Xiao Han was assigned to group B, and had won against Song Changdong with a score of 2:0 yesterday. His next two opponents were Su Cheng, Interlude’s captain, and Zhou Yanbing, a longsword flow player from Without Fire.
According to today’s match schedule, the first match of group B would be between Xiao Han and Su Cheng.
Su Cheng’s strength could not be doubted. Back in the Netcom district, Xiao Han had made contact with him as an undercover in the Interlude guild. The guqin and flute ensemble play of Su and Xie was very powerful, and Su Cheng’s personal ability was also extremely strong. He had played the game even in the beta test, and often posted gameplay strategies for Luoying Valley’s guqin flow in the forums, earning the adoration of netizens.
As a widely praised ‘senior brother’ of Luoying Valley, Su Cheng was naturally popular in the sect.
As he took steps to form a professional team, his history was also dug up by curious netizens. Su Cheng and Xie Changming were apparently actual senior and junior brothers in real life, with the both of them being top students of the Conservatory of Music. Not only did Su Cheng play the guqin flow in-game, he also played the qin in real life. Videos of his entries in guzheng competitions were dug up and forwarded crazily by his fans. In the video, a handsome man sat on the wide stage, his slender fingers gently plucking the strings. The melody flowed gently, much like a stream, but could also sound like a million horses galloping when impassioned.
The guzheng’s tunes were mainly folk music learnt by females. Many people thus subconsciously assumed that if males played the guzheng, they would look very girly, but in fact, males who played the guzheng could also be domineering. The strings’ melody could also shock people’s hearts, and Su Cheng’s style could switch between gentle wave-like tunes and strong, domineering phrases. It was said that he could also compose his own music, and had already written several songs that were highly popular.
Su Cheng could play both the guqin and guzheng, while Xie Changming was good at the flute, which was a Western musical instrument. They met each other in a music competition at school. Later on, for reasons unknown, they teamed up to become esports players.
Xiao Han didn’t know much about Chinese folk music, but he was shocked upon seeing the video of Su Cheng participating in the music competition on Weibo—— Compared with Xie Changming’s constant blabbering and simple mind, his senior brother Su Cheng was low-key and modest. With a smile on his face, Su Cheng seemed to have a gentle, harmless appearance, but his real explosive power could be seen when he played the guqin.
This person absolutely could not be underestimated.
***
The match was about to begin, and both players walked onstage. Su Cheng took the initiative to shake hands, and Xiao Han returned the handshake with a polite, “Captain Su, please advise me.”
Su Cheng chuckled. “God Han is too polite, it should be me to asking you to give me advice.”
“Alright,” Xiao Han replied easily.
Su Cheng: “…”
Was he already no longer polite? Xiao Han had only been modest for three seconds. Su Cheng didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
Sitting down in their respective soundproof booths, both players put on their headphones and began to debug their equipment.
Ye Chao introduced the players and their weapons to the audience in a simple manner. “God Han’s weapon ‘Twilight’ increases the critical strike rate by 20%, and his full body equipment has piled up the critical strike rate to more than 80%. From this, we can see that he is taking the outbreak route. Captain Su’s weapon is a guqin made of red sandalwood named ‘Broken String’. The additional attribute on the weapon is an attack distance of 2 meters. His other equipment increases attack speed and attack damage. This combination can maximize the advantages of long-range rhythm play.”
On the big screen, the official showed up the prediction data of the competition. The difference between the bars representing both players was extremely small.
“The percentage of netizens who guessed that it would be god Han’s victory is 51%, while the other 49% guess that captain Su will win the match. The difference is only 2%,” Liang Ru exclaimed, surprised. “The bar chart is almost flat. Unexpectedly, captain Su is very popular.”
“It also shows how outstanding Su Cheng’s performance in the all sect challenge arena was,” Ye Chao explained. “Coupled with his musical talent, he has attracted many new fans.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Shen He, who was watching the match backstage, couldn’t help interjecting. “Is that captain Su so powerful?”
Qin Mo was solemn. “Don’t underestimate people who like to smile. Su Cheng is a person who hides deeply. He plays calmly and intelligently, and he is much more skillful than his junior brother.”
Since his master had already spoken, Shen He didn’t refute his logic any longer. Scratching his head, he stared intently at the competition broadcasted on-screen.
In the competition room, Xiao Han rolled 88 points, and won the priority to choose the map first. He picked the extremely difficult map, ‘General’s Tomb’.
This map was actually a closed underground labyrinth. The environment was dark, the secret passages in the tomb were criss-crossed, and the surrounding walls were carved with totems of various colours, making it easy to get lost.
The words ‘Thousand Miles Ice VS Morning Breeze Lingering Moon’ were shown on the big screen.
