The King's Avatar

Deception was hiding inside a bush. Let alone with this fog, even without the fog, he was completely hidden. The camera zoomed in on Deception’s hiding spot, but it still took a lot of effort for the viewers to find him inside the bush.

This type of hiding spot was somewhat deceiving. If you didn’t look carefully at that exact spot, it would be easy to miss it. However, the system summons could not be deceived in this way. If even a single strand of Deception’s clothing stuck out from the bush, the summons would find him.

Last time, Mo Fan was able to escape from a map-wide search by an army of summons. He clearly understood that the system AI was far better than real players in this aspect. He had intended to sneak attack Eight Notes by hiding in this bush, but seeing that Eight Notes still wasn’t here yet, he knew that for the summons, his current hiding spot was the same as no hiding spot. As a result, he immediately came out from the bush.　

To avoid summons, he needed to be 100% outside of their vision. Escaping the notice of summoned spirits was more troublesome than escaping the notice of summoned beasts. The Big and Little Spirits were balls of elemental energy, thus the structure of their bodies were uniform on all sides. In comparison, summoned beasts had eyes and noses, so their line of vision was much easier to figure out. When running from other players, you could run, while peeking your head out from a corner once in a while. A player in pursuit might not notice such a small detail like half a head sticking out, but summons definitely would not. It could still be done with summoned beasts, if you knew that their back was to you. But it was best not to try it against summoned spirits because it was hard to tell where the spirits were facing. If you snuck a glance at them, it likely that the spirits would notice.

Shaking off the pursuit of summoned spirits required fast and decisive movements. Hiding one’s movements as best as possible was far better than trying to observe their movements and then coming up with a plan.

After Deception came out from the bush, his movements weren’t fast, but they were well hidden. He spent 80% of his time either crouching or lying flat on the ground while moving.

”I should really record this part. It’s a master class on how to move around covertly!” Li Yibo was full of praise after seeing Deception’s movements.

As for Li Yuan?

Li Yuan was in no hurry.

After Deception’s Shadow Clone Technique ended, he had lost his target. However, his summons had reached their designated positions, so he didn’t make any more unnecessary commands. Eight Notes seemed to just be heading carefreely towards a direction.

The spirits quickly stopped moving. The elemental light emitted from the spirits pulsed amidst the dense fog. They no longer seemed to be chasing after a target. Instead, they were more like landmines or traps patiently waiting for their prey to run into them.

”Smart!” Li Yibo suddenly yelled out.

”Ah?”

”Li Yuan’s current plan is much more effective than an automatic search. In a hard-to-see map like this one, a player’s eyes can’t compare to the system AI of summoned spirits. The immobilized spirits can react faster than Mo Fan. Mo Fan’s method of dodging the spirits greatly reduces his vision,” Li Yibo explained.

”He’s been found!” At this moment, Pan Lin discovered a change in the battle.

When Deception passed between two trees, a Little Light Spirit hiding in the fog suddenly started moving extremely accurately towards Deception.

”Mo Fan’s been found, but he hasn’t seemed to notice it yet!” Pan Lin yelled.

Deception continued to move stealthily, but he seemed to be unaware of the Little Spirit chasing behind him.

”But the Little Spirit is slower than him. If Li Yuan doesn’t do anything, he’ll probably lose sight of Deception again,” Li Yibo said.

Would Li Yuan not do anything?

Of course not!

The spirits that he had positioned were under his control. As soon as a sudden movement came about, he immediately knew that he had found a target. And in this map, there were no other targets besides Deception.　

And from his Little Light Spirit’s movements, Li Yuan was able to deduce Deception’s pathing and immediately gave all of his spirits new commands.

These commands weren’t just to charge over. Depending on their current positions, each spirit received a different coordinate to move to. As for the spirits far away, Li Yuan gave up on them. Eight Notes summoned new spirits to replace the ones far away and then commanded those spirits to rush over.

The Light Little Spirit that had first found Deception really had been shaken off by Deception, but two new Little Spirits had taken its place.

Pan Lin and Li Yibo believed that Mo Fan had become aware of that Light Little Spirit chasing him, which was why he had suddenly sped up to escape from its pursuit.

He had escaped from it, but two new Little Spirits were biting at his heels now.

”What great patience**!” Li Yibo had a high evaluation of this match.

