CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The first thing Jason noticed was the number of enemy opponents. In addition to the King of Thieves, there were another dozen machines on guard.

Jason cursed.

There was no way he could take all those Mechs in a head-on fight.

According to the rumors, over half of first-round Tournament of Assassin competitions ended without a winner, and Jason could see why.

These sheer numbers were absolutely ridiculous.

No wonder the King of Thieves had comfortably sent a hundred Mechs to deal with the intruders - he had more than enough to keep in reserve.

After ascertaining that a direct assault was impossible, Jason started taking in his overall surroundings.

Right now, he was safe in the trees.

His opponents had no idea he was here.

He could take some time to plan out his perfect move.

The veteran pilot's eyes took in the sight of the entire enemy camp.

Jason had seen or heard about plenty of bandit camps in movies and books. This camp was different, largely because it needed to service enormous machines.

The Illusionist's bandit camp was a mix of human and Mech amenities.

There were still various human camp standards, including tents, a food and water station, and even latrines.

Jason knew that the human amenities were actually just for show.

Overdrive's pilot avatars didn't need any maintenance. Long raids were occasionally cut off by a real-life player taking a break, but their in-game representatives never had any problems.

However, the Illusionists had still carefully transported and created human amenities for lore purposes. Jason felt a spark of admiration for his opponents' attention to detail.

At the end of the day, Overdrive was only limited by the players' effort and imagination.

The Overdrive Corporation had given everyone a great game system to play on, but independent maps like the Tournament of Assassins had to be maintained by their respective guilds.

Even though the Tournament was arguably a match between the Illusionists and their competitors, they'd given the tournament contestants a first-class lore experience throughout the stage.

Jason was currently a map challenger, not a map creator.

However, he greatly respected his opponent's efforts.

He wanted to give his players a similar top-tier experience if he ever created his own map.

Of course, the camp's main amenities weren't lore-related.

The Illusionists were famous for their perfectly timed hit-and-run attacks. It wasn't a stretch to compare the Illusionist Guild's usual combat idealogy to the bandits they were acting as.

The camp carried plenty of equipment from the last Guild War.

The lightweight and easily packable equipment were perfect for servicing a highly mobile team.

Most of the equipment was lying discarded or unused. After all, the bulk of the bandit force had left to track down the enemy fighters.

However, there were still a few Mechs receiving repairs.

The watchdog Mechs were lying in large recovery vats filled with mint green fluid. The fluid disinfected wounds and sped up the Hemoborns usual recovery.

As for the bandit Kingbreakers, the purely mechanical Mechs did not need recovery vats. Like the Hemoborn's mechanical parts, they were serviced by a set of mobile hangars.

Jason's keen eyes quickly scanned the Mech infirmary.

There were five machines in total that were currently in recovery.

The five Mechs all had damaged communications equipment. One of the hound's throats had been bashed in completely. It was a miracle it'd managed to limp back to base.

Ah!

If Jason had to guess, those five Grunt Mechs had run into the other group of players.

The other team had probably run into them during a group meeting, possibly when the major team was meeting with one of its subsidiary minor teams.

They'd been smart enough to destroy the communications equipment, but they'd failed to prevent their retreat back to the base.

Although it seemed strange, the sight of the other damaged machines boosted Jason's confidence - it told him that he was probably more skilled than the other competitors on the map.

Jason lacked experience in player vs. player competitions.

On top of that, he also lacked experience in assassinations.

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This was totally new to him, and it was hard to know how he measured up to others.

He'd intuitively felt like his familiarity with the Red Minerva and his wealth of Overdrive experience gave him an advantage. However, he couldn't be confident in his skills without someone to compare them against.

After all, skill was a relative measure.

Now, Jason knew that he was at least outperforming his immediate competition.

It was a comforting feeling for the newly minted mapper.

Jason finished examining the injured machines and added them to his calculations.

Out of those Mechs, three looked like they were in fighting shape. The remaining two wouldn't recover for another twenty or thirty minutes.

Including the injured machines brought the total enemy count up to sixteen, including the Prince of Thieves.

It was just another reminder that Jason's best chance was destroying the King of Thieves with a single decisive strike.

He slithered to a different tree branch in order to increase his odds. Then he adjusted his angle to account for the King of Thieves's strange position.

Instead of standing, the King of Thieves sat on an elevated throne at the very center of the map.

Jason had seen the King of Thieves in various elite stores before - the machine was a secret recipe created by the Illusionists guild, so only a select few players were able to capture and sell it.

Each time it came for sale, the Mech was a different color.

Rather than standardizing the colors, the Illusionists guild allowed the guild officer to paint the Mech with their own signature colors.

In this case, this Mech was painted magenta from head to toe.

The only break in the gaudy monotone coloring was an insignia on the machine's right shoulder. The personal symbol depicted a hooting barn owl.

Jason concentrated, doing his best to remember if he'd ever seen those colors before.

Most Guilds, including the Illusionists, considered personal colors a great privilege. Most players had to fight with machines that were painted in the standard organization colors.

A Guild pilot with their own custom colors usually indicated a particularly skilled opponent with a distinctive playstyle.

