Chapter 1045: Interlinked
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Recover healed over time in bursts. The amount of heal per burst wasn't much to begin with. Lord Grim was a poor healer too, so each burst was even more dismal. In fact, even with these bursts, Excellent Era could still kill off their target in one strike. However, every burst was like torture to them.
What's worse, Happy's Cleric was most likely about to arrive. Even though that Cleric's skill wasn't amazing, in this situation, it was more than enough to be the deciding factor. Xiao Shiqin suddenly felt a bit upset. After killing Dawn Rifle, they should have headed towards the support zone to cut off and maybe even kill the enemy Cleric. Instead, they got into a tangle with Soft Mist. Even if she would die in the end, it was still embarrassing!
The fight had already reached this point. Regretting now was useless. Soft Mist must die before the healer arrived.
Xiao Shiqin made arrangements for the team formation using just a few concise words in the chat. The Battle Mage duo, Sun Xiang and Qiu Fei, headed directly towards Happy's four player group. Previously, they had surrounded Tang Rou's Soft Mist, but ended up being attacked by Happy from the inside and outside. This time, Happy had surrounded Wang Ze's Matchstick. It should be their turn to attack from the inside and outside.
Wang Ze had just joined the battle. His Matchstick was at full health. He wasn't panicked despite being surrounded by Happy. This time, Excellent Era's rescue operation came quickly. One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form charged forward ferociously. They weren't in a hurry to rescue Matchstick. Their target was still Soft Mist. Soft Mist only had a sliver of health left. It was already a miracle that she was alive. Without a healer, focusing their attention onto protecting her was actually a huge burden for Happy. However, Happy didn't protect her. Soft Mist charged at them with just 20% of her health left. Later, she only had a drop of health left, yet she and Lord Grim coordinated together to strike Combat Form with a Rising Dragon Soars the Sky. Soft Mist's existence had become a huge hindrance to Excellent Era's plans. She was like bait, controlling Excellent Era's goals. Not only did she not become a burden to her team. She was using every second of her time on the field very effectively.
Xiao Shiqin was clearly aware of this issue. Excellent Era made adjustments. They didn't put all of their efforts into killing Soft Mist. While Sun Xiang and Qiu Fei charged into Happy's formation, Xiao Shiqin's Life Extinguisher circled around from a different direction.
What is he trying to do?
Pan Lin and Li Yibo glanced at each other. For a moment, they didn't understand, so they didn't dare say anything. The orders that Xiao Shiqin gave in chat didn't really convey what he was planning on doing.
Life Extinguisher was making every second count. As he sprinted, he observed Happy's movements. When he realized that no one was paying attention to him, there seemed to be some hesitation to Life Extinguisher's movements.
At this moment, everyone finally understood Xiao Shiqin's intentions. They couldn't help but think of a popular verse from many years back: as the last to know the truth, my tears fall.
Yes, Xiao Shiqin's Life Extinguisher had been planning on intercepting Happy's Cleric, but the problem was that he had gone in the wrong direction…..
The spectators had an omniscient view, so from the beginning, they knew which support zone Little Cold Hands had swapped in from. It wasn't the closest support zone. At that time, everyone felt confused, but now everyone understood that swapping in from the closest support zone was too easy to guess. Happy had made preparations for it. They were very careful about maintaining their healer advantage.
Xiao Shiqin had Life Extinguisher run towards this direction for awhile, but having not seen any signs of Little Cold Hands, he felt like something wasn't right. From his calculations, he should already be able to see the Cleric. However, he didn't. That at least meant that the other side had been ready for his interception, whether that was taking a roundabout route or coming from a different support zone.
Another judgement error made Xiao Shiqin feel exhausted. He realized that he was unable to grasp Happy's thinking.
He understood Ye Xiu, but the Ye Xiu that he understood was the Ye Xiu leading a powerhouse. But the Ye Xiu he was facing now was a Ye Xiu leading a grassroots team displaying more complex strategies. From time to time, Ye Xiu would show the craftiness of small teams, while showing the oppressiveness of top teams.
Just take this choice of support zones. From Xiao Shiqin's experience of leading a weak team, entering from the closest support zone was a necessary choice because a weak team needed a healer to hurry and help them maintain their advantage. However, Happy just had to be bold and actually had their Cleric take a longer path. Xiao Shiqin had never had this type of confidence when he led Thunderclap.
In the end, is it because I'm not confident enough?
When I was on Thunderclap, had I ever thought of leading the team to win the championship?
No. Never.
