The battle zone they saw up front was indeed Natasha and Greed's; the two were fiercely engaged. Even from afar, Natasha could be seen leaping around, while Greed kept trying to distance himself from her.
"Who should we sneak on first?" Selina asked, "Can I start using stealth now?"
"No, when someone enters the battle zone, there's a broadcast. But it's okay, they're too busy fighting to deal with you, let's head in first. I'll throw a deck and stack the stealth value."
Selina nodded and rushed into the battle zone, the other two saw the notification but were too occupied to bother about Selina.
Just as Greed expected, his skill set seems strong but is not easy to stack. However, the opponent couldn't hit him either. The only problem is that it's so frustrating. Greed looked at Natasha's grim face and worried there might be an offline showdown after the game ends.
"This bastard!" Natasha cursed. Both their skills were utterly shameless; one caused group counter damage, the other made attacks miss—it was infuriating!
Bucky sighed and said, "There's no choice; your skill set relies on stacking poison burst. The poison damage isn't high; it's mainly relying on that final burst. But if that burst misses..."
He didn't continue because further talk would make Natasha explode.
Right after they triggered the battle, Natasha knew that Shiller's skill must be treacherous, so she was mentally prepared. As Greed began chanting, she decisively interrupted, poisoned him, and was careful about the final burst timing, fearing it might be dodged or miss.
Although she had interrupted numerous times, she still got a few layers of mental abnormalities attached, which caused her final burst to miss, making Natasha's blood pressure spike.
But the agent never backs down from a challenge. She used a tool to dispel the abnormal status and started stacking layers again, but the final burst missed again.
At this point, Bucky didn't dare speak much, fearing Natasha's slap might extend from the screen to hit him.
By logic, both their skills focus on stacking status and bursting, which should make the battle evenly matched. However, Greed's abnormal status was too aggravating; a few layers made the odds for missing high.
More troubling was that with a higher miss probability, interrupting him became difficult—his chanting time lengthened, and thus the miss chance increased further.
Up till now, Natasha had missed three rounds of burst skills, while the abnormal status above her head was almost fully stacked.
Facing such a situation, Bucky had no better solution. Natasha's deck was extreme single-target output; as long as the poison stacked enough, the final burst would make the opponent owe her two bars of blood.
More terrifying was that she had two types of spider poison, one targeting the red bar, the other the blue bar. Though during bursts only one can be toggled, post-burst, the other bar's attributes remain. Once the ultimate skill cools down, another burst can follow.
Don't forget; game participants can be completely out of the game if both red and blue bars are empty. Natasha makes perfect kills the easiest among everyone—Bruce's mixed-damage setup necessitates switching skills back and forth and entering ultimate state to deal mixed damage.
Due to being capable of exploding others easily, Natasha's other stats are relatively weaker; neither speed nor strong control, and her basic attack speed is lower than others. Against Greed's skill set, it's really a tough spot.
As Natasha vented her fury, Greed seized an opportunity to read through the last three layers of mental abnormality; a resolution followed, sending out diagnosis fee data that made Natasha burst into laughter.
"Alright, percentage damage, huh? The admin surely got conned by Greed's diagnosis fees often; finally, got a chance to counter the society!"
The final figure stopped at over 6000. Though not as exaggerated as the previous robot fight, it cleared Natasha's health in an instant, and a white light flashed, with Bucky entering the scene.
"Good afternoon, sir," Greed smiled at him, "Are you alright?"
"Except for the noise in my headphones, everything's fine." Bucky smiled back, then fired a cannon at him.
Greed narrowly dodged, then came another shot. After hand cannon came rifle, and after rifle came machine gun. "Dual Gatling, what the hell?"
Turns out Winter Soldier was a gun guy. Greed sighed inwardly; although he knew well Winter Soldier's comic style, he always believed this cosmos's Winter Soldier leaned more movie-style—movies favored close-combat dodging, unexpectedly in-game, he wielded guns instead.
Actually, Greed's skill set is most fearful of guns, more precisely, fearful of those firepower bombarding skills. Large-scale quick attacks eliminate timing and space to chant—skills mostly can't be used.
"Prepare, Gray Mist," Greed said, "Time for the ultimate move."
"Alright." Gray Mist immediately picked the leftmost card.
"Doctor's choice: I'm best at leaving others no choice. Instantly send the selected enemy back to the command room, not concluded by death, without reducing health limit. However, teammates landing will suffer 5 seconds of switch protection state impact, during which they can't move, use skills, nor take any damage. This skill has no cooldown but requires overall medical ethics thus far in this game be higher than 10. Usage multiplies need for medical ethics by three."
