Having gotten away with only some minimal damage to his shields, Avery headed to the fringes of the battle where Liesel was and watched the other six competitors fighting amongst each other.

Naturally, they understood what Avery had just done, but since everyone was technically an enemy during this event, even those that wanted to go after him could not.

Turning their attention away and getting focused by everyone else for creating an opening was a near surefire way to lose.

"That was pretty crafty of you. I wasn't sure that it would work and thought that everyone might start targeting you for being a nuisance." Liesel said over the communication line she still had open with Avery.

"Yeah, I got a bit lucky. Everything really hinged on how Cerise would react. Fortunately, she decided that playing into things would give her a better shot than continuing to be hounded by three people at once."

Now that the main battle had become quite a bit more chaotic, Cerise was not getting attacked nearly as much.

Everyone was taking what shots they could, trying to destroy the other competitors now that the fight had turned into somewhat of a mess.

"I guess we should go back to our main plan now. You keep targeting Jack, and I'll take shots at Atlas and chip away at his defenses." Avery said, ending his momentary respite and taking off to position himself behind Atlas' vessel.

With only the occasional blast coming his way, Avery shot through the area and took aim at his target.

Since Atlas had a lot more to deal with now, Avery felt more confident in staying back and just firing his laser cannons.

They may not have been able to pierce through his opponent's protections like his plasma launchers could, but they were still high-powered weapons and would eat away at Atlas's shields. There was not currently any ship that Avery knew of that could take a bombardment from his three main weapons for too long. No matter how defensively oriented their design was.

'Kasandra's monitoring the overall situation of the battle, and with Liesel's help, we've got everyone locked down and unable to disengage with each other without getting attacked from behind. It's only a matter of time now until the first one goes down.'

The only one that could probably break free from the current state of the battle was Cerise.

Her ship was the fastest and most maneuverable, and she undoubtably had the most experience out of any of the competitors.

However, doing so was likely to just put her back in the situation she had been in before.

Ranks four, seven, and eight would probably prioritize taking her down still and head after her again. Leaving the battle just as it was at the start.

As things were now though, Cerise had passed off some of the attention that had been on her onto Atlas and Jack.

The two of them were also a major threat to everyone else. Maybe even more so than Cerise since they were working together.

Avery and Liesel were obviously the ones currently winning though.

They were essentially just taking potshots at their targets from the edges of the battle.

Of course, something had to give eventually, and the first one to give up on the current fight was Atlas.

He had been forced to cover for Jack, since the former racer turned actor had ended up attracting a bit too much attention and was under more fire as the weak link in their partnership.

Atlas had only agreed to the team up because he figured that he would get ganged up on and wanted to even the playing field a bit.

Yet, his so-called teammate had now become far more of a liability than a boon. Preventing Atlas from taking the actions he wanted since he was far too busy protecting Jack.

Once it became clear that he would not be able to salvage the situation, Atlas decided to cut him loose. He was done restricting himself to protect someone that could no longer be considered an asset.

Still, he needed Jack to stick around as a distraction for a little longer, so Atlas provided the minimum amount of support he could without appearing to have abandoned his partner. To enact his plan and use his secret weapon properly he needed a little bit of time to set things up.

Without anyone's notice, a compartment opened up on the bottom of Atlas' ship and started spewing out small spherical devices composed of dark black metal.

They were designed to blend in well with the backdrop of space, and their outer plating had properties that made them difficult to detect with sensors.

Even the high-end vessels that each of the competitors were piloting did not pick up on these devices.

There was too much going on right now, and their sensors were focused on their opponents rather than spheres barely bigger than a human eye that were periodically flying out of Atlas' craft.

Perhaps if there had not been any debris spread throughout the area to use as cover, someone might have noticed the tiny devices, but their heat signature was masked, and their movements were not fast enough to be suspicious.

It took some time for everything to get set up since a few of the spheres got destroyed by stray blasts, but soon enough everything was in place.

When he was satisfied with the arrangement of the spheres, the compartment the small ones had come out of enlarged, and the main until that was around five meters in diameter came out.

Needless, to say, everyone noticed that something had appeared from Atlas' ship this time.

Except it was already too late to stop him.

A moment after the main unit left his vessel, several streams of energy erupted from it and connected to the nearest small spheres. Then from there, the energy spready out until every single device was intertwined. Creating a web that encompassed everybody other than Atlas and Avery.

The test pilot who was ranked seventh grew panicked at this unexpected development, and tried to rush out of the area,

The instant they passed through the energy web created by the spherical devices, over three dozen of the closest ones locked on and shot towards his ship with an impeccable burst of speed.

Upon impact, each of the spheres exploded. Giving away exactly what they were.

"Those are some pretty sophisticated mines." Avery said, watching the break in the web closing up as the small spheres tightened together to close off the opening.

To make things worse, there area they encompassed was shrinking. The mines were closing in on those trapped inside. Either they would run out of space and get blown up, or they could try and flee and get targeted by the mines.

Judging by how the guy who had tried to break out of the web had now been considered destroyed and was the first to drop out of the battle, it was clear how much destructive force these mines possessed.

They were small but packed a punch, especially when some many came at once.

"What I wouldn't give my EMP blaster right about now." Avery grumbled.

Unfortunately, this competition was meant to show off Storren Corp.'s original design. So, the auto turret the Dauntless had originally come with was currently equipped.

However, Avery had a bigger problem to worry about.

With everyone else trapped in his minefield, Atlas was coming directly for him to settle the score.

For just moment, he considered running away.

If he used his vessel's superior thrusters, he could keep ahead of Atlas' ship until the others had dealt with the minefield.

Nevertheless, there was no guarantee that Liesel would survive, and if she got taken out, he would lose the advantage of having a partner to rely on.

It was even possible that all of the other competitors would get eliminated and it would just end up with him fighting Atlas alone anyway.

'I might be guaranteed second place that way, but it wouldn't be enough to overtake him. And I've still got my own pride as a mercenary.'

Avery had no problem running away if it served as a part of a strategy, or a fight was truly hopeless.

But should he flee now, it would truly only be out of cowardice.

Certainly he thought that his chances in a one-on-one fight against Atlas was not in his favor, but it was not like he had no way to win. He would just have to take some risks.

"I guess it's time to end this." Avery said, a resolute gleam in his eyes.

He then turned to Kasandra and said, "I'm going to be leaving flares, chaffs, decoy beacons, and shield cell deployment to you. I need you to cover for any mistakes I'm about to make, since I'm going to need to get a bit reckless here.

"So, the usual then. I've got things covered. Just focus on the fight and go wild. You've been restraining yourself a bit too much in my opinion. If there was ever a time to bust out some of those risky maneuvers that you like using, now would be it."

Avery glanced over at Kasandra and saw that she had a massive grin on her face to encourage him.

Seeing her sitting there next to him helped to build his confidence back up.

His first clash with Atlas had left him feeling a bit down since he had not been able to find a clear strategy for victory.

Even now, he was still unsure of how to break through his opponent's strong defense and offense.

"This time though, I'll throw everything I've got at him."