The King's Avatar

1356 A Casual Poke

Updated by

Closing in, step by step. Right now, the entire stadium’s feeling’s were bound to Ghost Lantern’s movement. On screen, everyone saw from Li Xun’s point of view. Windward Formation’s outline became larger and clearer.

Closer and closer.

Life-Risking Strike!

Almost everyone had this thought, since they were familiar with Li Xun’s style. This was a player who would always pursue a kill with Life-Risking Strike.

But could he do it this time?

This really needed to be considered. Just judging from their life totals, Ghost Lantern was capable of assassinating Windward Formation with a Life-Risking Strike. However, would Windward Formation’s equipment affect the outcome?

Armor values weren’t useful. Life-Risking Strike traded hitpoint for hitpoint; it removed health directly and ignored armor. However, what if Windward Formation’s armor had damage absorption effects? Damage absorption would be able to reduce incoming health removal from Life-Risking Strike. If the absorption percentage was high enough, then this skill wouldn’t be able to directly kill Windward Formation.

Unfortunately, Void had no such information on the Silver equipment on Windward Formation, since their team lacked information and research on both Wei Chen and Windward Formation. Li Xun could only rely on his own judgement.

When directly comparing health values, Ghost Lantern was 12% higher than Windward Formation. The Assassin’s HP stat growth was below average. Ghost Lantern’s equipment had some additional HP boosts; it was necessary for someone who loved Life-Risking Strike, where the damage output scaled with HP. The difference was that the HP was not stacked as high as possible like normal players would do, with disregard to anything else; Void did not want him to just focus on Life-Risking Strike and needed him to contribute in other ways too.

Right now, his health points were 12% higher than Windward Formation’s. This meant that if Windward Formation’s equipment carried more than 12% damage absorption, he could survive Ghost Lantern’s Life-Risking Strike; if not, then Life-Risking Strike would be a one-hit kill.

Maybe attack a few times and do a calculation first?

It’s possible an opportunity like this would not arise again. The opponent had a dirty playstyle, and all pro players knew how hard it was to successfully ambush a dirty player. Li Xun really just didn’t want to give up this huge opportunity that presented itself before him.

Take a shot at it?

Li Xun pondered. 12% damage absorption was not high. However, Warlocks wore Cloth armor and had subpar defensive attributes. This meant not just basic defence values, but also other defensive attributes, such as armor values and damage absorption values. Cloth armors were the worst in this aspect, amongst all other armor types.

A lowly 12%. However, for it to appear on Cloth armor, quite a chunk of other useful attributes might have been traded off for it. Would a Warlock sacrifice these useful attributes for some extra survivability?

This was really hard to say; after all, survivability was useful for any class and couldn’t be considered a waste. So did Windward Formation have it?

Ghost Lantern’s movement grinded to a halt. Li Xun could not reach a conclusion and did not advance any further. If he kept going, he would have to act.

Equipment chosen by someone who loved playing dirty. Would he prioritize attributes like damage absorption?

Li Xun was trying to answer the question from perspective of the opponent’s playstyle. However, before he could reach any conclusion, Li Xun suddenly remembered something else.

Cast range!

Windward Formation’s biggest distinctive feature was his absurdly long cast range.

A long cast range meant a big attack area, which also meant a larger protective zone. A Warlock that had an advantage in that aspect, would he need more protective measures? Would he?

He shouldn’t need it!

Li Xun’s mind was made. It wasn’t from the opponent’s playstyle, but rather from his character’s specialty. Then, let’s go!

Ghost Lantern once again began his advance. He leapt down from a rooftop and landed in a half-crouch soundlessly, then patiently stalked forward.

Patient bastard, I’m behind you!

Li Xun couldn’t resist complaining to himself after seeing that Wei Chen seemed to be patiently and cluelessly waiting for his target to appear. Ghost Lantern approached, step by step.

Finally, he ran out of cover and could only approach directly from behind. There were only a few steps left, but the closer he got, the more nervous Li Xun got. If the opponent suddenly turned around now, then it would all have been for naught.

Approach with a Shining Cut or continue slowly moving?

The two options crossed Li Xun’s mind, and he made his decision in a split second.

At this time, Li Xun decided it was better to be fast about it. He didn’t want to risk all his work being wasted after coming this far.

Shining Cut!

Immediately, a cold light flashed out, along with the fluttering of cloth in the wind. Ghost Lantern had already abruptly flashed behind Windward Formation.

Life-Risking Strike!

Life-Risking Strike as expected. Li Xun boldly used this skill to directly decide the match.

Windward Formation hastily turned around after hearing the sound behind him, but Ghost Lantern’s dagger had already arrived. Fueled by his own life, a one-hit-kill assassination skill from Ghost Lantern. Fierce, powerful. Windward Formation’s reaction was meaningless. Turning around only presented his chest to be stabbed by Ghost Lantern’s dagger.

