Chapter 50: Duel (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
A few minutes later, Feng Luo crouched behind a sand dune. He looked with satisfaction at the trap he had set up in 30 seconds. It was a simple trap made up of drinking water, a helmet, and a Level-35 Elite sniper rifle from his backpack.
Relying on the 15 percent movement speed bonus and the 35 percent stamina reduction from the Rare-grade Reconnoiter Combat Boots, as well as his almost Expert-level Quick Sneak skill, Feng Luo reached a position around 400 meters from the center within two minutes. It was at the edge of a sand dune with extremely high terrain, and a woodland filled with dry trees was at the bottom of the dune. It was also the location of the supply center marked in the map.
The field of vision from this position was quite decent. It was well-suited for an ambush or for sniping. Most players would have probably chosen this place to set up their ambush before capitalizing on the time advantage gained to wait for the opponent to show up, thus gaining the opportunity to fire the first shot. However, Feng Luo did not do this since hiding in a location without moving did not truly ensure that one had the advantage.
Both sides were Snipers. Considering that they could both observe the situation through their scopes, the probability of going discovered in such a s.p.a.cious, empty environment was very small; in contrast, if one were to hide in a location well-suited for an ambush, it increased the likelihood of being discovered by the enemy due to increased vigilance and focus.
Feng Luo did not even plan to duel conventionally with Black Panther because Black Panther’s level was as high as Level 46. In addition, they had dared to use a rare skill chip worth hundreds of thousands of credits as the commission for a mission. It was clear that the opponent did not lack money.
Not lacking money also meant that they were tyc.o.o.ns, and if they were tyc.o.o.ns, it meant that their equipment would be better than his. The difference between the opponent’s sniper rifle with his modified M110 would not be all that great. In terms of defensive equipment and HP, he was also certainly at a disadvantage.
At such a disadvantage, of course, he could not use conventional combat methods. As such, Feng Luo had planned from the beginning to build a trap. This trap was called “drawing the snake out of its hole!”
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“This person still has not shown himself, even now. There weren’t any trails left on the way to the supply center, either. Is it possible he’s been hiding like me, without moving?”
With the pa.s.sage of time, Black Panther began to look doubtful as he continued waiting for Feng Luo to appear. After entering the map, he had quickly understood that the key to winning on this map would be to rush to the middle first to reach a position with a view of the entire map where the sniper rifle could take control. Then he would have enough opportunities to lock on to the opponent’s movement. Moreover, the center was also the location for the supplies. It was the key to victory.
As such, he had gotten there as fast as he could and had only taken a little longer than four minutes to reach a place under a huge sand dune not 300 meters away from the center before hiding. After which, he fixed his sniper rifle’s muzzle on the position of the supply point. He believed that in such terrible weather, normal players could never be able to withstand it for long, especially when relying on standard and simple equipment in the game. They would inevitably make a move.
The only issue was that the player called Feng Zhi Luoye seemed to be more patient than Black Panther had imagined. He still had not exposed any trail even up until now, and he also did not move hastily toward the dried forest in the middle. It seemed like the opponent was also pretty smart and knew that the supply bag was actually a trap by the system on this PK map.
The supply bag was a good item, offering recovery of 50 percent of HP. Anyone who obtained it and hid would be able to ensure victory. However, the supply bag was also not such a great item, because although the supply bag was surrounded by many dried trees, anyone who hid on one of the surrounding dunes, which offered higher elevations, they would be able to keep the area within their sights.
The muzzle of Black Panther’s sniper rifle never left the center location of the supply point. He began to raise the military binoculars with an eight-times zoom function in his hands to cautiously observe any location within the line of sight where the enemy could be hiding without destroying his camouflage.
When the binoculars went past the 11 o’clock direction on his left, which was a sand dune he had inspected several times, Black Panther’s gaze paused.
The photographic memory that he mastered through rigorous training in the military allowed him to sharply detect the differences between this scene and the scene he had observed 30 seconds ago with the precision of noticing a one percent difference.
