Ash's eyes narrowed, focused solely on his opponent. The bustling arena, the crowd's murmur—none of it mattered. The only thing in his world was the mech in front of him.

The battlefield was a dense jungle, an uncommon choice in today's mech combat, which predominantly took place in the vastness of space. Even within planetary atmospheres, aerial dogfights were the norm, a shift that had driven the dominance of ranged combat mechs.

Ranged weaponry was Ash's Achilles' heel. Growing up on Garbage Planet 12, he had never laid hands on even the most basic heat rifle. The galactic government's strict disposal policies for discarded weaponry left his world devoid of such luxuries, pushing its residents into a pseudo-medieval era. This policy, though effective in curbing piracy, rendered Ash's training limited to crude melee combat.

Without physical feedback, even the most advanced neural training simulations hit a plateau. Skill progression required the synergy of mind and body—a challenge even Rune, his enigmatic mentor, could not resolve.

Ash’s lips curled slightly at the thought of Rune. What was that scheming figure up to now? He shook off the distraction. Losing focus mid-combat was an unforgivable mistake.

He piloted a sleek Shadow, a combat mech renowned for its deadly agility. Slender and swift, the Shadow stood at a modest height of 8.5 metres, shorter than the average mech by 1.5 metres. Its armament was subtle but deadly—two high-tensile magnetic daggers that absorbed light rather than reflecting it, perfect for nocturnal assassinations. On each wrist, a razor-sharp, scythe-like blade glinted ominously, forged from ultra-compressed alloy capable of slicing through most mech exteriors. These blades, along with smaller ones hidden in its calves and even its feet, were coated with matte-black lacquer to prevent any betraying glimmers.

Ash admired the Shadow's meticulous design. Its weaknesses—fragile armour, lack of ranged weaponry, and limited energy reserves—were irrelevant to him. To Ash, the Shadow wasn’t a flawed mech; it was simply misunderstood. Its true strength lay in its intended purpose: assassination.

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His opponent piloted the Porcupine, a heavily modified mech with an intimidating array of weaponry. Eight monstrous barrels jutted out like the spines of its namesake. The twin 500,000-joule dual-barrel particle cannons alone were overkill. Add to that two 200,000-joule scatterlight rifles, two subsonic disruptors, a laser sniper rifle accurate to 0.5 millimetres at 15 kilometres, and a versatile heat rifle covering its blind spots. The Porcupine’s sheer bulk and weaponry seemed more fortress than mech.

Ash couldn't help but groan inwardly. Facing the Porcupine in open terrain was suicide. Its energy reserves dwarfed those of the Shadow, making it a relentless juggernaut in prolonged combat.

The system transported both combatants into the jungle, scattering them at random points. As Ash melted into the undergrowth, a dark grin spread across his face.

"Let's see you find me now," he muttered.

The Shadow’s advanced cloaking system thrived in complex environments like this. Navigating the dense foliage with feline grace, Ash left no trace of his passage.

Meanwhile, the audience watching the match on Aurora, the arena's holographic broadcast system, erupted into murmurs of astonishment.

Despite the dense jungle terrain, Ash maintained an incredible pace, weaving effortlessly through trees and vines. Spectators marvelled at his uncanny dexterity, his Shadow gliding like a phantom through obstacles that would have slowed even the nimblest of pilots.

For Ash, this was second nature. Growing up scavenging in the chaotic heaps of Garbage Planet 12 had honed his instincts and reflexes to a razor's edge. Rune's brutal training regimen only pushed those limits further, making environments like this feel almost too easy.

A deafening explosion shattered the relative calm, coming from the southwest. Ash crouched low, his Shadow blending seamlessly into the foliage, and moved like a stalking predator toward the sound.

Perched atop a tree, he observed the Porcupine. The massive mech had abandoned any attempt to navigate the jungle, instead hovering above it. With its weapons, it cleared a massive swath of trees, creating an open kill zone.

Ash's lips tightened. Stepping into that clearing was suicide. The Porcupine's subsonic disruptors could scramble his neural inputs, and its laser sniper rifle could pierce the Shadow's fragile armour with ease.

But Ash was no stranger to impossible odds. Crouching in the dense canopy, he studied his foe, calculating. His fingers flexed over the controls. This wasn’t just a fight; it was a puzzle. And Ash was determined to solve it.