Huang Shaotian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he discovered the truth.
As it turned out, the whole situation had been very straightforward. He tried to stall Happy, but Happy obviously wasn’t going to let him. Happy ended up stalling him and prevented him from scouting.
This was just a regular action-reaction. Maybe there was an encirclement before, but not now. Happy definitely had their own strategy, but this strategy wasn’t tailored against Huang Shaotian; rather, they needed to hide it from him. Now, Happy has succeeded. Huang Shaotian did not manage to gain a single shred of information on Happy’s movement. His scouting resulted in complete failure.
“Keep your eyes peeled for Happy’s movements,” Huang Shaotian could only remind his teammates like this. Even though Happy’s Ye Xiu didn’t seem like a big threat now, if they dared to make this kind of arrangement, there must be a reason behind it.
“How about you?” The other side asked.
“I’m being annoyed by a fly,” replied Huang Shaotian.
Bang!
In the time it took him to send that message, Lord Grim’s attack arrived yet again. The Battle Mage’s Sky Strike came flying; the spear travelled in a graceful diagonal arc. If this was in the PvE portions of the game, Ye Xiu would never miss this strike. But Huang Shaotian wasn’t at the same level as a mob’s AI. The sword Ice Rain was propped accurately in the path of the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella, and the two weapons clashed. The two both carried the air of elite pro players and smoothly transitioned into a backwards leap.
The distance between them widened. Again!
Collapsing Mountain!
Troubling Rain had only taken a small, half-step backwards when he immediately struck again with his sword.
However, Ye Xiu’s awareness and control didn’t lose out to Huang Shaotian’s. Lord Grim’s backward leap also consisted of a small half-step. As the Collapsing Mountain bore down on him, Lord Grim rolled to the side. Huang Shaotian wanted to forcefully change the sword’s attack angle, but he saw that Lord Grim has directly rolled out of range of what he could reach even if he altered his attack direction.
Ye Xiu wasn’t Mo Fan, after all. The two had an understanding of each other. Ye Xiu’s dodge even accounted for any variations that Huang Shaotian could produce.
Mid-roll and at half-crouch, Lord Grim pointed his Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, which was already raised with the tip pointed outwards. The dark, hollow muzzle of the gun flashed with light, accompanied by the sound of a gunshot and a flying bullet.
Bang!
The bullet had hit a hard object, and sparks flew everywhere
Ice Rain was vibrating and ringing from the impact.
The whole stadium was in uproar. He blocked a shot from that distance? What kind of insane reaction and control was that?
“Not bad with your luck!” Ye Xiu said.
“It’s called skill!” Huang Shaotian retorted. Truthfully, he knew that previous block was quite fortuitous.
“Then what about this?”
Boom boom boom!
Anti-Tank Missiles. Three artillery shells shot out, one after the other.
The explosions dealt damage in an area. You would receive a faceful of ashes even if you blocked it. Thus, Huang Shaotian chose not to block, but instead had Troubling Rain directly use Formless Phantom Blade.
Intertwining swordlight instantly flickered out, followed by three flaming flashes. The Anti-Tank Missiles were unexpectedly hacked to pieces by Huang Shaotian’s use of a high-level skill. Even though there would be some splash damage, it would not hinder his advance. The swordlight was not impeded in the slightest by the explosions and had already criss-crossed towards Lord Grim.
Swish!
The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella instantly opened up. Ye Xiu had no way to dodge the countless strikes of this high-level skill, so he could only defend. The Umbrella’s shield form was light and had low resistance to knockback. Under the hurricane-like effects of Formless Phantom Blade, Lord Grim slid backwards, carving out two grooves in the sand with his feet.
For the final strike of Formless Phantom Blade, all the swordlight gathered into a bundle and struck out. Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s canopy looked like it was about to fold in on itself. This hit that had a powerful knock-up effect was transformed into backwards momentum by the shield’s resistance. Lord Grim looked like he was surfing on the sand. His two feet continued to send sand flying, as he rapidly slid backwards.
Formless Phantom Blade had long ending lag, so unfortunately Huang Shaotian couldn’t follow up and immediately pursue his target. By the time Troubling Rain could perform an action again, Lord Grim was also pretty much done sliding. The Umbrella’s canopy closed and bullets swept out from Gatling Gun.
Huang Shaotian spotted a half-wall next to him and immediately rolled behind it to take cover. The bullets sent rocky fragments flying wildly as they struck the wall. Huang Shaotian listened carefully to the rhythm of the bullets hitting the wall. If it sped up, that meant Lord Grim was getting closer. But right now, it sounded like the time between each shot hitting the wall was increasing. That meant Ye Xiu was probably controlling Lord Grim to retreat.
Charge!
Troubling Rain immediately jumped out from behind the wall. As expected, he saw Lord Grim retreating while shooting. When he saw Troubling Rain shoot out from his cover, he hastily adjusted his muzzle towards him. But Huang Shaotian didn’t stop controlling his character, who swiftly rushed forth, and left a string of bullets behind him.
Triple Slash!
BladeMasters’ most commonly used movement skill was used once again.
One, two, three slashes!
Three slashes, three changes in direction. Troubling Rain cut a beautiful arc and managed to arrive next to Lord Grim while dodging all his shots.
