CHAPTER EIGHTY EIGHT

A plan immediately formed in Jason's mind.

Even though the spider was faster, the machine wasn't capable of flight. Castor famously required the use of atmospheric support craft for missions that took place under a planet with significant gravity. That meant there was a limit to how high his opponent could escape. If Jason could corner Castor against a wall, the Titan's Macuahuitl would end the battle in a single blow. The key was encouraging his opponent to dodge into a specific corner of the room.

Now that he had a good idea of his opponent's speed and movement abilities, he thought he could do it. He leapt across the room at maximum speed, then feigned with his weapon like he was going to jab forwards.

To his surprise, the spider cartwheeled away instead of running.

He'd expected the machine to shift back and forth on its legs, but instead, the machine moved like a gymnast. It had absolutely no problem balancing on its hands. As it shifted aside, it peppered Jason's machine with yet another barrage from its revolvers.

Jason fell back, but the shots still clanked into his arms.

He bit his lip.

Crossing his arms in front of his head and cockpit were a standard defensive protocol, but now he knew that the stance would impact his offensive capabilities. However, letting the shots hit his chest was equally unappetizing.

Jason's initial response was trying to match offense with offense.

He fired his beam cannons, but the spider's evasion was just too good. The green light lanced uselessly across the tiny dungeon. As the energy blasts slammed into the walls, they instantly dissipated. Meanwhile, Castor's bullets were still landing on him. In fact, the spider eagerly continued dodging backwards. It seemed like both players knew who had an advantage in a shooting duel. The Red Lamia form wouldn't help either—the sniping-focused Mech was a very poor fit for a direct head-on fight. It excelled at assassinating opponents, but it wouldn't help him here.

In the end, Jason decided he needed to purge some of his armor so he could dodge properly. He didn't think he could sit there tanking hits until his teammates broke him out of this jail. Instead, his best option was to stick with his initial plan. He had to ruthlessly hound his opponent into a corner.

However, he made sure to take into account the new tactic Stephanie had suggested to him. He raised his arms and shot the heavy forearm armor directly at the spider. A moment later, he sent the piece wrapped around the top of his tail flying at the creature too. Meanwhile, he dropped the shoulder armor nearby. That way, he was able to pick up his beam rifles and continue using them.

The first piece of armor smacked the spider in the head, but Castor was able to recover quickly enough to dodge both the subsequent discarded pieces of armor and Jason's beam rifle follow-up. The spider continued cartwheeling back. The Mech was as elegant as any gymnast and it had the advantage of many more limbs.

Jason launched the armor on his leg too, but he had no hope of it hitting. Instead, he fired the four thick pieces of armor in a spread-out fashion so they formed a large roughly square shape in the air. After launching the heavy projectiles, he ran right after them. His goal was to block off the spider's vision and restrict its light of sight.

By the end, Jason only had a few armor pieces remaining. He'd only kept the armor around his head and chest—he wanted to keep his most vulnerable parts safe.

However, Castor surprised him once again. Instead of continuing to duck back, the spider fell onto eight legs and skittered forward. It swiftly avoided the large weight before pouncing onto the Red Minerva. The speed was utterly blinding—the creature was just a streak on the ground. It looked so similar to any pest after you turned on the lights in your kitchen that Jason laughed aloud.

Unfortunately, the spider wasn't running away—it was going right on the attack. Jason halted his forward advance and instead clapped his hands together to summon the Valorous Ji. Even then, he barely managed to get the blazing spear up in time.

A sharp hiss echoed through the Dungeon as Castor deflected Jason's spear with one of his hands. His spider's uppermost left hand had gripped the flaming handle and jerked it aside to keep the overall machine safe from the blade.

Jason laughed again as Castor's hand burnt against the flaming handle.

This fight was fun, and Castor really was crazy. Any opponent with common sense would avoid grabbing onto a flaming staff. However, his famous foe had done it without any hesitation. He loved the feeling of battling such a wild foe.

The two machines struggled for a moment. Jason tried shoving the flaming blade at Castor's face. The spider added a second and then a third arm to keep him away. The sensory monitors on the Red Minerva's computer went haywire, and Jason was glad that the virtual reality simulator didn't actually come with olfactory capabilities. Nobody needed to know what a giant burning spider smelled like.

The two machines struggled for a moment, then Jason pulled back. He'd hoped it would be like yanking off a chair at the last second. If he could just throw Castor off guard…

Unfortunately, it seemed like his opponent had suspected something like that. The spider converted the force of the forward fall into aggressive momentum and pounded at Jason's side with three of his fists. At the last second, the blades emerged and lacerated his chest armor. The piece of metal cracked but did not break. To Jason's surprise, Castor was going for his chest instead of cutting his legs. He was trying to tear out the Red Minerva's heart and end the fight as soon as possible. Fortunately, the Antigone Armor held true.

