The duel between William and Gunz tinued.

  The two of them danced bad forth while shooting, ter-shooting, and ter-ter-shooting each other. It was a delicate fight of accuracy, rea time, spag, and outguessing.

  William started the fight on the wrong foot as his Korean cel failed multiple times in a row. However, after taking a moment to reassess the situation and calm down, his wo KCs were a resounding success. He was getting the hang of it...!

  BAM! A bullet flew at William, but he sidestepped it via Kd fired a swift ter.

  ZAP! The ter was successful. The ser beam grazed Gunz's shoulder, catg the guy in the middle of a sidestep.

  But, it was too early to celebrate, as Gunz has already readied his gun once more for a terattack!

  It was a swift shift from sidestepping to shooting. It’s as if the guy already figured he was going to get hit, so he cut his sidestep short in order to terattack faster.

  It was an inhumanly fast response. Before William’s beam even hit Gunz, the guy’s pistol was already locked on William, and it was ready to fire at a moment’s notice...!

  William had no ce of sidestepping this shot via normal means. Also, g into a Dodge Roll was not an optioher so long as the threat of Krakeed.

  Therefore, there was only ohing that could possibly save him here: Korean cel. He already buffered the input ahead of time as it was impossible to do so oion, not with how tight the input window was.

  Will the Ke through for him this time? Or, will it fail miserably again?

  Oh, it registered. William realized that his Droid started moving early, before his attaimation fully ended. Good. I’ll dodge this one and shoot back again.

  He had this one in the bag. With the KC kig in, Gunz’s uping shot was definitely going to miss... or, will it?

  Oh, he's moving! Lars noticed just as he started pressing the left button. It gotta be that KC thing again, yo! I o shift my aim just a little...!

  Right before the bullet was unleashed, Lars tilted his mouse to the side. It ged the shot’s angle ever so slightly.

  BAM! The bullet darted toward Winner!

  WHAM! The bullet made tact. It grazed Winner’s arm, hitting him in the middle of his sick sidestep teique.

  He still hit me...? William blinked.

  This was supposed to be the part where William fires a ter-attack after finishing the sidestep, yet his fingers didn’t budge. The best response he managed was to backstep in order to get out of the enemy’s range and dey Gunz’s shot, but that’s all. His brain short-circuited for a moment there.

  I... I did a KC, right? William repyed the situation in his head. I definitely sidestepped enough to avoid getting shot. But, he still hit me and it didn’t look like a fluke. It was just for a moment, but it looked like his gun was following my movements.

  William doubted his owimony on this, but that’s what he observed in the middle of his sidestep.

  He moved his gun just a little before firing. Did he actually reay Kd shift his aim accly? That’s…

  Absurd, to say the least. Pulling off something like this required a godly rea speed that rivaled the most meically skilled pros out there. Did Gunz really possess a talent like this...?

  No, it had to be a fluke, right? There’s no way he do this sistently. William tried to reassure himself, but his fidence was slipping away.

  Well, I ’t argue with the facts. William ceded. Maybe Gunz’s rea speed is really good enough for pulling off stunts like this, at least every now and then. I mean, he’s not the first impossibly talented middle schooler I’ve e across this year. In fact, we have a much greater monster in our own club.

  If a pro-level middle schooler like Young-jin ermitted to exist in this world, then it wasn’t a stretch to believe that a middle schooler with godly rea speed existed as well. Not to mention, the st few exges made it clear that Gunz's meical skill trampled over William's.

  If this were a tennis match, then Gunz would have likely beeype to rely on his speed and power. He’d deliver strong groundstrokes to maintain momentum, and he’d use his speedy rea to catch up aurn any ball that came his way.

  To make things worse, Gunz was the one who got the initiative in this fight, so it’s like he was the server. And, breaking the serve of a force oppo like this was always an uphill battle.

  Meanwhile, Gunz would ter most of William's stokes with retive ease. This guy relied on nothing but sheer speed, in both rea speed and execution.

  No matter how calcuted William's strokes were, Gunz would trample over all that careful pnning through sheer speed and instinct. He was the type who would often find himself in a difficult spot for returning the ball, yet he would still successfully pull it off by responding impossibly fast.

  I'm more than familiar with oppos like this. William frowhis is the kind of wall I’ve had to deal with many times before.

  Back when he pyed Tennis, there was no she of oppos who had physical advantages. Some were taller and hit devastating smashes, others were faster aurhe ball from every difficult course. The further William advanced in tours, the more “unfair” matchups like this he had to gh.

  There's always a pyer who is better tha something. That belief rooted itself in his head after all these bitter experiences.

  William couldn't be the fastest, stro, and smartest pyer around. He had his own strengths and so did his oppos. Therefore, reizing what his oppos excelled at and what they cked was the key to overing them.

  It all es down to adaptation. William reminded himself as he stepped out of the range of Gunz's ining shot. Even in this fight, I see some openings. For one, his spag isn't as tight as mine.

