translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
After two days of competition, the individual competition of Peerless Jianghu’s first professional league finally reached the last few matches of the group stage.
Today’s match would determine the qualifying list from each group. In group A, Xu Sizhe was doomed to be eliminated after having suffered two consecutive defeats, while Lin Yao’s two consecutive wins had earned him a quota in advance. Both Qin Mo and Qiu Zongping had unexpectedly lost to Lin Yao, and had achieved one win and one loss each. Today, Qin Mo would face Qiu Zongping, his final opponent in group A, in a life and death battle to determine who qualified.
The final round of group matches began at 9:00am in the morning.
The first match in group A was Lin Yao VS Xu Sizhe, with Lin Yao winning 2:0 without any suspense, and taking the first quota for the top 16.
This was followed by the match between Qin Mo and Qiu Zongping. In the esports circle, Qiu Zongping had always been regarded as Qin Mo’s successor, having learnt 80% of Qin Mo’s playstyle in using multiple pets to control the field. Although he was taught by Qin Mo personally, Qin Mo had left the league for three years, and in that time, Qiu Zongping had led Wind Colour to compete, gaining much experience along the way. His skills had improved rapidly, his temperament was calm, and his mind was resolute—— he was no longer the newcomer he had been in the training camp.
Qin Mo couldn’t be careless against Qiu Zongping. He had to bring out his best, and fight as quickly as possible to break Qiu Zongping’s rhythm of controlling the field.
Before the match started, the commentators introduced both players to the audience, with Liang Ru introducing the players’ equipment. “Qiu Zongping’s weapon, ‘Red Sandalwood Treasure Box’, provides an additional two seconds of control time, increasing the power of his field control. Correspondingly, his weapon output is weaker, so even if his opponent is controlled, he may not be able to kill them directly. This is a weapon more suited for a battle of attrition.”
“Captain Qiu isn’t taking the outbreak route,” Ye Chao pointed out. “His equipment is more suitable for a team battle. As long as he can control the opponent, the output can be left for his teammates to handle.”
“Indeed,” Liang Ru nodded. “His teammate, Yuan Xi, is a summoner following the outbreak route, and has additional criticals stacked on his equipment. If Qiu and Yuan cooperate, they will be a powerful force in the partner competition and the team battle. However, in today’s battle with god Mo, despite captain Qiu’s control of the field being strong, his output is weak. I feel that his chances of winning are around forty percent.”
Ye Chao thought the same. “Still, it depends on the tactical layout,” he responded. “Qiu Zongping may be able to win against Qin Mo on certain maps.”
***
Music blared, announcing the official start of the match.
Both Qin Mo and Qiu Zongping stepped onto the stage. Smiling, Qiu Zongping took the initiative to walk over for a handshake with Qin Mo. “Please have mercy on me, god Mo.”
“Play well,” Qin Mo replied calmly. “Let me see how much you have progressed in the past three years.”
“Certainly,” Qiu Zongping replied seriously.
Both of them took their places in the soundproof booths. Having rolled a higher number, Qiu Zongping earned the right to select the first map.
He quickly submitted his choice of map—— Nanjiang Secret Territory.
This was also a swamp map, but compared with the ‘dark swamp’ that appeared before, this map was brightly lit, and the scene was a sunny afternoon. However, the green swamp waters would send out poisonous miasma to the surrounding areas, causing the middle of the map to be shrouded in a layer of thick green fog, which could inflict a layer of poison on the players every five seconds. On the other hand, if the player fell into the swamp, the poison layers would be stacked at the rate of one per second.
Qiu Zongping had spent a lot of time thinking about his selection of maps beforehand—— Qin Mo was a melee swordsman, while Qiu Zongping had a superior attack range and greater control skills. He could control Qin Mo from a distance, allowing Qin Mo to be affected by the poisonous fog, which enabled him to the environment to cover up his insufficient output.
Seeing the map, Qin Mo also thought that Xiao Qiu chose well. When it came to fighting a summoner, this map would give melee players many headaches.
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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Without hesitation, Qiu Zongping pressed the key to summon the mechanical horse—— inflicting a fear control on Ink Mark, and preventing him from moving or using skills.
