By the end of the first two days of the group stage, Mojue had a total of one victory and one loss. These results were the same as National Grace. Thus, on the last day of the group stage, both sides needed to try their best to compete for the final qualifying quota.
The first team from National Grace was made up of Li Junru, Cheng Yuqing, and An Ling. Although Liu Hong defeated Li Junru in the group stage of the individual competition, it did not mean that Liu Hong would definitely defeat her in this arena. After all, Li Junru must have studied Liu Hong’s playstyle after her switch to playing output, and given her new understanding of Liu Hong, Liu Hong would no longer able to win by surprise.
Another key factor was Shen He. If he faced Cheng Yuqing, he had at least a 50% chance of winning, assuming that he could play to his fullest strength. However, the game was constantly changing, and nothing was for certain. So, Xiao Han was extremely serious before the match, bringing Shen He and Liu Hong to prepare for this important game.
The match between Mojue and National Grace of group A that was scheduled for 2:30pm the next day attracted the attention of many viewers. The number of people watching the live broadcast online was significantly higher than that of the previous group matches.
This game would determine who among the two teams could qualify.
On the live commentary, Ye Chao offered a quick explanation. “The win rate of Mojue and National Grace ought to be 50:50. Xiao Han’s personal strength cannot be doubted, but Liu Hong and Shen He are easily targeted. If the blood volume balance is not maintained in the early stages, and Xiao Han is forced to enter the guard round with a huge disadvantage, it will be impossible for him to reverse the situation alone.”
“The challenge arena is like a chain of three rings,” Liang Ru summarised. “No link can be defective, or the chain will break.”
“Because Qin Mo is not participating in the competition, many doubts have been voiced over the past two days. If they lose this game, Xiao Han may be chewed out by the fans, and even if Qin Mo were to defend him again, the effects wouldn’t be too good…” Ye Chao mused.
“National Grace is also under great pressure.” Liang Ru continued. “They sent two teams in this competition, but the team of newcomers in group C has already lost two games, and are destined to be eliminated. The team in Group A led by captain Li Junru is National Grace’s ace. If they were to lose also, National Grace will be completely eliminated from this competition.”
“Group A is indeed the group of death,” Ye Chao sighed. “The winner will be determined by the players’ performances, as well as the tactics used by Xiao Han and Li Junru.”
As the lights turn on, the players walk onto the stage. As the commander, Xiao Han took the initiative to greet Li Junru politely. Liu Hong also stepped forward to shake hands with the three girls, all of whom she was familiar with. On the other hand, Shen He was too embarrassed to shake hands with the three sisters, and hid behind Liu Hong like a little follower.
After debugging their equipment in the soundproof booths, the team leaders of both sides started to roll the dice.
As Li Junru managed to roll a higher score, the first game was National Grace’s home court. Li Junru quickly submitted a map—— Flying Sand Array.
This was a map with a low appearance rate in competitions. As a rare dynamic desert scene, it had horizontal and vertical roads that divided the map into nine squares. Due to the presence of strong winds, sand and pebbles would fly across the area, lowering the players’ field of visibility. This sort of map was quite unfriendly to melee players, and was especially so towards trap flow players like Liu Hong.
Obviously, Li Junru’s choice of map was targeting Liu Hong’s weaknesses.
After choosing the map, Li Junru submitted National Grace’s first player, the assassin Cheng Yuqing. Xiao Han thought for a few moments, before sending Mojue’s first player—— Drunken River.
Mojue’s fans were shocked by the four characters that appeared on the large screen. “The monkey will lead the arena!”
“All of a sudden, there is the feeling pitted. Why is the monkey god leading the battle?!”
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.
“Pc atf olgra akb ujwfr, atf ilaaif wbcxfs kjr jikjsr atf agjcrlalbc qijsfg. Kbvjs, tf kjr jmaejiis rfca ab bqfc atf wjamt. Pr atf ilaaif wbcxfs yflcu afrafv?”
“Qf wera tjnf mbcolvfcmf lc atf ilaaif wbcxfs!”
Jbecaifrr mglfr bo ‘wbcxfs’ jqqfjgfv bc atf yeiifa rmgffc. Vfflcu atlr, Tf Jtjb mbwwfcafv, “Zbpef tjr rfca wbcxfs Vtfc- mbeutr, Vtfc Lf, jr atflg rajgafg. Ktlr lr j regqglrlcu aegc bo fnfcar.”
Watching the live broadcast from the club, Li Muran’s lips curved involuntarily—— if Shen He were to see this, he would definitely explode in anger, right?
