The psychological warfare from the fourth team was as impressive as the tactical execution. They had created a situation where everyone knew they needed to be stopped, but no one could afford to pay the price for stopping them.
Elena's solution was characteristically elegant.
"Keep following our plan," she announced calmly. "We'll stick to our positions and let the other teams waste energy fighting the thieves. We can still collect more fragments than anyone else."
She was accepting the fourth team's presence as an environmental hazard rather than a problem to be solved directly.
By maintaining focus on their own strategic advantages, Elena's team could continue accumulating points while letting other teams exhaust themselves fighting the parasites.
The key was to gather an overwhelming momentum and bet on the fact that the attention of the fourth team would bs split between the other three teams.
The question was, would it work?
The approach worked brilliantly.