The bonus attributes on his weapon would extend the duration of the control effect to five seconds. Controlling the opponent for five seconds with his mechanical horse in a team battle was enough to completely destroy a team.
Because this was an individual competition, Qiu Zongping’s output was not high. After controlling his opponent, he used two mechanical chariots to blast away 10% of Ink Mark’s health. In five seconds’ time, a layer of poison would be afflicted on the players. Qiu Zongping immediately withdrew from the fog after four seconds, preventing himself from getting poisoned. On the other hand, Ink Mark was controlled by the fear status and unable to leave the fog, thus getting poisoned as a result.
Seeing this, Ye Chao couldn’t help but offer praise. “Qiu Zongping is very smart, having thought of using the environment to support his own abilities. His own explosive power cannot compare to god Mo’s, and he is unable to kill his opponent quickly. Conversely, his strength is field control, and choosing to fight a war of attrition with the help of the map environment was a good choice. This way, he can use his skills to the fullest extent.”
The fear status on Qin Mo was lifted five seconds later, and he immediately opened the sect qinggong skill ‘Flicker’, dashing in front of Qiu Zongping, only for Qiu Zongping to summon a large number of mechanical rats this very moment. The wave of rats rushed towards Ink Mark like a surging tide, and Qiu Zongping’s beautiful multi-line pet operation successfully inflicted three layers of weakness on Ink Mark.
After being weakened, the swordsman’s attack power was greatly reduced. Usually, Qin Mo’s attack skill ‘Unrivalled Sword’ could take away more than 20% of the opponent’s blood volume, but Qiu Zongping only lost 10% of his health.
Qiu Zongping followed up with two mechanical snakes. The S-shaped movement of the snakes quickly encircled Ink Mark, fixing him in place, just within the range of the poisonous fog.
——This set of continuous field control won a round of warm applause from the audience.
Sure enough, Qiu Zongping was very good at controlling the field. Even Qin Mo, who knew him very well, had been controlled by him for nearly ten seconds.
Taking advantage of this new control effect on Ink Mark, Qiu Zongping stood outside the fog’s range of effect, quickly hitting a set of combos to bring Ink Mark’s blood volume down to 70%. At the same time, another layer of poison was inflicted on Ink Mark from the fog.
Two layers of poisoning would cause people to lose 2% of their health per second, and statuses inflicted by the environment wouldn’t disappear, which meant that Ink Mark’s blood volume would continue to fall. Meanwhile, Qiu Zongping was not poisoned, and still had 90% of his health.
“This sort of playstyle is really wretched!” Liang Ru couldn’t help commenting.
“How can he beat god Mo if he isn’t wretched enough?” Ye Chao replied, snorting. “With god Mo’s explosive power, a series of moves will kill Qiu Zongping directly. In fact, Qiu Zongping’s choice of forcing a slow rhythm is correct.”
It was impossible to compete in a war of output with Qin Mo, and Qiu Zongping could only fight like this.
Qin Mo found that after three grueling years of training, the young man had been blackened, and could unexpectedly come up with such a strange trick.
Of course, Qin Mo definitely knew about this ‘Nanjiang Secret Territory’ map, but he seldom used it. Shen He too didn’t particularly like this map, because he couldn’t grasp the distance of the poisonous fog well, and often poisoned himself. To think that Qiu Zongping would actually use this map today! His calm operations caused Qin Mo to suffer a loss right from the very beginning.
It was very annoying to be poisoned. In the blink of an eye, Qin Mo’s blood volume had fallen to 45%, while Qiu Zongping still maintained his 90% blood volume.
Naturally, Qin Mo wouldn’t sit around and wait to die.
Qiu Zongping’s mechanical horse, mechanical rats, and mechanical snakes were in cooldown, and the control effect would wear off shortly.
Sure enough, after the immobilisation effect of the mechanical snake had ended, Qiu Zongping was unable to follow up with a control skill. Qin Mo seized the opportunity and jumped forward with his qinggong. The white-clothed swordsman appeared before Qiu Zongping in a flash, unceremoniously silencing him with a Heaven Sun combo!
