translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
After the second day of the competition, the situation of each group also became clear. Among them, Qin Mo and Xiao Han of group F had won two consecutive matches, and had already earned their spot in the next round. On the other hand, Li Muran and Shen He of group E would not be qualifying after having suffered two consecutive defeats. Last but not least, Pei Yu, Liu Hong, Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang all had a record of one win and one defeat, and tomorrow would be the deciding match against their last opponents in the group stage.
After returning to the hotel room in the evening, He Beiguang asked anxiously. “Great god Qingyue, do you think we can win tomorrow?”
“Don’t put pressure on yourself, just do your best.” Zhu Qingyue smiled.
After watching all the matches in group A over the past few days, Zhu Qingyue had been able to confirm that Wei Guanghua was indeed his senior brother’s trump card. Although the Whisper team’s most famous players were the black umbrella twin brothers, and everyone had the impression of Whisper team being a team with an auxiliary at its core, the mysterious Wei Guanghua who had not appeared in the previous competitions had performed excellently thus far. With his equipment building style, he had both attack and defense, allowing him to serve as a protective shield in the front row as well as an offensive output player.
Compared with He Beiguang’s pure defense route, Wei Guanghua’s playstyle was more flexible. Zhu Qingyue judged that Wei Guanghua’s personal strength wasn’t comparable to that of Qin Mo, but he could very well compete against Lin Shuangcheng, a swordsman from the same sect. The auxiliary strength of both sides were the same, but the deficiency in the output was difficult to make up. Winning the match would be very difficult.
Zhu Qingyue was thinking about the arrangements for tomorrow’s match when his mobile phone suddenly lit up. It was a message from Chu Yan. “How goes your preparations for tomorrow’s match?”
“I’m thinking about it…” Zhu Qingyue replied immediately.
Chu Yan: “Your senior brother has some misunderstandings about you. Don’t pay attention to him first. I’ll have a good talk with him after the match.”
“You want to talk to him? Are you in Beijing?”
Chu Yan sent a smile: “Of course, my family’s baby is competing, I must go watch the battle in person.”
“…” Unexpectedly, he had come to watch the match for the past two days. Imagining Chu Yan watching the game from the audience seats, Zhu Qingyue felt a gentle warmth suffusing his heart, and replied with a question. “What do you think of my performance?”
Chu Yan: “Excellent.”
Having been affirmed by his master, Zhu Qingyue’s mood immediately brightened. Although he had been a captain for several years and had become a first-class auxiliary with many fans, in front of his master, he would always be the apprentice who needed affirmation and encouragement, no matter how strong he was. He still occasionally felt a little nervous in front of Chu Yan, perhaps because he had been extremely dependent on Chu Yan when he was young.
After chatting a little more, Chu Yan asked Zhu Qingyue to rest early and prepare for the match.
***
The next morning, group A’s first match began punctually at 9:30am.
The first match was Chen Jiang and He Yue against Graceful Beauty’s Swaying Moon Shadow and Gusu Trip. The martial sibling pair won the match 2:0 without any suspense, winning the first quota of the top 16 with three consecutive victories in the group stage. In the second game, the teams with one victory and one loss each, Zhu Qingyue + He Beiguang and Luo Yuan + Wei Guanghua would face each other for the last qualifying quota.
The match between the martial brothers had also drawn widespread concern in the esports circle. It was no secret that Luo Yuan was Chu Yan’s senior apprentice, for as early as the beginning of the league’s establishment, Zhu Qingyue had called him ‘senior brother’. Thus, Luo Yuan had trained in the Pure Cleansing team and worshipped Chu Yan as his master. However, the reason why he suddenly left the Pure Cleansing team was unknown.
“In this competition, both sides have an auxiliary and a defensive output. He Beiguang’s defense ability is stronger than Wei Guanghua’s, but Wei Guanghua’s output ability is far higher than He Beiguang’s. On the premise that both sides have auxiliaries of the same level, the outcome will depend on the output,” Ye Chao explained.
“Do you think the level of assistance on both sides will be the same?” Liang Ru questioned curiously.
Ye Chao nodded. “After all, they are martial brothers. Many of their tactical ideas were inherited from Chu Yan, and they ought to understand each other well. The gap in their levels should not be large.”
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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Following the topic, Ye Chao continued to explain. “Qingyue’s weapon adds two seconds to the effective time for all arrays, which is powerful in team battles. Luo Yuan’s weapon reduces cast time by 50% and cooldown by 20%, which minimises the risk of being interrupted while casting, and shortens the cooldown of large-scale arrays, allowing them to be used again as soon as possible.”
