Respawn: The Last Crossing (Respawn LitRPG series Book 6)

by Arthur Stone

  What is going on?

  They were no longer communicating via radio and may have moved to chat. In that case, their delay made sense. They were discussing their next course of action, and since chatting while moving was uncomfortable, they would not budge until they were in agreement.

  Hadn’t their commander been clear enough over the radio, though? What had changed?

  Before this thought had even finished passing through his mind, his hand tightened its grip on his sword hilt. Without needing a nudge from his System-provided intuition, he realized that his enemies knew about him.

  Somehow.

  He separated from the wall, like an ice nymph surging out of an icy waterfall. Deftly, he dove under the barrels of the submachine guns and rifles turning his way, Choppa swinging as he went.

  If his luck held out, he would take a couple of them with him.

  Perhaps even more.

  Chapter 27

  Life Nine. Between a Rock and a Hard Place

  Veterans of the Continent move and act very swiftly. Especially if they have pumped their Agility and Reaction.

  Cheater accumulated much higher numbers for these stats than the average player. His opponents were unlikely to match his stats—but they were probably not too much inferior.

  Though they turned quickly, they failed to match Cheater’s speed. His desperate charge and controlled fall dropped his body well below their aim. Choppa’s calculated triple swing crunched through them.

  One opponent lost both legs and fell backwards with a thin scream. Another lost only one limb, causing her to collapse to that side, into the third fighter of the trio. Cheater’s attack did not reach the others, but they were unable to open fire immediately since their own crippled and collapsing comrades were in the way.

  That short moment of confusion was enough for him to roll under one of the bizarrely curved staircases—which one of the two trios had descended shortly before.

  His advantages of surprise and careful calculation were no longer active. Bullets struck the floor and hammered into the staircase. No matter how silenced your weapon, shooting at reinforced concrete would cause a racket.

  In addition, bullet penetration and range suffered when silencers were used. For this reason, players did not always love using them, despite their advantages. When you were up against armored ghouls, you wanted all the power you could get.

  Listening to the impacts against the stairs was a terrifying ordeal. Yet not a single bullet, not a single scrap of concrete, struck Cheater. As ornamental as the stairs looked, they were solid.

  They would not protect him for long. Cheater’s enemies knew that he was behind them, and that he had nowhere to go. He had cornered himself. Two panoramic window openings were before him, bounded by protrusions that stretched from the walls—and nearly to the staircase. Trying to slip out from the corner would cause him to come under fire. Chameleon would hardly protect him during movement.

  But Cheater was not even thinking of trying to slip away. He had not rolled into a corner in order to attempt an escape from it. Rising, he rushed to the window opening, making sure to keep the stairs between him and his attackers. Thanks to its fancy bottom-heavy design, this was easy enough.

  At the end of his run, Cheater jumped high. It was a calculated move, just like all the rest. Perching momentarily on the concrete windowsill, he pivoted on one leg as he sheathed Choppa. He pushed off, from several dozen floors up.

  Suicide was not his intention. If he was to die, he would take his enemies with him.

  His flight plan was not prolonged.

  He grabbed the edge of the window opening one floor down. His speed was limited, and his Reaction was more than enough.

  Immediately he heaved himself up into a room littered with construction debris. Dropping supine, he activated Flash of Omniscience and highlighted the six enemies up above.

  The four remaining from the two trios had predictably gone around the stairs—and were now pumping rounds into the corner where they believed their invisible enemy must be lurking. Two still remained in the place where they had first met Choppa. One was not moving at all, having apparently lost consciousness from the shock. The second was writhing in convulsions and attempting to tie on a tourniquet.

  Cheater glanced to the side and saw nothing threatening. Either the second group had not yet reached the building, or they were too far below for Flash of Omniscience to reach.

  For one moment, he regretted leaving his rifle with Beetle. He could have easily shot all six right now. They were perfectly illuminated, and the reinforced concrete floors were poor obstacles for his weapon. Especially with its modifications. Even without them, Explosive Round could do that and more.

  But he didn’t have the rifle. Plus, his gun didn’t have a silencer, and the ghouls would hear it for miles away. Including the terrifying Trinity. That would create problems for Cheater’s enemies, yes, but also for his companions.

  There was, in fact, no need to fight now. He just had to hold out as long as possible. Bring attention to himself and do whatever he could to keep the ghouls from focusing on his group across the way.

  Somewhere in the depths of his consciousness, Cheater wanted to let March fail. All of his opaque obfuscations just to squeeze more out of border crossings. Let the man meet the Trinity here and realize he had gone too far this time. But all of the other participants would suffer, too, and they had not had anything to do with his overreaching machinations. The group would fail to cross the border and a respawn would disperse them throughout the region, leading to all kinds of problems.