Shluck!

A hair-raising sound was produced as the dagger buried itself deep into Windward Formation’s chest. However, an ominous feeling arose in Li Xun’s mind.

Something’s off, something’s really off! Something had to be off!

The attack hit, and Windward Formation’s health-bar slid down quickly. However, Li Xun felt something went terribly wrong. His intuition told him that he shouldn’t stay here and pose; he needed to turn tail and run.

But… Windward Formation’s arm was already raised. Death’s Hand casually poked at a random spot on Ghost Lantern’s body.

He fell…

Ghost Lantern fell.

Life-Risking Strike left the user with 1 hit-point. That meant that even a normal melee attack from a Warlock’s staff was enough to kill him. For Windward Formation to be able to carry out that attack, however, it only meant one thing: Life-Risking Strike did not one-shot him.

Miscalculation.

Li Xun only had regret in his mind, but it was all too late. Ghost Lantern’s 1 hit-point was not enough to handle anything, and a poke from his opponent’s staff dispatched him.

How ludicrous.

No skills were used, and a regular poke ended the match? He really handed himself to his opponent…

Yes, he did. Handed himself on a silver platter.

Everything suddenly became clear to Li Xun. The opponent planned his whole strategy around his playstyle and gave him an opportunity to use Life-Risking Strike. Li Xun knew something was wrong, but now he knew exactly what. It was his opponent’s reaction.

This was the Pro League. They were all pro players with unmatched experience. Even for someone who had not played for a long time, being part of the Pro League meant his Glory experience was richer than a regular player.

Just then when Ghost Lantern charged forth with Shining Cut, what was the opponent’s reaction when he heard it? He turned around.

He actually turned around!

This was way too much of a rookie’s reaction. Any Glory player who had some PK experience would know to dodge instead of turn around if they felt something was off behind themselves.

Roll, jump, strafe, rush forward, or use a skill. Anything was fine, but there was no reason to turn around. What would that do? If they saw your poor face, would they suddenly feel a rush of sympathy and stop their attack?

As it turned out, Windward Formation’s reaction was to turn around.

Even though he barely made an appearance this season, wasn’t it laughable for this antique of a player with more than ten years’ experience in Glory to turn around in this situation?

Not realising immediately was absolutely moronic.

Turning around at that time meant Wei Chen was prepared way ahead of time. Wei Chen already had a plan in mind, so when the attack came, he did not dodge or retreat but turned around. When Life-Risking Strike hit, he just casually poked away.

I got fucking poked to death! Li Xun clutched his head and wished he could stuff his whole head into his monitor.

I got played, completely played!

If he realised a split second earlier, there was still time to cancel the attack.But he didn’t; he completely missed it. At the time, he was already immersed in the elation of winning the match with one strike.

Turns out, the match really did end, not with his one strike, but the opponent’s one poke.

A Warlock. Raised his staff. And poked. Thinking of this, Li Xun once again felt the urge to stuff his head into his monitor.

Thus, the third match of the individual competition was concluded.

It hadn’t sunk in for the whole stadium yet. It hadn’t even sunk in for the referee. Wei Chen appeared from his player booth, grinning ear to ear, and waved at everyone watching.

This isn’t Happy’s home stadium!

The audience didn’t even have time to feel bad about him winning; who the hell would appreciate him showing off?

Wei Chen was purely trying to stir shit up. He waved his hands the stadium filled with boos. He then left the stage happily amongst the booing.

Boo away to your heart’s content!

Wei Chen looked at this stadium full of people. So what if there were boos? Summoning boos was a special ability for playing an away game. I came, I won. Booing was the proof of that.

Wei Chen returned to Happy’s bench. He glanced at Li Xun on Void’s side, who looked distracted and lost after leaving the stage, and laughed scornfully. He raised his right pinky finger and said, “I can take care of this kind of small fry with my pinky. I hope you can give me more of a challenge next time.”

Everyone laughed, and this time, even Ye Xiu didn’t go burst his bubble.

Taken care of with a pinky? This really was a joke.

Wei Chen put a lot of effort into preparing for the match against Void. Li Xun was someone who would definitely play in the individual competition, since his playstyle was not suitable for the group arena. So for Wei Chen, there was a solid one in three chance that Li Xun was his opponent, and thus researched him a lot.

Fortunately, he did run into Li Xun in the individual competition, and everything indeed went according to his plan. This was the reason why he could topple Li Xun with just his pinky.

Small tricks. This was a specially targeted trick, and most likely wouldn’t work again. The problem was, an old player like Wei Chen had more than ten years of experience and who knew how many more tricks he had up his sleeve! You would be underestimating him if you expected him to repeat the same trick twice.