The King's Avatar

Dragon Tooth!

Sun Xiang didn’t do any theatrics. He used the simplest of initiations for Battle Mage combos.

After jumping backwards a little to avoid it, Lord Grim swung with a Sky Strike.

Sun Xiang immediately composed himself to deal with it. When Ye Xiu had managed to use this to create an opening, he had done so by changing Sky Strike’s trajectory. So this time, Sun Xiang didn’t bother to get One Autumn Leaf to block and instead sidestepped by three body units, swerving to Lord Grim’s flank.

Lord Grim twisted, Sky Strike chasing after him. That was when One Autumn Leaf suddenly blocked it.

Could there be any more variations to Sky Strike?

No, the upwards stabbing of Sky Strike wasn’t endless and limitless. If you kept stabbing up up up, then wouldn’t you just end up throwing your weapon away?

One Autumn Leaf’s three body unit sidestep had pulled this Sky Strike far enough so that it couldn’t be modified any further. Even so, Sun Xiang didn’t hold back from his habitual reaction: block.

This actually wasn’t just Sun Xiang’s personal habit and style. Battle Mages needed their attacks to hit in order to stockpile Chasers. Blocks were considered hits by the system, so they could also produce Chasers. Thus, all Battle Mages would block if possible.

The current Sun Xiang didn’t deviate from this and neither did the past Ye Xiu.

So, Ye Xiu knew that while Sun Xiang had done a lot of dodging before, he would still choose to block when it came down to it. He couldn’t just dodge instead of block to cover for his openings because if he did that with a Battle Mage, he would only be reducing his own strength.

Blocks were mostly defensive techniques for other classes, but for the Battle Mage, blocks were an offense in a defense. Then, when their opponent became too concerned about not letting the Battle Mage create Chasers and intentionally avoided the blocks, the true fatal power of the block was revealed: it had created chaos in the opponent’s rhythm.

Thus, no Battle Mage would easily let go of blocks. For Sun Xiang to temporary give up his habits and resort to dodging so often was an extremely rare and commendable effort. His pride wouldn’t allow him change his style so completely. He had experienced the terror of fighting Ye Xiu, but he wouldn’t cower because of it. He wanted Ye Xiu to experience his skill, too.

The block swept forth brazenly.

This Sky Strike had lost the effect and power it originally was meant to have, so Ye Xiu obviously wouldn’t send it over and gift One Autumn Leaf with a Chaser. Sky Strike was cancelled and One Autumn Leaf’s block hit air.

This created a great opening to take advantage of. The block of a Battle Mage would bring this sort of trouble to their opponent. Should you let him block or not?

Ye Xiu had chosen the latter, giving Sun Xiang a chance to mount an offensive.

A Falling Flower Palm was thrown out at Lord Grim.

Mounting an offense often necessitated a lot of low level skills, as they were fast to activate. As for powerful skills, if you didn’t pave a road for them, you would already be late to the game by the time you unleashed them.

As for this quick Falling Flower Palm of One Autumn Leaf’s, Ye Xiu didn’t seem to have much of a choice but to have Lord Grim return with his own Falling Flower Palm.

The palms of the two characters hit, and released a magical pulse that swept up the dust and dirt around them. Lord Grim’s figure skidded backwards. How could Lord Grim compete with One Autumn Leaf in priority for the same skill? This clash had still given One Autumn Leaf a Chaser. Battle Mages had a total of five Chasers, unleashed through one of five low level skills, Sky Strike, Dragon Tooth, Double Stab, Falling Flower Palm, and Circle Swing. Because of Chasers, Battle Mages relied on low level skills a lot.

Falling Flower Palm had ended with Lord Grim being pushed back. As for One Autumn Leaf? One Autumn Leaf had managed to gain a Fire Chaser, which was immediately sent out by Sun Xiang. A magical pulse like a flickering flame swirled around One Autumn Leaf’s arms. This was the visual effect from the strength buff that the Fire Chaser gave. As for that big fireball of a Chaser, it had already sped towards Lord Grim. Sun Xiang was about to prepare a follow up attack when something flashed in front of his eyes.

What was that?

Sun Xiang didn’t have the time to think, subconsciously having One Autumn Leaf to dodge.

But it was too late!

That thing had come too fast and by the time Sun Xiang noticed it, it seemed like his Fire Chaser had cracked open as if something trying to worm its way through.

