The Great Thief

“It is said that Gale Legion intends to sign a top Thief for six million dollars, but they haven’t been able to do so,” Four Seas Dragon said.

With the rising popularity of Dawn, the value of each player changes with each day. When Wendelian moved, she was only offered $1 million. The relationship between Glory Capital and Gale Legion was complicated, so Wendelian’s transfer was not just a simple annual salary arrangement. However, even an established expert like Gaze only earned $4.5 million per annum.

Now that they were offering $6 million per year for a Thief, and no one had taken it yet was a demonstration of how the market was changing.

“It seems that Gale Legion will still want a Thief after this season. Six million dollars seems quite attractive,” Jiu Feng said enviously. She was just an ordinary player and had never seen that much money before.

“Well, there is actually someone who would be very suitable. If Gale Legion can actually get him, it would be amazing,” Four Seas Dragon broke out in laughter as he touched his nose.

“Wood Fearing!” Jiu Feng blurted out, not having to think for long.

“That’s right, it’s Wood Fearing,” Four Seas Dragon sneered. “If Gods of a Dusk really can’t fix their guild, then they should trap a super player like him in that place.”

These were quite unpolite words, as he was basically publicly accusing Gods of Dusk.

Gods of Dusk’s president, Heaven War God, was a Liu Bei-type of figure who loved using emotional rhetoric to win over his players. They feared that Wood Fearing had been deceived by this.

When this was coupled with the fact that Heaven War God had helped Wood Fearing in his early years, Wood Fearing felt like he had no choice but to stay with Gods of Dusk year after

year.

Wood Fearing had been serving them for 8 years now. The formally young boy was once rushed to the top, but now, he was approaching 30. There were some broad requirements when playing these virtual games, as once you reached 30, your quick thinking, reaction times and situational awareness all began to go downhill.

Four Seas Dragon was a bit older than Wood Fearing, and he had once trained the young Wood Fearing. He really appreciated him as an apprentice.

Over the years, Wood Fearing had repeatedly tried to persuade Gods of Dusk to allow him to leave, but their relationship just grew even stiffer. Four Seas Dragon still hoped that Wood Fearing would one day see his own value and chase his own glory.

For a commentator to say something like this to a public audience was outrageous. Gods of Dusk wanted to make a formal complaint to the organizing committee, but Four Seas Dragon wasn’t afraid. Although he wasn’t a top player in the recent years, he was a highly esteemed coach that no one would dare question when he commented on others in the gaming circle.

Jiu Feng was worried that Four Seas Dragon was taking it too far, so she quickly took the opportunity to change the topic.

“Ah, they have run into each other. It seems like Ruling Sword have made the first move, but Gale Legion have responded well.”

Four Seas Dragon looked and saw what really happened between Ruling Sword and Gale Legion. He quickly grabbed the microphone and shouted, “Ruling Sword has cast Bloodlust as soon they engaged, and Gale Legion has responded in kind. Both teams have a Shaman that have this skill!”

The level 5 Bloodlust was still Dawn’s most powerful group damage output skill.

The Bloodlust Skill Book was also currently very rare, but as a professional player, it was a must-have as it greatly influenced group battles.

“Lu Li is being targeted and is using Gale Steps. That was the perfect timing for it,” Jiu Feng applauded.

“The fact that Gale Legion is targeting Lu Li is not a good thing. They should try to kill Fat Monkey first. A Mage is more useful than a Thief in this situation,” Four Seas Dragon criticized.

“But it seems like they have succeeded…”

Jiu Feng just finished speaking when Lu Li’s invulnerability from the Gale Steps ended.

There was nothing he could do. Everyone was targeting him, so there wasn’t much counter-play.

This was the kind of game Dawn was. It didn’t exclude the possibility of being a hero, but it didn’t allow for invincible heroes, especially in a context like this. If they were willing invest the resources, they would be able to kill the target.

When Gale Legion killed Lu Li, the price they paid was the loss of Angry City Dweller and Torrent, both of whom were killed.

Angry City Dweller didn’t have to die, but in order to ensure that Lu L died, he used an attacking skill rather than an escaping skill. Once Lu Li was definitely dead, it was too late for him to escape Moonlight’s Whirlwind.

This was certainly not the outcome that Gale Legion expected.

Their thought process was that they didn’t mind trading any one player for Lu Li. Gaze was on par with Moonlight, Cloudy Leaf was a bit better than Fat Monkey and everyone else was about even.

All they could do now was to reluctantly turn to focus-fire March Rain.

March Rain was on half HP and this was Gale Legion’s only chance to come back. If they could kill March Rain, not only would they equalize the situation, but they would be ahead.

March Rain was indeed a beautiful girl, but when she was in the arena, Gale Legion didn’t really have time to look at her.

