The King's Avatar

The Seal Talisman had no damaging effect, but it brought this one minute of status effect.

What did one minute mean in Glory?

A 1v1 duel where one side was much stronger than the other would generally end within one minute. When the two sides were relatively evenly matched, then it would depend on the players’ individual habits and styles, so time duration wasn’t a good statistic to keep track of. Still, assuming the characters met in direct confrontation, it would usually take over 3 minutes to determine victory.

Ye Xiu, in his individual matches, typically played with this kind of rhythm, and this match with Ge Caijie was the same. After they had each tested the waters, the two of them began fierce combat.

Talismans were the Exorcist’s unique method of combat. They either directly used the talisman to attack, or they would attach the talisman onto their weapon, causing the weapon to have certain damage bonuses or effects based on the talisman. In fact, they could attach the talisman to the weapon and then use Spirit Guidance to throw away their weapon, turning it into a long-range talisman attack.

Just now, Ge Caijie had, at the very last moment, suddenly slapped a talisman onto his scythe, causing his attack to have a talisman effect. But whether it was ice or fire, Lord Grim had successfully parried and the attack hadn’t landed, so the talisman couldn’t have dealt any damage. But the talisman that Ge Caijie had used was the Seal Talisman.

The Seal Talisman was used on equipment. With this attack, Lord Grim’s parry actually sent to Ge Caijie the target he wished to attack.

It all sounded very simple.

However, when the Spirit Guided scythe shot out toward the opponent’s parry, he had to activate the talisman in the instant just before they made contact. The difficulty of such control was extraordinary.

Ye Xiu was hit. The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was sealed and was now unusable.

It was unusable, which meant that the equipment stats would be temporarily deducted from the character, as though the character hadn’t equipped this equipment at all. And for the equipment that had special additional effects, these effects would also all be eliminated.

For now, sealing the weapon or sealing the shoes were viewed as the most worthwhile ways of using this skill.

Most of a character’s attack power came from the weapon, and most of a character’s movement speed came from the shoes. These two equipments, from ordinary players to the professional circle, were always prioritized, because they each decided a character’s advantage in one particular attribute.

Sealing the weapon was like pulling out the opponent’s fangs; sealing the shoes was like breaking the opponent’s legs.

And now, the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was sealed. For Lord Grim, it wasn’t just a matter of pulling out his fangs. The shapeshifting ability of the umbrella, after being hit by the Seal Talisman, was also eliminated.

The Exorcist was said to be the counter to Lord Grim exactly because of this reason. The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella’s greatest characteristic could be eliminated by the Exorcist.

The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was the true source of the headache that the professional circle felt toward Ye Xiu and Lord Grim. And now, in front of Ge Caijie, this problem was eliminated. During this one minute, Lord Grim held in his hand an unchanging weapon that had no bonus attributes at all.

”Beautifully done!” Even Ye Xiu couldn’t help but express his admiration of Ge Caijie’s exciting action.

”Thank you,” Ge Caijie answered, but his playing wasn’t polite at all. He had to use this one minute properly. The Seal Talisman had a cooldown of 7 minutes, there was no way it could be used a second time in an individual battle. This was also why Ge Caijie had been so cautious in the beginning. He couldn’t afford to waste this skill.

The scythe was swiftly swung down again, and his other hand was already preparing another talisman at the same time. This was the technique that any high-level Exorcist player should have; putting the talisman on the weapon first and then attacking was what an ordinary player would do. Pro players needed to begin their attack first, and only when they felt their attack was a sure hit would they suddenly attach a talisman. This way, they could conserve their talismans and also allow variation in their attacks.

The scythe flashed down, but there was already another flash before his eyes.

Sword Draw?

Ge Caijie had seen very clearly, when he had applied the seal, the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella was in sword form, and now it could only use sword-type skills.

However, without weapon attributes and just relying on the skill itself, whether the damage or the speed or the priority or so on, they would all decrease drastically. A skill like this could be completely ignored.

Shatter!

Blue Exorcist didn’t even dodge. This Sword Draw, whether it hit another attack or it hit himself, it would break into shattered fragments of swordlight. It wasn’t even worth defending against - without weapon attributes, it was too small and weak.

Ge Caijie was sure of this. But when the light of the sword hit his body, significantly faster than his own attack, Ge Caijie realized that something was wrong.

A sealed weapon essentially had an attack speed of zero. Even the famously quick Sword Draw shouldn’t have this kind of speed now…

Ge Caijie had no time to think of anything - Blue Exorcist’s body was already inadvertently thrust backward.

This was the momentum from the Sword Draw! But by Ge Caijie’s calculations, in this situation, there was no way for the Sword Draw to have this kind of power…

Did he…

There was only one possibility!

Ge Caijie watched, eyes wide, as Lord Grim waved his hand and that Myriad Manifestations Umbrella smoothly shifted into spear form and a Dragon Tooth chased toward him.

How could this be?