Lord Grim’s attack used the Fire Chaser as cover. The finesse this required was unreal. Sun Xiang hadn’t noticed it at first, only reacting when it had shot through the Fire Chaser, but by then it was already too late.

He was shot!

Lord Grim had sent out a bullet and One Autumn Leaf was immediately stunned when it hit.

This wasn’t the small stun from a normal shot. That miniscule effect would do nothing against a powerful character like One Autumn Leaf.

This was a Stun Bullet, a low level skill of the Spirfire class and stun was its crucial effect.

Then, a blade flashed and cut the Fire Chaser in half before striking the stunned One Autumn Leaf with a Sword Draw.

In this exchange, it was clear that One Autumn Leaf had not benefited. The only gains he had was the Fire Chaser that was buffed his strength.

However, the one with the initiative was still Lord Grim. After the Sword Draw, the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella didn’t change forms, already following up with a Collapsing Mountain.

One Autumn Leaf hastily dodged, jumping backwards, while stabbing forth with Evil Annihilation, hoping to pull Lord Grim into a Circle Swing.

Lord Grim’s sword swerved. The Collapsing Mountain missed One Autumn Leaf entirely and struck Evil Annihilation instead.

One Autumn Leaf gained another Chaser, but who would be more clear on the gains and losses of these Chasers than Ye Xiu? He knew which Chasers he could afford to give and which he couldn’t. He wasn’t the kind of person who would be troubled by a Battle Mage’s blocks because, unfortunately, he was the one who created this playstyle.

Giving One Autumn Leaf a Chaser had allowed Lord Grim to close in.

Sun Xiang was uncomfortable. He had thought he had the situation under control, but he never expected that it would spiral away from him again.

That was when Ye Xiu stopped using those openings and came at him head on with these attacks.

The careful preparation Sun Xiang had made to deal with Ye Xiu’s tricks was for naught.

Of course, he wasn’t afraid of this direct and straightforward brawl, and would even have an advantage due to his young age and stamina. Yet now, he had to keep his guard up against another possibility, where he might fall into a trap due to a subconscious action. So, he had to stay absolutely focused.

With Sun Xiang completely focused, it wouldn’t be easy to distract him, but having to focus on so many aspects was definitely draining. It was good that Sun Xiang was young so he could endure.

Let’s see who’ll make it to the end!

Sun Xiang gritted his teeth, advancing and having One Autumn Leaf meet Lord Grim blow for blow, while also paying attention to the modifications each of Lord Grim’s strikes could go through, determined to not fall into that real life stun again.

The overall situation resulted in a deadlock.

The health of both sides dropped, nine percent, seven percent, six percent...

Who would reach zero first?

No one could guess. In this moment, either side could be the victor. However, looking at the big picture, Ye Xiu had been at a disadvantage when the match began, so he had already won by being able to reach this point, fighting Sun Xiang.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t how matches were judged. The true victor was the one who was left standing.

Who would it be?

Many people in the audience stood up, as if they wouldn’t be able to see clearly otherwise. However, after they did that, the people sitting behind them really couldn’t see. Some people began to argue and others just stood up as well, thus, the majority of the present audience had come to their feet to continue watching the match.

The Excellent Era fans had already forgotten to cheer. This crucial moment made them just as tense as the players on the field.

Curse Arrows!

That was when Lord Grim summoned several small black arrows with Curse Arrows while dodging One Autumn Leaf’s attack, hoping to slow down One Autumn Leaf’s momentum.

However, when victory was in grasp, Curse Arrows? That wouldn’t be able to kill him, so there was no way he was letting this chance go!

One Autumn Leaf advanced in spite of the damage. Stronger characters held an advantage in situations like this. Often, they could afford to be more aggressive than other characters, because in situations where other characters couldn’t hold on, they could.

Slide Kick!

Seeing One Autumn Leaf charge forth, Lord Grim didn’t retreat and charged as well.

One Autumn Leaf jumped up, spear stabbing down at the Slide Kicking Lord Grim with a Circle Swing.

Lord Grim rolled to avoid it and knelt on one knee, swinging open the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella and shooting furiously with Gatling Gun.

Sun Xiang was even more direct. One Autumn Leaf, falling from his jump, shook his spear and suddenly, a tumultuous magical pulse exploded out from Evil Annihilation. He had somehow managed to unleash a Rising Dragon Soars the Sky in the time it took for Lord Grim to roll!

Gatling Gun’s bullets came in a flood, but compared to Rising Dragon Soars the Sky, who would die?

