The King's Avatar

After looking over the clues and reviewing the contents of the previous rounds in this match, Li Yibo was even more confident in his views. When the two sides first clashed, it had been extremely unfavorable for Happy. At that time, they could have evaded Blue Rain’s downwind assault, but Happy stubbornly chose to stay and face them.

Li Yibo wanted to say he didn’t understand their choice, but didn’t have time to because the pace of the match had been too fast, especially with one side getting a speed boost from the strong winds.

But then, the situation had unwittingly unfolded into the present state. Along the way, there were simply too many details worth talking about.

“To think Happy would actually use such a strategy… uh… speaking of which, does this count as a strategy?” Pan Lin said after listening to Li Yibo’s analysis.

Li Yibo forced a smile. A strategy usually entailed structure, but Happy’s strategy changed depending on the situation. It was completely chaotic. It couldn’t really be considered as a strategy. But the important part was that Happy succeeded at least for now. Blue Rain wasn’t able to display their home game advantage.

“If they win like this…” Pan Lin didn’t know what to say.

If just randomly fighting could win, then the win wouldn’t just be over Team Blue Rain. It could be considered a slap to the term pro-level playing. Were strategy and tactics actually meaningless in a competition?

“Haha, this isn’t something that can be accomplished just by playing around randomly,” Li Yibo laughed.

“Oh?”

“Think about Team Happy’s background,” Li Yibo said.

The current Happy was no longer an unremarkable grassroots Internet cafe team. They were a top eight team that had made it into the playoffs.

There were no weak teams in the playoffs. Because anyone that could stand here had experienced the test of an entire season. Perhaps winning the Challenger League could be done by a fluke of luck because that was an elimination tournament format. But there was no luck in the regular season. It was 38 rounds of back and forth. How could it be so convenient as to always be lucky?

In a competition of skill, the skilled teams would receive attention, especially for a team like Happy, where there was always something to talk about. As a result, the media had pretty much dug up all there was to know about the members of Team Happy.

“Team Happy’s background?” Pan Lin stared blankly. He had always followed Team Happy closely. With Li Yibo’s reminder, he immediately thought of all the details of Happy’s team roster.

Compared to the teams that went through the Alliance’s investigation to make it into the league, Team Happy didn’t suddenly become known in a single day. Their team had history which could be traced back all the way to the opening of the tenth server.

Yes, the opening of the tenth server.

Too many people remembers how in the first day of the tenth server, the name Lord Grim kept popping up in the world chat, which could be checked. Many of the First Kill records in the tenth server’s Beginner Village were held by Lord Grim.

The opening of the tenth server was the day of Ye Xiu’s retirement.

The story could be easily pieced together. Many tenth server players could describe the terrifying dungeon record wars that followed. And in this war, the name Lord Grim could not be missed. He held countless spots on the leaderboards, a member of one guild one day and then a different guild the next day.

Whether it was Tyrannical Ambition or Blue Brook Guild, there were traces of Lord Grim. The members of these guilds had leaked out that at that time, Lord Grim had already been holding that crazy transforming Myriad Manifestations Umbrella. They also stated with certainty that Ye Xiu had two partners by his side, Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion.

Later, Concealed Light and One Inch Ash joined…

Pro characters were stored in Glory’s in-game servers too. Happy’s characters could be searched and verified as created in the tenth server.

Team Happy was a new team from head to toe. Almost all of their members had come from the tenth server.

And how had they grown throughout this journey?

Pan Lin knew. Li Yibo had wanted him to think of this point.

Happy’s players had grown together through chaotic fights. From a trusted information source, in the tenth server, Lord Grim had become a public enemy of all the top guilds. These top guilds weren’t just random player guilds, but Club guilds, guilds with a powerful background.

Because Ye Xiu’s investment into the tenth server had disrupted the balance between the guilds. When he reached Level 50 and entered the Heavenly Domain, the top guilds had allied together and went on a hunt for him. According to another trusted information source, Deception had appeared besides Lord Grim at that point.

Happy left behind a very clear trail in history. And this trail was made up entirely of the blood and tears of the big guilds.

And Happy’s players had trained and grown in these sorts of fights. 5v5 team battle? Too small scale! In the game, five players was just half a team. A team was ten players, and a group consisted of ten teams, a hundred players!

Even if the skill levels of those 100 players couldn’t compare to a pro-level, it was obvious which one would be more chaotic, no?

Making the fight chaotic wasn’t because Happy had no idea what to do against Blue Rain in the home game, rather it was because it was their best way of facing Blue Rain and the playstyle they were most adept at.

