'It wasn't ideal to eliminate him first, but from how things were going it had to be done.'

Avery had wanted to take out Cerise first, not only because of how skilled she was and the strength of her ship, but also because of her currently being in first place.

The lower the ranking she received in this event, the fewer points she would earn. Now she was guaranteed at least third place even if Avery and Liesel took her down.

Unfortunately, the fights up to this point had been too draining.

Their vessels were reaching their limits, and trying to take on someone like De Vlak's representative who was currently ranked fourth after beating Cerise would have been nearly impossible considering how little damage his ship had taken. Avery had needed to get in the sneak attack when he did if he ever wanted to eliminate the crafty old man.

'Had he been lower in the rankings, I probably would have risked it, but there are only a few points between us right now. If he had managed to get first in this event and I got third, he would have overtaken me. And even if I somehow placed second, we would have ended up tied.'

Avery had decided that he would rather risk Cerise somehow achieving an upset against him and Liesel.

Just like the two of them, her craft was reaching its limits. Just one or two more hits would bring her shields down, and then it would only be a matter of landing the finishing blow.

No, don't even think about what comes after. We need to take her down before I worry about that.'

Until it became certain that Cerise had been beaten, Avery held off on thinking about how he would finish things with Liesel. There was still a chance that Cerise would trounce the two of them and claim the top spot in this event for herself.

With the next move in this battle possibly being the last, all three of the remaining competitors remained tense and waited for whoever was going to make the first move.

Avery was the one that brought the momentary stalemate to an end.

He figured that Cerise was waiting to use her decades of experience and faster ship to counter any attack against her. That meant she probably was not going to take the initiative to strike on her own.

As he expected, as soon as he got within the effective range of his laser cannons, she began to move and fired on him.

'She feels a lot more slippery than earlier. I guess that's just how much effort De Vlak's representative was putting in to restrain her movements.'

Now that neither of them could afford to get hit lightly, the two of them were having to focus more on evasion and it became difficult to attack.

However, Avery was certainly having a harder time of things.

Cerise's main weapons not only had a greater range than Avery's, but her skills were a bit sharper than his.

In the current scenario, his chances of beating her were only around twenty percent at best. At least, if he had been alone.

It did not take long for Liesel to move into position so that she was flanking Cerise with Avery. The moment that he had attacked, she had shot off in a wide arc to get behind Cerise.

Without trying to conserve energy or ammunition, Liesel let loose with her micro seeker missiles and multi-barrel laser blaster.

This barrage of attacks proved too much for Cerise to fully handle, and a few hits connected with her and finally broke through her shields.

Yet, as if she had been waiting for this moment, her ship suddenly moved in a completely incomprehensible way.

She had not activated her thrusters, and it had looked like she had slid across space for no apparent reason.

The movement was so strange that it completely caught Avery and Liesel by surprise.

Clearly, this was some special function of the ship developed by Ravasz Dynamics, but neither of them could understand it.

In that moment of time when Avery and Liesel were stunned by what they had just witnessed, Cerise did not hesitate to attack.

Simultaneously, she fired blasts from her pulse lasers, sending one towards Avery and another towards Liesel.

At the last moment, Avery tried to move out of the way. Regrettably, he was already too late.

"We've lost our shields. Armor integrity is still holding at ninety-seven percent." Kasandra said, giving Avery a damage report.

Of course, the Dauntless had not actually taken any damage, this was merely the assessment of the training program all of the competitors were using.

Still, this entire exercise had been an approximation of a real fight, so Avery was taking it just as seriously.

Normally, he would have attempted to retreat at this point.

No matter how strong a ship's armor was, it could not hold up to the strongest modern weaponry for long.

'Well, I suppose that we're all in the same place now. The next solid hit against any of us will be what decides the outcome.'

Since this was an event where a winner had to be determined, Avery boldly flew forward.

There would be no running away, all that needed to be done was to fight until the end.

Seconds seemed to draw on for hours as his focus heightened even further.

Without any safety net to rely on or room for error, Avery's every move had to be as perfect as possible. Any less and he would be eliminated.

However, even as Avery pushed beyond his best, Cerise could still keep up with him, and it was only thanks to Liesel that he was not overtaken.

Eventually, after eleven seconds of some of the most intense fighting of the day, one of them finally took a hit that was more than just a graze.

Despite her expert ability, Cerise was not perfect.

Against two determined and skilled foes, she eventually failed to avoid one of their hits.

Nevertheless, this was not quite enough to reach the threshold of damage that the program determined would be enough to destroy the Ravasz Dynamic vessel.

After being struck once, Cerise once again activated e unknow device that allowed her ship to move in an incomprehensible manner.

However, since this was the second time they were seeing it, Avery and Liesel were ready.

Each of them fired on where they thought Cerise would be heading and managed to hit her.

Finally, she had been defeated, but not before getting off a last shot of her own.

A pulse laser blast hit both the Dauntless and Liesel's ship. Causing heavy damage to both of them.

"Whew! We managed to get through that." Avery said with a loud sigh of relief.

He had been afraid for a moment that Cerise's final strike would be enough, but the Dauntless' armor had held out. It may not have been at the same level as what Stifur had equipped their craft with, but it was still quite durable.

Having been eliminated, Cerise flew away. Leaving the confines of the battlefield.

This just left Avery and Liesel.

Both of them battered and exhausted from the intense battles up to this point.

"As per our arrangement, our partnership comes to an end here. At certain points I really thought that we were going to lose before we made it to the end. But you met and even exceeded my expectations. I'm glad that I chose to approach you instead of any of the others. Now, let's see which one of us will come out on top. I expect you to continue to entertain me."

With this final message to Avery, Liesel cut off the line of communications between them.

"I don't like the way that she was looking at you just now." Kasandra practically growled.

Avery merely glanced at her with a befuddled look on his face. Not understanding where her sudden hostility towards Liesel was coming from.

Unfortunately, he did not have time to ask her to elaborate. As Liesel was flying in fast and ready to trade blows with him.

'We're both down to the last of our strength, so this will all be decided in the first move.'

Tuning out everything else except for the adversary in front of him, Avery met Liesel's charge head-on.

Their exchange lasted only for a second.

Neither of them was in any position for a protracted battle and aimed to finish things off immediately.

In the end, it came down to just the slightest gap in overall ability. With Avery's greater familiarity with his ship, having used it since he began his career as a mercenary, being the deciding factor.

An instant after his attacks had connected with Liesel, the program running the battle simulation monitoring the entire event closed down and displayed that Avery was the winner.

For the first time in the competition, he had finally taken first place in an event.