This bastard hit the cat girl!! How dare you hit the cat girl?!
No, no, just because she is using an avatar that doesn't show that she's actually a cat girl is besides the point! You still punched her!
I racked the machine gun and resumed firing at him again, intending to take this bastard down. I also summoned the drone that I had put away in favour of sneaking in the earlier smoke cloud to join me as well.
But all he did was just throw up the bubble again and all my bullets were rendered useless.
Fuck this, if bullets are useless then let's see how you deal with this!
I pulled out my sword and activated the Sword Dash skill once again, selecting him as the target of my skill.
My body moved on its own as the skill took effect, my vision blurring as I shot forward with my sword slashing at him.
I was hoping that I could at least deal some damage to him with this skill but what happened was my blade hitting the chest of the power armour and stopping there, leaving only a dent in it and nothing more.
He seemed surprised by my sudden appearance but he quickly activated his shield to change his armour into that gold colour again.
I tried to pull back from him but the electrical discharge hit me before I could and I found my body seizing up and being unable to move. That blast also destroyed my drone as it crashed into the ground before deconstructing itself into particles.
I saw his fist pull back and I knew he was going to punch me like how he had Ries and that would probably kill me.
However, just as the thrusters on his fist ignited, a single bullet was shot from Lea that hit him directly in the fist. It wasn't enough to penetrate the armour but it was enough to alter the trajectory that it redirected his fist away from me.
Amber had then ran up and pulled me away from him, freeing me from the paralysis.
"Tera! Are you alright?!" She asked, practically screaming.
"Yes, Amber… That was close though…"
The guy turned to me, his face hidden behind his helmet but I could somehow tell he was scowling at me as though he was upset I managed to get away.
"His armour is too thick for swords and he has that stupid bubble that stops bullets which he can switch to a paralysing shockwave if we get close… How the heck are we supposed to beat that?!" I cried out.
Amber frowned, "If I am not wrong… I believe that skill operates on a timer… So for a set amount of time, he's able to use that ability and it will deactivate after a while. Otherwise… I believe it just has a set amount of health that we need to reduce to zero in order to break it."
"How are we supposed to damage it if that stupid bubble of his stops our bullets from reaching him? I already used up all the grenades I have!"
Amber suddenly turned to me and gave me a silent look.
I realised what she wanted to do and my eyes widened.
"No, Amber do--"
I didn't get to finish my words before she spun around and started shooting at the guy while running towards him.
Predictably, he activated his shield again and she intentionally tried to flank him to make it look like she was trying to attack him from behind.
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He turned with her and I was hoping there might be a gap in the bubble like there being a hole in his back but there was no such thing of course.
Amber then tried to shoot him from within the bubble and he did the exact same thing where he dropped the bubble before rushing forward to activate his paralysis field.
The only difference this time was that Amber managed to jump back in time before her figure disappeared thanks to her camouflage skill.
The guy was confused by her sudden disappearance but he did not have to stay confused for long as Amber reappeared behind him to jump on his back, shooting her pistol at his neck.
That did not work either and the guy tried to reach his hand to grab Amber but she suddenly tossed her pistol aside to hug him tightly.
And then she activated her self-destruct skill.
Her figure started to glow and I had to run back to the machine gun nest to leap behind the wall before she exploded, the force of the explosion large enough to rock the entire stadium and throw up a small mushroom cloud.
Holy crap… I didn't think that explosion would be that big…
I checked the top right corner of my vision and Amber's name popped up… Except that it only showed her being eliminated without anyone else accompanying her.
Damnit! Just how tough is that stupid power armour?!
I looked back up just as the dust cloud began to clear, only to see a guy looking confused standing in the middle of the explosion with no power armour in sight.
My reaction was immediate as I drew my sword and activated the sword dash skill again, my body flinging forward before my sword plunged itself into his chest.
The guy was looking down at the sword sticking out of his chest in obvious shock before he slowly disappeared into particles.
The kill feed showed that I managed to kill him and the air around me was suddenly filled with cheers and applause.
Everything around me then seemed to deconstruct itself and I found myself standing on top of a pedestal surrounded by a sea of spectators. Some of them were cheering enthusiastically while others were obviously upset but they still clapped despite that.
Beside me were Amber, Lea and Ries, all three of them seemingly just as surprised as I was with the current situation.
That was when our client, or rather, the owner of this station appeared floating in the air.
He gestured towards us, "Everyone! May I present to you the winners of the Battle Royale!! Congratulations!!"
The cheering got louder and I suspect those were the people who had bet on us to win because there was definitely no other reason to cheer for us.
He then floated down to us and shot us a smile, "Congratulations on winning you four! A representative will be meeting with you to discuss your winnings! I'm looking forward to meeting you all!"
Meeting us? Oh right… That was one of the rewards, wasn't it? I totally forgot about that.
He turned back and gestured towards the crowd, "Thank you all once again for joining me for this event! Please enjoy the rest of what this station has to offer you!"
With a snap of his fingers, everything turned black and I realised I was waking up from my Virtual Dive.
There was a soft hiss as the cover on the pod opened up and I realised the 'bean bag' chair I had been sitting on was slowly pushing me up, allowing me to get back on my feet.
I was expecting myself to feel a little disoriented after jumping out from the virtual world so suddenly but that was clearly not the case as I found my footing easily enough.
Unlike the machines I was used to, you could get dizzy after coming out from the virtual world and you might even need to spend some time orienting yourself first before you can move.
I guess that's just one thing that they managed to upgrade in this universe?
I stepped out from the machine and I found the other three girls also stumbling out from theirs.
Ries looked at me, "We… Did we really win, Boss?"
Amber laughed, "Ahahaha! Of course we did! How could we lose when Tera is there?! I saw everything too!"
I raised an eyebrow, "How did you see everything? Weren't you eliminated?"
The facilitator in charge of us answered instead, "Members of the final five teams were sent to the spectators instead of being kicked out of the game after being eliminated. It is so that they would be able to be presented as the winners together in the event that their team won even if they were eliminated."
Ah, that's why Ries and Amber appeared alongside Lea and I after the game was over.
The facilitator then nodded at me, "Please allow me to congratulate you on your victory. The final prize pool has been determined to be at five point eight million Credits. Would you be splitting it or would we be sending it to one person to collect?"
"Five point eight million? Wasn't it only around three million?" I asked.
"We would normally receive last minute entrants which would bump up the prize money right before the start of the competition. This is normal."
Damn… So we would each be getting… Twenty one million, four hundred and fifty thousand Credits each?!
With all this money, I'm definitely able to buy that new ship with plenty of money to spare to outfit it!!