Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary-Chapter 81 Avery’s Gambit

"Is he not coming?"

Crouching behind a wall in one of the simulated buildings. Ezra calmly waited for Avery to show himself again.

So far, their match had been a game of cat and mouse. Where Avery sought out Ezra and attempted to take him out with his overwhelming firepower, while Ezra used hit and run tactics to slowly whittle away at Avery’s defenses.

Of course, Ezra felt confident that even if he got into a head-to-head brawl, that he could beat Avery even with his power armor, but doing so was somewhat risky. Especially when he was uncertain of the weapons and tricks the Sterkur might possess.

Still, Ezra could not just cower inside a building the entire time. If Avery was not going to come to him, then he would just have to continue sneaking around and get close enough to shoot another barrage of lasers before escaping again.

Yet, just before Ezra moved from his current location, the sensors in the visor he was wearing detected the approach of a large mass.

Avery’s power armor came lumbering into view a few moments later.

It began swiveling around searching for Ezra, whose location it could not quite pinpoint, but knew was nearby.

"I figured that he would be smarter than this. Just doing the same thing over and over again won’t yield any different results. He must be reaching his limits." Ezra murmured, somewhat disappointed in Avery.

Piloting power armor took a decent mental toll on a person, and even if he had practiced extensively for two weeks, there was simply no way that Avery could have gotten used to controlling his secret weapon. No matter how sophisticated its support systems were.

From what Ezra could see, the power armor’s movements were already starting to become slower and less precise. Proof that Avery was no longer capable of using it to the best of his abilities.

Deciding that it was about time to finish things off, Ezra held both of his laser pistols together and combined them.

This was a gimmick that the twin weapons had to increase their firepower. Something he had deliberately avoided showing during the shooting competition.

Many would consider such a function eccentric. If Ezra wanted a stronger weapon, it would really have been more practical to simply carry a high-powered laser rifle as well.

But he had been taken by the prospect of having two weapons that could combine to become stronger. And it had truthfully helped him out in the past. It was too cumbersome to always carry a laser rifle around, but other than in restricted areas where weapons were not allowed, he always had his trusty twin laser pistols with him.

When Avery’s power armor faced away from the location he was hiding in, Ezra popped out and fired several blasts from his combined laser pistols.

In this state the output of the lasers exceeded two times what the gun’s usual power was.

He watched the red beams dissipate against the shield around Avery’s power armor, but that was to be expected. Right now, he was simply weakening his opponent’s defenses so that he could deliver the finishing blow all at once later.

A bit sluggishly compared to before, the power armor turned around and fired back.

Ezra was slightly surprised to see two more laser emitters pop up out of the Sterkur’s shoulders, but the extra blasts meant little if they failed to hit him.

Without a moments delay, he took off running down the hall, his hard light shield activated on his back to absorb and possible stray fire that might have miraculously been able to hit him.

’Perhaps just two or three more times and I will have brought his shields down enough to finish this in one blow. No matter how strong its plating is, that armor won’t be able to block my hard light weapon once it no longer has shields.’ Ezra thought, feeling the rhythmic bouncing of the long pole affixed to his back as he ran.

Hard light weapons were essentially the sharpest material that could exist. It created a nearly unbreakable blade that was so thin it was almost two dimensional. Only certain super compressed alloys could block a strike from such a weapon, and it was impractical to use something like that in power armor plating. That would make it too heavy to move properly.

Yet, As Ezra was envisioning his soon to be victory, something wholly unexpected occurred.

In the corner of his eye, he saw a figure waiting down a hallway that intersected with the one he was running through.

’Impossible!’

Turning his head, Ezra watched as Avery, no longer in his power armor, leveled his laser pistol at him.

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as Ezra watched his opponent pull down on the trigger of his weapon.

He had fallen right into a trap. One that he should have foreseen. Avery’s power armor had not been moving so imprecisely because Avery was starting to feel fatigued. It was due to the fact that it was being operated remotely.

Pushing his enhanced body to its limits, Ezra pulled his hard light shield in front of him just as the first streaks of red light flew out of the muzzle of Avery’s laser pistol.

However, he was not quite fast enough at this moment.

The red beam slipped past him as he swung his shield around and struck him in the head.

Normally this would have been the end. People could not survive taking a shot from a laser pistol to the head.

Except, Ezra had not truly been hit by the blast.

"That was a good plan, but you should have accounted for the fact that I have a personal shield generator. Even I’m under no illusion that I can block every laser fired at me with only my hard light shield." Ezra said, turning to face Avery.

He then lowered his posture so that he was fully covered by his shield and charged.

Before he had avoided engaging in close combat due to possibly being overwhelmed by Avery’s power armor. But now that it was out of the equation, he was free to end this battle with his overwhelming physical abilities.

This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.