Li Yuan had been quite patient. Eight Notes had mobilized quite a few spirits. He had the max limit of eight Little Spirits, as well as an Ice and Fire Big Spirit, scattered around the map.

Had he taken inspiration from how Ye Xiu dealt with Yu Wenzhou in the first round?　　

Pan Lin and Li Yibo took back their words.

This was Blue Rain’s home game, and Li Yuan deserved to be part of Blue Rain’s main roster. This map seemed to be unfavorable for Summoners, but he was able to fully utilize it. The spirits scattered around became traps. Did it matter if Mo Fan was an expert at escaping? The spirits weren’t chasing after him. All of them stood at their designated positions and then waited for Mo Fan’s Deception to run into them.

If this were a normal map, after encountering a spirit, Mo Fan would have plenty of room to run. But the visibility in this map was low. By the time he noticed a spirit, the distance between them would be close, making it much more difficult to escape.

Li Yuan fully utilized this point. Blue Rain’s reason for choosing this map in the group arena was becoming more clear.

Yu Wenzhou and Song Xiao had tried to tire out Ye Xiu. Blue Rain failed to achieve this goal, but that wasn’t their only strategy in mind. They had no plans of banking all of their hopes on crushing the team competition.

Li Yuan’ performance on this map illustrated this point. After Yu Wenzhou and Song Xiao, Blue Rain planned on winning as many points in the group arena. From the way Li Yuan was playing in this dense fog, Eight Notes appeared extremely powerful. Mo Fan didn’t even know where Li Yuan was, yet he was already running for his life.

After escaping one spirit, two more came. Before he could shrug off these two spirits, a third and a fourth one came...

Li Yuan had not ordered any of these spirits to give chase. He just had them stay at a certain position. But because of the terrain in this map, Mo Fan’s Deception kept running into more and more of them, and now, he could no longer move about freely.

Substitution Technique, Shadow Clone Technique...

Smoke Bomb, Caltrops...

All sorts of escape skills were used, but he just wasn’t able to cleanly escape from all of them.

Eight Notes seemed to have an endless number of spirits. As soon as Mo Fan shook off one spirit, another would take its place.　

Compared to Mo Fan’s frantic actions, Li Yuan’s actions were methodical. Whether it was summoning replacement spirits or moving them around, he appeared calm and collected. He didn’t waste the spirits he would replace either. Four Big Spirits were in position now. The spirit army that Mo Fan would face was becoming increasingly large.

”If this continues, it won’t be good for Mo Fan!” Li Yibo expressed his opinion.

”Yes, if this continues, he’ll be harassed to death...” Pan Lin said. Deception had taken quite a bit of damage while trying to escape. There were moments when the spirits caught up to him. What’s more, the Big Ice Spirit and Big Light Spirits had long-ranged attacks.

Suddenly, Deception stopped moving.　　

Shuriken!

Deception attacked, throwing a shuriken towards the Big Light Spirit. Then, he charged forward, not in the direction he had been running in, but backwards.　　

Empty Cicada Double Kill!

With his ninja blade in one hand and the sheath in the other, Deception let out two attacks simultaneously.

Zi zi...

The two attacks hit two Little Spirits, letting out a sound like lightning. Spirits consisted of elemental energy, not flesh and blood. After being hit by attacks, they would make strange noises.　

Empty Cicada Double Kill was a powerful attack, and Little Spirits were extremely frail. Although it was just a single attack, their health bars dropped to nearly zero.　　

Flame Slash!

The Dark Little Spirit didn’t have a high fire resistance like Fire Spirits. The Little Ice Spirit had a negative resistance against fire.

Boom!

Without fire resistance, neither of them could withstand the blow. A wave of fire descended, damaging the two Little Spirits’ elemental energy. The fire burned for a few moments before the two spirits dissipated.

”Mo Fan isn’t running away anymore. He’s started fighting the two Spirits directly,” Pan Lin said.

”He’s trying to force Eight Notes to come out! The spirits alone aren’t enough to contest against a pro player. Eight Notes will need to personally come out and take command, which would mean Deception will be able to see him...” Li Yibo said.

”So it’s like that... Sure enough, Li Yuan’s Eight Notes is heading over,” Pan Lin shouted.　

The two players were finally in each other’s line of sight for the first time in this match.

”Will Mo Fan directly rush towards him?” Pan Lin yelled.

”Ah, he’s rushing over. He’s charging towards Li Yuan!”