  He would not do that to them.

  Yet most of all, Cheater wanted to be on the other side. And fast. Squeezing maximal bonuses and loot out of the crossing was of no interest to him.

  But instead of even doing that, he was practicing acrobatics in an unfinished building packed with enemies. He had to keep them distracted. Or, ideally, kill them all.

  He should be leaving this behind and charging east.

  Such enemies could not be deceived for long. Once they thoroughly riddled the corner with bullets, they examined it and realized no one was there. It was then a simple conclusion that Cheater had escaped through one of the two window openings.

  The first to the window leaned out to examine the way down. Acrobatics were an option, but perhaps the trick failed, and the invisible man had plummeted to his death.

  Yet no, Cheater’s body could not be seen below, waiting to turn to black dust. Nor did it lie in the concrete labyrinth of the floor below. Instead, it was jutting out into space, held up by gymnastic abdominal strength. Face pointing upward, torso bent at the waist.

  Cheater’s hands were also pointing upward.

  As was the bow in those hands.

  Its string drawn.

  The enemy looking out did not observe this for long. The twang of the bowstring mingled with the revolting sound of the arrow crunching through the player’s bones and brains.

  Someone panicked. He swore, sharply and loudly. Cheater heard it—and grinned.

  They’re nervous. Excellent.

  It was a trick he could only pull once, but it had worked. He could no longer wait for someone else to fall for it. Once he had released the arrow, Cheater had rushed headlong towards the center of the floor. The remaining enemies could do what they liked. He had business to attend to.

  The sentinel remained a few floors below. Reinforcements might be ascending, as well.

  He wanted to have a chat with the sentinel before the newcomers arrived.

  Cheater took the stairs. He descended gradually, activating Flash of Omniscience at nearly every level. This combined with his active Chameleon cost a tremendous amount of mana. Yet without it, he would be blind in the dark and unfamiliar structure. Nor could he deactivate Chameleon. It had a significant cooldown, so turning it off would eliminate the chance to use it again. The second group likely had a sensor on their team, too. Definitely. Beetle’s reaction to
the news had alerted him to how serious these people were—and anyone with such experience and intentions would hardly risk this mission without supernatural senses.

  Even if they had an excellent sensor, though, Chameleon would still be useful. One fighter with a scanning ability was still only one fighter. The rest would be blind, except for their ability to follow their sensor’s instructions.

  If Bighead worked as its properties indicated, even the sensor was only likely to be effective at short distances.

  He found the sentinel two stories higher than he expected. They must have ordered him to come up and then rescinded the command. He stayed in place, weapon pointed up the stairs, expecting an attack from that direction.

  Flash of Omniscience showed the familiar signaling device installed just ahead of him, up the flight of stairs. Perhaps he had come up on his own. He selected a place where his chances of successfully fighting an invisible enemy would be higher.

  The enemy was still not aware of how exactly Chameleon worked. And the less they knew, the better.

  He was, of course, far from invisible, and he would be unable to attack the sentinel on the stairs. The man was ready to fight, and it would be suicidal to come at him from the very direction he was expecting. All of the options that came to mind carried some risk. Even the safest option had a significant level of it.

  He spent some time moving to one of the utility ducts. This floor’s passage did not have an alarm, so he was able to move down a floor. Quietly he crept to the stairs, and more quietly he rounded the corner.

  The man expected no trouble from this side.

  Only at the last moment did he sense something. He had some supernatural sense of hearing or smell, or perhaps something akin to Cheater’s Intuition. The man turned briskly and nearly got the machinegun around in time.

  Cheater’s cut had to be harder than planned—even with the head removed, the body could still pull the trigger. The sword slashed diagonally, slicing through the temple and arm on both ends. It was sloppy, but luck directed the spray of blood to the wall rather than to Cheater’s face.

  As the dead body fell, its radio crackled, and a loud voice came through. “Hello, Cheater.”

  Instead of crouching down to respond, he used Flash of Omniscience yet again, looking for any tricks. Nothing was visible, yet still he searched frantically in his attempt to riddle things out. The lines and angles and planes of the building were still confusing.

  “I know it’s you, whether you respond or not. After all, your group cannot possibly have two such players. You are quite recognizable. My name is Benz. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of me. If you have, then you know that I am a man of my word. We can reach an agreement here, you and I. I don’t need you. I’m not here for you. And I’m not here for your people. But your group has three stowaways, three deceivers, whom I do need. I will not leave without them. Simply give them to me, and we will leave you alone. I have no quarrel with you. You have fought honorably, and that earns nothing but respect. Those up top are not the only fighters you are up against. I am coming up, and I have strong accomplices. You are trapped now between the mallet and the anvil, between the rock and the hard place, but do not fret: our ascent is slow. You have time to think and to give us your reply. Believe me, Cheater: you must give the correct answer. Here, your interests and mine align.”