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Jason launched a double kick at the spider's chest, clearing his opponent off of him. As the spider fell back, Jason stabbed with his Ji again.

This time, he was able to draw blood, but then Castor somersaulted in the air before appearing on Jason's other side. The bladed hands lashed out and Jason barely fled back in time before they decapitated the Red Minerva. The other pilot's extremely precise strike went clean through the gap in his armor.

Even with Jason's hasty retreat, the knives hacked away a good sliver of his throat. Red blood sprayed from the cave dragon and acid began dribbling to the floor. Jason knew that the wound would continue inflicting damage over time.

Crap.

Even though the spider couldn't fly, it could still leap over Jason's hand. Cornering his opponent would be harder than he thought—its agility was just ridiculous.

Of course, it wasn't just the Mech design.

Castor's moves were getting better and better as the fight went on. It seemed like his opponent was gradually increasing their skills over time. Their moves became more fluid and more fanciful than before. Considering the complexity of his machine, it was possible that Castor was a slow-starter who became even more ferocious over time.

Jason's initial plan wouldn't work. There was absolutely no way he could corner his skilled opponent against a wall. Castor was clearly comfortable fighting in all directions.

Fortunately, Jason had one last trick to play. Even though he couldn't corner Castor against a wall, he could still try and catch them in the air. A machine that couldn't fly would still have much less mobility after jumping.

First, Jason slashed again with his trusty spear, aiming to lop off the spider's ankles. For once, Castor responded with a move Jason expected. He jumped straight into the air.

Jason rapidly swung his polearm upwards, slicing in a sharp count and aiming to cut his opponent from head to toe. In response, the spider kicked off the nearby wall, redirecting its momentum and elegantly returning to the center of the room.

After rebalancing himself, Castor instantly went back on the attack.

The spider promptly started pounding Jason's armor. Not only did Castor attack with his bladed hands and Golden Caliber handguns, he also added in kicks with his heavy silver legs. Much like with the Red Minerva's heavy tail, the weight and tenor of the attacks were completely different, which meant that Jason was never adequately prepared for them.

The moves became even more fluid and frenetic, and before long, a terrible cracking noise echoed through the Combat Dungeon as the spider shattered one of the Red Minerva's arms. Once again, the flame guttered and disappeared.

Goddamn it!

Jason had tried everything he could think of, but there was still a gap between himself and Castor. At the start, he'd caught his opponent off guard with his wrestling move, but nothing else had worked. The spider's pilot had an answer to everything and he was already on his home turf.

As things were right now, Jason couldn't beat him.

Castor stabbed at the Red Minerva's chest and Jason responded with the only counter he could think of. He ejected the black armor right at his opponent, knocking their arm back. Of course, the next attack would destroy his chest and end the match, but by now, his only goal was stalling as long as he could.

Castor's attack shattered the black armor, but when the spider charged again, thin trickles of light eeked into the Dungeon. The faint light of the stars gradually poured in as the entire wall collapsed and the rest of the BAG Guild burst into the room. With the external barrier broken, the rest of the bricks finally disappeared.

Stephanie, Lynn, Danny, Steven, and Owen all landed in front of Jason. Their bulky Mechs sealed the path, blocking off any possible attacks. Castor halted his forward advance and fired off a few attacks with his pistols, but he decided not to take the fight. The spider fled, scooping up the transport cube as it left. The BAG Guild responded with artillery attacks, but the fleeing spider darted away as it continued heading down to the planet. To Jason's surprise, Castor never once bothered opening the transport cube—he was determined to reach the island alone.

Despite his technical defeat, his teammates praised him eagerly. Owen was already ready with an additional Medic Pack, and the team chattered as the device unfurled and began repairing Jason's Mech. The Medic Pack even dashed around and started re-assembling the Antigone Armor.

Stephanie beamed.

"Good job holding out so long! It felt like it'd take us forever to break that wall down."

Wendy was quick to agree.

"Nice work! You perfectly followed our plan! Good job stalling."

Steven's transport Mech stepped in front of the Red Minerva and a lengthy

"Come on. Let's get down there together and finish off this mission."

Even Lynn was glad.

"Man, it looks like you gave him a tough time–you even burned his Overdrive bonus! That's sure to have wiped his confidence a bit."

Danny nodded.

"Yeah, I could tell he was a great fighter just during our brief exchange. That was awesome."

Their kind words brought a smile to Jason's face. Yes, Castor was better than him, but that was the good thing about having teammates who had your back. They'd gotten him out of the mess and given him the opportunity he needed to improve.

They'd try to avoid Castor again for now, but Jason knew they'd meet again in the finals. By now, he wanted to be ready.