This ability helped him detect a slight change in the dune from before. A semicircular object whose color was slightly different than the dune—about the size of a bowl—was partially exposed at the top of the sand dune.
“Found you!”
A cruel and cold smirk appeared on Black Panther’s face. He put down his binoculars lightly and lowered his head to slowly move his sniper rifle in that direction.
After his sniping scope was modified, the magnification range was 15 times. This was much higher than the range of the binoculars, which only zoomed to eight times. So, through the sniping scope, he could clearly identify whether or not the item he had discovered in his line of sight was the helmet of his opponent.
Perhaps some people might have been curious; since the game displayed such a high level of technological advancement, shouldn’t they have been able to make the magnification range much higher. Wouldn’t that make it so that they could see even more clearly? So why was the range of the military binoculars of Black Panther only eight times zoom?
In truth, many people misunderstand this issue. They thought that the higher the magnification range, the better. The reason for the limited range was not because the technology was lacking. When it came to technology, high-magnification binoculars were not difficult to make. If one was willing, one could make them magnify to any range. The problem was that a high magnification range would bring about many negative side effects!
The first would be the brightness. Since, when a person used binoculars to observe an object, the object’s surface area was increased exponentially, the drop in brightness was very obvious; the higher the magnification range, the darker the object would appear.
Secondly, holding the binoculars in one’s hand involved a certain degree of hand tremors. At a low magnification range, the effect would be minimal. However, at high magnification, the tremors would become extremely obvious. Everything seen would appear to be shaking.
As a result, the magnification range of binoculars was typically between five to eight times. By comparison, since the scope of a sniper rifle could utilize a rifle stand, its stability was much better than binoculars, so the magnification could be higher.
Through the scope of the sniper rifle, Black Panther quickly saw the item behind the sand dune. Although only the top was exposed, the exposed camouflage patterns confirmed that it was a combat helmet.
The helmet was covered with wet sand, and above it was another layer of dry sand. It was very obvious that it had been used specifically to deceive. However, the opponent had not considered the fact that in such hot weather, the water molecules within the sand would dry up quickly, which made the deception something that exposed his disguise.
“After all, he’s just a sniper in a game,” Black Panther muttered coldly. “To be able to think of making a disguise like this is pretty commendable. You can’t expect too much!”
Moreover, there was also a fairly dull-looking black gun muzzle in an area covered by the sand. This made Black Panther even more certain that the opponent was hiding there.
To be able to camp and persevere for so long in such a terrible environment, this person sure is willful!
Upon finding the hiding spot of the opponent, confidence exuded from Black Panther’s gaze. However, he did not rush to fire. Instead, he covered up and hid his body all over again to ensure that his perfect disguise, which complemented his talent, would not be discovered by the opponent.
It was because, in the situation where the opponent only exposed a little bit of his helmet, his shot would only hit the opponent’s helmet. Given the defense coefficient of the helmet, even the sniper rifle in Black Panther’s hands, which had a C-grade Destruction Coefficient, did not have much of a chance of penetrating through the defense in one shot. This also meant that the first shot was likely to only be able to deal white-colored normal damage.
With the attack power of his sniper rifle and the distance from the target, the normal damage for hitting the helmet of the Gunner was around 1,000. It was far from enough to be a one-shot kill.
As a retired soldier of the Federation, Black Panther was quite disgusted by the setting of defensive equipment in the game. In theory, there was no way a thin layer of steel armor could block the impact of a bullet traveling at over 1,000 meters per second. Instead, it would most likely penetrate the helmet—along with the brain.
This sort of setting, which violated reality, made it impossible for him to experience the joy of killing an enemy with a single shot. Instead, he often had to fire two to three shots. This annoyed him.
However, today, it seemed like he could attempt to enjoy the feeling of killing the enemy in one shot. Because on this PK map, there was a debuff that continuously decreased HP. If the HP dropped to a certain degree, with the attack of the sniper rifle, one shot was enough to be fatal.
As such, Black Panther did not rush to start his attack. Instead, he continued to hide like a hunting panther, waiting for the opportunity to deliver a fatal shot.