The outside world had always believed Thunderclap to be a weak team. Just being able to make into the playoffs every years was a huge success. As a result, Thunderclap and even Xiao Shiqin had always thought so as well. Their goal every year was to make into the playoffs. As for the playoffs itself, they didn't have any high ambitions. They clearly thirsted to be champions, but they never believed in themselves nor aspired to be number one.
In the end, Xiao Shiqin left Thunderclap to be a champion. Even though no one criticized him for it and even thought it was something he should have done earlier, Xiao Shiqin finally understood that he himself was weak. He hadn't believed in his teammates or himself. There was too big of a difference between himself and his opponent. Ye Xiu was leading a team scraped together from an Internet cafe, yet he dared to join the Challenger League and challenge a powerhouse like Excellent Era. How many had a laughed at him? But now? This joke was turning into a reality step by step.
But him? Although Team Thunderclap repeatedly beat the stronger opponent, he had never been confident in himself. Why had he never been confident? Thunderclap was able to win over strong teams in the regular season, so why couldn't they repeat that same performance in the playoffs? If they just repeated it three times, then wouldn't Thunderclap become the champions?
In the end, he had only been confident in the matches he should have won. However, Ye Xiu had the confidence and courage to create miracles!
Xiao Shiqin's Life Extinguisher swiftly returned to the battle. The situation had already changed.
Soft Mist was finally killed.
Tang Rou wouldn't let herself become a burden that the entire team needed to put all of their efforts into protecting her. Even if she only had just a drop of health left, she would still fight and contribute to the team. After one last final struggle, she fell. In that instant, the stadium erupted into applause. Even Excellent Era's fans chose to remain silent. In this life and death situation, they were unable to give any applause to the enemy team, but they at least stayed silent to show their respect. In the group arena, Tang Rou lost miserably. But in this team competition, she finally left a deep impression on everyone. Although it was hard to tell at times whether her performance was bravery or stupidity, her brave or stupid performance was a crucial factor in Happy reaching this point.
During the period of time it took Xiao Shiqin to run over in an attempt to block the healer, Excellent Era's three players were able to successfully kill Soft Mist, but they also suffered a blow, especially Wang Ze's Matchstick. He had been pincered by Steamed Bun and Qiao Yifan from the start. Later, Lord Grim came over to join in while protecting Soft Mist. Team Happy's focus wasn't to protect Soft Mist, but to continue targeting Matchstick.
One Inch Ash's ghost boundaries were extremely effective defenses. If One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form wanted to attack Happy, they had to go into the ghost boundaries. If they didn't, they could only just wait and watch as the other side besieged Matchstick.
There were ways to break through the restrictions from ghost boundaries, but in general, Ghostblades were difficult for One Autumn Leaf and Combat Form to deal with. Wang Ze's Matchstick only had limited support. He himself wasn't able to break out of the encirclement either. When Xiao Shiqin's Life Extinguisher arrived, Soft Mist was already gone, but Matchstick was facing imminent danger.
When Xiao Shiqin returned and saw the negative debuffs on the two Battle Mages, he felt helpless. Ghostblades generally had a hard time affecting long-ranged classes, but he just had to be a Mechanic. Many of his gadgets had no way of breaking through ghost boundaries, so for a Mechanic, breaking through a ghost boundary was very difficult. If not, Xiao Shiqin would have had someone else block the Cleric, while he stayed. It wasn't like the two Battle Mages couldn't separate from time to time.
And now because of the existence of the ghost boundaries, they had no way of displaying their full strength. Their Sharpshooter, which wouldn't have been affected much by the ghost boundaries, had been snatched away by the other side long ago.
Xiao Shiqin didn't believe this to be a coincidence. This match gave him a completely knew understanding of how terrifying Ye Xiu's strategies were. All of his tactics were interlinked, each step taken was a step closer to victory. Every one of Team Happy's members were utilized to the limit. From Wu Chen's Dawn Rifle to Tang Rou's Soft Mist and now Qiao Yifan's One Inch Ash.
I have to find a way to get rid of this Phantom Demon!
No... wait…..
Xiao Shiqin was thinking of a countermeasure, when a light suddenly lit up in his head.
Phantom Demon. Their next target should be this Phantom Demon, but if they did that, wouldn't they fall into Happy's trap again?
From the very start of this match, Happy's members revealed their talents one after the other, which Excellent Era locked onto. Then, they were put into a difficult spots because of these targets…...
Yes, so it's like that. The key to Happy's strategies lies here!