His image as a hyperactive monkey king was too popular, and the fans had changed his name to monkey Shen.
Li Junru was a little surprised by Xiao Han’s arrangement. She had assumed that Mojue’s starter would be Liu Hong, and had not considered for it to be Shen He instead. However, it didn’t matter too much. Cheng Yuqing had a 50% chance of winning against Shen He, and given the windy desert map, Cheng Yuqing’s assassin could sneak around in stealth, raising her chances of winning to over 60%.
Of course, this winning percentage was only a theoretical inference. Everything still depended on how Cheng Yuqing performed on the spot.
As the game began, both players were loaded on the map.
The strong winds caused sand and pebbles to fly, which could affect the players’ vision. Although the nine-grid terrain was not as complicated as a maze, the existence of corners and forks in the road allowed the assassin to better make use of her ambush tactics.
Sure enough, Cheng Yuqing immediately went to a fork in the road, concealing herself with qinggong, before circling around to attack Shen He from behind. In comparison, Shen He didn’t rush forward. Placing himself at a different fork in the road, he summoned his mechanical blood cow and placed it on the other side of the corner.
A moment later, Cheng Yuqing arrived, circling around Shen He’s back to launch an explosive set of attacks—— Meteor! Deadly Ice Silkworm!
These two close-ranged attacks did not deal as much damage as Xiao Han’s, but they were still quite terrible, and took away 30-40% of Shen He’s blood directly.
However, Sheng Yuqing’s combo did not reduce Drunken River’s blood. Instead, what fell was Shen He’s mechanical blood cow.
“Shen He played a good trick,” Ye Chao praised. “He ought to have guessed that Cheng Yuqing would sneak around with stealth, so he put the pet blood cow in a corner out of Cheng Yuqing’s range of sight. Using a single pet in exchange for two of the opponent’s skills is a good deal!”
Naturally, this was something Shen He thought of after looking at the terrain. To begin with, his understanding was not poor, and he had been coached by god Han countless times on how to deal with an assassin’s sneak attacks in this period.
After the blood cow was killed, Shen He decisively began his counterattack—— Mechanical Chariots!
The wheels of the chariots rumbled like thunder. Amidst the harsh wind, four chariots instantly appeared in four directions, east, west, north and south, surrounding Cheng Yuqing completely!
However, Cheng Yuqing’s reaction wasn’t slow. Clear that Shen He still had other big moves in reserve, she decisively used ‘Golden Cicada Shell’ to teleport away. After all, in the event that she was controlled by the mechanical horse’s fear, it was possible for her to fall into the passive situation of being controlled by Shen He’s cooldown-reduction flow pets.
The chariots’ explosion was dodged by Cheng Yuqing. However, Shen He was not disheartened, and resolutely followed up with his mechanical hawks.
The mechanical hawk’s aerial attack reduced Cheng Yuqing’s blood volume by 20%.
Right at this moment, the wind direction changed, instantly obscuring Shen He’s vision. Cheng Yuqing immediately seized the opportunity to use ‘Shadowless Dragon’, attacking Shen He with ‘Thousand Lights Ghost Walk’ and ‘Rainbow Through The Sun’ while in stealth. Given the three-second double damage bonus, Shen He’s blood volume fell to 60% in an instant!
After her attack, Cheng Yuqing attempted to control Shen He with the illusory skill ‘Phantom Dreaming’, but Shen He made an unexpected operation—— Mechanical Puppet!
A copy of the shota summoner was left in place, but Shen He himself teleported behind Cheng Yuqing, immediately controlling her with the mechanical horse’s fear.
With this change in locations, Shen He switched his position from facing a headwind to experiencing a tailwind, and his field of vision immediately turned clear.
“Beautiful!” Liang Ru praised. “A simple reverse displacement solved the problem of the wind direction. The monkey god’s performance today has been a pleasant surprise!”
“It seems like he’s been taught well by his master,” Ye Chao concluded.
As he watched the live broadcast, Qin Mo smiled. This time, the person who taught his apprentice was Xiao Han, and the credit for this improvement ought to be given to Xiao Han.
Among Mojue’s opponents in group A, both Dynasty’s Sang Jun and National Grace’s Cheng Yuqing were assassins. Thus, during their practice, Xiao Han specifically trained Shen He in how to deal with an assassin’s stealth and ambush tactics on various maps. Now that Shen He had more experience in dealing with assassins, Xiao Han sent him out to deal with Cheng Yuqing in order to check the effects of his special training.
As a result, Shen He’s performance did not disappoint Xiao Han.