The silenced Qiu Zongping immediately stepped back to avoid Qin Mo’s follow-up attack, but Qin Mo wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to evade. The longsword in his hand danced, tracing out multiple arcs of swordlight in a combo—— Sword Horizon, Riverbound Sword!
The accurate combo triggered the repelling effect. Qiu Zongping was hit by the sword, and fell directly into the poisonous swamp!
As a result, Qiu Zongping, who spent two seconds in the swamp, was immediately inflicted with two layers of poisoning.
Qin Mo followed up with the secret book skill ‘Sword Rain Fragrance’. The snow-white sword spirits descended from the sky, causing Qiu Zongping, who was in the swamp, to be dizzy for another three seconds!
By the time Qiu Zongping managed to fly out of the swamp, there were already five layers of poisoning stacked on his summoner.
Liang Ru sighed. “The map of Nanjiang Secret Territory is really a double-edged sword. God Mo’s repel and continuous control caused captain Qiu to fall into the swamp, stacking five layers of poison on him. This negative status is really terrifying.”
“Captain Qiu had 90% of his blood volume earlier, and looks to be safe, but god Mo’s blood volume has already fallen below 50%,” Ye Chao analysed. “However, there are only two layers of poison on god Mo, while captain Qiu was struck with five layers of poison. That’s 5% of his health every second. In ten seconds, his blood will be emptied!”
“He needs to find an opportunity to kill god Mo within ten seconds, or he will definitely lose this game,” Liang Ru concluded nervously.
The audience was very worried. Both players were poisoned and their blood volume was continuously falling, but Qiu Zongping’s five layers of poison was so much more terrible. In the blink of an eye, he was left with 45% of his blood volume, the same as Qin Mo.
Qiu Zongping quickly jumped out of the swamp, tossing out two skills along the way—— Mechanical Puppet, Mechanical Hawk!
Leaving the puppet in his place, Qiu Zongping changed positions, and at the same time opened a pet to launch an attack from the skies. Although his pet’s attack power was not as good as Yuan Xi’s or Shen He’s pets, the Mechanical Hawk was still a big move, and Qin Mo’s blood volume was cut down to 25%.
After the effect of the Mechanical Puppet ended, Qiu Zongping’s summoner appeared in the distance, far enough that Qin Mo couldn’t reach him.
Qin Mo didn’t hesitate to use the penetration ability of the skill ‘Drifting Sword’ to give chase, teleporting himself forward——
Seeing this, Ye Chao couldn’t resist commenting. “Drifting Sword really is god Mo’s trademark skill. Not only can he use this skill to penetrate the ground after falling off the cliff, but he can also penetrate the opponent’s body in aerial combat. Today, he once again demonstrates a special operation for everyone——penetrating the air.”
“This is indeed the ‘Ink Mark flow’ playstyle,” Liang Ru laughed.
Drifting Sword’s skill description states that it could penetrate obstacles to complete a teleportation of 10 meters, but it did not specify that an obstacle had to be present. There was no obstacle before Qin Mo at the moment, and he only used this skill to catch up with Qiu Zongping. He abandoned this big move to close the distance, in order to force a faster rate of battle, not allowing Qiu Zongping the chance to kite him and drag on the time.
After the distance closed to 10 metres, Qin Mo opened a big move—— Skyward Sword!
The swordsman’s big move exploded, cutting Qiu Zongping’s health to 15% instantly!
Taking into account the poison causing a 5% blood loss every second, Qiu Zongping could only live for three more seconds.
The audience stared at the screen with wide eyes, fearing that they would miss the critical moment.
Just as everyone thought Qiu Zongping was going to lose, he suddenly used a skill that not many had seen before——
Countless black and white chess pieces, each one as large as a person, suddenly appeared around Ink Mark, surrounding him and preventing him from moving away. Immediately after, the chess pieces began to explode at a dazzling speed!
Columns of black and white smoke rose into the air one after another, resulting in a spectacular scene.
After the wave of explosions, Ink Mark was left with only 5% of his health. As he had previously been trapped in the fog by the black and white chess pieces, he now had three layers of poison stacked on him!
