translator: Oyen editor: Ciel
The second player sent by Mojue was Liu Hong. In a state of full blood and blue, she seemed to have an advantage against An Ling, but Li Junru’s map selection had placed Liu Hong in a very difficult position.
The Xuanbing Palace’s double ring flow played by Liu Hong had a greater advantage on trap and swamp maps. This desert map was particularly unfriendly to melee players, and allowed An Ling to poison Liu Hong from a distance, before running away. While poisoned, Liu Hong would continuously lose blood, and the advantage would soon tip over to the side of National Grace.
Sure enough, as soon as the battle started, An Ling quickly rounded the corner, taking advantage of the tailwind to attack Liu Hong from behind—— Thunder Duke Vine, Red Crane’s Crown, Mandala Petals!
Three types of poisonous powder were scattered in the air, spreading across the field with a little help from the wind, immediately stacking three layers of poison on Liu Hong. In addition, the combination of ‘Red Crane’s Crown’ and ‘Mandala Petals’ caused Liu Hong to be negatively impacted by the ‘blindness’ status.
While under this status effect, Liu Hong was unable to see. If she insisted on staying in the same spot, it was very likely that the opponent would immediately use a big move.
Thinking of this, Liu Jong immediately used the skill ‘Floating Light’ to teleport to a different corner based on her memory of the terrain, temporarily preventing An Ling from attacking her.
Although her computer screen was dark, Liu Hong’s fighting ability had not been diminished. Quickly escaping from An Ling’s attack range, she waited out the 3-second blindness effect before starting her counterattack.
An Ling was also very proactive, trying to close the distance and prevent Liu Hong from escaping. Naturally, Liu Hong was not polite, directly landing before her and placing a series of traps to control her. Both girls fought violently, their blood volume constantly falling.
However, because of An Ling’s sneak attack at the beginning, Liu Hong suffered a loss in terms of blood volume. The advantage Shen He gained in the first match was gradually recovered, and was given to the opponent.
Once Liu Hong’s blood volume fell to 20%, An Ling once again took advantage of the tailwind, standing in the distance to throw out a large handful of poisonous powder. The moment four layers of poison were stacked on Liu Hong, the poison master turned to flee once more.
Liu Hong had just five seconds left. If she couldn’t catch up to An Ling, then An Ling would face Xiao Han in a state of 30% blood remaining. In order to win, Xiao Han would then need to kill the poison masters of National Grace, An Ling and Li Junru, which would put a lot of pressure on him.
Therefore, she couldn’t hold back!
Liu Hong’s performance in those final seconds was extremely fierce. Catching up to An Ling in an instant with her qinggong skill, she hurled her gold and silver rings at the opponent—— Cold Moon Flower Spirit, Snake Bead Sparrow Ring! Still Water Depths!
With just a few seconds’ worth of combos, An Ling was instantly reduced to a residual blood state!
Because of this, at the moment Liu Hong fell, An Ling only had 5% of her blood volume left.
An Ling: “…”
The image of the woman in blue descending from the sky was extremely terrible, and An Ling couldn’t help wiping away the sweat from her forehead. “Sister Junru, I had the impression that sister Hong was going to pummel me into the ground just now…”
“Her personality is just that unyielding,” Li Junru smiled. “You’ll face Xiao Han next, so just do your best.”
Against Xiao Han… she could only do her best.
After Liu Hong withdrew from the challenge arena, Xiao Han, Mojue’s guard player, loaded into the Flying Sand Array before the public’s anticipatory gazes.
An Ling only had 5% of her blood left. To Xiao Han, someone with this meagre amount of blood was equivalent to a dead person.
As soon as the round started, Xiao Han quickly ran to the lower left corner of the map—— An Ling had been in this location when Liu Hong exited, and the challenge arena rules suspended all movements after the death of a player while the competition was still ongoing. Thus, An Ling had certainly not yet moved from this area.
Sure enough, the moment he crossed a fork in the road, Xiao Han discovered a flash of green out from the corner of his eye.
Immediately judging the opponent’s position, Xiao Han changed directions, going behind the poison master and finishing her off with a simple ‘Rainbow Through the Sun’.
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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In the end, Xiao Han was Mojue’s trump card. Throughout his experience as a professional player, he had seen many maps of this type. Whenever the wind direction changed, he would quickly reposition himself, either shifting to an unaffected area, or placing himself behind Li Junru.