  It was well said, but this was no church, to talk of belief. Cheater made no reply. He still did not know how he would get out of this situation, nor whether he would get out at all, but surrendering to a team whose fighters he had killed and maimed was a deficient plan.

  Everything was going well so far. The enemy now hunted only him, and he could see his companions making notable progress. They were almost at the top. All he had to do was hold out for a few minutes—then, he could attempt his escape.

  Cheater took advantage of the lull to scope out the current floor, investigating all of the window openings, doorways, and utility ducts. Omniscience gave him lots of information, yes, but it was best to match that up with data from his physical eyes.

  The elevator was interesting. No power had been run up to this floor yet, but the cable had been installed. He could, in theory, descend it. But if the guys coming up were truly veterans, they would do something to prevent this.

  He could not count on their negligence. It was a dangerous route. If he was caught along it there was no way out. He discarded the possibility.

  Could he repeat the trick from before? Jump down one floor, out the window, until he reached the bottom? It seemed risky, but doable. It would be a last resort. If his Agility and Reaction failed him, a long and deadly fall would ensue.

  Once he had explored the whole floor, he moved back up. Three fighters in full health waited somewhere up there, along with a couple of cripples. If Benz’s group was ascending slowly, he might be able to handle the battered top group. They were relatively few, and their sensor was dead.

  The fact that they had somehow noticed him bothered him. Cheater had analyzed those moments in his memory and seen that their behavior changed dramatically at a certain moment. They were about to enter the corridor, and then they stopped. What they had been doing was unclear. They had stayed still, sometimes looking here or there. As if someone was telling them which way to look for him—and that someone had been right.

  With Chameleon and his equipment bonuses active, Cheater could discount the possibility that they had been informed by a new sensor from Benz’s distant group. They had detected him on their own somehow. But how? What had given him away?

  Cheater’s amnesia regarding events in the past world may have had a beneficial effect on his memory of events in this one. He put the pieces together, and realized that his enemies had begun to act differently when he started sending chat messages to March and his party. As if they had somehow detected a nearby player using chat.

  They began preparing to strike when Cheater switched to a conversation with Beetle. He got the impression that this move had somehow refined the accuracy of their estimation of his location.

  It was only a hypothesis. All of this evidence was circumstantial. Yet it appeared an explanation vastly more likely than any other.

  The Continent was a big place. It had lots of players. They had many bizarre abilities.

  Why wouldn’t one of his enemies have an ability that could pinpoint the use of chat? Not eavesdropping—that should be impossible. Just detection of its use. Triangulation.

  Cheater was passing through these floors a third time now. He ignored the alarm boxes and only used Flash of Omniscience sparingly. His mana meter had plenty of room for mana points, but its regeneration speed was not very good. Chameleon was slowly sapping it, and the use of Omniscience caused significant bumps downward. He had to be frugal. There was no telling how long this fight might last.

  The remnants of the first group were not descending. They remained in the same location Cheater had bid them farewell, as he descended to “speak with” their stairwell sentinel. Wounded members had been moved to the area near the elevator shafts, and the three still on their feet had fashioned improvised fortifications out of construction equipment and materials. The now-familiar alarm signal boxes were planted in each of the three hallways leading to their new foothold.

  Omniscience revealed that they were on their guard, weapons pointed in different directions, covering all approaches. One excellent attack angle was from the elevator shaft right behind them. Now that would be a surprise. But it would not end well for him. Cheater was not nimble enough to run on walls. He could climb, but a quick test run below had established that he could hardly do so in silence.

  At the slightest suspicious noise, all three would turn, take a couple of steps, aim down, and open fire.

  Too risky.

  Cheater easily reached the floor the group was on via the same utility well as before. Then, he moved to one of the three hallways leading to the lift area. Taking care not to show himself, he opened th
e party chat again.

  Cheater:

  Yo turtles, you started moving yet?

  March:

  Respect for your elders, boy. We’re at the top already. Lowering ourselves to the ground. Not the easiest task. We should be done in three minutes tops, unless we stop for a beer break. Which I most certainly plan to do. How are things over there?

  Cheater:

  Not bad. Not sure I’ll make it out though. Well, get moving. Over and out.

  As he typed, Cheater kept a close eye on his opponents. He smiled when he saw them move after the first message.

  His assumption seemed to be correct. When he sent chat messages, they could locate him. It was doubtful that they could accurately pinpoint him, but they knew which direction to look. Even the woman with one leg turned to watch this hallway—and the three who were unhurt paid nearly all of their attention to it.