Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
The crucial characters that dictated Happy's tactics were always traps. Every time Excellent Era attacked those characters, they would always fall into an unfavorable position and had to pay a considerable price for it. As a result, not only did they fail to break Happy's tactics, they suffered in the attempt.
Xiao Shiqin quickly deleted the "focus ghostblade" that he had typed into the team chat. Excellent Era couldn't afford to fall into any more traps. The current situation was a 4v3. Although Happy had captured one of their players, Happy was in a completely defensive position. Happy's three players were confined inside the ghost boundary, not daring to leave its range.
Excellent Era was at a disadvantage because of the protection from the ghost boundary. For now, they had no way of routing Happy. Without a healer, they couldn't play the long game. They needed to quickly find an opening.
Focus Ye Xiu!
A new order jumped into Excellent Era's team chat. Xiao Shiqin had pressed the Enter key quite forcefully. He was a bit annoyed, not discovering this issue earlier. He shouldn't have thought so much. After finding Lord Grim, he should have had Excellent Era focus all of their efforts and disregard all else to eliminate Ye Xiu from the beginning.
Yes, disregard all else.
After giving this order, Xiao Shiqin typed another four words: get rid of him.
Even if they had to sacrifice one, two, three, even four including their healer, as long as they got rid of Ye Xiu, Excellent Era may be at a numbers disadvantage, with their superior strength, how could they not be able to take care of Happy's green rookies?
This reasoning was so simple, simple to the point that Xiao Shiqin had completely disregarded it. He had thought very highly of Ye Xiu and analyzed all sorts of possibilities. He had spent all his time thinking about what Ye Xiu might do, so he hadn't thought about forcefully eliminating Ye Xiu.
In the end, it was because Xiao Shiqin was unable to get rid of his mid-tier team thinking. His tactics were unable to completely utilize Excellent Era's battle power. Their vastly superior strength in the Challenger League covered up this point, so when the finals came and the opponent's tactics and players managed to keep up, Excellent Era was suddenly overwhelmed.
This was completely inconsistent with what people had anticipated this match would go. In their eyes, even if Excellent Era lost, it must have been because, despite being at an advantage the vast majority of the time, they made a huge mistake that was seized by Happy. Who would have thought that Excellent Era would be the one at a disadvantage and be nibbled away by Happy.
It was only now did Xiao Shiqin realize where the problem lay. Even though he was unable to completely identify the problems with him and Excellent Era, he at least found where the crux of the issue lay.
Focus Ye Xiu and disregard all else.
No healer?
No healer was no healer. As long as they could get rid of Ye Xiu, any price was worth it. Excellent Era still had a numbers advantage at the moment. This might be their last opportunity. They needed to eliminate Lord Grim by whatever means possible, whether that meant eating the damage and debuffs from the ghost boundaries and taking the attacks from the other members of Happy. They could not back down.
The new order didn't just show their strategy.
Disregarding everything else showed their determination.
Everyone saw the order given by Excellent Era. Their hearts leaped up. They had a premonition that the biggest storm in the match was about to arrive.
Xiao Shiqin took the lead. His Life Extinguisher showed the same vigor as Dawn Rifle and rushed forward. He abandoned all of the gadgets restricted by ghost boundaries and released all of the heavy gadgets that could withstand the ghost boundaries. Under the cover of Air Drop, Life Extinguisher charged directly into the ghost boundaries.
What he meant by "disregard all else" was very clear. The other three Excellent Era players became spirited. Wang Ze's Matchstick turned his body. Ignoring the attacks taken, he headed straight for Lord Grim. Sun Xiang and Qiu Fei ignored the debuffs and damage from the ghost boundaries and put a target on Lord Grim. They would kill him in the most efficient way possible.
Excellent Era's abrupt offensive was something felt not just by Ye Xiu, but Qiao Yifan. The ghost boundaries placed down by him were being completely ignored. These ghost boundaries debuffed and damaged the enemies, yet they were still focusing their attacks onto Lord Grim.
