Chapter 1031: What Kind of Opponent!
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
The crowd was starting to grow restless. There was finally a change in Happy"s tactics, but that change alone wasn"t enough for them to see through their intentions. The poor commentators, Pan Lin and Li Yibo, saw the change, but they remained very cautious with their words. They had fallen into too many traps because of these players, especially on Happy"s side. Ye Xiu was definitely the leader of the group. The two of them didn"t dare to make any rash guesses, so for the previous "childish annoyance", the two could only grind their teeth and talk about other unrelated things.
Wu Chen"s Dawn Rifle and the other four teammates split up. When Excellent Era arrived, they naturally failed to find them for a third time. This failure didn"t seem to deter Excellent Era"s players. They carefully searched the area like before, but unfortunately, still discovered nothing.
What was Happy planning on doing?
The crowd could wait for the answer to appear, but Excellent Era couldn"t. They needed to guess and be prepared. When the answer finally came, what if the answer wasn"t something they were prepared to defend against?
A fourth shot rang out. Excellent Era didn"t immediately chase after the source of the gunshot like before.
"Wait a second." Xiao s.h.i.+qin gave out his first order of this match. There was one small subtlety in this. Orders were usually given out in the team chat to prevent the opponents from seeing them. However, it seemed as if Xiao s.h.i.+qin forgot about this detail and announced it for everyone to read.
"Hahahaha." Li Yibo laughed. He was just about to comment on it.
"Go!" But in Excellent Era"s team chat, Xiao s.h.i.+qin unexpectedly gave out a completely opposite order.
Li Yibo swallowed his words.
Too crafty. I almost fell into a trap again.
On the other hand, the crowd was smiling with joy. As Excellent Era"s fans, they felt like Xiao s.h.i.+qin"s actions were quick-witted. On Happy"s side, their supporters saw Xiao s.h.i.+qin"s actions and shook their heads.
"Those who play with tactics are too dirty**!" Wei Chen sighed.
"Yeah!" Sun Zheping nodded his head.
Just when Team Excellent Era finished pulling off their bluff and prepared to chase after the sound to achieve their aim through a trick, another gunshot rang out. This time, it came from the opposite direction.
Team Excellent Era stared blankly. Everyone stared blankly. However, the crowd could at least see that this gunshot had come from the group that split apart from Dawn Rifle. The only one among them who could make a gunshot was their unspecialized, Lord Grim.
The Myriad Manifestation Umbrella"s gunform wasn"t a handcannon. His attacks make an exploding noise. Lord Grim had fired Anti-Tank Missiles, but cancelled the skill after the first missile flew out. By doing this, he was able to perfectly replicate the sound of gunfire from Dawn Rifle"s handcannon. It must have taken painstaking efforts to perform.
However, what was his intention?
Just looking at the idea, it was just as childish as the earlier blank shots to get the enemy"s attention.
But this was a confrontation between two Master Tacticians. How could such childish thinking appear in this kind of high-level match?
What was the point of firing gunshots on opposite sides?
All that did was tell the other side that the enemy team had split into two. And then? Was Happy hoping for the other side to split up and give chase? Or was Happy hoping for Excellent Era to focus one target? And then how was Happy going to respond to the Excellent Era"s decision?
The purpose of tactics was to give your side an advantage. However, Happy"s move didn"t seem to be able to get them any advantage. Wasn"t splitting the team apart supposed to be a secret? Wasn"t announcing it to the enemy team the same as giving away your advantage?
I don"t understand. I just don"t understand.
Pan Lin and Li Yibo had their brows furrowed in deep thought. After a long time, they turned their heads and saw the same puzzled look on each other"s face before dumbly turning their heads back to the match.
They obviously couldn"t explain things that they didn"t understand.
Deliberately mystifying things?
Apart from calling it "childish", this was the only other possibility that Li Yibo could think of. However, the problem was that even if Happy was deliberately mystifying things, there had to be some sort of goal in mind. So what if Happy confused Excellent Era with their actions?
Team Excellent Era merely hesitated a bit when they heard two gunshots from two different locations. Soon afterwards, Xiao s.h.i.+qin"s Life Extinguisher resolutely headed towards their original target. The other four characters followed him, maintaining their formation as they continued to move in perfect sync.
The five players had chosen to bite Wu Chen.
Let alone him just being a player from a relegated team, even a top G.o.d from the Alliance would be at an absolute disadvantage.
What was Ye Xiu thinking?
Everyone was puzzled.
This time, it wasn"t just Pan Lin and Li Yibo who weren"t skilled enough to understand what was going on. The three Team Tiny Herb players were also confused, unable to see through Ye Xiu"s intentions.
If they couldn"t guess, they could only keep watching and wait for the answer to come to them.
