The King's Avatar

The tip of the sword dropped down, but… it was a miss.

Afterwards, Flying Sword was already flying out.

Tyrant’s Destruction!

Liu Xiaobie’s triangle Triple Slash had been extremely fast, but what about Tang Rou? Her speed was no slower. Her Dragon Tooth turned into a Tyrant’s Destruction, keeping up with the dizzying Triple Slash. Before the sword could strike her, her spear thrust into Flying Sword’s body, throwing him to the side.

Whoa!

Liu Xiaobie was shocked. In the Happy versus Excellent Era Challenger League finals, he had a very deep impression of Tang Rou’s hand speed. Xu Bin had asked how he would compare, but Liu Xiaobie hadn’t replied.

And now, Tang Rou had been able to catch his triangle Triple Slash, hitting him first before he could hit her...　　

Although his triangle Triple Slash required more inputs, the difference in attack speed between Soft Mist’s spear and Liu Xiaobie’s sword could not be ignored.　　

Spears usually had low attack speed; most had an attack speed of 2. On the other hand, the Blade Master’s lightsabers were the fastest weapons; most had an attack speed of 10.

In Glory, the attack speed on weapons were rated from 1 to 10. However, the difference between a 1 and a 10 wasn’t by a magnitude of ten. In reality, the difference between a 1 and a 10 was around 20%.

Glory was an input-heavy game. What truly decided an attack’s speed was the player’s hand speed. But the difference between having a weapon with an attack speed of 1 versus a weapon with an attack speed of 10 indicated that if you wanted to match the speed of a 10 attack speed weapon with a 1 attack speed weapon, your hand speed would need to be 20% faster.

Thus, a faster weapon attack speed was never a bad thing. However, the game was set up such that weapons with lower attack speed had higher physical attack. Finding the right balance was an issue every player had to consider. Blade Masters tended to use lightsabers and tachis, but there was no shortage of greatsword and broadsword users.

The weapons used by Soft Mist and Flying Sword:

Soft Mist’s spear, Dancing Fire Flowing Flame, had an attack speed of 4. Among spears, it was already a very fast one. Along with the bonus stat of attack speed +1, it’s total attack speed was 5.

Flying Sword’s Lightsaber, Chasing Spirit, had an attack speed of 10. It had a bonus attack speed of +2.

In total, Chasing Spirit had an attack speed of 12, 7 points higher than Dancing FIre Flowing Flame, a 14% difference.

With this difference, for Soft Mist to match Flying Sword, Tang Rou’s hand speed had to be above Liu Xiaobie’s. However, in a fight, the two sides wouldn’t be starting their attacks at the same time and checking to see who reached the other side first. Because of the inputs required for skills, variations between skills, and differences in attack speed, it wasn’t easy to make a simple comparison. Most players used their intuition to make a judgement.

Liu Xiaobie’s intuition surprised him. In this match against Tang Rou, he had actually been quite mentally prepared for it. Because of the 1v3 bet, Tang Rou was always first to go in the group arena. Because of this order never changed, it was easier for opponents to prepare for. For example, Liu Xiaobie knew that he would be playing against Tang Rou, so he focused his preparations towards her.

She really is fast. She can completely keep up with me.

But if you think this is the fastest I can go, then you’re very very wrong!

As Flying Sword was thrown aside by Tyrant’s Destruction, Flying Sword also made his move. A sword light flew out, leaving a sword mark on Soft Mist.

What a fast sword! Tang Rou saw the attack. She wanted to dodge, but her hand speed couldn’t keep up.

Wow!

Tang Rou couldn’t help but be astonished. Flying Sword had been thrown aside by Tyrant’s Destruction, but in that split second, Liu Xiaobie had been able to leave an attack behind.

Although… the attack was more for show? I still have the initiative!　　

Dancing Fire Flowing Flame moved, drawing afterimages one after the other in the air.

Dragon Tooth, Double Stab, attacks that couldn’t be more normal, thrust fiercely towards Flying Sword.

Clang clang clang!

Clang clang clang clang!

The weapons of both players collided with each other repeatedly. The two competed speed against speed. Sword light and spear shadows collided and separated. Blood blossomed in the air.

Everyone stared in awe. The commentator and guest in charge of commentating the match were speechless too. 　　

What was there to say?

With how fast the two were fighting, by the time they finished talking about a point, victory might have already been decided. There was no chance for them to say anything.

This was where the difficulty in commentating a Glory match lay. When the two sides started fighting, there were too many small details and mix-ups involved. And if the pace was also fast, there was no room for commentators to give a detailed analysis anywhere. And with how fast Tang Rou and Liu Xiaobie were playing, the commentators couldn’t even use the ”list the skill names” strategy.　　