Luo Yuan’s equipment build did indeed continue Chu Yan’s tactics from the past, but Zhu Qingyue had abandoned the practice of using the auxiliary as a core after joining Mojue. Since he was willing to play a supporting role behind the Twin Stars, the appropriate adjustments had been made to his equipment.
***
At the beginning of the game, Zhu Qingyue was lucky and rolled 88 points, giving him the priority to select his home map first.
Once again, he selected the fast-paced map of ‘Nanjiang Poison Swamp’. The automatic blood loss caused by the map environment, coupled with the poisoning of the swamp pool would make up for the deficiency in He Beiguang’s output, and Zhu Qingyue’s own five-second invincibility barrier could widen the blood volume gap between both sides.
Seeing this map, Luo Yuan frowned. “Is he going to try the same trick again?”
In yesterday’s match, Zhu Qingyue slowly poisoned the martial siblings Chen and He with this Nanjiang Poison Swamp map. Today, he chose this map again, which was obviously trying to reuse an old routine.
Thinking for a while, Luo Yan commanded. “You take the defense secret book, I’ll bring healing.”
Wei Guanghua said nothing, and selected a secret book according to Luo Yuan’s arrangements.
After the match started, both sides met in the middle of the map. Luo Yuan and Zhu Qingyue cast at the same time—— Silk Umbrella Array!
Silk Umbrella Array could teleport all targets within a specified range to a designated position. Both auxiliaries cast at the same time, but because Luo Yuan’s casting time was shorter, Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang were the first to be teleported into the swamp, and Zhu Qingyue’s casting would naturally be interrupted.
Just as Luo Yan praised himself, he saw a gentle veil of rain surround Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang. It was the invincibility barrier Cyan Rain Curtain!
This rain barrier would prevent the players from taking any damage, including damage caused by the terrain. Although Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang were thrown into the swamp, they made use of the protection offered by Zhu Qingyue’s array to fly back ashore with qinggong. Zhu Qingyue then began to cast another skill—— Silk Umbrella Array!
How was that possible?
Hadn’t Silk Umbrella Array been interrupted just now? A skill interrupted by the opponent would enter cooldown, and the cooldown time of this skill was 30 seconds. How could he cast it again so quickly?
After being transferred into the poison swamp, Luo Yuan realised—— Zhu Qingyue had feinted at the beginning. He pretended to cast the Silk Umbrella Array, but withdrew halfway, avoiding the risk of an interrupted cast. Since Luo Yuan’s casting time was 0.5 seconds faster than his, Zhu Qingyue had been prepared to cast Cyan Rain Curtain immediately after the teleport. Thus, the audience saw the rain barrier appear around Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang as soon as they were teleported into the swamp.
The reason why he bluffed Luo Yuan with a fake action was to launch an unexpected counterattack after returning ashore.
The initial Silk Umbrella Array was just a false move, and this was the real deal.
Zhu Qingyue’s reaction speed and predictive ability shocked Luo Yuan, but the situation did not allow him to think about it. He immediately cast his own Cyan Rain Curtain on reflex, which also blocked the map’s poison. Wei Guanghua’s reaction was also quick, flying back ashore easily with qinggong.
In this first exchange, neither side was able to take advantage because both auxiliaries opened their invincibility barriers at the critical moment, preventing both sides from being poisoned after falling into the swamp. Thus, everyone’s blood volume was maintained at a safe level of around 90%. However, the duration of Zhu Qingyue’s barrier was 5 seconds, while Luo Yuan’s was the original skill duration of 3 seconds. As a result, Luo Yuan and Wei Guanghua were poisoned 2 seconds earlier than their opponents, and their blood volume was naturally 2% less than Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang’s.
A measly 2% gap was not worthy of being looked at, and Luo Yuan didn’t pay it any heed.
The invincible rain barriers on both sides ended. Luo Yuan immediately began reading another array, but Zhu Qingyue wasn’t idle either—— White Umbrella Array, Umbrella Spin!
Strengthen your own defense and attack, before weakening your opponent.
At this moment, both martial brothers shared this understanding, and ended up performing the same actions. However, Zhu Qingyue targeted Wei Guanghua, while Luo Yuan targeted Zhu Qingyue. Obviously, both sides aimed to set fire to different opponents, and Luo Yuan’s priority was in killing the opposing auxiliary.
Realising this, Zhu Qingyue immediately used qinggong to retreat.
Due to the weakness effect, Wei Guanghua’s attack and defense were greatly reduced, but He Beiguang’s attack power was greatly increased. He took the opportunity to close in, dealing damage with the skill ‘Splitting Mountain’, before using the offensive secret book ‘Bloody Hand’, instantly reducing Wei Guanghua’s blood volume to half. Zhu Qingyue followed-up with a long-distance single attack ‘Makeup In Autumn’, lowering Wei Guanghua’s blood volume to 25%!