Both people fought in the Flying Sand Array for five minutes, and Li Junru gradually fell into a disadvantage.
After Li Junru was beaten to residual blood, Xiao Han followed up with the big move ‘Shadowless Dragon’, killing her with a set of combos from behind.
Seeing this, Ye Chao could not help but sigh. “God Han’s performance can be described in one word—— stable.”
“It is still a little too difficult for Junru to fight Xiao Han alone,” Liang Ru explained. “Thus, the key is in the early stages. If National Grace’s members can’t create a huge advantage in the first two games, winning against Xiao Han in the guard stage will be extremely difficult.”
“On the first day of the group stage, Mojue lost to Dynasty because of this very reason,” Ye Chao nodded. “Because Lin Yao and Wen Hua were able to establish an irreversible advantage in their games, it was extremely difficult for Xiao Han to make a comeback at the end. In fact, Lin Yao’s wretched style of play is Liu Hong’s nemesis. Although An Ling defeated Liu Hong, she was still seconds away from a disaster.”
“The next round will be Mojue’s turn to select a map, while National Grace can target their lineup,” Liang Ru introduced. “It is possible that Li Junru will want to fight Liu Hong personally to gain an advantage, and leave An Ling as their guard.”
“An Ling’s level is not inferior to Li Junru, and sending her as the guard player is also possible. I just don’t know if god Han will want to play as the guard on Mojue’s side?” Ye Chao mused.
“It should be,” Liang Ru theorised. “Their lineup will be more stable if god Han goes last.”
As a result, both commentators had only just finished speaking when they were slapped in the face by Xiao Han——
For the second round, Xiao Han selected the trap map ‘Qingcheng Mountain Forest’. This was a map beneficial to Liu Hong, but also allowed Shen He to control the opponent with a combination of both his pets and the map’s traps. As for Xiao Han, he had never selected a map for himself, and always put his teammates first.
After submitting the map, Xiao Han immediately submitted the name of Mojue’s first player.
Thousand Miles Ice.
Seeing these four characters appear on the screen, the audience immediately burst into screams. Even the live broadcast was instantly overwhelmed by the comment barrage: “F*ck, god Han is playing first!”
“God Han is the first player to take the stage; is this going to be a wipeout?”
“It’s like going into a dungeon, only to meet the final BOSS at the front door. How terrible!”
“God Han expresses: Come, send someone to beat me! I’m going first, who can you send to face me?”
“The sisters of National Grace are surely in trouble now!”
Watching from the backstage lounge, Sang Jun couldn’t help smiling. “This time, Xiao Han’s psychological warfare was well played.”
“Most people think that Mojue’s general is Qin Mo,” Lin Yao explained. “The tactics will be determined by Qin Mo, and Xiao Han is only responsible for output. But in fact, god Han will also use tactics. His two-year stint as captain was not in vain; furthermore, when he was leading Canglan, their team also won championships.”
“Indeed,” Sang Jun nodded. “Xiao Han is very likely to gain an irreversible advantage from the very beginning. How about you guess who will be Mojue’s guard player?”
Lin Yao scratched his head. “Perhaps it will be Liu Hong?”
Sang Jun smiled. “Not necessarily. How about you wait and see?”
***
Xiao Han going first gave Li Junru a headache. She had originally wanted to fight Liu Hong in the first bout, using her understanding of Liu Hong and her careful analysis to find Liu Hong’s weak points and create an advantage for her team.
Since Xiao Han was the first player, Shen He ought to be the transitory player, leaving Liu Hong to stand guard.
If Li Junru fought against Xiao Han personally, in the event that Xiao Han gained the advantage, they would no longer have any hopes of winning. They could only bet on Liu Hong being the defensive guard player to make a comeback.
Thinking of this, Li Junru decided to send An Ling to face Xiao Han.
Qingcheng Mountain Forest had many traps hidden by the leaves on the floor. However, most professional players could remember the locations of the traps, and there would never be the embarrassing sight of carelessly stepping into a pit in a competition.
As soon as the game started, Xiao Han played very actively, lurking behind An Ling to take away a large chunk of her blood with a wave of combos. Repeatedly interrupted by the opposing assassin’s melee skills, An Ling could only choose to escape with qinggong, before using her poisonous powders to inflict blindness on Xiao Han.
However, Fangcao Hall’s blindness control was of little use against Xiao Han, who could traverse through the map quickly even in the dark.
