Lord Batman was indeed cautious. He stood by the farthest wall of the grid, carefully examining the unknown entity in front of him. He heard its voice, but in this environment, it was hard to say whether it was an auditory hallucination.
Looking around, there was an endless snowy wasteland, an utterly desolate and freezing place. They were wearing scientific expedition cold suits, looking like researchers. At this moment, they stumbled upon a gray, unknown mist in the ice field, which tried to communicate with him. It was reminiscent of the light in front of an anglerfish's head.
"Well, I'm not a human race, but there's no rule saying only humans can compete," the Gray mist explained, "I really am a player, not a monster generated by the map."
"Why explain so much to him? Just transform into a human form," Greed said.
"The issue is, if I transform, wouldn't I be more terrifying if I turned into you?"
"Uh..."
"Okay," Lord Batman said, "who's your teammate?"
"That's a spot-on question," the Gray mist said, "I do have a teammate, but I can't tell you his name for reasons I can't explain. You might as well assume I'm a monster."
"What a mess," Lord Superman muttered in the room. He said, "Forget about that, try the combat system."
"Are you crazy?" Although Lord Batman said this, his tone was still calm, "Do I look like I can take on this thing in front of me?"
"Don't worry; the other side is definitely restricted too; you might not necessarily lose. Besides, we're bound to have a skirmish; it doesn't matter who the opponent is."
Lord Batman sighed, knowing Lord Superman was determined to fight. It didn't matter to him; fighting anyone was the same since it's just a game.
So, Lord Batman continued forward. The Gray mist became a bit flustered, saying: "Don't come over! Let's talk it out!"
Lord Batman ignored him. The grids they were in soon touched. At the moment the grids touched, Lord Batman's voice sounded.
"Oh, this fight isn't triggered; it can be initiated proactively, not necessarily requiring contact between you two. Let me see..."
When Lord Superman chose to open battle, Greed also received a prompt. The entire screen turned into a red frame, with status bars appearing on both the left and right sides, except for the teammate in the center.
On the left was the blood bar, on the right was the blue bar, and the center had a row of cards.
These cards were the most complex; each card had complete artwork and a lengthy description. Both sides' commanders tacitly took no action, instead examining the cards.
Greed glanced over them; these cards were the Gray mist's skills, lacking ordinary attacks. It seemed normal attacks needed to be manually executed. Three skills were drawn: "Factor Decomposition," "Symbiotic Strong Strike," and "The Nameless Fog."
The first skill, "Factor Infiltration," was an auxiliary skill, described as: "The fog is everywhere, through devouring opponent's cells, it consumes one of the opponent's cards and stores it within factors. When the opponent uses the same type of skill subsequently, they suffer sustained damage from the insidious factor."
The second skill, "Symbiotic Strong Strike," was comparatively simple, an attack skill: "The fog transforms into the most powerful fist, delivering a heavy blow to the opponent, comprising three stages. Damage calculation for each stage increases by 10%/35%/70%. If all three stages hit, the opponent will enter a dizzy state."
The third skill was the most complex, evidently the core skill of the Gray mist. "The Nameless Fog" description was: "The true identity of the fog. Spend all remaining Spirit Value and Action Points to transform the Gray mist into an unknown entity. During transformation, deduct 60% Spirit Value from all opponents in the combat area, freezing two Action Points.
Transform 'Factor Infiltration' into 'Face Fear': Facing Outer God, the heart trembles. All attack-type cards in hand turn into 'Fear.' With each card of Fear played, deduct 10% current Spirit Value, freezing one Action Point. If Spirit Value reaches zero under Fear state, trigger 'What is that.' Increase attack damage received by 200%, environment damage by 300%, unable to inflict damage to any neutral creature.
Transform 'Symbiotic Strong Strike' into 'Face Nightmare': Midnight nightmares, shocking fear. The Nameless Fog delivers three stages of mixed strong strike to the opponent. The attack attribute is determined by the opponent's least state value. Damage for each stage increases. If all three stages hit, they swap places."
After reading the skill descriptions, Greed understood: this battle must be a clash of numerical monster templates. "The Nameless Fog" being showcased means others must also be formidable for balance.
However, shortly afterward, on the left side information bar of the screen, Greed noticed the passive skills.
Gray mist: "Formless and intangible, its mist-like body makes it immune to all ordinary attacks, but it defaults to appear at all positions on the field, unrestricted by opponent's attack distance when attacked."
Greed slapped his forehead, knowing: how could something so strong not have limitations? This is a strategy game; managing attack distance is critical. As a result, the Gray mist defaults to covering the entire combat area; you can hit any grid, and you'll hit it. How does one even play then?
But come to think of it, if it didn't have weaknesses, once The Nameless Fog state is activated, wouldn't it be death for anyone who comes near? The passive whose default injured area is large can't be said to be without reason. After all, the Gray Mist is indeed huge, and if he wants to reveal himself to cause trouble, it would indeed be easy to be discovered.
