Chapter 17: Battle in the Lava Crossroads! Part 2

I am speeding in the desolate black plains of the Lava Crossroads. The Levitating Charger is a stealth type vehicle, it can slightly change its color to reduce the contrast with the ambience and produces almost no sound. However, my body’s shiny metallic alloy is too easy to see in this dark plains.

"Enemy spotted, 7 o'clock 250 meters." Ana is constantly using the Pulse Radar which means that I am constantly revealing my position.

"Damn, I wanted to start a pursuit, not being pursued." I speed the Charger and turn to the right, the enemy changes its course too and starts to pursue me and fire from my back. "Ana, I'll trust you again the decisions like the last match."

"Are you going to use Full Dive again?" Ana asks because that is the exact same order I gave to her in the Juggernaut Duel.

"Heck no," I answer immediately, "I don't know how to drive this Charger manually, I just need to focus a lot to not be damaged in this little pursuit." I reply while speeding.

Ana stops using the pulse radar and I start doing evasive maneuvers to avoid the incoming bullets. The distance quickly shortens to 100 meters.

"Hmp." I grin inwardly. After some time, the pursuit leads us to a place which has no nearby rocks to take cover, this is the place I was looking for. I tilt my whole body to the right of the Levitating Charger at the same time that I turn it 90º to the left while hitting the brakes, causing it to powerslide horizontally because of the inertia.

*Bang, bang, bang.*

A rain of bullets storms from the opponent's vehicle to the left flank of my Levitating Charger, damaging it moderately. Since I am hiding in the right side I remain unscratched.

Seeing me hiding on the other side of the vehicle, from his point of view, my opponent decides to speed up in a straight line in an attempt to ram me and my Charger.

When the other player’s vehicle is near the 20 meters mark, I turn the Levitating Charger 110º again to the left and with my left hand press a button in it, causing it to go from 0 to max speed in split a second.

Seeing that my Charger is now moving towards him my opponent changes his course slightly to the right to avoid a frontal collision.

However, that is exactly what I wanted him to do, the angle and the distance is perfect, both vehicles are speeding up parallel to each other in opposite directions.

While this takes some time to describe, only 2.5 seconds went by since I tilted my body.

*Swish.*

*CREAAAAAK.*

*Crackle, crackle, crackle.*

I, with my body still tilted in the right of the charger, just extend my arm and my Advanced Piercing Plasma Saber leaves a huge gap in the hull of the vehicle of my opponent. Not only the hull was heavily damaged, the vehicle is internally damaged too and while it is still operable I don’t think it will have the same performance as moments ago.

I throw the Advanced Piercing Plasma Saber to the air and my Carrier Orb immediately absorbs it in the inventory, I straighten my position in the Levitating Charger gripping it with both hands now and after some distance I do a 180º turn, now I’m facing the fleeing damaged vehicle.

It isn't a Levitating Charger as mine, it is a Power Charger. While the Levitating Charger emphasizes in stealth and speed, the Power Charger emphasizes in defense and attack, unfortunately for my opponent the Piercing ability of the Plasma Saber completely ignores defenses and energy shields when the charge is made in a straight line at high speed, feat very easy to achieve while in a vehicle.

*Swooooosh, Swoooooosh.*

If normally the Levitating Charger is faster than the Power Charger, with the severe blow the Power Charger suffered now the difference is even more evident and I am shortening the distance very fast. My opponent uses a Plasma Gun trying to shoot me down, but I make zigzag movements in order to evade the bullets.

I don't fire back at all, not even with the Charger's Light Machine Gun, I just keep speeding and shortening the distance.

60 meters, 50 meters, 40 meters, 30 meters, 20 meters. I praise inwardly my opponent because he isn't showing any signs of anxiousness and isn't making any mistakes even with the damaged Charger. At this distance I finally realize that he is a Mutant.

15 meters.

Suddenly the Mutant hits the brakes of his Charger and turns it to the right causing it to powerslide in a similar maneuver as the one I did previously, however instead of tilting his body to the other side of the vehicle he puts his feet in the seat of the Charger.

At the same time that he hits the brakes, the Mutant releases the grip of the Charger and equips a second Plasma Gun, holding now one in each hand.

10 meters.

The Mutant waits until the collision is inevitable and does a side somersault. He jumps in a magnificent and practiced fashion from his Charger towards my Charger. Nevertheless he doesn't jump only to dodge the collision, with his body upside down, he aims both guns and releases a barrage of shots towards me.

Again, I praise inwardly that Mutant for being so crafty, remaining calm and attempting an aerial maneuver is something not everybody could do in that situation. I release the grip of the Levitating Charger with my left hand and I flex my entire arm above my head awaiting for the incoming bullets.

*Clang, clang, clang, clang.*

Dozens of metallic sounds could be heard. I draw and arc in the air with my left arm following the trajectory of the airborne Mutant. However my arm isn't naked, Ana deployed the Small Titanium Shield saving me from losing a lot of my energy shields.

The experienced Mutant could not remain calm anymore and reveals an expression of horror, although I could not see his face directly because I was covering with my Small Titanium Shield, it is obvious that the Mutant didn't expect the shield.

If the shield was slightly surprising for him, the way in which I avoid the collision was even more surprising.

Although the collision is inevitable I don't change my course, I raise the front of my Levitating Charger and I let the bottom to take the brunt of the collision. The bottom isn't the sturdiest part of the vehicle, in fact, it's one of the weakest parts, it's where the levitating mechanisms are located.