Lord Grim wasn't at full health. He had been through several fierce battles and withstood numerous attacks as well. He had protected Soft Mist with his umbrella shield. He looked like he was taking a stroll through the rain of bullets, but in reality, he had taken a lot of damage.
The shield form reduced a percentage of damage and also increased his defenses. To a certain extent, he couldn't completely nullify the damage like a block, but he didn't need to calculate attack priority with a shield unlike with a block. Facing attacks, as long as he met those attacks with his shield, he would be able to reduce the damage that he took.
Soft Mist hid behind Lord Grim's umbrella, so she didn't take any damage. However, Lord Grim would still take damage. If everything was added up, Lord Grim actually had the least amount of health in the team. He only had 50% of his health left.
Why didn't I think of prioritizing him earlier?
Xiao Shiqin's mind churned. The more he looked at the situation, the more he felt like prioritizing Lord Grim was the correct decision.
After his Life Extinguisher entered the ghost boundary, he also ignored the existence of the ghost boundaries and only thought about killing Lord Grim.
Qiao Yifan immediately strengthened their defenses and threw down more ghost boundaries. However, these ghost boundaries were still being ignored by Excellent Era, who had surrounded and were crazily attacking Ye Xiu's Lord Grim. Steamed Bun Invasion and One Inch Ash seemed to be invisible. Excellent Era completely ignored their attacks.
"CC them!" Qiao Yifan hastily reminded Steamed Bun.
Readily following orders was one of Steamed Bun's features. It didn't matter who said it. He didn't consider if the reasoning made sense or not, he would follow it regardless. Steamed Bun Invasion pounced forward and used Tyrannical Chain Punch to pin down a target, but reality proved that even though Excellent Era disregard the two of them, they would still be on guard for these types of attacks. Steamed Bun had targeted One Autumn Leaf, who made a nimble turn and easily dodged it. Steamed Bun wasn't clingy. He turned and used Strangle on Combat Form.
Strangle had to be dodged. Even though Strangle wouldn't stop the target from attacking, it restricted the target's movements, which meant that he would be unable to reach Lord Grim.
Steamed Bun Invasion's attack was once again evaded, but he followed up with a Sand Toss, Brick... Brawler's had quite a lot of CC skills. Steamed Bun was throwing them out brainlessly. He didn't have a single target or any clear-cut thinking. Whichever target was the most convenient would be the target to attack. In an instant, his skills were all on cooldown. Steamed Bun's hand speed was quite outstanding. However, at this point, his low-level skills had refreshed, so he started chaining them again.
"Too reckless….." Li Yibo sighed.
However, this recklessness actually made a big impact on the situation. Excellent Era still put all their efforts into killing Lord Grim. They didn't care about the damage from these attacks, but they were afraid of these CC skills delaying them. They needed to pay attention to Steamed Bun Invasion's skills. However, Steamed Bun's attacks didn't have any thinking behind them. It was completely random. Xiao Shiqin had tried predicting Steamed Bun's attacks and ended up being hit by a Brick.
Yes, a Brick hit Life Extinguisher in the back of his head, putting him to enter a Dizzy state. Unfortunately, due to Life Extinguisher being inside the ghost boundaries, the constant damage from the ghost boundaries instantly got rid of his Dizzy state. Qiao Yifan felt regretful. This Steamed Bun didn't coordinate with him. If he had known that Brick would hit, he wouldn't have placed down a ghost boundary that dealt damage!
But Steamed Bun didn't care. He had already switched targets. For a moment, Steamed Bun Invasion was actually singlehandedly flustering Excellent Era. They didn't want to waste their time on Steamed Bun Invasion, but they needed to put quite a bit of effort into defending against Steamed Bun Invasion's attacks.
Neither the heavens nor the earth knew where his attacks were coming from, whether that was a Brick or another skill. Every time Steamed Bun lifted his hands, everyone in Excellent Era dodged out of fright. And in the end? Steamed Bun Invasion could only target one person, so the other two were just wasting their time, no?