On the other side, Lord Superman has started playing cards. First, he used a "Detective Insight" skill from Batman, which allows him to see the opponent's passive effects and the types of cards in hand. Upon seeing the passive, Lord Superman understood: this bizarre-looking creature must be very strong; otherwise, it wouldn't have such purely negative passives.
"Don't hit him," Lord Superman said, "he's immune to normal attacks, just use skills directly."
Gray Mist was still inquiring about his skills from Greed when he saw three darts coming at him. He quickly dodged to the side, but they still hit him.
"What's going on?" Gray Mist said, "He clearly didn't hit me."
"Your model defaults to covering the entire field, which is unrelated to your current image. Let's try the Strong Strike skill first and see how these three hits work."
After speaking, Greed played a card. Gray Mist transformed in mid-air into a giant fist and smashed toward Lord Batman. Lord Batman tried to dodge, but there was a wall behind him. The grid they were on at the time merged into a combat region, totaling just over 200 square meters, with little room to evade.
Fortunately, Lord Superman was quick and directly tapped the grid behind, unlocking the combat region using one action point. Lord Batman should have narrowly avoided it, but Gray Mist accelerated in mid-air and still punched him.
After hitting him, the fist transformed into a palm and struck down again. This time, Lord Batman rolled aside to dodge, but the third time it turned directly into a spike, suddenly changing from an extremely conspicuous large form to an inconspicuous sharp sword, aiming straight for Lord Batman's chest.
Lord Superman tossed out another card: "Absolute Evasion": "Through Batman's invincible roll, attempt to dodge the next attack. The more action points committed, the higher the evasion probability. If successfully dodged, action points +2."
Lord Batman rolled, and the arrow narrowly grazed his scalp and flew past. Gray Mist seemed a bit shocked and shouted to Greed through the headset, "He shouldn't have dodged it! This isn't logical!"
"Because he's Batman," Greed said. "This is a guy who can dodge Omega Rays; you still want to hit him?"
At this moment, Greed noticed that Gray Mist had a negative status on him labeled "See Through." This was likely another skill from Lord Batman. He checked the negative status and found it similar to Vulnerable; however, it was such that when receiving physical damage, one also suffers an equal amount of spirit damage, and vice versa.
Greed had already discovered: this game has two health bars, the red bar and blue bar, and it seems that if either hits zero, something big happens. So not only must you protect your blood volume, but you also need to protect your Sanity Points.
Gray Mist is clearly of the blue bar type, with skills mostly focused on draining blue, while Lord Batman seems to have hybrid damage, which is the most troublesome type.
Lord Batman started throwing darts again, and because Gray Mist couldn't dodge at all, not only did his blood volume drop rapidly, but his blue bar also started falling. Greed thought: don't let me hit rock bottom, or I'll really activate The Nameless Fog.
Greed still didn't want to expose Gray Mist's true identity. The Human race is very wary of Outer Gods, and for someone like Batman, they'd never believe in a benevolent Outer God. Although, aside from Gray Mist, there really isn't any good Outer God, but Greed didn't want Gray Mist to be ostracized because of this.
Greed directly used Factor Infiltration, which on the surface looks like stealing cards, but is actually akin to causing bleeding. Greed didn't even need to look to know that Lord Superman's hand surely had the most attack cards. Once the skill was activated, it indeed stole back a "Batman's Belt": can switch to various tools, increasing continuous use damage by 20%.
It seems the dart is thrown using this skill. After activating Factor Infiltration, Lord Superman threw a dart again, only to discover he himself was losing health and was a bit confused.
"Is this rebound damage?" Lord Superman asked.
"No," Lord Batman shook his head and said, "Didn't you say he stole a card? He might have marked that card; if you play it, I lose health. How about trying another card?"
Right then, Gray Mist did another triple strike. He used an evasion card, found everything normal, and Lord Batman did not lose health. Lord Superman sighed somewhat helplessly and said, "Why does it have to be that card that was stolen."
At this moment, Lord Superman's hand was empty. He tapped for the next turn, only to discover a countdown, meaning he couldn't single-handedly end the turn without the opponent finishing theirs.
Greed hesitated but still didn't use The Nameless Fog card, and both entered the next turn.
But after entering the next turn, the red bar, blue bar, and action points were not replenished. This made Lord Superman immediately realize: they couldn't play a delay tactic. Because Lord Batman's skill set is stronger with more action points, although successful evasion can restore points, if they don't replenish and the battle ends, and they run out of action points, they'll be stuck where they are, unable to move.
Greed also noticed: it's only the second round, and the screen displayed a "Cold," followed by a bracket, saying "will become 'Hypothermia' in two rounds." This term doesn't sound good; staying put to fight is entirely a lose-lose situation.
It seems this level also has an exploration mechanism and leans towards encouraging exploration. Greed breathed a sigh of relief; Gray Mist's problem of getting hurt regardless of attack distance was really troublesome. Lord Batman's three darts dealt half his health, and his Spirit Value was also greatly depleted.
Greed couldn't help but ask: Batman causes an Outer God to lose sanity points, is this reasonable?