After the blindness effect ended, Xiao Han immediately surrounded An Ling with the shadows from ‘Thousand Lights Ghost Walk’, bursting out a wave of terrifying damage!
An Ling fell into a passive state from the beginning, and was constantly chased by Xiao Han, who still had 40% blood at the moment she died.
Li Junru had no choice but to send the second player, Cheng Yuqing.
Due to the fact that they were both from the same sect, they knew each other’s skills very well. Cheng Yuqing had no chance to find an advantage. Although she tried very hard to kill Xiao Han, Xiao Han still managed to leave her with just 30% residual blood.
Li Junru suddenly had a bad feeling…
Sure enough, after Xiao Han left the field, Mojue’s second player turned out to be Liu Hong!
Lin Yao, who was watching the game backstage, could only stare in shock. “Ah? So the guard player is monkey Shen? Is he reliable?”
Sang Jun touched his chin, musing. “Shen He is Qin Mo’s apprentice, and Xiao Han ought to like him very much also. If my guess is correct, Xiao Han personally took the lead to win a huge advantage, all to give Shen He this rare opportunity to fight as the guard player. By handing the decisive guard stage over to Shen He, he’s trying to temper the little apprentice’s mind.”
“It turned out to be like this…” Lin Yao suddenly realised.
Xiao Han’s intentions were very obvious. In doing so, he hoped that Shen He could have more confidence in himself.
Liu Hong, who was full of blood, confronted Cheng Yuqing, who had 30% health left. Liu Hong’s style of play was very fierce; Cheng Yuqing was unable to put up much resistance, and was quickly sent off the field. National Grace had to send their general, Li Junru. At this time, Liu Hong had 65% blood and 70% blue. It was too difficult for Li Junru to kill both her and Shen He, who had not yet entered the arena.
However, Li Junru was still very calm in the face of such a difficult situation, befitting her role of team captain. She relied on her superior attack range to deal with Liu Hong slowly. Unwilling to give her a chance, Liu Hong closed in without hesitation, trying to deal as much damage as possible.
One was calm, while the other was fierce; the two girls had a fierce battle on the trap map.
Li Junru had calculated things carefully, wanting to gradually recover the blood gap. However, Liu Hong was well aware of her intentions, and persisted in chasing her down. In the end, the moment Liu Hong fell, Li Junru was only left with 60% blood and blue.
At least, Mojue’s guard player, Shen He, entered the arena.
Seeing Shen He’s ID ‘Drunken River’ appear on the match table, the audience immediately sent rows of monkey emojis: “There is a loud cry from the heavens, the little monkey is about to shine on stage!” “The opponent only has 60% blood, monkey Shen, you can’t lose! If you lose, we can’t call you Monkey God any more, we’ll need you to invite your monkeys here!”
The audience had basically turned Shen He’s nickname into a joke…
At this moment, Shen He, who was sitting in the soundproof room, was actually very nervous.
This was the first time he was carrying such a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. If he won, Mojue would immediately qualify; if he lost, then they had to play a tiebreaker match. If they lost the tiebreaker, then he would forever be a sinner.
The team’s victory or defeat was solely dependent on him, which was a completely different feeling when compared to the previous individual or partner competition.
Shen He nervously waited for the map to load, only for a hand to pat his shoulder gently.
“Don’t be nervous, fight well.” God Han’s tone contained a rare trace of warmth. “Your master handed you over to me, so let me see the results of your training during this time.”
Realising what Xiao Han had meant, Shen He was extremely touched. Tears welled up in his eyes as he nodded his head vigorously. “I will!”
While Xiao Han was not his master, his care and concern for Shen He during this arena competition was not any less than Shen He’s master, Qin Mo. Furthermore, Xiao Han and sister Hong had fought so hard to gain a large advantage in the early stages, just for the sake of letting him face off against a great god like Li Junru, and allowing him to experience playing under extreme stress conditions. What reasons did he have to lose?
Thinking of this, Shen He immediately suppressed his racing heart, earnestly staring at his computer screen.
Li Junru did not have much blood left, but her amount of blue was enough to kill Drunken River, even though the summoner was at full health. He could not afford to underestimate her.
Shen He played very cautiously. After closing the distance, he did not rush to attack, because he was now on the leading side, and taking risks to seize opportunities was not necessary. He only needed to stabilise the situation, to not make any mistakes, and play at his normal level.
