He hadn’t thought they would be capable.
He liked that game because it attracted a lot of female role players, being more of an intellectual game of skill and craftiness. It was a good hunting ground. He could find another game, but it wouldn’t have the same significance or give him the same satisfaction as the one he’d deliberately chosen and was enjoying. He wasn’t going to allow them to force him to change his ways.
In the past, he’d always managed to outwit rivals and could see no reason why he wouldn’t be able to do so again.
In fact, Styx would have laughed at the idea that he was worried. He wasn’t in danger. He was a ghost in the system, a shadow in the virtual world, a master of anonymity. No, he wasn’t concerned. He had considered himself practically untouchable.
Anyone who tried to trace him would be wasting their time.
And so, he focused on Bordercross again, moving away from the camera footage that now showed the two girls hurrying nervously out.
He went back into his familiar hunting ground, slipping on the guise of his avatar with the ease and comfort of familiarity.
He enjoyed the game, even though he played it for a very different reason. For him, it was not a game but a hunt.
A hunt that had to be done with the utmost skill and determination, one that required stealth, patience, and ability.
It was an intricate game, one that he knew well, but that was constantly changing. It was a game where he was always learning new strategies and techniques. The way the players interacted with one another was interesting, a complex network of inside jokes, friendships, rivalries, and betrayals. An entire culture of its own that he’d taken the time to understand and fit into.
And he was ready to search for new prey, to go about the adrenaline-filled challenge of identifying a target, and then using his skills to get the information he needed to arrive at her doorstep.
He couldn’t wait to play his own game and reach its deadly conclusion, again.