After a countdown of ten seconds, the match officially began. Xiao Han’s assassin, Thousand Miles Ice was dressed in black, blending into the surrounding environment.
As soon as they refreshed in the corners of the map, Thousand Miles Ice used the sect qinggong skill ‘Darkness Valley’ to enter stealth, quickly walking to the middle of the map, bypassing the winding secret passages. Dressed in an elegant dark green gown and carrying an ancient guqin made of red sandalwood, Su Cheng’s guqin player ‘Morning Breeze Lingering Moon’ was calm and unhurried, examining his surroundings as he walked.
As the camera view changed, the distance between both sides kept shrinking. As Thousand Miles Ice was invisible, Su Cheng didn’t discover him, and kept walking unhurriedly. Seeing this, the audience was extremely nervous for Su Cheng.
Thousand Miles Ice’s speed of operations was very fast. In an instant, he had already arrived behind Morning Breeze Lingering Moon, throwing his sharp dagger forwards—— Rainbow Through The Sun!
Rainbow Through the Sun hit three times. The smooth combo reduced Morning Breeze Lingering Moon’s blood volume to 80% instantly, and Xiao Han followed up with the skill ‘Meteor’.
As the dagger was about to stab the guqin player in the back, Su Cheng suddenly opened the group attack skill, ‘Sorrowing Over The Silk’—— the mournful melody inflicted Thousand Miles Ice with a weakened status, reducing the amount of damage he dealt.
Originally, the assassin’s Meteor skill could knock out around 15% of a long-range player’s blood volume, but after Thousand Miles Ice was weakened, Morning Breeze Lingering Moon only lost 5% of his health.
Su Cheng immediately counterattacked with a music combo——Autumn Moon Over the Han Palace, Mooring on an Autumn Night!
Thousand Miles Ice had already been inflicted with a weakened status, and both his attacks and defence were low. The guqin player’s large-scale wave attack caused him to lose 30% of his blood volume instantly!
The blood volume data of both players were displayed on the left and right sides of the screen. Thousand Miles Ice’s blood volume was at 70%, while Morning Breeze Lingering Moon’s blood volume was still at 75%.
Su Cheng’s counterattack at that critical moment had unexpectedly reversed the blood volume gap!
Loud applause filled the stadium. Obviously, Su Cheng’s calm handling of the assassin’s attacks was greatly appreciated by the audience.
Xiao Han’s response was also not slow. After being attacked by a group of sound waves, the weakened assassin immediately ran to a secret passage to the side, immediately vanishing without a trace.
Su Cheng chased him into the secret passage. Rounding the corner, a field of flowers bloomed before his eyes—— Phantom Dreaming!
As it turns out, after Xiao Han dashed into the secret passage, he relied on his extremely fast speed and familiarity with the terrain to detour behind Su Cheng in just five short seconds. By this time, the weakness state inflicted on him had ended, and the control skill of ‘Phantom Dreaming’ placed Su Cheng under an illusion immediately!
Under the influence of the illusion, flowers bloomed across Su Cheng’s computer screen. He could no longer see his location clearly, let alone tell where his opponent was.
Taking advantage of this three-second illusion control, Xiao Han let loose a set of violent combos—— Meteor, Deadly Ice Silkworm!
The critical attack triggered by two consecutive moves reduced Morning Breeze Lingering Moon’s health to 35%!
After the illusion effect was over, Su Cheng turned around, only to find that he had already lost track of Xiao Han.
This kind of ‘hit and run’ method was exactly the essence of the assassin flow’s wretched play.
If things continued in this manner, he could only passively follow Xiao Han’s rhythm. Thinking of this, Su Cheng decisively opened a big move—— Zhuangzi Dreams of Being a Butterfly!
Although it took 3 seconds to cast and release, the effect of the guqin flow’s big move was very terrible, and was not dissimilar to the detonation effect of Hanhua Sword sect’s ‘Skyward Sword’.
The ultra-wide range of purple sound waves took the appearance of butterflies fluttering together. Not only did it cause great damage, the group attack ‘Zhuangzi Dreams of Being a Butterfly’ could cause enemies to enter an ‘asleep’ state.
In this state, the player would be unable to move or use skills, just as if they were sleeping.
Although Xiao Han was not visible to Su Cheng, this timely move interrupted his attack rhythm, placing Thousand Miles Ice in a deep sleep. Su Cheng immediately used his qinggong skill to run through the narrow passage, discovering Thousand Miles Ice a little further ahead.
At this time, Thousand Miles Ice only had half his blood volume left. Without hesitation, Su Cheng immediately began to read another tune—— A Spring Flowing Over Stones!