By the time he finished calling out the name of a skill, both sides had used another three skills.

”Too fast…” Pan Lin was able to squeeze in two words. It was truly somewhat embarrassing to not be able to point out anything.　　

”Overly fast.” Li Yibo was an experienced person with a professional experience. There might not be time to talk about the details, but he could talk about the overall picture. He didn’t look at the interactions between the two, just their skill trees.

There seemed to be a bunch of clocks on their skill trees. More and more of the icons on their skill trees were going on cooldown.

Rhythm?

There was no rhythm. These two people were constantly playing catch up. You’re faster than me, I’m faster than you, you chase, I chase. It became a competition of pure speed. If they continued to use skills at this pace and this quantity, there won’t be any skills to use soon. Or perhaps only low-level skills would be left...

Li Yibo wasn’t wrong.

Stab stab stab!

Slash slash slash!

Liu Xiaobie was putting in inputs like crazy, but he still wasn’t able to thoroughly suppress his opponent. At this moment, he put in inputs, but the attack he had wanted to get failed to come out. Flying Sword’s offensive suddenly halted.　

How?

Liu Xiaobie was only astonished for a second before he immediately realized the problem.　　

The skill was on cooldown, so it couldn’t be used.　　

But the skill was still on cooldown?

Not good!

Liu Xiaobie realized that his hand speed had gone out of control. His blind pursuit of speed had put him in this awkward position of being unable to connect skills because they were still on cooldown. It was because of this imbalance between hand speed and rhythm, a frequent mistake in the past, that he had been seen as a player who was wasting away his talent.

Fortunately, he noticed it and fixed it. He started learning how to effectively utilize his hand speed, going as fast as he could when he needed to, but also suppressing it when he needed to be slower. This imbalance in rhythm stopped appearing after being aware of it.

After fixing the problem, Liu Xiaobie improved immensely. Last season, he was just a bit away from making it into All-Stars. This season he hoped that he could breakthrough. But in this match, his old problem had unexpectedly returned. Without him being aware, his hand speed had sped up to such a level already.　

She really is an opponent that’s hard to stay calm against!

Fortunately, Tang Rou had been chasing after his hand speed, so she had also been recklessly wasting her skills too to reach that speed. Even though this should have been a huge mistake and a huge opening, it wasn’t really one in this match because both sides had committed the same mistake.

”Haha, really…” Liu Xiaobie had wanted to say something in the chat, when Dancing Fire Flowing Flame flashed before him.　

A normal attack?

Liu Xiaobie swiped his mouse and Flying Sword blocked this attack. Soft Mist wasn’t done though. She attack again, this time with a Dragon Tooth. Since the vast majority of their mid-level and high-level skills were on cooldown, the two sides were mainly using low cooldown sub-Level 20 skills or normal attacks.

She’s still attacking even in this situation. How stubborn! Liu Xiaobie sighed, while warding off Soft Mist’s attacks. But he gradually realized that something wasn’t right.

Normal attacks had no cooldown and could be used at any time.

Low-level skills had short cooldowns. After a few exchanges, they would be back up and could be used again.

Soft Mist was relying on this offense. It was just like before, dense and fast.　

As a result, Liu Xiaobie that when he noticed his excessive speed and prepared to control his rhythm, Soft Mist continued to stubbornly commit this mistake.

She was still keeping up with her previous hand speed, or it could be said that she was still burning, still trying to think of a way to go faster.　

This...

Liu Xiaobie didn’t know how he should assess her. All he knew was that he was starting to have trouble warding off her attacks.　　

What is this girl thinking?

Liu Xiaobie was astonished, but he felt like he had discovered something.　

Among these were memories of the past. When he failed to meet expectations by blindly utilizing hand speed, he made adjustments had made huge improvements. Tang Rou was like the him, who hadn’t realized the issue and continued to charge through wildly.

If I had continued along this path, how would things have turned out?　　

Liu Xiaobie discovered that he had never thought about this question before. After not getting the results he wanted from this playstyle, he had quickly made changes.

As for Tang Rou? Did she know? Or was she just stubborn?

Liu Xiaobie didn’t know. He only knew that he was having trouble defending. A feeling rose in his heart. The two used to be speeding along neck and neck, but midway through, he suddenly realized that there was perhaps a better way to win, so he stopped speeding along and went to study. The person who kept on speeding along instantly overpassed him...

Was this limited to just this match? Or… his entire professional career?

Would the one who won in the end be the one who continued to speed along or the one to study a better way?

Liu Xiaobie’s Flying Sword fell with this confusion in him. He didn’t fall to Soft Mist’s normal attacks and low-level skills, but rather her overwhelming tempo.