translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
The first match scheduled for 9:30am in the morning was the match between Qin Mo + Xiao Han and Su Cheng + Xie Changming.
Last night, Xie Changming asked the group chat for strategies on how to combat the big BOSS of Twin Stars. Clearly, he had been very bored. Su Cheng must have thought out countermeasures long ago in preparation for today, and Qin Mo was equally cautious about the match. He calculated the odds of various maps in combination with secret books, and was ready to fight a bitter war.
Both sides exchanged handshakes in the middle of the stage. “God Mo, please offer me advice,” Su Cheng smiled.
“Captain Su is too polite,” Qin Mo replied calmly, “let’s both do our best.”
Back in the individual competition, Su Cheng had said the same thing to Xiao Han, but unlike Qin Mo, Xiao Han’s reply was an impolite ‘yes’. Sure enough, only Qin Mo had a modest personality. Xiao Han’s pretense of modesty simply broke apart after three seconds.
The four players went to the soundproof booth to debug their equipment.
The live broadcast soon turned to the commentary platform. Much like the individual competition, special guests had also been invited for this partner competition, and today’s guest commentator was an old acquaintance—— Cheng Wei.
At the sight of this familiar face, the audience immediately started commenting. “Alas, the poisonous milk is back!”
“Captain Tan called you home for dinner, why did you run out again?”
“Chu Jianxin expresses that his life isn’t good, and that he is about to be fed a mouthful of poisonous milk by his unreliable master again. What will he do if he loses the competition?”
“Sincerely suggesting that captain Chu shows himself out of his master’s gates!”
Chu Jianxin, who was watching the live broadcast backstage: “…”
Sang Jun patted his shoulder in comfort. “Recently, your master has been relatively idle. It’s better to just get used to it.”
The unreliable god Wei loved to join in on the fun, and would go anywhere as long as it was exciting. Recently, the Miracle side was not holding any competitions. Since the Peerless Jianghu alliance invited him to be a guest commentator, Cheng Wei was naturally happy to agree.
Smiling, Cheng Wei greeted the audience. “Hello everyone, we meet again! You must be wondering, why am I here again? In fact, I want to earn some pocket money to support my family. Furthermore, I live in Beijing, relatively near the stadium, and have no need for food, accomodation, and air tickets to be reimbursed. Naturally, the league is very happy to invite a commentator like me, who is cheap and easy to talk to.”
“But god Wei, back in the individual competition, all the players you predicted to win lost in the end, including your beloved apprentice Chu Jianxin.” Ye Chao pointed out.
“So I won’t predict this time,” Cheng Wei replied tactfully. “If you ask me to guess, I will say that everyone has a chance to win!”
Ye Chao: “…”
Everyone had a chance to win; this sentence was really foolproof.
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.
It seemed that Cheng Wei was taught a lesson by his family’s captain after his last stint as a guest commentator, where his own apprentice was killed by his poisoned milk. This time, he had learnt to be smarter.
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“Su Cheng is his personal apprentice, and Xie Changming has also received his guidance. What do you think are Su Xie’s odds of winning against Han Mo today?” Ye Chao asked.
“The win rate is fifty-fifty!” Cheng Wei’s answer was still foolproof.Giving up on trying to pull out a prediction from Cheng Wei, Ye Chao began to explain the equipment used by the four players. “Su Xie’s combination of equipment is relatively unique. Su Cheng’s guqin ‘Broken String’ increases his attack distance by 2 meters, while Xie Changming’s jade flute ‘Harmony’ increases his hit attribute and has a 30% cooldown reduction, allowing his control skills to come off cooldown more quickly.”
“The Su Xie combination uses mainly long-distance field control and group attacks, but Twin Stars have a strong output. Once they close in, the crispy mages will be in danger,” Liang Ru mused.
Luoying Valley’s guqin and flute ensemble was basically a long-ranged sonic wave magic attack that dealt high damage, but its disadvantages were also obvious. Once the opponent closed in, the fragile mage would easily die, so if Han Mo wanted to win, they had to resist the opponent’s long-range damage, close in quickly, and kill one of the two. On the other hand, Su Xie’s win condition was for them to keep their distance and kite their opponents from afar, slowly consuming their blood and blue.
Based on this basic idea, Li Muran immediately opened a document on his laptop, beginning to make his pre-match predictions and tactical analysis so as to compare it with the actual match later.
***
After both sides were ready, the competition officially began.
In the first round, Qin Mo rolled a larger score, and received the right to select the first map.