Team Excellent Era moved swiftly, an advantage of having powerful characters. Strong characters were strong in all aspects. Attack and defense were just one part of the equation. As a team, equipping a character might not simply be for the sole purpose of improving one"s own individual strength, but rather for the purpose of synergizing with the other characters in the team.
For example, take movement speed. Every character had their own movement speed. The entire team"s movement speed depended on the slowest team member. Perhaps this character didn"t need high movement speed, but sometimes, in order to increase the speed of the entire team, this character would need to wear equipment that was pointless alone. However, for the team, it was a very meaningful upgrade.
And this was another layer to research into Silver equipment. It wasn"t just about higher stats, but rather how Silver equipment interacted with each other in a team.
Happy clearly weren"t at that level yet. Even in the Alliance, only a few powerhouses had reached this step. Team Excellent Era had a new addition, Life Extinguisher. Just like how the player needed to meld into the team, the character needed to as well. And now it looked like Excellent Era had done a good job. Whether it was Xiao s.h.i.+qin or Life Extinguisher, Team Excellent Era was already a single ent.i.ty. Their movements didn"t seem to be crude in the slightest.
Their advantage in movement speed allowed Team Excellent Era to get closer to Team Happy bit by bit. Happy"s equipment was simple and crude. The vast majority of their equipment was Orange, so their stats were known, giving Excellent Era a rough estimate of the strength of Happy"s characters. The movement speed of Happy"s character was one of these estimates.
After missing three times, Excellent Era wasn"t shaken because they knew that as long as they kept on chasing, they would soon find the other side.
Fourth time!
Judging by the difference between our movement speeds, we definitely won"t miss a fourth time. Xiao s.h.i.+qin had calculated it. However, this time, when they chased after their target, they still missed.
Xiao s.h.i.+qin obviously wasn"t hoping for Happy to just sit there waiting. When he was certain that they wouldn"t miss, he meant that they should see signs of Happy within their field of view.
However, when they gave chase for the fourth time, they still didn"t see any signs of their target.
Bang!
At this moment, a new gunshot rang, clearly from up ahead.
"Hurry up and give chase!" A G.o.d like Sun Xiang obviously had very good judgement. He also had a good idea of their movement speed advantage. He felt like their miss this time was probably because they slowed down a bit every time they reached their target location. If they hurried, they would certain catch the other side the next time.
"We won"t be able to catch them." Xiao s.h.i.+qin suddenly typed.
"It"s only one person here. His movement speed is above our team"s." Xiao s.h.i.+qin said. Wu Chen"s Dawn Rifle wore a full set of Orange equipment, so Xiao s.h.i.+qin naturally had a very strong grasp of Dawn Rifle"s movement speed.
Why did Happy split up? Hints for why could finally be seen. It was a very precise tactical change. Xiao s.h.i.+qin had been certain that they would catch their target the fourth time. As a result, Happy split up before this. Happy couldn"t compare to Excellent Era in terms of their overall team movement speed, but Wu Chen"s Dawn Rifle on his own was faster than Excellent Era.
What had Happy gained from this minute change? Was it just to continue with their "childish annoyance?"
The crowd members could finally see glimmers of the thinking, but it came with new questions. Neither side had yet to fight yet. They were just running around, baffling everyone. Many people had already gotten impatient. The boos from the crowd had naturally become extremely loud. Excellent Era"s fans were very unhappy with Happy"s mysterious strategy.
At this moment, another gunshot rang out.
Wu CHen"s Dawn Rifle once again reminded Excellent Era where he was located.
To give chase or to not give chase?
Xiao s.h.i.+qin finally hesitated. If they chased, they definitely wouldn"t be able to catch him. If they didn"t chase, they wouldn"t lose anything, but then what should they do?
Xiao s.h.i.+qin felt his head hurt a bit. He suddenly realized that this was a rather unfamiliar situation because up until now, he had been leading the weaker team. Through tactics, they contended with stronger teams. Overwhelming strength? Team Thunderclap had never possessed that.
But now? Xiao s.h.i.+qin realized that if he had been in Ye Xiu"s position, perhaps he would have had an easier time because beating the strong as the weak was his strength. The strong beating the weak? He had started experiencing that this season, but the opponents that they encountered were too weak. So weak that he couldn"t get any experience from it. In the blink of an eye, it was the finals. Now, they had encountered a weak team, but not strong enough to pose a threat.
And his opponent was another Master Tactician, Ye Xiu. To Xiao s.h.i.+qin, his generation had been hugely affected by this G.o.d. Their Glory knowledge had more or less come from this G.o.d. Why else was he called the Glory Textbook?
Quite a few of Xiao s.h.i.+qin"s tactics and strategies had been learned from Ye Xiu"s matches. His tactical ability wasn"t any better than the opposing G.o.d.
Xiao s.h.i.+qin suddenly became aware that the opponents he had to beat this match were similar... to the former Team Thunderclap that he had once led.