  The two duelists tinued dang around the ne, gunning for each other. However, since William found himself at a signifit HP disadva this point, he slowed down his tempo and made the oppo chase him.

  For now, I'll make you run around the court like a dog. William thought. And then, once you overextend...!

  ZAP! A ser beam pierced through Gunz's chest the momeepped in!

  "Dang!" Lars excimed. I overstepped, huh. Got a little careless there.

  He responded by shooting back at his oppo, but the surprise of being hit out of the blue deyed his rea a little. In that brief window of time, Winner had enough time to sidestep the shot.

  In the end, all of it went acc to Winner's pn.

  This is what happens when your spag isn't up to par. William criticized. You're stepping in too much, and it's going to be the end of you if you keep doing it.

  As an integral part of his training regime, William made sure to study and practice the shooting distances of all the meta csses to the point of perfe. Thanks to that, he could accurately judge the distaween himself and his oppo at any time.

  He utilized his experieo stantly pce himself at the very edge of Gunz’s attack range. From a position like this, he needed less than half a step in order to get out of Gunz’s reach.

  BAM! Another bullet darted toward William, but it fell off shortly before reag him. Once again, Gunz failed to realize that Wiliam was at the very edge of Pirate’s attack range.

  In respoo the shot, William stepped in just a little and fired a ter. ZAP! It successfully grazed the enemy’s arm.

  I’m sorry to inform you but my depth perception is quite the cheat, or so I was told.

  Though William cked in many ways pared to the stroennis oppo he faced, his depth perception sistently remaiop-notch. It was the oool he could always trust to back him up, no matter how tough the adversary was.

  In fact, his acute ability to judge distances robably the very thing that made tennis so hooking for him in the first pce. It felt like a sport that pyed to his strengths, long before he even realized how impressive his depth perception was.

  He had always been good at reading ball courses and adjusting his position accly. This talent, bined with his methodical pystyle, allowed him to ter many oppos.

  But, that alone isn't always enough. William thought solemnly. Some oppos are just too physically gifted. No amount of pnning ah perception pensate for a huge physical advantage, not in a sport like this.

  Fortunately, Cssmancers was a different type of game. Being physically gifted was helpful but not mandatory. There were tless ways to pensate for mediocre meical skill, so long as the pyer put iime and effort.

  Of course, godly meical skill and tale here too, as Gunz was exemplifying in this very fight. However, the gap those skills created wasn’t impossible to close.

  ZAP! William punished another careless overextensiunz.

  "Gah!" Lars jumped. "Dang, yo! This dude sure knows his spag."

  "Why, of course he does!" Vi interjected out of nowhere. "He is her tharix voluter! He has the power to transform the world around him into a detailed 5-dimensional matrix and filter it down to all the importaails!"

  "Yeah, it's cool as heck, yo!" Not that I have any idea what any of that means, but dude sure got the spag down!

  "What is the 5th dimension in this case?" Yuel posed a difficult question. "I assume the 4th dimension is time, but the 5th is...?"

  "Oh, um..." Vi spouted all that stuff as if he thought everything through, when iy it was a bunch of hogwash as usual. "It's... the filter dimension!"

  “Excuse me?”

  “After Winner observes all the possible 3D spaces across all the possible timelines, he observes them through specifis filters!”

  “And, what exactly is he searg for?”

  “That’s a very good question! It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “For example, by applying the edge dete filter, he accurately estimate the distaween himself and his oppo at any time!”

  “I see...” This makes absolutely no sense, but that’s par for the course. Vi’s niames for abilities were usually over-the-top, and this “Matrix voluter” was no exception.

  Thankfully, this wasn’t the first time Yuel listeo an attempt to expin this “Matrix voluter” title. Every time, Vi expi in a different bombastic way, so Yuel had a lot of information to work with, enough to piece together what this ability meant… probably.

  Apparently, Vi dubbed Winner as the “Matrix voluter” for the guy’s ability to acutely analyze the space around him. Basically, Winner was good at spag, that’s all Vi really wao say.

  But of course, Vi being Vi, he had to plicate things and dial them up to eleven. That’s why he involved matrices, filters, and other random things.

  I have no idea how he even knows all these terms. Yuel sighed. I remember ing across the term “matrix volution” in regards to edge dete in images, so maybe that’s where he took it from?

  No matter how silly the niame was, there arently a grain of logi it, as it was usually the case with Vi’s nonsense. Indeed, AbsoluteWinner was a master of “edge dete”, so to speak. He had the uny ability to keep his oppos at an optimal distance as he shot them down.

  Lars’s spag is also usually solid, but there’s definitely a gap between him and Winner.

  Twi a row now, Lars found himself overextending while chasing Winner down. And, both times, the enemy exploited the brief overextension in order to gun Lars down. It looked like an uphill duel for Lars, which was beyond rare.

  “Heh, not bad!” Lars grinned. “That’s how it gotta be, yo!”

  Winner had a somewhat slow start in this duel, but it looked like dude finished booting himself up. Now, he ying at full throttle and his spag was outta this world!

  DarkestCymore