It was not very interesting to constantly use ‘Mingzhou Arena’, so Qin Mo selected a different map—— ‘Heartless Villa’.
This map was a typical square map, with neatly-arranged buildings to the east, west, south and north. Players could fly to the roof or confront each other head-on in the open space located in the center of the map. The boundaries were marked by an invisible wall outside the villa, limiting the battlefield to the villa, and preventing players from flying out.
At the beginning of the game, both sides were loaded into different corners of the map. Xiao Han decisively chose to head east, while Qin Mo went to the west. The reason why the two did not act together was to avoid the situation where Su Cheng used the chaos control secret book to make them attack each other.
After Su Xie exited the house, they immediately used qinggong to fly to the southern roof, occupying a high vantage point.
Su Cheng caught sight of Qin Mo in the middle of the yard, but was unable to find Xiao Han. Realising that Xiao Han was most likely invisible, Su Cheng didn’t rush to use a big move. Instead, he cooperated with Xie Changming to consume Qin Mo’s blood with several small skills, making use of their superior attack range.
However, Qin Mo reacted very quickly. Flying to the roof with his qinggong skill, he immediately responded with the group silence ‘Heaven Sun Combo’.
Still, Su Xie were not to be outdone, decisively retreating to the eastern roof—— however, the invisible Xiao Han had been waiting here.
Xiao Han attacked as soon as both men landed on the roof. Using the illusion control ‘Phantom Dreaming’ to control Xie Changming, he swung the bloody dagger in his hands, using the assassin’s single-target attack skills—— Meteor, Deadly Ice Silkworm!
Because of the skill ‘Shadowless Dragon’, Xiao Han’s damage was doubled for the next few seconds, instantly reducing Xie Changming’s blood to 60%.
Sensing that Qin Mo wanted to kill Xie Changming, Su Cheng quickly flew down to the center courtyard. Strumming the guqin in his hands, a soft green soundwave spread across his surroundings—— Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank!
Luoying Valley guqin flow’s skills required casting time, but Su Cheng’s ability to cast was first-class. He had already prepared the cast in the process of flying down, allowing him to use the skill just as he landed on the ground. While it did not deal much damage, this skill had an ultra-wide range, and had a rather special effect—— it could shoot people who were in the air, down onto the ground.
At this critical moment, Su Cheng shot Xiao Han and Qin Mo off the roof at the same time.
Xie Changming was his teammate, and this skill would not shoot down his teammate. Su Cheng’s skill gave Xie Changming the opportunity to cast a skill from the roof—— Cold River Snow!
The crystal clear jade flute spun a pleasant melody, causing countless snowflakes to fall from the sky, immobilising the fallen Xiao Han and Qin Mo in place.
This skill could freeze an entire group for 3 seconds. Within this time, Su Cheng would definitely release the chaos secret book to make Twin Stars attack each other.
“Withdraw!” Qin Mo did not hesitate to give the command.
Understanding his meaning, Xiao Han decisively resolved the immobilisation control and teleported out of Su Cheng’s attack range with ‘Golden Cicada Shell’. This way, Su Cheng could only control Qin Mo with the secret book, and the group attacks would only hit Qin Mo alone.
Qin Mo was like a god who had foreseen everything. Just as Xiao Han retreated, Su Cheng used the chaos control secret book, allowing the audience to see a ridiculous sight—— swinging the longsword in his hands, Qin Mo turned around to chase Xiao Han around the courtyard. Fortunately, Xiao Han was a fast runner, and Qin Mo failed to hit him.
“I really want to interview Xiao Han right about now,” Cheng Wei laughed. “How does it feel to be chased by a murderous Qin Mo?”
The audience was also jeering: “Begging god Mo to let him go!”
“Captain Qin, don’t be so fierce. What did god Han do wrong that you have to chase him so fiercely!”
“God Han’s current actions can be described with an adjective—— fleeing in panic!”
It was like a game of chickens flying and dogs jumping. While Qin Mo chased Xiao Han, Su Cheng seized the opportunity to use a series of skills to attack Qin Mo, including ‘Sorrowing Over The Silk’ and ‘Autumn Moon Over the Han Palace’.
By the time the control ended, Qin Mo was left with half his blood, but Xiao Han was still in a pretty decent state with 90% of his blood left.
—— Now was the time.
As soon as the chaos control ended, Qin Mo decisively turned back, using the skill ‘Drifting Sword’!
All of a sudden, the swordsman in white standing in the yard suddenly passed through the house, landing behind Xie Changming, who was playing his flute up on the roof!