In this short moment, Zhu Qingyue and He Beiguang used powerful attack secret books to defeat the opposing output!
Luo Yuan was shocked. He hadn’t expected that his opponents would both bring output secret books.
Sensing the danger, Luo Yuan immediately used the team healing secret book ‘Questioning Heart Mantra’, returning some blood to his teammate. Wei Guanghua also used the defense secret book ‘Vajra Sutra’ to resist further damage.
However, He Beiguang and Zhu Qingyue were not greedy, immediately retreating after gaining this advantage.
The negative state of 1% blood loss per second in the poison gas map couldn’t be eliminated, and all four players were constantly losing blood. However, He Beiguang and Zhu Qingyue had a higher blood volume because of the first exchange. In addition, the damage caused by their joint output was very high, and Wei Guanghua could only recover to 50% blood volume after healing.
As time went by, Wei Guanghua’s blood volume fell to 40%. He Beiguang and Zhu Qingyue were still shuttling around the map with qinggong, and as a melee, Wei Guanghua was unable to catch up. Luo Yuan was extremely anxious. Fortunately, his weapon had a cooldown reduction bonus, allowing him to use Silk Umbrella Array again!
Luo Yuan immediately cast Silk Umbrella Array, wanting to teleport both his opponents into the poisonous swamp. However, Zhu Qingyue seemed to have predicted it, as he immediately flew back ten metres with qinggong, perfectly avoiding his array’s range of effect. Meanwhile, He Beiguang flew forward instead, launching a two-hit combo of ‘Bloody Scent’!
The skill ‘Bloody Scent’ allowed the tank to take on all damage done to his team. However, using it twice in a row would also attract all hostile targets to the tank. In fact, this was the main T’s most common skill when pulling monsters in dungeons.
Suddenly, the audience witnessed an extremely funny sight—— Zhu Qingyue threw out the white umbrella in his hands, flying off into the distance while He Beiguang was sent to the poisonous swamp by Luo Yuan. Furthermore, because of the skill ‘Bloody Scent’, He Beiguang pulled both Luo Yuan and Wei Guanghua with him, dragging them into the swamp as well!
Zhu Qingyue stood alone on the shore, watching the other three fall into the poisonous swamp.
At this moment, ‘Cyan Rain Curtain’ was still in cooldown. Luo Yuan had no way of protecting his teammate, and their blood volumes began rapidly falling.
Both of them immediately flew up with their qinggong skills, but He Beiguang suddenly jumped, knocking them down with ‘Sweeping Eight Wastelands’. Luo Yuan immediately used his purification skills, but unfortunately, the short delay caused them to have three layers of poisoning stacked on them.
When they were just about to emerge from the poisonous swamp, Zhu Qingyue, who was standing on the shore, cast ‘Silk Umbrella Array’ once again!
Once again sent back into the poisonous swamp, the number of poison layers stacked on them reached the maximum of five. Luo Yuan was about to cough up blood!
The blood volume gap between both sides was getting larger. Although Wei Guanghua managed to break out a wave of damage and kill He Beiguang, Wei Guang was also poisoned to death, leaving Luo Yuan and Zhu Qingyue to fight one-on-one. Luo Yuan had five layers of poisoning stacked on him, while Zhu Qingyue had none. Luo Yuan’s rate of blood loss was much higher than that of his junior brother…
Luo Yuan grit his teeth. At this time, the sensible thing to do would be to voluntarily surrender the match, but he was not reconciled. How could he take the initiative to surrender to his junior brother?!
The more impatient, the more likely mistakes would be made.
Just as Luo Yuan made a mistake in his positioning, the white umbrella in Zhu Qingyue’s hands struck him head-on. The was the most basic skill of the white umbrella flow, which inflicted weakness states on the opponent.
The weakened Luo Yuan lost blood at a faster rate, and his blood volume bottomed out in an instant.
Looking at the grey screen of death, Luo Yuan clenched his fists in annoyance. He hadn’t expected that he would walk into a trap set by his junior brother at the very beginning of the match.
Zhu Qingyue had predicted everything from the start. From the fake casting, to inflicting Wei Guanghua with the weakness effect, before joining hands with He Beiguang to release a strong wave of damage. The moment the blood volume gap grew, Zhu Qingyue switched to defensive and consumption tactics, ready to snowball his advantage. He calculated the cooldown time of Luo Yuan’s umbrella array, before arranging for He Beiguang to drag them both into the swamp in a suicidal move…
The 2% gap in blood that Luo Yuan had originally ignored gradually snowballed over time, and in the end, it had become an insurmountable difference.