"This this... how messy..." Pan Lin was dumbstruck. Due to Steamed Bun's wave of attacks, the match was incomprehensibly chaotic. It could no longer be deciphered through their knowledge of Glory. Li Yibo was silent for a long time before finally saying: "He disrupted Excellent Era's tempo."
Yes. Anyone could see that. Excellent Era's tempo was in a mess, but the problem was what about Happy's tempo? They didn't have any at all. Excellent Era couldn't grasp Steamed Bun's attacks, but neither could the rest of Happy.
"F*ck off!!"
Sun Xiang was finally unable to endure it anymore. That clown was actually slowing down their assault on Lord Grim. One Autumn Leaf temporarily let Lord Grim off the hook. His Evil Annihilation headed straight for Steamed Bun Invasion. He was determined to send this clown flying far away.
"Careful!"
The moment One Autumn Leaf turned around, a spear suddenly shot towards him. Ye Xiu wasn't dead yet. In this type of chaotic battle, there were opportunities everywhere. One Autumn Leaf suddenly switched targets without paying attention to anyone else. Ye Xiu's attack was almost out of instinct. If he didn't attack, he would be wasting his many years of practice.
Circle Swing!
Lord Grim sent One Autumn Leaf flying towards Matchstick.
"Good job, Steamed Bun."
"As if you need to say that!" Steamed Bun said incomparably confident, but did he even know what exactly what he had done? Team Happy expressed their doubts. They felt like Qiao Yifan telling Steamed Bun to abuse his CC skills deserved the most credit.
Chapter 1047: Disregard All ElseTranslator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Had Steamed Bun Invasion's barrage of chaotic attacks happened at any other time, it probably wouldn't have brought him any form of praise from any expert. However, it had coincidentally coincided with this moment, when Excellent Era was trying to bring Lord Grim down while disregarding all else. His actions were extremely disruptive to Excellent Era's tempo.
It wasn't that Excellent Era had no way of dealing with his chaotic attacks, but that they didn't want to waste time on Steamed Bun Invasion. They had just set their target as Lord Grim. If they suddenly focus fired a different target, then their determination just now would be nothing but a joke.
Excellent Era's players never would have thought that Steamed Bun's playstyle would give them so much trouble. Those unpredictable attacks had somehow managed to constrain them.
They couldn't just do nothing about it, but what if this was another of Happy's traps?
Before Xiao Shiqin made a decision, Sun Xiang had already struck first.
It wasn't hard to deal with Steamed Bun, but what made things difficult was that Lord Grim hadn't been killed yet! Under such a chaotic rhythm, Sun Xiang's sudden target switch left an opening that Ye Xiu immediately took advantage of. Lord Grim had been faster and managed to capture One Autumn Leaf first.
Battle God One Autumn Leaf had become Ye Xiu's weapon...
Although this had been the case for the past ten years, but this time it was completely different.
One Autumn Leaf was roughly slammed down by Lord Grim and then hurled at Matchstick.
Wang Ze was completely caught off guard. Matchstick and One Autumn Leaf were thrown into a heap on the ground. Lord Grim then turned and threw a Sky Strike at Combat Form who was advancing on him from behind. Combat Form's spear trembled, his Double Stab parrying the first stab and striking with the second.
Double Stab's Cancel and Combo Technique!
The technique Qiu Fei had missed out on using a year ago. The technique that Ye Xiu had used to deal damage to him in the Group Arena a year later.
In reality, Qiu Fei had already mastered this technique and now used it to parry Lord Grim's Sky Strike. The second strike stabbed forward without any hesitation.
Following this strike up with a combo was enough to kill Lord Grim. Lord Grim didn't have that much health left, so this combo didn't need to be too complicated. Qiu Fei had confidence that he could do it.
It was just that since this technique was one that was deeply imprinted into his mind, Qiu Fei was rather moved.