In particular, if the Paladin Flowing Wind didn’t have the discipline of a professional player, he would have already run over to ask for her contact information. But now, it was life or death for the team, so he had to set aside all aspects of his personal life. Flowing Wind took the lead against March Rain and raised his hammer against the face of his dreams.

Of course, Ruling Sword couldn’t just sit back and watch as March Rain was being killed.

They quickly adjusted their formation. Although Fat Monkey’s Fire Shield was crumbling, he didn’t step back until his other teammates were in position.

“If you were commanding in this situation, what would you do?” Four Seas Dragon asked.

“Gale Legion’s situation is a bit difficult; they have lost two players,” Jiu Feng commented, then paused to think and continued, “If I was commanding, I would wait for Cloudy Leaf to arrive. Then Cloudy Leaf, Flowing Wind, Gaze, Wendelian and so on would fight together as one.”

“That’s right, but Ruling Sword obviously understands this, so they wouldn’t just let them go.” In Four Seas Dragon’s mind, this game was already over.

“All they can do is to keep up the fight. In fact, they should be confident. Wendelian is a very strong healer, as she was once Sorrowless’ personal healer. If Ruling Sword wants to kill her, it would be no easier than Gale Legion’s current task of killing March Rain.”

At this point, both sides were trying to attack their opponent’s healer.

They had to protect their own healer and kill the other healer.

When the game got to this point, it was very simple in theory, but very hard to accomplish in practice.

It was just like their fight against peerless City from a while ago. If they lost too badly then there was no way of catching up in the later rounds anyway. But now, they had no reason to hold back. As such, the audience got to see every single trick that Gale Legion had.

The situation had changed slightly.

Originally, Ruling Sword had the advantage in the four on three situation, but with this burst of aggression, the advantage had been equalized.

One side was still trying to hold back while the other was using everything they had. The gap between them was starting to show.

Then there was another substitution!

Ruling Sword lost March Rain and Gale Legion also lost Wendelian.

“I’m sure that there are many people who feel like this is a very even match, and it evens seems a bit boring,” Jiu Feng almost yawned.

“This is normal as Gale Legion can’t match Ruling Sword. Their strategy is also a bit strange. I still can’t figure out why they decided to target Lu Li first; he just has so many escaping skills.”

When the match first started, Gale Legion traded two players for one player, which was an unsatisfactory opening.

Although they had now killed March Rain, Wendelian had not been spared either.

Now Ruling Sword had Moonlight, Fat Monkey and Sakura Memories while Gale Legion only had Gaze and Flowing Wind. This was a difficult position for Gale Legion to be in.

Fortunately, reinforcements from both sides had almost arrived. Cloudy Leaf was the first to the scene. He had been very anxious while waiting and had blinked a number of times while travelling in order to arrive earlier.

When he arrived, he didn’t say anything and immediately started attacking Fat Monkey. Moonlight was difficult to kill and Sakura Memories’ Bloodlust wouldn’t be off cooldown for some time. Compared to the other two, her damage output was quite low so there was no need to waste time on her. Fat Monkey had already taken some damage and Fire Mages had fewer means of self-preservation, so there was really no one else to attack.

Cloudy Leaf was quite aggressive and Flowing Wind was actually not that much weaker than Moonlight.

Paladins and Druids were relatively average damage dealers but could be quite versatile. The difference was that the current Paladins seemed to be much stronger than the Druid for competitive play. Druids couldn’t Revive anyone in a match as they didn’t leave any bodies.

Most Paladins would take advantage of their profession and either focus on strengthening their defense, healing or damage output…

But in any case, they would have to take into account the specialities of the other players and play to their strengths.

Flowing Wind was different. He disregarded the other strengths of the Paladin class and simply pursued damage output. Whenever someone mentioned him, they were always thinking of someone dealing high damage.

Fat Monkey ducked and fled desperately. He had been a little careless and got hit by two ticks of Gaze’s Whirlwind. After March Rain died, there was no one healing him, so he became a target. However, he wasn’t retreating in a random direction. He was actually running straight towards Mu Qiu who was coming from the waiting room.

When they saw Ruling Sword’s sub from afar, the Gale Legion players’ expressions turned black.

It was actually Mu Qiu!

Why wasn’t it Kitty Likes Meat? That girl hasn’t appeared even once today.

It wasn’t that Mu Qiu was more powerful than Kitty Likes Meat. The key thing in this moment was that their opponent now had a healer. Even though their Paladin had some healing ability, if Gale Legion fought without a proper healer, things would soon turn ugly.

One could imagine the feeling of fighting and slowly taking down a target’s HP only to have it refilled by a healer.

Cloudy Leaf certainly didn’t want this to happen, so he suddenly blinked forwards and appeared behind Fat Monkey. Fat Monkey had already previously used his Ice Block, so he had no choice but to watch this Mage, who was more famous then he was, attack him.

All he could hope for now was his healer to arrive in time.