Advanced knowledge of his opponent's fighting style would be an enormous boon.

Unfortunately, Jason didn't recognize the colors or the insignia.

Out of the Illusionists, Jason only knew two members.

The first was Blaise, the team's top-ranking player, and Vice Guildmaster. The other was Panther, their wily Guildmaster.

Befitting a secretive guild focused on assassination tactics, the rest of the Illusionists kept a very low profile.

In addition, the guild often encouraged competition between their own members. Panther felt that stringent competition was the best way for new players to rise to the top.

Since the Illusionists were the premier stealth guild, many new members joined each year. As a result, the Guildmaster felt comfortable challenging every player to the maximum.

Jason had once heard a rumor that the number three ranked player in the guild changed every other month.

As a result, Illusionists guildmembers often deliberately kept their abilities and personal Mechs secret. Most even used false colors and emblems, which only added to Jason's confusion.

Jason shook his head.

With no way to gather information on the other pilot, Jason would have to play the mission head-on.

His Mech was now strong enough that he could win without a clear read on his opponent.

He pulled up the King of Thieves's data again, then furrowed his brow.

The veteran pilot performed a series of quick calculations, then nodded before transforming the Red Lamia back into the Red Minerva.

Once again, red light engulfed his Mech, and it shifted into its alternate form after a three-second delay.

Under normal circumstances, the Red Lamia was likely to kill the King of Thieves in a single shot of the Pestilent Snipe.

However, the throne the Mech sat on was no ordinary chair - it was an exclusive item designed to empower bosses.

The Mechanical Son's Throne was a unique item named after The Mechanical King's son.

The stage-exclusive item could only be used by map bosses. Typically, the item appeared in official Overdrive Corporation maps rated five stars or higher.

However, highly-ranked Guilds could pay three hundred dollars to purchase a copy from the Overdrive Corporation.

The special items could only be used when creating stages. They were still banned in other forms of competition, like PvP battles or Guild Wars.

The Mech sitting on the Mechanical Son's Throne received a one letter grade buff to all of its statistics.

Due to this power increase, the King of Thieves would likely tank a single shot from the Pestilent Snipe regardless of whether Jason was in his Red Lamia or Red Minerva form.

Per Jason's calculations, the Red Lamia had a 47% chance of killing the King of Thieves depending on its damage roll.

Meanwhile, the Red Minerva had a 31% chance.

It was a significant difference.

However, a strict comparison between the two forms was inaccurate.

It was essential for Jason to consider his possible follow-ups after an unsuccessful strike.

After all, both the Lamia and the Minerva had a less than fifty percent chance to kill the King of Thieves in a single shot.

After considering all factors, Jason's best choice was shifting into the highly aggressive Red Minerva so he could follow up with a melee strike.

Of course, most players would have been far more unnerved by the Mechanical Son's Throne than Jason was.

Although the power boost was substantial, it wasn't the throne's primary purpose. The Mechanical Son's Throne was a veritable mobile fortress complete with a full complement of missile launchers and over a dozen beam cannons.

However, Jason had long learned to ignore irrational concerns.

The King of Thieves already had over fifteen guards.

The additional weapons on the throne were overkill - if Jason's assassination failed, the guards would kill him in seconds anyways.

As a result, Jason only factored in the throne's defensive capabilities.

After transforming, Jason held down the triggers of his control board.

This time, it was the Red Minerva's turn to swell its throat.

The lump grew larger and larger as the cave dragon compressed its stomach acid.

Simultaneously, Jason raised the Red Minerva's hands to be mere feet between each other.

After firing, Jason planned on instantly slamming his hands together and summoning the Titan's Macuahuitl.

If possible, he would try to skewer the enemy machine right away.

However, Jason wasn't worried, even if his foe managed to dodge. Considering the King of Thieves's great speed, an escape was likely.

In truth, Jason's real goal with the Macuahuitl was taking advantage of the Red Minerva's vaunted flame immunity.

Now that Jason was so close to victory, there was no real reason to worry about subtlety. The game would end after the King of Thieves died - it didn't matter who saw him.

In a way, the forest was the perfect stage for the Red Minerva, even better than a cavern or a volcano.

If Jason burned the entire forest down, the other machines would die, but he would survive without any problems.

Even if the King of Thieves dodged the Macuahuitl's initial appearance, the area-of-effect damage of the flames would easily finish the target off.

But just before Jason fired, he heard a noise that made his blood run cold.

Ckkkkk.

The sound of the wound-up crossbow was followed by the soft clang of a hardline communications wire plugging into the Red Minerva's head unit.

Plink.

The hardline wires allowed players on different teams to communicate privately with each other.

Jason froze.

With a crossbow pointed right at his back, Jason was reluctant to move his Mech at all.

On top of that, Jason had a feeling that his Pestilent Snipe pointed at the King of Thieves was the only thing keeping him alive right now. His opponents had likely held their fire because they knew that shooting Jason would force the Red Minerva to release its venomous bullet in its death throes.

The other player's voice was deep and gravelly. It echoed into Jason's cockpit.

"Don't fire if you want to keep your Mech. That attack might kill the King of Thieves, but the Salvage Rule means you'll lose your machine even if you win the mission."