"Thank you!"
After sending the two words into the global chat, Qiu Fei went to complete his next actions.
Yet that was when Lord Grim's character suddenly crouched. The second stab of Double Stab hit nothing but air and then Lord Grim's outstretched hands grabbed Combat Form's waist.
"You've still got a ways to go!"
Lord Grim straightened, arching backwards and throwing Combat Form head-over-heels into the ground.
Back Throw!
In that moment, One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form, Excellent Era's Battle Mage duo, had been successively smashed into the ground by Lord Grim. The one to disrupt Excellent Era's rhythm was Steamed Bun, but the one to truly turn the situation around was still Ye Xiu!
They really should have wiped him from the game earlier! Xiao Shiqin was vexed, but also knew that regrets would do nothing for them now, determinedly charging forth.
"Ghost Feast," Ye Xiu said in the chat.
"Roger," Qiao Yifan responded. One Inch Ash revealed the edge of his blade and the ghost boundaries that were scattered across the ground swelled up like rolling waves.
Ghost Feast!
The power of the Phantom Demon was released from all the boundaries, exploding and creating a blanket of flashing lights and silhouettes. Xiao Shiqin had charged forwards, but the lighting created by the explosions made it impossible for him to locate his targets. He could only make judgements according to the positions he had last seen of the characters. That was when Life Extinguisher's waist was grabbed.
Xiao Shiqin lowered his view and found Steamed Bun Invasion squatting in front of him.
Back Throw...
Life Extinguisher was also slammed to the ground, head-over-heels, by a Back
Throw. That was when the smoke from Ghost Feast's explosion dispersed. Another of Excellent Era's character names went grey. Wang Ze and his Matchstick had been eliminated.
Life Extinguisher swiftly rolled to his feet and saw Lord Grim, One Inch Ash, and Steamed Bun Invasion all advancing on him amidst the dispersing light.
Xiao Shiqin didn't retreat, his finger rapidly tapping. Life Extinguisher immediately summoned three gadgets, splitting up heading for a different character. With the ghost boundaries gone, his gadgets were finally able to shine.
Bang bang bang!
Lord Grim aimed, fired, and with three successive gunshots, caused three explosions with startling speed.
The gadgets that Life Extinguisher had only just sent out were instantly destroyed by Ye Xiu's precise shots.
One Inch Ash's Moonlight Slash swept over and Xiao Shiqin hurriedly had Life Extinguisher dodge. Then, the back of his head was hit by a Brick; Steamed Bun Invasion's Brick.
Xiao Shiqin felt like he was going to go crazy.
This Steamed Bun was sometimes utterly chaotic, not in sync with his teammates at all, but sometimes he somehow managed to get into a dead angle to deliver critical strikes.
Xiao Shiqin had researched every single one of Happy's opponents. For this Steamed Bun, he really didn't know how to describe him because he had never seen a player like this. You had no idea what he was doing. Looking at the previous matches, he seemed to flow with the tactical arrangements, but in the next match, his fluency with the very same tactical arrangements seemed to have vanished.
In Xiao Shiqin's tactic handbook, he had written and erased, erased and rewritten, written and edited the information on Steamed Bun. Every match, he would discover something new, and none of what he saw would repeat.
In the end, in Xiao Shiqin's notebook, only one sentence had remained unchanged in regards to Steamed Bun: an incredibly unstable player.
Yes, that was the final judgement Xiao Shiqin had made for Steamed Bun. As for this match, it adhered to Xiao Shiqin's judgement perfectly. After making this judgement, Xiao Shiqin couldn't think of any way to deal with this player tactically because there was no way of predicting this guy, so he could only deal with his actions as they came.
Yet at the crucial moment, Excellent Era had been sent into chaos by Steamed Bun and then dismantled by Ye Xiu.
Now, Xiao Shiqin himself had been CCed with a Brick from Steamed Bun.