At this moment, Shen He was concentrating very hard. The instant Li Junru made a move, he decisively summoned his mechanical blood cow to resist the damage!
The damage from Li Junru’s big move was transferred to the mechanical blood cow. Leaving his pet in place, Shen He immediately retreated, forcing Li Junru to have to dispose of his mechanical blood cow before she could chase him. Just as the opposing poison master was about to catch up, Shen He cleverly summoned his mechanical puppet, teleporting behind Li Junru. In the next moment, his hand speed was raised to its limit, summoning the mechanical horse, mechanical rats, mechanical snakes, and mechanical hawks!
Shen He’s hand speed had reached the extremes, summoning four different types of pets in succession to control the opponent with fear, inflict them with weakness and immobilisation, before finishing off the combo with aerial attacks.
This set of moves forced Li Junru’s blood volume down to 30% in mere seconds. Leaving behind his mechanical chariots to obstruct her path, Shen He decisively retreated once again.
Li Junru realised that unexpected, this young player before her was very calm. Despite inheriting an advantage from his teammates, he was neither relaxed nor impatient. He used a large number of pets to control the field, retreating after taking away a fraction of her blood volume. Obviously, he did not want to fight head on, preventing Li Junru from gaining the opportunity to reverse the advantage.
The battle dragged on for over three minutes. By this time, Li Junru was only left with 10% blood, while Shen He’s blood volume remained at a slightly safer 45%.
Shen He withdrew to widen the distance. The moment his pet cooldown ended, he immediately summoned the mechanical hawk, commanding it to attack from the air. Unable to dodge, Li Junru was immediately killed.
Seeing the word ‘Victory’ pop up on his screen, Shen He was extremely excited, and frantically rubbed away the tears that had gathered.
He had succeeded!!
He had made no mistakes, and didn’t give away the advantage handed down by god Han and sister Hong. As a guard player, he had succeeded in his mission!
Seeing the live broadcast, Qin Mo’s lips quirked upwards. In fact, he had been paying attention to how Xiao Han had trained Liu Hong and Shen He during this period. Although Xiao Han often laughed at Shen He, he was still very fond of Qin Mo’s apprentice. When Qin Mo left Shen He in his care, Xiao Han dutifully taught Shen He many skills.
From the selection of the map to the team’s lineup, everything about today’s match had been arranged by Xiao Han. Not only did he bring Mojue to win the game smoothly, he also gave Shen He an opportunity to experience seizing victory at a crucial moment.
In fact, many people ignored that Xiao Han was also a very outstanding captain.
The reason he was willing to be Qin Mo’s vice-captain, was simply because he loved him.
[ Seeing the live broadcast, Qin Mo’s lip also curved a happy smile. In fact, he could see how Xiao Han trained Liu Hong and Shen He in this period of time. Although Xiao Han always laughed at Shen He, he still loved Qin Mo’s apprentice. Qin Mo gave his apprentice to him, and he also dutifully guided Shen He in many skills. Seeing the live broadcast, Qin Mo’s lips quirked upwards. In fact, he had been paying attention to how Xiao Han had trained Liu Hong and Shen He during this period. Although Xiao Han often laughed at Shen He, he was still very fond of Qin Mo’s apprentice. When Qin Mo left Shen He in his care, Xiao Han dutifully taught Shen He many skills. ] They have the same meaning~ Indeed! Xiao Han is an outstanding captain! It seems like many people forgot about it since Qin Mo came. They should realize from this that Qin Mo and Xiao Han are evenly matched! 💫 Thank you for the chapter~~! ❤️❤️❤️
Already fixed it, thank you~ 😍
Yeesss, Xiao Han is Canglan’s former captain and already won many world competition right, he is at his peak, a good captain! You’re welcome~ ❤
Last sentence definitely hit dog blood. I always love how the author describing nurturing young apprentices in this franchise, I cried in God Level Summoner, and still crying for The King’s Return. Xiao Han definitely good captain in Canglan with his instinct, that’s why Old Cat trust that position. Yet I am glad that Xiao Han was vice captain of Mojue and partner of Qin Mo. Thank you for translation and dog blood 💕
Agreed, that last sentence 😭
Xiao Han is indeed a very good captain, and you’re welcome~ ❤
Amazing chapter. BTW, typo.. 2 paragraphs beginning with “Seeing the live broadcast” appeared twice
fixed it already, thank you for the mention~ 😍
Li junru’s biggest problem is that she’s too focused on targeting Liu Hong.