“Beautiful!” Even Ye Xiu praised him. Then, Lord Grim threw out a grenade while Troubling Rain performed the third slash of Triple Slash. The grenade grazed past the sword light, while Huang Shaotian rushed forward…
Boom!
The explosion completely engulfed the top half of Troubling Rain’s body.
However, grenades were a low-level Spitfire skill, and the knockback was mediocre. The explosion could only slow Troubling Rain down by a fraction as he moved forward with three sword slashes. Even though half of Troubling Rain’s body was still covered in dying flames and ashes, he still smartly completed the beautiful arced trajectory of his Triple Slash.
Just looking at damage alone, this grenade couldn’t even come close to the damage that Troubling Rain dealt by piling slashes onto the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s shield from Formless Phantom Blade. But comparing the visual effects of both attacks, Troubling Rain looked much worse. Anyone would say that Huang Shaotian would be feeling more frustrated in this situation.
However, Huang Shaotian did not have this third person view, so he was still upbeat. He was content when he saw that he had not received much damage and that his Triple Slash had not been interrupted. He didn’t care that the top half of his body might still be on fire, while Ice Rain slashed out again.
Lunge!
Troubling Rain slid forward one step, and two sword lights rapidly shot out.
Pop pop!
Their two swords crossed again, but Huang Shaotian immediately knew that something was wrong. Lord Grim was far too stiff, and the health drop after taking the hit was also off.
It was a shadow clone.
Huang Shaotian realized instantly. He quickly scanned around, and saw that Lord Grim was already a few units away. He was moving, while periodically looking back to check on Troubling Rain.
He really wanted to get away!
Huang Shaotian had Troubling Rain follow, while contemplating calculatively.
Lord Grin was charging towards the ancient ruins. Was he preparing to rendezvous with his team? Did that mean that whatever set up Happy had prepared was already in place?
“Found anything odd?” Huang Shaotian quickly asked.
“Nothing,” Yu Wenzhou replied.
“Ye Xiu is coming from my direction,” Huang Shaotian said.
“Oh? How’d the fight go?” Yu Wenzhou continued to reply. It seemed that side didn’t see any action, otherwise Yu Wenzhou would not have time to spare for typing.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t discover what high-level skills he’s attached to his umbrella,” Huang Shaotian said.
His fight with Ye Xiu still had this kind of intention. In the group arena, Yu Xiu’s Lord Grim had only displayed gun form non-basic skills such as Laser Cannon. Blue Rain had no idea what else he was hiding, which was disadvantageous to them in the team competition. Huang Shaotian wanted to bait some high level skills out from the Umbrella if he could, given the rare opportunity of meeting one on one in the team competition. In the end, he didn’t know whether Ye Xiu held the skills back on purpose, but what mattered was that this exchange was worthless.
“Which area are you in now?” Huang Shaotian asked.
“The region at 89, 157,” Yu Wenzhou replied.
“Roger. I’ll try and herd Ye Xiu over. You guys get ready,” Huang Shaotian said.
“Be careful of the rest of Happy.”
“Will do.”
After completing this conversation, Huang Shaotian quickly switched to the global chat.
“Where do you think you’re going!” he yelled out. However, Huang Shaotian would not have an advantage if he really wanted to chase like this. Huang Shaotian talked big, but Ye Xiu had seemingly decided not to fight with him any longer. After some movement skills such as Shining Cut and Colliding Stab had been used, he turned a corner and vanished without a trace.
Fuck me! So direct?
Huang Shaotian was a bit confused.
He knew that no class could compete with the unspecialized Lord Grim in movement options. But he also said he would herd Ye Xiu towards Yu Wenzhou, precisely because he didn’t expect Ye Xiu to escape from him so directly. Ye Xiu’s dirty playstyle was in his mind, and he was obviously trying to lure him into some kind of trap or ambush. Huang Shaotian planned to observe carefully while chasing, in an attempted to lure his opponent in instead.
Ye Xiu ended up simply ignoring him and running away.
“Target lost temporarily,” Huang Shaotian could only report the truth to his team.
“What?”
“That guy ran away. You guys be careful, maybe they’re preparing to attack now,” Huang Shaotian said.
“You too, maybe they’ll use you as an opening,” Yu Wenzhou said.
“If only!” Huang Shaotian came to scout and did not get the attention he wanted. Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng scared him together, and then only Ye Xiu stayed. He wished that Happy would treat him to a more grand welcome!
Huang Shaotian moved towards the wall that Lord Grim had disappeared behind. Huang Shaotian quickly approached and then slowed down when he got closer, keeping a safe distance. Then, he darted forward while slashing out.
The sword slashed empty air. There was no one behind the wall. Ye Xiu only used the wall as cover, and was now nowhere to be seen.
But he couldn’t have gotten too far.
Huang Shaotian looked around and observed possible locations that Ye Xiu could have run off to. To avoid being discovered by a pursuer, Lord Grim could only have gone in one direction.
Charge forward, leave a safe gap. Change direction, dash forth, slash.
He still slashed air, but this time, he got a grand welcome!
Qi Bullet!
The attack came from Fang Rui’s Boundless Sea. That slash hit nothing because Boundless Sea had dodged out of the way and immediately counter-attacked. No one was better than this kind of dirty play than Fang Rui.