How long had it been since pro players had experienced chaotic fights like those in the game? They were used to logical and structured 5v5 fights. Such wild chaos hadn’t been seen in so long. Perhaps even many of the players who came from the Club training camps didn’t have these types of experiences.

If pro teams were thrown into the game, they could deal with any in-game matter without a problem. But the pros would be relying on their superior intuition and technique to bully in-game players. However, Blue Rain wasn’t playing against normal players. Blue Rain was facing Team Happy, a playoffs team.

Happy had been a mess at the start, and now, Blue Rain was also in a mess.

But Happy was happy being in a mess. Amidst this chaos, there was rhythm and synergy. But Blue Rain was truly a mess. They couldn’t find the appropriate rhythm, or perhaps, it could be said that they weren’t able to establish one.

Boundless Sea and Steamed Bun Invasion had feigned a pincer attack on Swoksaar, but then suddenly turned to pincer attack Soul Speaker instead. Team Blue Rain was in disorder. Swoksaar turned to cast a curse, but this time, Su Mucheng locked onto him. She fired a shot at him, forcing Yu Wenzhou to avoid it.

Details such as Ye Xiu using Guard to crash into Steamed Bun Invasion and helping him accelerate were lost by the viewers. The match was developing simply too fast. Right now, Ye Xiu was violently attacking Lu Hanwen’s Flowing Cloud, pushing him back. On the other end, Huang Shaotian’s Troubling Rain wanted to get past him, but his attempt didn’t escape Ye Xiu’s notice. Lord Grim suddenly swept across the field with a Shining Arc, cutting Troubling Rain off. After two quick swipes, Huang Shaotian had no choice but to have Troubling Rain retreat.

Paladins wore plate armor. Although their defense was much higher than Clerics, their movements were much slower. Boundless Sea and Steamed Bun Invasion made his way to him practically unimpeded.

Xu Jingxi saw them clearly. He obviously had no intentions of being a sitting duck. Soul Speaker readied a Halo Smash. Whoever first reached him would receive a hit back, creating an opening for him.

Which one?

Xu Jingxi’s Soul Speaker retreated two steps, so he could see the attacks from his left and right more clearly.

They’re here!

On his left side, Boundless Sea raised his two hands, letting out a blast of qi. Xu Jingxi immediately acted and readied a Halo Smash, but…

Cloud Grasping Fist!

Boundless Sea had unexpectedly used a Cloud Grasping Fist.

This skill grabbed the target. It dealt no damage, so it wasn’t something Halo Smash could reflect back. Xu Jingxi was depressed! He didn’t know if he should blame luck or if it was because Fang Rui had seen through him. Then, what about Steamed Bun Invasion?

As he moved to make it more difficult for Boundless Sea to grab him, Xu Jingxi looked towards Steamed Bun Invasion and saw something coming towards him. He immediately tilted his head.

Hu!

A Brick whistled by. There wasn’t enough time to activate Halo Smash!

“To think you dodged it,” Steamed Bun was surprised, “Blue Rain’s players really are amazing!”

Steamed Bun finally said a few kind words to Blue Rain, but Blue Rain’s players nor fans could feel excited about these words in any way. From what he was saying, dodging his Brick was an incredible feat.

Blue Rain’s two Blade Masters were blocked by Ye Xiu. Yu Wenzhou was busy dealing with Su Mucheng and didn’t have time to help. Only Zheng Xuan was left.

The spiritless Zheng Xuan didn’t dare be negligent. His Bullet Rain rushed towards Soul Speaker, with his sights locked onto Steamed Bun Invasion and Boundless Sea. Then, Zheng Xuan personally witnessed a kidnapping take place.

Could this even be called a fight?

Zheng Xuan felt his mind go hazy. Steamed Bun Invasion and Boundless Sea, two Fighter classes were surrounding their healer, punching and kicking him! You would expect a few skills to be used, no? But the two enemies were just swinging their arms and legs. You couldn’t even tell whose arm or leg it was! And as Soul Speaker was beaten up, it looked like he was being forcefully dragged towards an area.

An area?

The wind zone!

Those two guys wanted to kidnap Soul Speaker and bring him into the wind zone! If that happened, Blue Rain would have trouble taking advantage of the terrain to rescue him.

How stressful!

Zheng Xuan had become the team’s only hope, and he couldn’t help but mutter his catchphrase. Then, he charged forward resolutely.

“Let go of our healer!” To motivate himself, Zheng Xuan gave a shout in the chat.

“Someone’s here! What do we do!” Steamed Bun said. From the way he phrased it, it really did sound like they had been caught in the middle of a kidnapping.

“Pretend we didn’t see him,” Fang Rui said.

“How smart!” Steamed Bun said.

Zheng Xuan was infuriated. Did he really pose no threat to them?