Chapter 1019: Wound
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
Shattering the Land!
The Level 75 Battle Mage skill was heroically used by One Autumn Leaf, clas.h.i.+ng against Lord Grim"s attack. One Autumn Leaf"s powerful equipment was displayed. Lord Grim"s attack should have possessed a short hitstun effect, but the hitstun couldn"t even be seen. Even though it hurt One Autumn Leaf, it didn"t stop the skill from coming out.
He already has a clear grasp of my character"s stats!
Ye Xiu thought to himself. Due to Lord Grim"s full set of Orange equipment, Lord Grim"s stats weren"t a secret. The only variable was the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. If this were a normal weapon, Sun Xiang would have most likely grasped the weapon"s stats much faster, but because the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella had many forms each with different stats, more effort was needed. However, daring to take the attack while using Shattering the Land meant that Sun Xiang had a solid understanding of Lord Grim"s stats. Sun Xiang knew that his attack would be unable to interrupt One Autumn Leaf"s skill.
Sure enough, despite Lord Grim"s attack dealing damage, One Autumn Leaf remained unmoved. Shattering the Lands came out. One Autumn Leaf thrust his spear into the ground and then pulled it back. A wave spread out in a circle around One Autumn Leaf. Compared to Qiu Fei"s Combat Form, the power was one step higher. The Battle G.o.d One Autumn Leaf"s might truly began to show.
Sun Xiang"s timing was on point. His luck burst forth too. His spear, Evil Annihilation, triggered Landslide, increasing Shattering the Land"s attack range. For a high-level skill that already possessed high killing power, the addition the Landslide effect only made it more obvious.
Lord Grim was unable to escape from the skill"s wide range and was sent flying into the air along with dirt and stone. This was just Sun Xiang"s opening move too. One Autumn Leaf ran behind Lord Grim and stabbed towards Lord Grim"s heart from the back with a Furious Dragon Strikes the Heart.
Getting behind the opponent was a move that pro players always did when comboing. First, it increased the damage due to it being a back attack. Second, it was harder to defend strikes from behind. These types of movements could be considered as a beginner-level Vanis.h.i.+ng Step. The difference was that the goal of Vanis.h.i.+ng Step was to combo the opponent without the opponent knowing the user"s location, so it wasn"t as simple as a back attack.
This Furious Dragon Strikes the Heart was extremely sharp. A sneak attack from the back might have been impossible for anyone else to defend against, but Ye Xiu was too familiar with Battle Mages. He didn"t even need to look. He could just listen to know that it was a Furious Dragon Strikes the Heart coming from behind him. He had distinguished it even amidst the quaking noise caused by Shattering the Lands.
Without turning around, Lord Grim put his umbrella on his shoulder. With a whoosh, the umbrella canopy opened up into its s.h.i.+eld form to block the attack. Ye Xiu didn"t have any other options available. Sun Xiang was too fast, and One Autumn Leaf"s attack was also ferocious. Ye Xiu didn"t have time to do any complicated motions.
The s.h.i.+eld form was the lightest of the s.h.i.+elds. Even though its ability to reduce damage wasn"t bad, its priority was simply too low. After taking this Furious Dragon Strikes the Heart, Lord Grim was launched even higher into the air.
Sun Xiang targeted where Lord Grim would fall and had One Autumn Leaf wait over there, but then he saw Lord Grim retract the canopy of the umbrella on his shoulder and saw the umbrella ribs start to spin into a Rotor Wing.
Sun Xiang wasn"t going to let him go. Even though One Autumn Leaf couldn"t fly, Lord Grim couldn"t fly forever. Rotor Wings had a limited skill duration. The flight speed wasn"t fast either. One Autumn Leaf firmly chased after Lord Grim.
Who would have imagined that Lord Grim was only faking it. After tricking Sun Xiang to take a few steps forward, he quietly dropped a grenade without warning.
"Haha." Sun Xiang even type a sneering emoji. One Autumn Leaf turned around. Evil Annihilation swung up and moved along a beautiful arc, directly striking the grenade mid-air.
Amidst the cover of the explosion, Lord Grim disappeared without a trace.
Not good!
Sun Xiang"s heart tensed. He didn"t dare be negligent and hastily moved to pull away. Three Anti-Tank Missiles fell from the sky. Using the cover of the explosion, Lord Grim shot them in a triangle, trapping One Autumn Leaf in the middle.
Sun Xiang"s frightening mechanics were displayed at this moment. The three Anti-Tank Missiles were shot in a tight formation, yet this guy was actually able to get One Autumn Leaf to slip through the tiniest gap between two of them to dodge the missiles.
Beautiful! However, no applause came. With their omniscient view, they could already see it clearly. Lord Grim had used Shadow Clone Technique to return to the ground. As for One Autumn Leaf? He was looking up in the air, attacking the clone.
Blood splattered.
When an a.s.sa.s.sin or a Ninja approached an unsuspecting target, even a G.o.d couldn"t escape from the sneak attack because the attack came without any warning.