Ge Caijie was utterly stunned. Unable to dodge this Dragon Tooth, he was hit.

”You don’t need to be that surprised, do you?” Ye Xiu said. A Sky Strike leapt out, sending Blue Exorcist into the air.

But as expected of the most stable and calm player of the new generation, even when he was shocked, he quickly steadied his heart. The midair Blue Exorcist swiftly used a talisman and swung his scythe with Spirit Guidance.

Lightning Talisman!

When the scythe hit the ground carrying this talisman, lightning instantly flared around the scythe. Lord Grim had no way of continuing to attack Blue Exorcist from this position, he could only dodge first.

Blue Exorcist hit the ground, the Spirit Guided scythe had already returned to his hand. He turned and stared at Lord Grim over there, and more accurately, the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella that was in Lord Grim’s hand.

Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, spear form.

”This… isn’t the one from before…” Ge Caijie saw through what had happened.

”Yup. You guys throw around the word ”counter” so much, if I didn’t make any preparation, wouldn’t that just be too dumb?” Ye Xiu chuckled.

”Two Myriad Manifestations Umbrellas…” Ge Caijie was a bit speechless. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of such a possibility before, but wasn’t Happy relatively poor? This Silver weapon, even though the R&D departments of the various teams hadn’t figured out how it was made, they all understood that this was definitely a high-cost item. A Silver weapon like this, with Happy’s conditions and grassroots background, there was no way they could make a backup copy, was there? If they only made one to counter the Exorcist’s Seal Talisman, that was rather wasteful. But on the other hand, even if the Seal Talisman hadn’t managed to stop him, wouldn’t this at least greatly increase the burden on Happy? To make an extra copy of such a high-cost weapon, who knew how many fewer Silver equipments the other characters now had? In that regard, this at least had some use in suppressing Happy.

Just as Ge Caijie was thinking all of this, he heard Ye Xiu speak. ”Yup, two Myriad Manifestations Umbrellas, one level 70, one level 5.”

Ge Caijie froze.

”Using a level 5 weapon to fight is really a struggle! So I was very anxious seeing you holding back for so long. Next time be more bold, come up and directly use a Seal Talisman, I’ll let you stick it right on,” Ye Xiu said.

With that, Ge Caijie could only laugh bitterly.

So this guy had just casually used a level 5 weapon to play around with him, this was really…

But was Ye Xiu always using the level 5 weapon earlier? Ge Caijie didn’t believe it. A level 5 weapon, he definitely would have noticed that something was wrong with the damage dealt. So Ye Xiu, in reality, had secretly switched his equipment at some point, just like how later when he swapped back the real umbrella after the false one was sealed, which Ge Caijie hadn’t noticed at all.

”It looks like this Seal Talisman being able to hit you was also an opening you purposely left,” Ge Caijie said.

”Selling you an opening was just as difficult as finding an opening on you,” Ye Xiu admitted.

”Since that’s the case, then why…” Ge Caijie said.

”You’ll know soon enough,” Ye Xiu said, as Lord Grim charged forward.

Indeed, Ge Caijie knew soon enough.

He now knew just how much Ye Xiu had restrained himself when playing earlier, all because of the existence of the Seal Talisman. Ge Caijie now had regrets. If he just hadn’t used the Seal Talisman and saved this threat as a deterrence, this battle might have been much easier! And no? The Seal Talisman was tossed out without achieving its effect, and an unrestrained Ye Xiu was truly too terrifying…

Ge Caijie parried for his life, but before him, even God-level players had fallen one after another to Ye Xiu’s Lord Grim. Ge Caijie found that he couldn’t do any better than them. He had only lasted earlier because of his class, because his class had a skill that the opponent feared.

The Exorcist was truly Lord Grim’s counter, but in order to serve as a true counter, the skill had to be effective! When the skill didn’t achieve its effect, the counter melted into scattered clouds. After all, this was an ultimate move that could only be used once in seven minutes.

”See, if I didn’t make you use up that Seal Talisman, fighting you would’ve been so tiring!” As Ye Xiu spoke, Lord Grim had already sent the final attack.

”I understand…” Gai Caijie answered. Blue Exorcist, under an attack that couldn’t be resisted, fell.

First battle of the individual round, Happy won. Ye Xiu had now won 13 consecutive individual battles.

Was he using this sort of method to announce his powerful return? Some people discussed this possibility.

But that was too cheap, wasn’t it? What sort of top core player would play in the individual competition instead of the group arena? Some people thought this way.

It was true. Every team’s best player, like Zhou Zekai, like Huang Shaotian, like Wang Jiexi, they all appeared in the group arena to try and win those greater 2 points. They might occasionally appear in the individual competition, but none of them would treat the individual competition as their main battleground like Ye Xiu did.

And so, just like this, he continued his win streak.

”This is the strong bullying the weak!” someone sighed, indignant.

The feelings were complex. Was this person a fan or a hater? If it was the strong bullying the weak, what did that make those powerful veterans whom Ye Xiu had defeated?