A strange, new dynamic settled over the Floating Ruins. The frantic energy of the opening moments had evaporated, replaced by a glacial, intellectual cold war. Shen Liang and One-Shot Eagle were no longer just shooter and target; they were co-authors of a deadly ballet, each composing steps for the other to follow.
Shen Liang moved in bursts of unpredictable activity, punctuated by periods of absolute stillness. He used his mana shots not as weapons, but as tools—chipping away at overhangs to create new shadows to hide in, striking unstable pillars to alter the soundscape of the arena, even firing at the energy currents to momentarily disrupt their hum and create pockets of auditory cover.
Each shot was an investment, a carefully weighed decision. [Shots Fired: 19] [Shots Missed: 0]. The "Missed" counter was his most precious resource, and he guarded it with a fanatical devotion. He was no longer trying to hit Eagle; he was trying to build a world where hitting Eagle would eventually become inevitable.
Eagle, in turn, was a ghost. He was a master of angles and misdirection. Shen Liang would catch a glimpse of gray movement, fire a shot, and only then realize it was a cleverly placed piece of fabric, or a reflection off a discarded weapon. The sniper was conserving his own energy, expending only the minimal effort required to negate Shen Liang's advances, forcing him to burn through his precious mana and his even more precious margin of error.
It was a battle of logistics as much as skill. Shen Liang's 550 MP was a deep well, but not bottomless. Eagle's patience, however, seemed infinite.
The breakthrough came from a moment of sheer, desperate insight.
Shen Liang was tracking Eagle's movements, correlating them with the faint, almost imperceptible scuffing sounds his boots made on the stone. He noticed a pattern. Before taking a shot—any shot, whether a warning or a tactical environmental hit—Eagle would always, always take a shallow, sharp inhale. It was a sniper's habit, a way to steady the body in the moment before the trigger pull. In the overwhelming silence of the arena, Shen Liang's enhanced Dexterity seemed to sharpen his hearing just enough to catch it.
It was a tell. A microscopic flaw in the perfect machine that was One-Shot Eagle.
Shen Liang formulated a new plan, the most audacious one yet. He would use Eagle's own discipline against him.
He positioned himself in a relatively open area, a calculated risk. He raised his pistol, aiming at a distant, irrelevant target. He waited, his entire being focused on listening.
There it was. The faint, sharp inhale from across the chasm. Eagle was preparing to fire, likely to dissuade him from taking this foolishly exposed shot.
In that split second, as Eagle's body was locked into the pre-shot stillness, Shen Liang acted. He abandoned his original aim and pivoted with blinding speed, his body coiling like a spring. He didn't aim at where Eagle was, but at where he could not move from in the next half-second.
He fired.
Pfft!
The blue bolt crossed the chasm in a blink. It wasn't a killing shot. It wasn't even a damaging one in the grand scheme. It struck the crystalline rifle itself, square on the barrel, with a sharp ping!
The shot would do zero damage. The system's 1 HP damage only applied to living targets. But the impact, the sheer audacity of it, was a seismic event.
For the first time, there was a reaction. A barely perceptible jerk from the shadows. A flicker of surprise that disrupted the sniper's perfect composure. Shen Liang had not just predicted his shot; he had counter-sniped him. He had hit a bullet with a bullet, metaphorically speaking.
He had finally, truly, touched him.
Shen Liang didn't wait. He was already moving, his heart soaring even as his body screamed in protest. He had found a crack in the armor. The "Missed" counter was still a terrifying [Shots Fired: 20] [Shots Missed: 0], but the psychological landscape of the battle had irrevocably shifted.
The message was no longer one of defiance. It was one of equality.
You are not hunting a rabbit. You are dueling a fellow predator.
From the shadows, One-Shot Eagle remained silent. But the quality of the silence had changed. It was no longer the silence of a hunter waiting for his prey to stumble. It was the respectful, deadly silence of a king who has just felt a challenger's blade touch his skin for the first time.
The game was far from over. But the rules had been rewritten once again.