Thanks to those levitating mechanisms that greatly decelerates upon proximity with another surface, in this case the other vehicle, the impact was reduced to a light bump.

The Mutant gets distracted for a heartbeat and he stumbles when he touches the ground, falling like a watermelon in the dark rocky floor. He rolls unstoppably several times.

I leap from the Charger with the Light Plasma Carbine in my possession and fire several burst towards the Mutant killing him before he could stand up.

*Pe-pe-pew, Pe-pe-pew, Pe-pe-pew, Pe-pe-pew.*

"Bodyshot, bodyshot, you have killed player Kadrian, Berserker state Lv. 1 active for 5 seconds."

"Easy as pie, but we got detoured." I say while staring to the southwest. I had to make several turns during the pursuit so I didn't advance much towards the bridge. Getting at least near the tower is a top priority for me.

I walk to where the Mutant died and pick up the Plasma Guns he was carrying. Since my Carrier Orb has no more capacity I decide to store them in a side of the Levitating Charger.

After picking the weapons I quickly inspect my Levitating Charger. The hull is heavily damaged, fortunately it can perform without problems, though it is better if I avoid more damage, especially on the left side.

"Let's go!" I say while leaping in the levitating charger and accelerating once again towards the tower.

I travel for 1000 meters without more encounters. Ana sees the status screen of the match and notices that 7 of the players are already dead, meaning that only 25 players remains in the 45 square meters of volcanic land.

“It’s quiet… too quiet…” I murmur after traveling a bit more without finding any other player.

“Be careful, it’s a trap!” Ana exclaims suddenly.

“What?!” I hit the brakes surprised. I turn my head in all directions without finding anything.

“What’s going on Ana?” The more effort I put on searching for the player who is laying the trap, the more uneasy I feel, however a faint laugh enter my ears. ‘Be careful, it’s a trap…’ I concentrate in that statement for a moment until I realize what’s going on, “God damn it Ana, that was a low blow using that quote in this precise moment!” I wave my fist in front of tiny camera of the Carrier Orb, causing her laughter to intensify.

I continue my journey on the Levitating Charger, this time at a low speed. There are less than 800 meters between me and the border of the bridge and I’m 90% sure that someone must have taken the lead and is laying an ambush. If not for the previous pursuit, that’s what I would do.

700 meters, 600 meters, suddenly I notice something in the distance, “Finally other players, there’s a big party ahead.” I am still far away but I could see the vague silhouettes of at least 3 players and the flashes of their weapons.

I stop once again the charger while staring the fight from afar. After watching for a couple of seconds I get a feeling that builds up in my mind telling me that something is off. “Why are they fighting so wildly in that area?” In the past 20 seconds I noticed at least 5 different players, I am not sure if there is a 6th or a 7th, but the strange thing is that none of them retreats in midst of that chaotic battle, even more strange is that everyone is trying to press onwards.

‘Who in their right minds would press onwards in the middle of the crossfire of at least 4 other players?’ I narrow my eyes and try to think of a possible answer.

“Ana, can you check if there’s something important over there?” I instruct Ana while signaling a general location. I could try to see it by myself but I don’t want to lose the panoramic view of the fight and lose track of the position of the other players because it is very obvious that when you look at the abyss, the abyss looks back at you.

“Sure captain!” Ana says and the Carrier Orb immediately gains a little altitude. She starts to scan the surroundings hovering a little more than a meter above my head.

“There are a couple of damaged chargers scattered,” Ana says slowly while inspecting the battlefield from left to right. She makes a pause and then continues, “*whistle* There’s a War Reaver at 2 o’clock.” After saying that she goes back to her position, hovering near my shoulder.

“A War Reaver you said?” If my avatar could frown, both of my eyebrows would be together. A War Reaver is a robot-type vehicle slightly superior to the Charger. In fact, a War Reaver is a 4 stars vehicle while a Charger is a 3.5 stars vehicle. The problem is that as I see it, for a War Reaver is not worth risking dying under so crazy crossfire as the one I’m witnessing.

Unless…

“That’s it! It must be it!” An idea enters my mind as I think of the only possible explanation. “Hurry, let’s go!”

END OF CHAPTER 17.

Hello everybody, did you think that I dropped the series? Did you? Did you?

Well, I have bad news: HELL NO, I didn't drop it.

However, there are huge changes I did. If this is the first time you read DotC, you can skip the message, if you read it previously to this date, maybe you should read the message.

As some of you know I have a problem in my leg, but this 2 weeks of lacks of updates have nothing to do with it. I was testing, reading, studying, and thinking. I rewrote the story like 4 times in different tenses and perspectives, and finally I decided and liked first person / present tense.

80% of the story will be written from Marcus's PoV. There are some 3rd person narration as the battle of Snowy Hills (second round of the tournament) and some things that just need to be narrated in 3rd person. But even if it's from Marcus's PoV, I want to stress than Marcus is not omniscient, for example:

'She is such a stupid girl' Ana thinks looking at the new girl.

That is something Ana thinks, Marcus will not know about it unless Ana tells him. I know it is something obvious but I want to clarify it since the narration will be made from Marcus's PoV most of the time, and I constantly say what is the enemy thinking about Marcus wich obviously Marcus doesn't know.

P.S.: Finally a cover! But it's only me or Royal Road page has issues? It doesn't load in my pc.

P.P.S.: I will gladly accept any suggestions and critiscism, and I'll be happy if you rate the novel and even more if you write a review! Thx for your taking your time to read my nonsense!