After smoothly solving the problem of the incoming headwind, Shen He controlled his opponent with the mechanical horse’s fear control. He then followed up with the mechanical rats’ weakness and the mechanical snake’s attack, reducing Cheng Yuqing’s blood volume by half.
Shen He’s weapon had the additional attribute of cooldown reduction. By the end of his combo, the cooldown time of his mechanical chariot skill had ended. Seeing this, Shen He decisively summoned four mechanical chariots, and the cross-encirclement lowered Cheng Yuqing’s blood volume further, leaving her with about 30% blood.
Players could not bring secret books to the challenge arena, and could only rely on their sect skills. Aside from insufficient output, players also faced the challenge of insufficient purification or escape skills.
Shen He rapidly retreated with qinggong, but Cheng Yuqing wouldn’t let him go so easily. By using ‘Meteor’ as a movement skill, she rushed behind the summoner before following up with ‘Deadly Ice Silkworm’, reducing Shen He’s blood to 40%!
The gap between both players’ blood volumes was only 10%!
In order to facilitate her next teammates play, Cheng Yuqing broke out her highest hand speed at this moment. Using ‘Rainbow Through the Sun’, she landed a six-hit combo, causing the dagger in her hands to multiply, smashing into Shen He with an explosive force!
However, at this moment, Shen He once again summoned his mechanical blood cow.
The explosive combo hit the pet blood cow, and Shen He seized the opportunity to turn round the corner. Speedily rushing through several forks in a row, the summoner rapidly retreated, until not even his shadow could be seen.
Cheng Yuqing wanted to cough up blood!
This Shen He’s rhythm was too chaotic. He didn’t play according to common sense, and it was not easy for Cheng Yuqing to shrink the blood volume gap.
Shen He’s pet cooldowns ended just a moment later, and he summoned them once more for yet another attack. In the end, Shen He took Cheng Yuqing’s life by relying on his mechanical hawks and snakes, keeping himself alive by the small margin of 10% blood. Although this advantage was very weak, as the starting player, he had successfully completed his task!
“Good job, Xiao He!” Xiao Han praised. “Keep going, the other side will definitely send An Ling. Try to force out some skills from her.”
“I understand!” Shen He rubbed his hands together in excitement.
After Cheng Yuqing’s character died, she withdrew from the arena. As expected, the second player sent out by Li Junru was An Ling.
Just like Li Junru, An Ling played a poison master from Fangcao Hall. However, their personal styles were very different. Li Junru preferred to control her opponents from a distance, while An Ling favoured a more active style of play. She used her long-ranged poison master as a close combatant, and liked to throw poison powder in her opponent’s faces. With a hand speed faster than Li Junru’s, she was not an easy opponent.
Shen He was clear about the opponent’s strength, and thus moved more cautiously.
Fortunately, Fangcao Hall’s disciples couldn’t become invisible. Standing in his corner, Shen He could see the green-robed ‘Old Dreams of Jinling’ walking his way, and he immediately summoned two mechanical snakes behind himself.
His blue was running out, sorely limiting what he could do. However, Li Muran had made it clear yesterday- the most important thing in the arena was the connection between teammates. It wasn’t important to think about how he would die. All he had to do was to give it a shot, and if he could create an advantage for his teammates, it would be a bonus.
Both sides entered each other’s attack range. In an instant, An Ling had stacked three layers of poison on him.
Shen He had his mechanical snakes surround An Ling, immobilising her in place while he hid in her blind spot. This was followed up with his mechanical chariots- this set of operations was both dazzling and quick, catching An Ling by surprise!
However, Shen He had been inflicted with three layers of poison, and his blood volume was quickly emptied.
The moment his summoner fell, Shen He examined Old Dreams of Jinling, who still had 80% blood and 90% blue.
For the first time, he managed to gain a small advantage for his teammates. Shen He was no longer dragging god Han and sister Hong’s hind legs!
Shen He’s fingers trembled in excitement. Seeing this, Xiao Han, who was seated in the middle, patted his shoulder in comfort. “You fought well. The follow up will be handed over to Liu Hong.”
Liu Hong smiled. “Understood.”
Good job baby shen he!! Proud of you!! Another exciting chapter! Thank you!
He really did a good job here right? Shen He is improving himself~ 🤩
You’re welcome~ ❤
This time our baby could finally prove himself! 🥰 It seems like talking to Li Muran really helped him~ And the nickname monkey Shen really suits him lol 🙊
I’m looking forward to seeing how Liu Hong will do in the next match~
Thank you for the chapter!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Agreed, finally Shen He could prove himself~ with Li Muran’s encouragement 😍
You’re welcome~ ❤
Good job monkey shen xD