The instant group attack skills of the guqin flow consumed less blue, but also did less damage. Comparatively, the skills which required reading consumed more blue and did more damage, but could be easily interrupted.
Right now, Thousand Miles Ice was asleep under the influence of his control skill. Thus, it was the best time to use a reading skill.
After ‘A Spring Flowing Over Stones’ had concluded, Su Cheng was left with 30% of his blue, but the effects of this skill were worth the amount of blue it consumed. In the three seconds that it was active, Thousand Miles Ice’s blood volume began to continuously drop, with 10% lost per second.
In the blink of an eye, the blood volume gap was once again reversed. Thousand Miles was left with 20% of his blood volume, while Morning Breeze Lingering Moon still had 35% left.
The competition was too fierce for Ye Chao to explain, but he couldn’t simply sit still, so he commented quickly. “We can see that Su Cheng used the sleep control skill ‘Zhuangzi Dreams of Being a Butterfly’, giving himself the opportunity to cause huge damage, and his blood volume has now exceeded god Han’s. Both of them are now in a state of residual blood, and the difference is not big. Victory will depend on who seizes the opportunity first!”
As the voice fell, Xiao Han used a big move, ‘Shadowless Dragon’!
Shadowless Dragon could enable the assassin to turn invisible in battle, but Su Cheng was still about 5 meters away from Xiao Han. Even if Xiao Han opened stealth at this time, Su Cheng still could hit him out of the invisibility state with a wide-ranged group attack. Xiao Han simply didn’t have the time to detour behind Su Cheng.
Sure enough, the moment Xiao Han disappeared, Su Cheng realised that he was invisible, immediately opening the skill ‘Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank’!
This was an instant attack skill of the guqin player which had a wide range and a useful effect. It could knock down enemies flying in the air, and at the same time, could also attack invisible enemies.
The skill ‘Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank’ cut Thousand Miles Ice’s blood volume down to 15%. Xiao Han’s fans held their breath nervously and stared unblinkingly at the big screen.
Xiao Han should be very clear that he would be hit and forced to appear, so wasn’t it a waste to open the stealth skill to run away?
Many audience members were puzzled, and joined in on the barrage of comments. However, Xiao Han answered them with his actions the very next moment.
——If the invisible state of Shadowless Dragon was broken, it would double the assassin’s attack power for 3 seconds. He did not open stealth to run away, but to explode his attack power.
After being hit, Xiao Han did not panic in the slightest. Instead, he opened the skill ‘Thousand Lights Ghost Walk’!
The assassin split into five shadows, instantly surrounding the guqin player, and a wave of attacks took Morning Breeze Lingering Moon’s blood volume down to 5%. Then, Xiao Han used the shadow to teleport forward. With a swift and agile Meteor, he decisively emptied the guqin player’s health bar.
This set of operations took less than 3 seconds. It was so fast that everyone only saw Thousand Miles Ice become invisible and split into five shadows, before Su Cheng’s guqin player character fell to the ground.
It wasn’t until the director played the recorded footage video in slow motion that everyone finally realised what Xiao Han had done.
The audience burst into deafening applause, with many people sending praise to worship god Han’s hand speed.
“God Han is really a world-class assassin,” Ye Chao praised. “It is estimated that not many are able to fight back against this ghostly, haunting style of play.”
“Captain Su reversed the blood volume twice,” Liang Ru praised. “He played calmly and wisely, but at the last moment, god Han’s outbreak was still too overwhelming. A set of consecutive moves directly took his life away!”
Compared with a game of abusing vegetables, the audience was more excited by a match between experts.
Su Cheng did a good job in this game. It was rare to be able to remain calm and steady while being constantly disturbed by assassins, but Xiao Han’s last minute explosive power won him the victory, which was worthy of an assassin who had participated in the World Competition.
Su Cheng accepted the defeat wholeheartedly, after being transmitted out from the competition map, he took the initiative to send a comment. “Admiring god Han’s performance in the game.”
Seeing this, Xiao Han followed suit. “You let me win, you let me win.”
Fans were surprised that god Han had actually learned how to use ‘you let me win’, this high-level phrase? This must have been taught by teacher Qin Mo!
Thanks for the chapter
You’re welcome~
lol qin mo and xiao han’s gameplay is so fast the commentators have to replay and slowdown their games to explain things
lol, their fight can’t be seen with naked-eyes 😏
Hahaha and it goes back to Qin Mo
It’s teacher Qin 🤣
Thanks for the chapter! (●´∀｀●)
You’re welcome~ ❤
Thank you for the chapter!~ ٩(๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و
You’re welcome~ ❤
Damn, what a good battle!!! I love how frank Qin Mo is with Shen He about Su Cheng’s real power. That’s how to raise a properly respectful son ^_^
Thanks for the chapter!!