Lord Grim and One Inch Ash's attacks came not a beat too late, knocking Life Extinguisher all over the place. If it wasn't for Sun Xiang and Qiu Fei running over to support, Xiao Shiqin would worry that he was about to be one wave rushed.
As soon as One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form arrived, Happy's three immediately ran.
"Don't let them get away!" Xiao Shiqin yelled.
After Ghost Feast, the field was completely clean and it was a great time to charge. Xiao Shiqin's Life Extinguisher advanced while keeping an eye out and making sure to interrupt One Inch Ash's attacks. ghost boundaries were all chanted skills. If you managed to quickly notice and interrupt them, it would make a Phantom Demon's life very difficult.
Apart from that, there was also that Steamed Bun Invasion. Half of Xiao Shiqin's focus was on him. He couldn't let this guy throw the situation into chaos again.
Xiao Shiqin keeping an eye on the two by himself was naturally to give Sun Xiang and Qiu Fei a chance. During the Ghost Feast's explosion, he had healed himself a little and was now at 8 percent health. However, his health was still in the range of being wiped out in a single wave by the two members of Excellent Era.
Would there be a reason for Ye Xiu to face the two head on? Of course not. Lord Grim began to lead the two about in all sorts of tactical maneuverings.
Seeing this, Xiao Shiqin felt a headache come on.
Playing dirty...
Just went they had to finish things as quickly as possible, Ye Xiu began to play dirty. One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form were melee classes and Lord Grim had ranged firepower. If he started to play dirty, the two would have little chance of catching up quickly.
Xiao Shiqin took a look at the time and contemplated for a moment… it should be about time, right?
A message popped up in Excellent Era's chat.
One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form had suddenly switched directions while chasing Lord Grim.
The viewers quickly understood. These two had gone off to catch the healer Little Cold Hands.
Xiao Shiqin clearly knew where the support zones on the map were. His error in judgement before had naturally been taken note of. That meant that this time he should be correct. Otherwise, if it were somewhere else, the support zone would be way too far.
This time, Xiao Shiqin hadn't guessed wrong. One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form's change in direction really did take them in Little Cold Hands' direction. The two hadn't gone far before they saw Little Cold Hands.
Yet, behind them, Team Happy's other three members lunged for Xiao Shiqin's Life Extinguisher like hungry wolves.
They weren't going to rescue their Cleric?
Xiao Shiqin was puzzled.
In reality, they didn't have any way to easily and quickly kill off their opponent's Cleric. However, this was the greatest threat to Excellent Era's victory. Happy would definitely protect their Cleric with their lives.
If that happened, then Excellent Era would have successfully caused a lot of trouble for Happy. With a target to protect, Happy would be a lot less flexible with their movements. And Xiao Shiqin's primary goal in this lure for Happy to support was to trap Ye Xiu and kill Lord Grim. However, he would have never thought that Happy would ignore their Cleric and instead focus their fire on his Life Extinguisher.
Trade?
Xiao Shiqin was confused. If this trade was successful, they might be in a three versus two situation, but Lord Grim only had so much health left. He wouldn't be able to turn that situation around with the pitiful amount of healing his unspecialized possessed. Three versus two had a high risk for them, no? What were they relying on? The CC from ghost boundaries? Phantom Demons were good at controlling, but the problem was that ghost boundaries still had their limits. After killing Happy's Cleric, Excellent Era would be much less pressed for time. In this sort of situation, two Battle Mages still had the ability to break through ghost boundaries.
Xiao Shiqin couldn't figure it out, but he wasn't going to stop there and let himself die. Life Extinguisher hurriedly went to retreat, but then realized that Ye Xiu playing dirty just now had "dirty played" his character into a perfect position. His current and only path of retreat was being blocked by Lord Grim.
They had planned this!
After realizing this, Xiao Shiqin felt uneasy. The opponent had planned this. That meant the current situation was still within their expectations.
That was when Xiao Shiqin suddenly saw Sun Xiang yell in the chat: "Holy shit, this Cleric is so fast!!"