From all the signs he had listed, Kain could confirm that Faith was one step ahead of him. He had extended invitations to Tolimus and Pegasus to form an alliance, using the exact deductions and conditions Kain himself had formulated.
In other words, Kain's perfect winning strategy had been ruined.
On the surface, Faith pretended that "Kain is still caught up in the spy game, so I'll maintain it to keep Kain locked in that cage." But secretly, he was executing a different winning strategy.
If Kain still thought that Faith's trump card was the spy Elna planted in his team, he would surely lose.
Though Kain had already escaped this cage and was playing a fair game of chess against Faith.
Indeed, even though his winning strategy had been ruined, in the shadows of the arena's architecture, Kain smiled, as if the current situation was exactly what he wanted.
Everything... was within his calculations.
"Captain, we've received alliance invitations from two teams now, this is..."
A team member asked Tolimus worriedly. He didn't understand why Tolimus had done this, agreeing to both Faith's team and Kain's team. Although he had a feeling his captain had a plan, he couldn't help but feel anxious.
Tolimus frowned, then chuckled and said,
"It's right for you to worry! But I think I know what they're trying to do."
"Huh? You really know, Captain?"
The team members asked in a rush. Tolimus's eyes sharpened, and he began to ponder aloud.
"At first, when that effeminate blond guy, Faith, came here and proposed an alliance, I didn't realize it. But think about it, why did that Kain guy also come to propose an alliance with us?"
"Because they want us to eliminate their rivals?"
A team member replied. Tolimus shook his head.
"Right, but not enough."
"Have you ever considered that maybe their true objective is us?"
Contrary to his somewhat fierce and unrefined appearance, Tolimus, though not a genius in intelligence, was a sharp wild beast with a decent intellect. Otherwise, Tolimus wouldn't have been able to sit as the team captain.
He had seen through the trap Kain and Faith had set.
"Think about it, what if we encounter the other team, Pegasus's team, at the ambush point?"
"But how could we encounter Pegasus's team?"
A team member asked, scratching his head, immediately getting a knock on the head from Tolimus.
"You idiot, if those two could offer me an alliance, why couldn't they offer a similar proposal to Pegasus? If that happens, it's no different from our team and Pegasus's team ambushing the same spot. Then the two teams will clash, and a fight to eliminate each other will be hard to avoid."
"Meanwhile, Kain's team and Faith's team won't need to expend much effort to deal with the remaining remnants."
At this point, Tolimus's voice lost its usual jocularity and grew heavier.
If Kain and Faith hadn't sprung this trap simultaneously, he might not have discovered it. Because no matter how he looked at it, everything that came out of their mouths seemed terrifyingly logical, making people who heard it not consider other possibilities at all.
"Damn it, this was supposed to be just a normal round. But those two cunning bastards have made this round much more unpredictable."
Tolimus sighed. With the advantage his team had been granted, he could have been confident in winning. But he was no longer as comfortable as before, because once that advantage was revealed, it would no longer be an advantage.
"Captain, what should we do now?"
"Wait a little longer."
Tolimus rubbed his forehead. As soon as he finished speaking, there was a knock on the door.
Opening the door, it was unexpectedly Pegasus herself.
Evidently, she, like Tolimus, had realized the trap that Kain and Faith had both set.
And she was here to discuss countermeasures with Tolimus.
"Both of them want to use us to eliminate their opponents and us. But the fact that they coincidentally executed two identical moves made us discover their true intentions."
"Both of them said they had the advantage of tools to activate hidden weapons on the map. But if the granted advantages are different, then one of them must be lying."
Pegasus said, clearly intending to find the liar, and from there, find the one who truly held the advantage of the tool.
But Tolimus just gave a faint smile and waved his hand, his mockery very clear.
"But this only happens on the premise that such an advantage truly exists; only then can one of them be telling the truth and the other lying. But think about it, we originally don't know each other's advantages. If someone just fabricates a plausible advantage, what basis do you have to confirm its existence or non-existence?"
Tolimus stated the crucial point.
Indeed, the advantages of the teams were not fixed answers to a question. Therefore, even though the teams knew that others possessed advantages, they couldn't use their own answers to prove other answers, because no one would reveal their advantages to confirm them, whether they were different or similar.
And even if they were revealed verbally, it wouldn't necessarily be true.
So, Pegasus's plan was actually a dead end.
"So, what should we do now?"
Pegasus momentarily couldn't think of a way to resolve the situation.
Although avoiding Kain and Faith's trap was simple for them now, that avoidance would only be ignoring it. However, the situation would then return to a frozen state, while she didn't want to waste the fact that she and Tolimus had seen through Kain and Faith's plan.
Suddenly, Tolimus snapped his fingers.
"I just had an idea."
"After figuring out my and Faith's plan, those two teams will definitely form an alliance to devise countermeasures."
"If they're clever enough to see that I and Kain are trying to control the situation and manipulate the other factions, then they'll certainly be clever enough to try and leverage this information advantage instead of ignoring it."
"At this point, their solution will be..."