The Great Thief

Regular matches were different to qualifier matches. Instead of an instant elimination system, the tournament was based on a point system. There were a total of three matches in the regular matches. Teams received a point for each win and required at least two points to advance to the next stage.

As such, when all hope seemed lost, they decided to accept defeat.

Rather than stalling this match, it would be smarter to conserve their energy for the next battle.

Dark Wind was dripping with cold sweat; he was completely caught off guard by their play style.

He held himself back from commentating about March Rain’s mispositioning, otherwise, it would’ve been embarrassing.

March Rain strayed off from the group and had no protection from her teammates.

However, this was all a trap that had been set up by the little priest. She purposely baited their strongest class to the ditch so that he would be separated from his group as well.

Without the healing from the Druid, Lu Li and Moonlight were able to quickly burst down the Warlock. It was only a matter of time before the rest of their opponents met the same fate.

Dark Wind calmly analysed Lu Li’s formation and play style, and acted as if he knew what had happened. Since he had also complimented Lu Li’s group before the match, no one suspected that he had misjudged the situation.

He proceeded to analyse some highlights from the fight and excitedly announced it to everyone who was watching.

The match had finally ended.

The system notified them of their win and they were teleported out of the arena.

Lu Li realised that their strategy had been exposed by the commentators to everyone and was bothered by the fact that it was no longer a secret. However, his mood quickly changed at the thought of the 1000 gold that they would receive at the end of the match.

He would probably receive a share of 200 gold from the winnings.

Although he couldn’t have the best of both worlds, he would choose the money if he was forced to.

One match equated to 200 gold and there were more than ten more matches to go.

However, he had other tricks up his sleeve such, as the escape active from his shoes, the ambush active from his gloves and the protection active from his chest plate. Additionally, he had yet to reveal his Perfect Grade Corrupted Fang to the world.

They were matched against three Mages in the next round, a raw damage output team.

Their strategy was to instantly kill-off the other team’s support and then clean up the rest of their opponents. This strategy was simple, yet very effective.

However, this was not the case against Lu Li’s team.

March Rain and the others were all level 26 and above. The three level 23 Mages had a level punishment against them, so their damage output was abysmal.

Seeing as they couldn’t instantly kill the healer, all they could do was pray for their lives.

The entire match was quite uneventful as the three Mages tried their best to stall it out. Dark Wind and Zhang Zhen continued to commentate and managed to talk throughout the entire match until the end.

On the 17th match, Lu Li faced-off against some old friends.

At first, he didn’t realise, because his opponents were all in Stealth mode.

Were they up against 3 Thieves?

They had just faced 3 Mages and now, they were up against 3 Thieves. What was up with all the weird team compositions?

A single-class team composition could sometimes be extremely strong, because the players complimented each other. However, they lacked the flexibility and adaptability when they were faced against a counter. The single-class team compositions were basically extinct before Lu Li’s rebirth.

The only remaining team that was composed of a single class was the Five Fireball Gods. However, they weren’t even close to the top 16 teams.

Lu Li’s team decided to carefully test the waters.

Moonlight left his original position and advanced cautiously, while March Rain followed closely behind. Lu Li activated his stealth and also followed closely to deal with anyone that tried to ambush their healer.

“Everyone must be wondering what is happening. Let’s take a look at our special view.”

Zhang Zhen inputted some commands and the big screen revealed everyone’s position.

Much to Lu Li’s surprise, the opponents were actually two Thieves and a Druid.

The two Thieves weren’t just any ordinary Thieves; the spectators quickly recognized them.

Swirling Left Eye and Staring Right Eye!

“Ahh, how unfortunate for them,” Dark Winds laughed bitterly. As a professional commentator, he had to respect the players from major guilds.

The Imperial Secret Service wasn’t the biggest guild, but many people still wouldn’t dare to offend them.

The two commentators were stuck between a rock and a hard place. They had to keep things interesting for the viewers and had to make sure that they didn’t offend Imperial Secret Service at the same time.

As for the result of this match…

If Left and Right Eye could defeat Lu Li today, the Imperial Secret Service would regain the respect they once had.

Somehow, everyone in Dawn knew about how Lu Li had completely wiped out hundreds of elite players from the Imperial Secret Service.

The Imperial Secret Service had lost all their respect and was seen as a joke by many people.

And now, the two parties had met again in this tournament.

The three players from the Imperial Secret Service froze in place when they saw Lu Li. The expressions on their faces were hilarious and it was as if they had already accepted that this would be an impossible match to win.

That Thief is Lu Li right… it must been…

Why do we have to be humiliated again on the big screen!?

“We shouldn’t surrender… right…?” the Druid asked.

Every player from the Imperial Secret Service trembled at the sound of Lu Li’s name, especially after they had suffered that brutal massacre. Their hearts were filled with fear whenever Lu Li was mentioned.

Swirling Left Eye death-stared the Druid and angrily retorted, “Surrender your mum. Worse comes to worst, we’ll just die.”

The Druid knew that their chances of winning were slim and had given up before the match had even started.

“Legend, wait until they are separated and ambush the Priest,” Staring Right Eye began to strategize.

“I don’t do enough damage; how can I kill the Priest? Besides, Lu Li would be close-by protecting his healer,” the Druid called ‘I’m a Legend’ said as he began tearing up. It was basically a suicide mission.

“That’s right, Lu Li will go and save the healer, and when that happens… hehe,” Right Eye laughed coldly.

His smiled reminded Legend of the big bad wolf.

Moonlight continued walking forwards further and further away from March Rain.

At this very moment, the Druid appeared and immediately attacked March Rain.

Priests wore cloth armour and had low defence. Therefore, they expected Druid to be able to solo-kill the priest.

However, the script did not go as the director had written. March Rain appeared to be under very little pressure; she was able to heal herself and even had the ability to return some damage back to the Druid.

Moonlight turned around and rushed back to March Rain for support.

The Druid was completely caught off guard because he thought that Lu Li would appear to help March Rain, but instead, it was Moonlight that supported his priest.

A healing Druid against a Priest and Warrior was a recipe for disaster.

It didn’t look good for the three stooges of Imperial Secret Service.

“Well, this is awkward. Right Eye has miscalculated and their strategy isn’t working,” Dark Wind explained. “The two Thieves are still in Stealth mode, but their Druid’s HP continues to drop. If they don’t do something soon, it could very easily turn into a 2 vs. 3.

“If they came out and helped the Druid, they would be ambushed by Lu Li.”

Zhang Zhen was impressed and clapped his hands, then continued, “As expected of Dawn’s best commander – Lu Li predicted their attack and reacted accordingly.”

“Yes, they appeared to be in a dire situation,” Dark Wind commented.

In reality, the difference in skill and damage was so great that the Imperial Secret Service had no chance of winning, even if their strategy had worked out.

Left Eye revealed himself and immediately pounced onto March Rain, who had been self-sustaining her own HP.

Moonlight suddenly switched targets from the Druid and immediately dashed onto Swirling Left Eye, stunning him.