The previous explosions and screams had lasted for nearly half an hour, so it was only natural that traces would be left behind. What Rorschach needed to do now was to use the ranger's tracking techniques to find his opponent's location.
"… I don't think anyone has ever taught me how to track in a desert, not to mention a sandstorm."
Track footprints? With his current vision and the desert terrain, there were no footprints at all.
Track footprints left behind by broken tree branches and environmental impacts? The results were the same as above.
Smell? The moment Rorschach took off the scarf covering his mouth and nose, he ate a mouthful of sand. Only local creatures like desert foxes and desert cats would be able to track someone in such a manner. However, even they would find a safe place to hide in a sandstorm.
However, Rorschach wasn't worried at all. He knew that he would soon find traces of his opponent. After all …
"When your opponent disappears without a trace, what will you do?"
"If you don't have absolute confidence in finding your opponent, the wisest thing to do would be to hide yourself as much as possible and turn a boring battle into a time-consuming game of hide-and-seek."
"But what if time is limited? What if you can't afford to wait? "
"In that case, you can only expose yourself and give your opponent an opening. You can bait your opponent into attacking you at the cost of giving up the initiative."
Rorschach arrived at a conclusion after asking and answering his own questions from his opponent's perspective.
Right now, what he needed to find wasn't his opponent's tracks, but rather tracks left behind by his opponent.
As expected, Rorschach soon found melted sandstone. It seemed that the person searching for Rorschach hadn't been able to find him and had left behind burn marks in anger.
Then, he carefully searched the surrounding ground and indeed found traces of magical armor. The scorching heat had even melted some of the sandstone. As a qualified ranger, such obvious traces were more than enough for him to track down.
"Haha, you're so impatient. You're afraid that I won't be able to see it. You even carved it on the wall."
Rorschach laughed out loud. His words were shown to the audience through the broadcast. Some people were already laughing along with him.
Amidst the laughter, May Rain's black-haired girl and her companions finally revealed worried expressions.
Even if he was still confident in his companion's strength, if even his battle thoughts were seen through, he would be in a passive position.
Soon, Rorschach found his target by following the traces that sometimes disappeared.
It was a scorched, sandy land. There were many traces of lava on the relatively flat terrain. A bright silver medium-sized demonic armor was parked in the center.
"… Even though I've given up the initiative, that doesn't mean that I've given up all my advantages. At the very least, I can choose the battlefield. Tsk, you must have put in a lot of effort to forcibly turn the sand into hard rocks and lava. You must have used up a lot of energy. "
Rorschach smiled happily as he continued to follow the other party's train of thought.
"It's obvious that giving up the initiative of the first attack is too passive. We can try to beat them at their own game. For example, we can expose our magic armor as bait and hide in a corner to ambush them. In any case, even if we don't have any magic armor, Tier 4 classes are still capable of fighting … Little Sister Ariel, am I right?"
Rorschach didn't receive an answer to his question. Instead, the audience was laughing so hard that they were about to fall off their seats.
In their field of vision, they naturally saw Ariel buried under the sand with an uncomfortable expression. Her face was covered in sweat as she earnestly operated her magic armor. From time to time, she would remotely control her magic armor to make it seem like she was the pilot.
Alright, since he had discovered his target, Rorschach would … turn around and leave.
"Yep, it's been hard work. Let's go back and have a cup of coffee."
"Bastard, are you going to fight or not!?"
"Is there anyone who plays like you? Go, she's three hundred meters east of you under the sand. "
"Don't, if you're a man, push her."
After successfully toying with the audience once again, Rorschach turned around and left while the audience was cursing at him.
Was he really not going to fight? Of course not. If he dragged this out until the end of the battle, even if his overly negative performance wasn't judged by the referee, the reputation of the Game Church and Rorschach would be ruined. The greatest benefit of this Battle of the Gods was reputation.
Reputation wasn't important? It was the most important foundation for the development of the Game Church.
"I'm definitely going to fight, but first, I need to make some preparations. Then, I'll reserve twenty … fifteen minutes."
Wasting the opponent's time, concentration, stamina, and patience. The final fifteen minutes would determine the victor.
Or should I do this if I can't win? Since there wasn't much time left, wouldn't it be fine to drag it out until the end?
He had said all that should be said, and all that shouldn't be said … seemed to have been said as well. The audience was already numb from this guy's torment. However, Rorschach wasn't anxious at all. He opened the large wooden box that he carried with him and slowly set it up.
"However, since I'm here, I might as well do a test to see where she's hiding and how fast her reaction speed is."
After a simple assembly of the components, the required items were created.
Five minutes later, the first exchange between the two sides began.
"Ding!"
A crisp sound rang out. The silver arrow was infused with supernatural power. It forcefully advanced through the storm and then … hit the sand several dozen meters away from Ariel's magic armor.
"It's here!"
At the same time, a silver flame soared into the sky. The shadow of a silver dragon flew up from the sand and directly attacked in the direction of the ambusher … and then, a look of confusion appeared on her face.
"Idiot, continue hiding. How could you be so easily tricked into coming out?"
The wooden box had been dismantled and inserted into the sand. Not only was there an ugly ghost face drawn on it, there were even words of ridicule written in the common language.
Beside it, there was a simple mechanical crossbow. The timer on it had reached the end.
"Bastard!"
Karwenz was so angry that she was about to explode … Her real-life flames directly destroyed her exquisite crossbow mechanism. However, she didn't realize that she had exploded like a bolt of lightning. Not only did the audience laugh so hard, Rosia even pressed down on her stopwatch in the distance.
"A distance of five hundred meters, three and a half seconds. What a frightening speed … Dragon wings, dragon flames, all of them. Okay, give me more information."
Rorschach silently retreated and returned to the shadows.
Although the scene was rather comical, everyone felt an indescribable chill in their hearts when they saw the young man's patient and amiable smile. They couldn't help but think of that overly exaggerated nickname — Ghost in the Fog.
Perhaps, those unlucky bandits had been plotted against step by step in such a manner. Even they had inexplicably stepped into death.
Rorschach's current performance didn't seem like the newbie in the information at all. Instead, he was a patient, cautious, persistent, and experienced vengeful assassin.
"Alright, take your time to play with my little present. See you in the last fifteen minutes."
Rorschach playfully blew a kiss in the air. Then, he unhesitatingly returned to his hiding place.
In the surrounding area, there were seven similar crossbows that were being automatically reloaded. Their countdown times varied between fast and slow. Roughly every few minutes, they would fire a shot.
At that time, not only would it exhaust the opponent's stamina and magic power, it would also destroy the opponent's patience and rationality. More importantly, it would weaken the opponent's … vigilance.
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