Zhu Qingyue’s careful and calm play made Luo Yuan feel even more ashamed and resentment. This loss was simply too shameful. His combination with Wei Guanghua was stronger than that of He Beiguang and Zhu Qingyue, but his judgment at the critical moment was not accurate enough, and the operation of teleporting the opponent into the poisonous swamp turned into the negative action of ‘hurting the enemy 800 times while hurting oneself 1000 times’.
Sighing, Luo Yuan whispered. “Fight well in the second game.”
Wei Guanghua, who had not spoken a single word all this time, finally spoke up. “Captain Luo, don’t constantly stare at your junior brother. Is there only him in your eyes?” he joked.
Luo Yuan’s heart froze. “What do you mean? Speak properly!”
Wei Guanghua shrugged. “Our lineup is already dominant. Why don’t we use a faster way to win?”
Luo Yuan’s frown tightened. “Then, can you suggest something?”
Wei Guanghua smiled. “With the meat shield’s protection, it will not be easy to kill Zhu Qingyue. I suggest that we not play tactics with Zhu Qingyue, and simply kill He Beiguang brutally and efficiently. In the next game, inflict the weakness state on He Beiguang. Zhu Qingyue will definitely target me, but under the premise that we are both weakened, my attack power will still be higher than He Beiguang’s.”
Luo Yuan came back to his senses in an instant—— indeed, he had been too obsessed with fighting his junior brother in terms of tactics, and had let himself been dragged around by the horns.
As Wei Guanghua said, his attack power was higher than that of He Beiguang, and both of them were paired with auxiliaries. Thus, the quickest way to win was for Wei Guanghua to use his advantage of a greater output to kill He Beiguang directly. As a blood cow, although He Beiguang had a lot of health and a high amount of defense, his attack power was very weak, and his only attack skill was ‘Splitting Mountain’. In contrast, Wei Guanghua’s blood volume was just a little more than 100,000, but as a short sword flow swordsman, he had Traceless Sword, Wisdom Sword, Wind Destroying Sword, and Blood Feast Sword—— all of which were attack skills.
He Beiguang was a purely defensive player. Wei Guanghua’s defensive ability was slightly weaker, but his offense was much stronger. If they fought each other, there would definitely come a moment where He Beiguang would be unable to hold on.
Luo Yuan was embarrassed. To think that he needed his teammate’s reminder to realise this. “A-Hua, how about you make the arrangements for the next game.”
Wei Guanghua wasn’t polite. “We can’t compete with Zhu Qingyue in terms of meticulous planning,” he replied calmly. “Let’s just force a simple and crude confrontation. Captain Luo, ignore your junior brother and stare at He Beiguang all the time. Throw all the weakness states on him; I will try to kill He Beiguang first.”
Luo Yuan had long known that Wei Guanghua was a player with great consciousness. However, when he proposed to give Wei Guanghua the post of vice-captain, the offer was declined, because Wei Guanghua didn’t like the limelight and hated reporters even more.
Wei Guanghua was someone who always put forth his own opinions during the team’s tactical discussions. Although most of the matches were arranged by Luo Yuan, he was already aware that he could not stop focusing on Zhu Qingyue. He couldn’t help but want to kill his junior brother, constantly paying attention to him…
In the last game, Luo Yuan’s mistake in judgement gave Zhu Qingyue the chance he needed to win. Thus, he could no longer let his personal emotions affect the next game.
Thinking of this, Luo Yuan immediately nodded. “I understand. Next round, kill He Beiguang immediately!”
Indeed! Luo Yuan was too obsessed with his junior brother that he made a lot of mistakes~ This Wei Guanghua is very smart to point that out… Zhu Qingyue was amazing~! I hope they can also win the next match! Though now I’m worried since Wei Guanghua will make the arrangements in the next match… ( ＞﹏＜ )
Thank you for the chapter! 💕💕💕
Lol, Luo Yuan feel inferior to Zhu Qingyue, that’s why he want to be better than him, >_<
I hope he can adjust his views and do better in the next game. Wei Guanghua is smart, and Luo Yuan will need him 🤔
You’re welcome~
They lost because they each targeted their own person whereas zqy and hbg both targeted the attacker.
How did Graceful Beauty even qualify to compete? They’ve been losing and losing and I’m really wondering how they won a place among the best four of the nongovernmental teams
Ay, if it wasn’t for Wei Guanghua, my prediction would’ve been right, the heart knot against Qingyue would really cost Luo Yuan the complete game. Ah so sad, but like this I really don’t think the He Quingyue pair will win :’c