Sun Xiang smirked. Unspecialized was something no one had much experience dealing with. However, since it had popped up, and they knew there was a possibility of facing it, why wouldn’t Excellent Era put effort into researching it?

The only thing Excellent Era lacked was the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. As for unspecialized accounts, they had began levelling several of them up after realizing they might meet Ye Xiu and Lord Grim in the Challenger League.

Excellent Era had spent no expense to deal with Ye Xiu. They had tried to research the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, but in the end they had gotten nowhere. However, if Excellent Era didn’t look into the possibilities one could achieve with an unspecialized and such a weapon, then they didn’t deserve to be called a pro team.

There was no contest in who would benefit in an exchange between Gatling Gun and Rising Dragon Soars the Sky. Ye Xiu obviously couldn’t just let this exchange happen and hastily had Lord Grim dodge.

Want to escape? It’s too late!!

Rising Dragon Soars the Sky’s dragon head swerved towards Lord Grim.

Rising Dragon Soars the Sky, Dragon Raises it’s Head! The audience exploded into cheers. From their perspective, this was the deciding strike in the match.

However, it wasn’t. Lord Grim’s movements were extremely precise. He seemed to have calculated Rising Dragon Soars the Sky’s pathing and, with a single step, was already behind the dragon’s head.

That was when everyone saw that the dragon head, which had already swerved to the side twisted even further, almost in the completely opposite direction.

”Ah!!” Pan Lin screamed in excitement in the live broadcast, ”Dragon Raises it’s Head? No, this isn’t it. This is no long Dragon Raises its Head, it’s already a Dragon Looks Back!!” The new technique for Rising Dragon Soars the Sky had been christened by Pan Lin.

”Spectacular! This is probably a technical modification made possible after the level 75 update.” Even Li Yibo, who was usually rather calm and tried to appear omniscient, couldn’t hold back his excitement anymore.

”Rising Dragon Soars the Sky hits! This is a new technique, Dragon Looks Back! As expected of a team with the Battle God. They are a representation of the greatest skill level a Battle Mage can reach. In this match alone, we’ve witnessed two new Battle Mage techniques.” Pan Lin yelled. He was about to announce victory, but then suddenly saw that, while Lord Grim had been hit by the Rising Dragon Soars the Sky, he hadn’t died. He had managed to perform a Guard behind his back, managing to catch this attack.

However, the amount of damage Guard could reduce was limited and Rising Dragon Soars the Sky wasn’t something it could neutralize. Lord Grim, a Guard at his back, was thrown forward by this attack, skidding all the way in front of One Autumn Leaf. However, his health wasn’t completely gone. The broadcast immediately switched to a close up. 0.03 percent. Lord Grim’s health had fallen to the point where they needed two digits after the decimal point to express it. This was probably an amount that One Autumn Leaf could destroy with a punch, even after throwing away Evil Annihilation.

Yet, the current One Autumn Leaf was still trapped in the ending lag of Rising Dragon Soars the Sky. No matter how amazing Sun Xiang’s mechanics were, it was impossible for him to do anything right now.

Lord Grim had been pushed directly in front of Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf by One Autumn Leaf. He only had 0.03 percent of his health left, but he struck the true deciding blow.

The entire stadium had gone silent and the commentator Pan Lin gaped. In this moment, he couldn’t think of anything to describe the scene before him.

Such a spectacular Rising Dragon Soars the Sky Dragon Looks Back didn’t manage to kill the opponent, but instead pushed the opponent in front of himself and sent himself to death?

Pan Lin had originally thought out what he was going to say.

Sun Xiang, using a mutation of Rising Dragon Soars the Sky even more spectacular than the Dragon Raises its Head that Ye Xiu created, managed to defeat Ye Xiu. What a meaningful, amazing way of succeeding the old with the new. This scene could’ve been a perfect ending to this battle, turning it into a classic moment remembered by all those who played Glory!

But now it was all gone!

All Lord Grim did was Guard. Though placing a Guard behind a character’s back had some degree of difficulty, it was still a level 20 and under skill. How could that possibly compare to Dragon Looks Back?

0.03 percent!

Just that 0.03 percent, an amount of health that would be lost in any exchange, somehow managed to last till the end. If it didn’t, then so long as Lord Grim was killed, the classic moment wouldn’t have to be changed, even with that Guard.

Yet now, nothing was the same.

The sixth match of the Challenger League finals went to Happy, Ye Xiu, and Lord Grim.

That’s right, Lord Grim.