Chapter 148: An Opportunity
Gyoran stood several meters away, the Salvation Duo raised and ready to fire again. The weapons hummed with stored energy, their glowing barrels illuminating the Boss's face as he watched Daito carefully.
He had made his point.
Daito's current strategy was unsustainable. The armor had failed, the battlefield was disappearing, and the heat was steadily wearing down the man who had spent the entire fight refusing to surrender. Even if the Boss's ammunition eventually ran out, there was no guarantee that Daito would remain alive long enough to take advantage of it.
And beyond this dimension, the Outsiders were still fighting.
Gyoran understood what that meant to Daito, because he had spent enough time observing his opponent to recognize the importance of those connections. Daito wasn't simply fighting to prove his strength or satisfy his pride. He was fighting because he had something to return to, something that mattered more to him than his own survival.
That made him dangerous.
It also made him predictable in one particular way.
'Daito would never willingly abandon his friends.'
Gyoran tightened his fingers around the weapons, preparing to unleash another barrage, but before he could fire, he noticed a subtle change in Daito's expression.
The exhaustion remained, the pain remained.
Yet the desperation that had begun to creep into his movements seemed to recede, replaced by a familiar intensity that Gyoran had come to recognize throughout their battle.
Daito was thinking again.
Not about how to escape the flames, nor about how long he could survive the bombardment, but about how to turn the situation into something he could use.
The Boss's lips curved into a faint smile.
There you are.
Daito shifted his weight, testing the condition of his legs while keeping his eyes fixed on the surrounding wreckage. He could no longer depend on the armor to protect him, and he couldn't afford to waste energy running through a battlefield that Gyoran was actively destroying.
If he continued playing by the Boss's rules, the outcome was already decided.
He needed to change the nature of the fight.
The answer wouldn't come from trying to survive every attack. It wouldn't come from waiting indefinitely for the Salvation Duo to run out of ammunition, either, because Gyoran had made it clear that Daito might not have enough time for such a gamble.
He needed to create an opportunity that didn't exist yet.
Something that would force Gyoran to respond differently.
Something that would turn the Boss's greatest advantage into a problem he couldn't solve simply by pulling a trigger.
Daito's eyes moved across the ruins once more, studying the terrain through the waves of heat. He examined the fractured stone, the enormous skeletal remains, the narrow gaps between the collapsed formations, and the unstable ground beneath the burning sand.
'Good, he hasn't noticed it yet.'
Then his gaze returned to Gyoran.
For the first time since the bombardment began, Daito wasn't looking for somewhere to run.
He was looking for a way to end the fight.
And whatever he was about to attempt, it would have to work before his body finally gave out.
Fwooosh.....
The wind howled through the inferno.
CLICK!
Gyoran raised the Salvation Duo.
Daito lowered his stance, The Piercer angled forward as he prepared to move.
Neither man spoke.
They no longer needed to.
The next exchange would determine whether Daito Greyhell could find a way through the impossible situation before him or whether the mission that had brought him this far would end in a burning wasteland, far from the people who were still waiting for him to return.
To be continued...