Only then did Sun Xiang realize he had fallen for it. One Autumn Leaf rushed forward, while turning around and slas.h.i.+ng with his spear. He first had to get away from his opponent before doing anything else, but when he turned around, there was no sign of Lord Grim. There were only so many skills that could make a character disappear. However... with 24 cla.s.ses, there were too many skills to search through. Sun Xiang already reacted quite quickly, but it was still too late. By the time One Autumn Leaf jumped up and stabbed down with his spear, Lord Grim had already tunneled out from the ground.
Underground Tunneling Technique!
Ye Xiu had used this move against Qiu Fei. Through his memory of that, Sun Xiang was able to make an accurate decision. Unfortunately, he was slightly too slow. Ye Xiu struck first. Lord Grim came out of the ground, dodged Evil Annihilation, and once again slashed at One Autumn Leaf"s neck.
Then, a Falling Flower Palm.
Ye Xiu didn"t use the same move set as he did against Qiu Fei. Instead, he used a Falling Flower Palm to throw One Autumn Leaf backwards. Sun Xiang had grasped Lord Grim"s stats. How could Ye Xiu not also grasp the completely reworked One Autumn Leaf?
Were all of these changes to fit to Sun Xiang"s style? It didn"t seem like it in Ye Xiu"s eyes. Sun Xiang"s Battle Mage playstyle wasn"t anything original. From how Sun Xiang played, Ye Xiu could even see images of himself. And for that type of playstyle, One Autumn Leaf"s original set of Silver equipment had been the most optimal. The new level cap didn"t revolutionize any sort of new playstyle, so the equipment configuration didn"t need to be altered at all. The only thing that needed to be done was upgrade the level and stats of the silver equipment.
However, Ye Xiu noticed that One Autumn Leaf avoided this approach. If it was just to fit Sun Xiang"s playstyle, then there didn"t need to make such drastic changes. Then why did they do it? Ye Xiu had a good guess. Excellent Era wanted Ye Xiu to face an unfamiliar One Autumn Leaf. They didn"t want Ye Xiu to have the advantage of being too familiar with the character.
They succeeded. Ye Xiu was very unfamiliar with this One Autumn Leaf. As for Sun Xiang? Even though he had enough time to familiarize himself with it, that didn"t mean it was completely suitable for him either. This completely changed One Autumn Leaf made it so he no longer knew the enemy anymore, but it also lowered Sun Xiang"s synchronization to the character at the same time.
This was a double-edged sword. For now, the damage to Ye Xiu was greater. Ye Xiu lost a huge advantage.
As for Excellent Era"s wound? If it was just limited to Sun Xiang"s capabilities, then the wound wasn"t that big. Sun Xiang just wasn"t able to reach his maximum potential. That didn"t mean he was terrible all of a sudden. If switching a character made a pro player"s skill level drop to zero, then that pro player was too awful to be considered a pro.
This wound needed to be made bigger! That wasn"t easy to do though.
Just knowing that Sun Xiang was unable to play to the best of his ability wasn"t really going to help Ye Xiu win. What he needed to figure out was why Sun Xiang couldn"t play at his peak and what Sun Xiang was being limited by. This was how he would beat a strong opponent.
The price he would need to pay to find the answer would be extremely high. It required him to take Sun Xiang"s different attacks.
Lord Grim didn"t have much health remaining though and was on the losing end. By the time he found the answer, would it be too late to counter attack?
Nothing was certain, but Ye Xiu had made his decision.
Because he was certain that this wasn"t an individual compet.i.tion, but a group arena. Even if he couldn"t win, he could pave the way for their next player. In the group arena, only one person could play at a time, but it was also a compet.i.tion between two teams. Even if he couldn"t win, he could still provide the win conditions for their next player. This was how the group arena should be played.
After using Falling Flower Palm, Ye Xiu had Lord Grim charge forward bravely. Right now, he had the initiative. If he had the opportunity to kill Sun Xiang, he obviously wasn"t going to mind, but..... Sun Xiang clearly wasn"t going to be so polite. One Autumn Leaf"s high character stats made it so that Lord Grim"s attack effects were reduced. The knockback from Falling Flower Palm wasn"t as far as Ye Xiu had antic.i.p.ated. From this point, it could be seen that the changes done to One Autumn Leaf by Excellent Era were successful. They disrupted what should have been a flow that Ye Xiu was familiar with.
Evil Annihilation and Myriad Manifestations Umbrella once again clashed. One Autumn Leaf"s priority advantage was very obvious. Every time the two weapons collided, Ye Xiu had to do more to neutralize the attacks.
"The two sides are fighting again. Ye Xiu is trying to play more intelligently, but Sun Xiang is sticking close to him. It can be seen that Ye Xiu"s stamina is going down already. In this exchange, he seems to have given more Chasers to Sun Xiang. In the beginning, he had been doing his utmost to limit the Chasers, but now..... It seems like he"s not able to do it anymore....." Li Yibo observed the situation and felt like victory was already leaning towards one side.
"But Ye Xiu has maintained the possibility of counter attacking at any time." Pan Lin said.
"Yes. He"s not panicking. He"s still playing very calmly. However, what I"m worried about is that if this continues, will Ye Xiu still have the energy to play well in the team compet.i.tion? In this match, because of the difference in characters, Ye Xiu is clearly spending more effort and energy to get this fight to be evenly matched!" Li Yibo remarked.