyes widened. How did Rachel possibly know of such a technique? Not only that, she had completely stopped the flames burning her armor.

Conceivably, it was possible that Rachel had fought her fair share of Church agents, considering that numerous subsidiary shards of the Alpha Corp operated at the borders of Alpha territory where frequents attacks and skirmishes from rival shards would occur.

But what did she do to extinguish the flames from his glare attack?

“I hope you weren’t planning on winning with just that glare trick alone,” Rachel taunted. “Skipping the fun part of a fight is just plain boring.”

The Prime Sword wasted no more time and rushed Dan with speed that surprised even him. His body moved before he could think.

Reflex activated.

Cooldown: 150 seconds.

Dan’s head narrowly swerved out of the way from Rachel’s fist. The punch blurred past him and Dan could feel the potential damage that would have done if it connected. His body had detected the danger and it triggered his reflex stat into action.

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It was a punch that no tier one agent could have thrown.

Dan countered with his own punch that Rachel swiftly ducked under. She quickly repositioned herself and backpedaled.

He couldn’t afford to dodge another sudden attack like that again. So Dan gave Rachel no opportunity. He rushed the Prime Sword and threw out a barrage of punches and kicks at his opponent. Dan was further boosted by the strength and speed increase by his berserk mode.

Rachel either ducked or blocked every single one of Dan’s attacks and he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Dan had taken on and survived against agents significant;y stronger than he was, most notably Kate and Adam back in the heist.

And yet, Rachel had taken no damage so far aside from his initial glare attack. Dan threw another punch at the Prime Sword and Rachel swiftly ducked and circled around him.

“Have you worn yourself out yet?” Rachel said behind him. “If I didn’t know any better, that looks a lot like the berserk form that only higher level Kodak agents have. How do you have such an ability in your arsenal?”

Dan spun on his heel and could feel the steams of blood leaking from his eyes.

Glare activated.

40% effectiveness. No disintegration.

Rachel dropped to her stomach and Dan’s glare missed its mark. A section of the wall had ignited far behind Rachel, activating the room’s hidden fire suppression systems. Hidden sprinklers in the ceiling near that wall activated and showered the area with water.

“Very devious,” Rachel said.

In the span of an eye blink, the Prime Sword closed the gap between them and a sudden punch to the gut sent Dan staggering backwards. His berserk mode compensated and reduced the pain down from blinding to tolerable.

So far, Dan hadn’t felt the aches and fatigue from his berserk mode thanks to his healing factor. But he had no clue how much longer he could sustain the mode. And Rachel was clearly strong enough to contend with him at this level of power.

He had to end this quickly.

Dan rushed Rachel again and he resorted for a surprise attack with his knee. He lifted his leg up and aimed to shove his knee into Rachel’s lower half. But no such luck, as the Prime Sword countered by raised her own knee to clash with Dan’s.

“What the hell is this shit?” Dan said through gritted teeth. “How the fuck are you strong?”

“I should be asking you that,” the Prime Sword responded. “But don’t worry, it’ll all make sense.”

Dan took a backhand across the cheek from Rachel, an attack so abrupt and with such power behind it that Dan tripped and fell on the floor of the arena. His immediate instinct told him to roll to the side. A split second later, Rachel’s boot smashed into the floor with such force that it cracked the ceramic-like material and sent fine pockets of dust into the air.

Once again, Rachel had demonstrated that her strength was beyond what her stats let on.

Not even Kate or Adam had given him this tough of a time up close. He recalled easily matching Kate during their encounters in the heist and Dan only failed to kill her because of his lack of experience in using his berserk form and him running out of steam.

Dan flipped himself back on his feet, only to raised both his arms and block a spinning kick that would have kicked his head off. The force of Rachel’s ankle smashing into his forearms almost sent Dan flying. He felt the strain on his bones even through his armor.

Rachel got back on the ground and Dan knew that this had to end. If he couldn’t knock out the Prime Sword in a timely manner, then he could still get a win by throwing Rachel out of bounds. Dan reached in to grab Rachel with both his arms.

Somehow, Rachel anticipated this and raised her arms up, flexing them upwards and preventing Dan from wrapping himself around the Prime Sword. Rachel did one better and abruptly repositioned her arms to wrap them around Dan’s. Now, he was the one who got trapped.

“What the fuck?” Dan shouted.

“Nice try,” Rachel said. “If you couldn’t take me down, then you had to resort to throwing me out of bounds. A decent strategy. Too bad I'm hard to catch.”

Dan attempted to shake free, but somehow Rachel’s arm had tangled themselves with his arms and he couldn’t break free.

Both of them were deadlocked.

“I’m going to peel back the curtain,” Rachel taunted. “Watch carefully, Dan Orion.”

Dan had no clue what Rachel planned on doing, but he saw her armor flicker once more. He remembered the same thing happened when Rachel was engulfed in flames by his glare attack in the beginning of their fight.

The flickering on certain parts of the Prime Sword’s armor became more dramatic, now morphing into shifting static like a dead channel and even pixelization, distorting the pieces of armor throughout Rachel’s form.

Rachel’s helmet flashed in and out of existence and Dan saw a face stare back at him.