Then, Qiu Zongping used his qinggong skill to retreat, once again distancing himself from Qin Mo.
With 5% of his health left and three layers of poison, Ink Mark would lose 6% of his health in two seconds.
Qiu Zongping still had 15% of his health. With five layers of poison, he would lose only 10% in two seconds.
In terms of time, Ink Mark would die first.
Sure enough, two seconds later, a prompt popped up on the screen—— Nanjiang Secret Territory has killed [Ink Mark]!
A second later—— Nanjiang Secret Territory has killed [Ordinary Person]!
The audience didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Qiu Zongping had actually calculated the time taken for a set amount of blood to be lost. In order to win against god Mo, he had also exhausted many of his brain cells.
“Our professional players are very good at math,” Liang Ru smiled. “According to the rules of the league, the first player to die loses. Thus, god Mo has lost this first match.”
Ye Chao replayed the final scene in slow motion. “The skill Qiu Zongping used a moment ago seems to be unfamiliar to most people. In fact, it’s a secret book skill called ‘Scattered Chessboard’. It summons countless black and white chess pieces to fix hostile targets within a specified range, causing damage after it explodes. The reason Qiu Zongping didn’t use this secret book skill at the beginning, was to save it for a critical moment in order to burst out a wave of damage.”
“Captain Qiu didn’t select this secret book in the first two group matches,” Liang Ru added. “It seems that he specifically chose a secret book skill with an immobilisation control that could also deal damage in order to face off against god Mo.”
Although Qiu Zongping’s method of dragging the rhythm and making use of the map environment didn’t seem as wonderful and hot-blooded as fighting head-on, Qin Mo had to admit that Qiu Zongping was rational and calm, and had strong tactical qualities. He was able to pick an appropriate map and secret book according to his opponent’s characteristics, which was a terrifying ability in a captain.
Therefore, even if he couldn’t enter the top 16 of the individual competition, his strength couldn’t be denied, simply because he was the captain. The captain’s individual strength did not need to be the strongest; what mattered was that his tactical ability was the best.
Witnessing his performance today, Qin Mo also felt relieved, happy that he hadn’t misjudged this person.Qiu Zongping was indeed a good captain.
After leaving the match room, Qin Mo took the initiative to send a thumbs-up: “Good fight.”
Qiu Zongping sent an emoticon of the cupped fist salute in return: “Thanking god Mo for the praise.”
Qin Mo’s admiration for Qiu Zongping, and Qiu Zongping’s respect for Qin Mo—— both could be conveyed to the other by simple words and emoticons.
Today’s life-and-death battle was meant to determine the players who would qualify from group A, but to the audience’s surprise, there was no stench of gunpowder from the match. Instead, a trace of warmth that lingered.
Awww, MoMo ‘Mama Bangga’ mode on. Dari Lin Yu yang akhirnya mulai bersinar dan nunjukin rasa percaya dirinya sampe Qiu Zongping yang udah mateng jadi kapten. Semua anak-anak MoMo udah hebat-hebat, mereka bakal ngelebarin sayap mereka sendiri dan terbang dengan bangga nunjukin ke MoMo kalau usahanya dulu nggak sia-sia. Anak-anak udah tumbuh dewasa, bahkan anaknya yang paling polos dan keras kepala ‘Yuan Xi’ punya keinginan kuat buat terus maju dan jadi summoner hebat dengan gayanya sendiri.
Aih, saya juga jadi merasa kek orang tua padahal ngerasain pacaran aja belum pernah XD
Anak2 Momo sudah gede dan bisa mandiri semua sekarang 😍
Ohh! Qin Mo vs Qiu Zongping~
I wonder who will win?~ I want Qin Mo to win ahh~ since I want to see a match between Qin Mo and Xiao Han! That would be so exciting!~ ٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و
Thank you for the chapter! ✨
Qin Mo will win~ I also want to see Qin Mo vs Xiao Han, it’s so exciting!
You’re welcome~
wow such an exciting match, can’t believe i waited so long to read it, time to catch up!