The Great Thief

Moonlight and Gaze’s duel was a Warrior vs. Warrior battle. Most Warrior skills were passives, which meant that there weren’t any flashy spells. Furthermore, both sides knew each other’s fighting styles extremely well. As a result, it was a close fight, but there weren’t any highlights.

However, the duel between Lu Li and Cloudy Leaf was much more exciting.

In Capture the Flag, the flashiest battles would be fought between Thieves against Mages. The kings of Capture the Flag were either the Thieves or Mages.

Now, one of the top Mages was now facing off against the greatest Thief.

Of course, Lu Li didn’t show off by taking on Cloudy Leaf face to face. After March Rain announced the beginning of the duel, he immediately entered Stealth. Stealth was still useful, since the terrain was flatter here.

Cloudy Leaf waited as he watched for any sign of Lu Li. As he had trained in this map more than the others, he could identify the position of Thieves through some thorough observation.

However, he was destined to fail.

He knew that Lu Li couldn’t have gone far, but he just couldn’t pinpoint Lu Li’s position.

He heard that Lu Li had obtained Enhanced Stealth, but no one really believed it. After all, Lu Li was already extremely strong with his original Stealth, but now he was experiencing it firsthand.

As he couldn’t find Lu Li, he employed a defensive tactic by calling his pet to his side and didn’t move.

This type of playstyle was not preferred. After all, he would be in trouble if he met with someone who was extremely powerful. It was easy to avoid a Water Elemental’s attacks and the Elemental was not that capable offensively. However, Cloudy Leaf was not a noob and not many professional players were strategically more capable than him.

Since Cloudy Leaf had already prepared himself, Lu Li had no need to continue circling.

While in Stealth, Lu Li snuck up behind Cloudy Leaf, then cast Sap. After casting Sap, he didn’t continue attacking, but dodged to one side instead. He planned to render the Elemental’s Frost Nova useless first.

However, Lu Li was surprised that the Elemental didn’t do anything, despite Cloudy Leaf being stunned already.

Cloudy Leaf knew the risks when using the Elemental. After all, the Elemental’s version of Frost Nova was different to the players’. It had an obvious arm-raising movement, but the players’ version could be hidden in battle.

Lu Li had to rush forward again.

Cloudy Leaf only commanded the Elemental to attack when he took damage from Lu Li. This was the correct way to play a Mage. Noob players would use the Emblem when they got damaged when they should have been using the Elemental’s Frost Nova.

The Frost Nova successfully froze Lu Li, but Cloudy Leaf was also be in a frozen state. What could Lu Li do in this case? Was he going to dispel the frozen state by using the Emblem or some other method?

After Lu Li dealt some damage, the effects of Sap were continued by using Cheap Shot. Then, Cloudy Leaf finally used the Emblem to dispel his status ailments and dodged to the side. During this exchange of skills, he didn’t take much damage. They only inflicted each other with status ailments.

Lu Li wasn’t planning on getting attacked either, so he disappeared after dispelling Frost Nova’s effects, searching for another opportunity to attack.

Although Moonlight and Gaze’s battle was quite boring to watch, they were both quite evenly matched, which added to the anticipation and excitement of the battle. Had they yelled and roared during their exchanges, it would have elevated the atmosphere to another level.

In the end, Gaze ended up winning against Moonlight, which couldn’t be helped. After all, Gaze had nothing to lose, so he used all his trump cards. However, Moonlight had a couple of skills up his sleeves that he had decided to save for when they face Glory Capital.

The same could not be said for Lu Li and Cloudy Leaf.

Just like what Unforgettable Maple said, the only Mage capable of defeating Lu Li in a one-on-one duel would be Sorrowless. The only other thing that could absolutely defeat Lu Li was the game company.

Of course, Lu Li’s ego was not so large that he thought the company would directly attack him. The recent updates to Thieves were not because of him either. The updates would have happened regardless of his rebirth.

Therefore, in this matchup, it was extremely unlikely that Lu Li would lose to Cloudy Leaf.

Every time Lu Li successfully controlled Cloudy Leaf, Cloudy Leaf would lose large portions of his HP.

However, the freedom of a melee class’ mechanics and skills would be limited once everyone caught up to this level. Then, the damage of execution mechanics would eventually be altered to balance the game.

The nature of the critical damage dealt by Mage classes would also be altered.

At that time, the Mage’s critical damage was strong enough to insta-kill someone. Cloudy Leaf, who had extremely prestigious equipment, would be able to insta-kill most players if a critical hit occurred when he casted his ultimate skill.

After a while, Cloudy Leaf was killed by Lu Li.

Gaze watched on after he successfully defeated Moonlight. March Rain was afraid that he would go back on his word and kill her. As a Healer, she wouldn’t be able to defend against his attacks. However, it was good that Gaze was a man of his word, so when Cloudy Leaf was defeated, he immediately quit the match.

The match between Gale Legion and Ruling Sword was announced as ending at 6 to 4. At the same time, it was also announced that Ruling Sword had successfully entered the Finals against Glory Capital.

The schedule had not been released yet, but it wasn’t that important. There was only the first Home or Away game and the slight changes at the end.

They didn’t stay in Shudu for too long. After all, none of them had the desire to party and celebrate.

After returning, the most important thing was to train.

As for the current schedule, it wasn’t impossible to get to level 60 by the start of the Finals.

At the moment, the highest level was Blood Red War Flag’s Mage, Wilderness, who was already level 59. Glory Capital’s I No Understand was slightly behind him, and was also at level 59.

The rest of the players on the rankings were all at level 58. The gaps in experience levels were extremely large. The third on the rankings was Lonesome Flower, while the fifth was Azure Sea Breeze. Besides these two, the next highest level was Hachi Chan. However, Hachi Chan was already out of the top 10.

The fourth on the list was Unforgettable Maple. Majin Temple had already been eliminated long ago. There were two surprising entries in the top 5.

From number 6 to number 10, it was Lucky Southern Persian, Magic Cry, Wood Fearing, Sorrowless and another player.

Lu Li had already dropped out of the top 20.