Xie Changming was shocked at the sudden appearance of the swordsman, but it was too late to dodge——
He originally stood on the roof to cooperate with his senior brother, who was on the ground, to attack Qin Mo. He had assumed that after the chaos control ended, he could connect it to a silence control to kill Qin Mo as quickly as possible. As a result, the moment he moved to a position where his linear soundwaves could reach Qin Mo, the other person flew through the roof with his linear penetration skill!
After passing through Xie Changming, Qin Mo raised his sword, starting with the skill ‘Riverbound Sword’!
The knockback effect from this skill kicked Xie Changming to the middle of the courtyard, right in front of Xiao Han.
Naturally, Xiao Han would not be polite, using ‘Thousand Light Ghost Walk’ and ‘Rainbow Through The Sun’ on Xie Changming, who had been delivered to his doorstep.
However, Su Cheng’s reaction was extremely fast. He once again flew to the western roof, taking advantage of his longer attack range to make Han Mo fall asleep at the same time with the group attack skill ‘Zhuangzi Dreams of Being a Butterfly’.
The sleep control from Luoying Valley was different from the secret book’s sleep control. Once attacked, the target would wake up. Thus, Xie Changming didn’t attack Xiao Han and Qin Mo, instead quickly flying over to his senior brother.
Seeing this, Ye Chao offered his comments. “Su Cheng used this sleep control skill to save his junior brother, but it’s hard to say if he can control the rhythm of the game once more!”
As soon as he finished speaking, a soft green light surrounded Han and Mo. Qin Mo had used the purification secret book ‘Clear Heart Mantra’ to resolve the control, before leaping into the air with qinggong to unleash the targeted skill ‘Unrivalled Sword’!
This sword was aimed at Xie Changming, neatly killing the residual blood jade flute player.
Su Cheng decisively flew away to open the distance, using his long-distance skills to beat Qin Mo into a state of residual blood in an attempt to force a 1V1. However, Qin Mo tactfully turned to flee, allowing Xiao Han, who was still in good condition, to chase after Su Cheng with ‘Thousand Lights Ghost Walk’, constantly interrupting his casting.
Being approached by a violent assassin like Xiao Han was the nightmare of all long-ranged magic professions. Helpless, Su Cheng finally fell to Xiao Han’s pursuit.
……
The first game was extremely fast-paced. Han Mo played very proactively from the beginning, constantly closing in and destroying Xie Changming’s control of the field. In addition, Qin Mo accurately predicted when Su Cheng would use his secret book, causing Su Cheng’s plan to alienate the two men to fall through. However, Qin Mo still felt that this round was much more difficult than the group stage. If he had predicted wrongly at that time, Twin Stars would not have won so smoothly against Su Xie’s long-distance control.
Qin Mo greatly admired Su Cheng’s use of his displacement skill, especially his sudden change in locations to shoot both him and Xiao Han off the roof. He also cooperated with his junior brother to land a group control skill, as well as used a sleep control skill at a critical moment to rescue his teammate; all this reminded Qin Mo that he was an opponent with a first-class consciousness and quick reactions.
It might be harder to fight an away game.
Thinking of this, Qin Mo hummed. “In the next game, Su Cheng ought to have come up with an ace up his sleeve for his home court game. According to what we discussed last night, I will cover you.”
“You’re assured in letting me face both of them alone?” Xiao Han questioned.
“It’s you,” Qin Mo replied calmly. “Naturally, I am assured.”
Smiling, Xiao Han held Qin Mo’s hand gentle. “My beloved, I won’t let you down.”
“If you remove the first three words, it will sound more pleasing to the ear,” Qin Mo whispered.
Xiao Han immediately changed his tune. “Understood, captain Qin.”
Qin Mo smiled slightly, thinking to himself—— Su Cheng, have I guessed your arrangement? How much can you guess about mine?
Thank you for the chapter! 🌸🌸🌸
Qin Mo’s arrangement will be good~
hmm, i think there’s still no secret book to turn invisible? Or Qin Mo once used it? I forgot..
Immovable Mountain, i think it’s for reflect damage 🤔 It will be battle of tactic between Qin Mo and Su Cheng!
You’re welcome~ ❤
Hahaha my beloved haha so smitten
+1 lol My beloved 😍
“Su Cheng, have I guessed your arrangement? How much can you guess about mine?” Lighting a candle for Su Cheng. 🕯
Lol, pray for Su Cheng 🙏