With a burst of golden light, Bucky's figure in front faded away only to be replaced by another familiar figure.
As Natasha landed and exchanged a wide-eyed stare with Greed, a roar reminiscent of a Siberian grizzly erupted across the snowy plain.
"Shiller!!!!!!"
"Oh my," Selina said, "Isn't Black Widow about to lose it?"
"I feel like he's about to lose it; let's avoid stealing from her. I wouldn't want to be chased down by him. Let's see if Shiller has anything good."
Selina agreed, and as Bruce threw down a card, her stealth value steadily increased. The method to stack stealth is quite simple; just avoid being attacked for a certain period. With Greed's ultimate move, Natasha was busy beating up Greed, while Greed was busy being beaten. Everyone was occupied, neither side had time for him, so naturally, he wouldn't be attacked. Selina quickly faded into stealth.
Stealthily, he moved behind Greed, reached into his pocket, felt something, and quickly fled.
Gray mist was busy tossing cards, oblivious to the missing item in the inventory. Natasha is hard to handle once she goes mad; he needed to concentrate fully.
So Selina slipped silently to the side, took a look at the item, and gasped in shock, saying, "My gosh, I've stolen someone's unique equipment!"
In his hand was the very anti-damage necklace. Bruce was stunned too. He said, "Not sure if I should say you're lucky or they're too unlucky. With all the items they must have, how did you just grab this?"
"We should run now," Selina said, "I have experience in these matters. This kind of thing is obviously not something to steal. Once stolen, you'd be hunted to the ends of the earth, relentlessly. Quick, run!"
Bruce, of course, understood. Shiller's luck has always been moderate, and to find this unique equipment was a highlight moment, only to have it stolen instantly; it would surely drive him mad! An enraged Greed is dangerous; if they don't leave now, they definitely won't be able to later!
The two of them dashed away, and fortunately, as a thief, Selina had plenty of skills to provide action points. They ran ten spaces away before finally being able to stop and catch their breath.
"I have an idea," Bruce said, "Let's find more gear that boosts health and defense. Then you can wear this necklace, stealth into the range of their area skills, and your anti-damage will mix with the area skill damage—might just instantly knock someone out."
Selina thought about it and realized it could indeed work. Although the gear wasn't uniquely hers, it synergized well with stealth. Despite being fragile, he had some damage reduction while in stealth mode and could potentially walk the anti-damage path.
"Let's see," Selina said, "I still want to follow the pure thief path, oh—by the way, since I can steal things, can I put this item in someone else's inventory?"
Bruce found the idea genius. He said, "If you could place items, wouldn't this game turn into a 'Who is the Mole' situation?"
Given Selina's invisibility skill, once he enters stealth mode, no one would know whom he approached, nor would anyone know who might have the necklace. If someone were hit with the necklace, they'd suffer from anti-damage, making everyone too cautious to act without identifying who had the necklace.
"Let's try it next time," Bruce, clearly mischievous, said, "If it works, we'd be the biggest chaos in the battle arena. That'd be hilarious, hahahaha!"
"Too bad this set of skills can't be used outside combat; otherwise, we could steal to our heart's content," Selina shook his head and said, "Also, your unique equipment hasn't surfaced yet; we need to explore more areas."
The two of them quickly set off. Meanwhile, at a watchtower, Pikachu and Peter unearthed a piece of equipment.
"Ah, this belongs to Bruce," Peter said, looking at a badge in his hand, "It accumulates damage based on the number of form switches—simple and straightforward."
"His form switches should have no penalties, right? If he found a corner to switch repeatedly, wouldn't he be invincible quickly?"
"Cards have cooldowns, and the effect only lasts for the current battle. Once outside, it resets. Since it only triggers in battle, opponents won't let him stand there switching endlessly, right?"
"What do you think? Return this to him?"
"Returning it is not impossible; let's see if we can trade for our unique equipment. His luck isn't bad, maybe he'll find ours."
"Not sure, whether my unique equipment is a hat or an electric ball."
"Which do you prefer?"
"A hat. With it, I can use Million Volts—it'd be explosively powerful. An electric ball can boost skill damage but likely not by much, and I'm not planning to evolve, so the ball isn't as useful."
"What could my unique equipment be?" Peter began to dream, saying, "I suspect it could be a Spider Silk Launcher, but I can't imagine how a Spider Silk Launcher could be effective in this icy terrain."
"Who's over there?" Pikachu said, "Looks like it's Tony and the others; let's go check it out. If they find useful items, we might trade with them too."