The King's Avatar

Ge Caijie’s counterattack succeeded, and he won the battle. Void’s fans in the audience were jumping and cheering in joy.

Walking offstage in this sort of atmosphere only made Luo Ji feel even more upset.

The huge digital display kept replaying the moment where Blue Exorcist leapt out of range of the Devil World Flowers, and then used a Rising Emblem to counterattack, successfully killing Concealed Light. It was Void’s home stadium, after all! Of course they would replay their own player’s soul-stirring moments for everyone to enjoy. Another wave of applause rose within the stadium.

I was so close…

Watching these images, Luo Ji’s heart felt a wholly different emotion.

He actually hadn’t noticed at all, when Blue Rain jumped out of Devil World Flowers’ range. Pay attention to the details, pay attention to all of the details, this was supposed to be his specialty, his greatest strength, but just then he had overlooked such a key point, something so important that it couldn’t even be called a detail.

Luo Ji truly couldn’t forgive himself, especially for such an important match. He had held the advantage, but because of such a big mistake, he ruined his victory.

When Luo Ji arrived back at the player area, he couldn’t even bear to lift his head.

”It’s nothing,” said Ye Xiu. ”It’s just a mistake, everyone makes them. When Old Wei was your age, his mistakes were much worse than yours.”

”Oh, fuck off. When I was his age, Glory probably didn’t even exist yet, did it?” Wei Chen said to Ye Xiu angrily.

”Oh? Really? Want to calculate it?” said Ye Xiu.

”I don’t want to look into this question,” Wei Chen said with a wave of his hand.

Standing to the side, Luo Ji knew that these two seniors’ light-hearted bickering was all to comfort him. He felt moved, but he couldn’t just brush this off like it didn’t matter.

”It won’t happen again.” Luo Ji solemnly expressed his determination.

”No…” But Ye Xiu shook his head. ”I’m serious, don’t let this weigh you down. No matter how much you pay attention, mistakes can never be avoided completely. In fact, you can easily become too tense and do even worse. Relax. As long as you focus, pursue victory, work your hardest to do the best you can, maintain this kind of conviction, that’s enough. Don’t worry too much about the little details like mistakes.”

Again, he was supposed to stop worrying about the little details? Still, Luo Ji understood what Ye Xiu was trying to say.

Focus?

Maybe this was where his problem lay in this match!

In the instant when Blue Exorcist had fallen into the encirclement and been knocked over by Frost Wolf, Luo Ji had also fallen into an encirclement, one of happiness. In that situation, it seemed like all of his focus had gone to feeling happy, hence how he had overlooked something so important.

I really haven’t seen enough of the world!

Luo Ji mocked himself, knowing that this was because his match experience was still lacking. What kind of player would get so happy after just one successful attack?

Luo Ji continued to think quietly as he returned to his seat. But as soon as he sat down, a hand came down hard upon his shoulder.

”You played pretty well!” Steamed Bun praised him loudly, wearing a proud expression, as though it were the result of his own work.

Luo Ji had no idea what to say in response to Steamed Bun’s words.

”That defending radishes playstyle of yours seems really strong,” Steamed Bun continued.

Defend… defending radishes. What did that even mean?

Luo Ji was so agitated that he actually stood back up again, but seeing Steamed Bun’s serious face, he quickly felt discouraged. When did Steamed Bun ever make sense? Whatever he said, just accept it!

But. Defending radishes. Luo Ji still felt rather baffled.

It was now the third match of the individual competition. Happy sent up Wei Chen, while Void sent their Assassin player, Li Xun.

Li Xun was originally the most famed user of Life-Risking Strike, but ever since Yang Cong changed his strategy, he gradually became more overlooked. Yang Cong used Life-Risking Strike more frequently, and his success rate left Li Xun in the dust, especially when he used it in the team competition.

Even though Yang Cong was gradually stepping down from his position, he remained a main attacker for 301. Even if 301 wanted to use Life-Risking Strike, their strategy would still revolve around him. But Li Xun in Void didn’t have such privilege. Void’s core was the Ghost Duo, and all strategies revolved around those two players. Li Xun’s Life-Risking Strike was his own decision in individual battle, but in the team battles, unlike Yang Cong, he didn’t have a whole team serving his needs.

I never knew that Life-Risking Strike could be used to this level!

Li Xun, who especially loved this skill, felt all sorts of longing in his heart when he saw 301’s playstyle. But he knew that Void wouldn’t give him that kind of environment very often.

Only in the individual competition could he run freely. But Li Xun already didn’t pass up any opportunity to use it there. What he really wanted was to use it in the team competition. That feeling of taking out the opponent’s core or important character with one attack, trading his tragic death for the team’s victory, Li Xun felt a thrill just thinking about it.

It’s just… too bad!

Li Xun sighed. He could probably only continue to seize his chances in individual battle.

The third match of the individual competition began. Since Li Xun was this kind of Assassin, of course he chose a more complicated map.

This was another street map. Void was generally good at such maps, which wasn’t unrelated to the fact that their core was a Phantom Demon. This kind of map was good for Phantom Demons, so Void often chose such maps during team competition. After a long time, they would begin to like such maps for individual battles as well.

The characters loaded in and the match began. A Warlock on one side and an Assassin on the other, both Nightwalkers. They both started moving strategically from the very start, ducking into alleys and slowly moving forward.

Wei Chen, Windward Formation…

Before the match, Li Xun hadn’t expected that he would meet this player from Happy, so he hadn’t really prepared for this. For such a critical match, Happy was still brave enough to use a player that hadn’t really gone onstage much this season. This was a rather unexpected move.

Wei Chen had basically been overlooked in Void’s preparations for this match. But even if they had paid attention to him, they didn’t have much to work off of. There was only so much information to be found about a player who had appeared so infrequently. It wasn’t like they could dig up old Blue Rain matches from Seasons 1 and 2 a decade ago, could they? The Glory competitive scene was tied to the game itself. Skills and tactics were constantly updating, becoming stronger and more extravagant. Ten years ago, levels were capped at 50, 55, there were fewer skills, and current playstyles had evolved so much since then. And with the Level 75 update, with the addition of Level 75 equipment and skills, even data from just a few years ago had to be scrutinized with care. Some playstyles had grown extinct because of new equipment or skills.

About Wei Chen and Windward Formation, there were only two phrases in Li Xun’s mind.

Dirty playing. Cast range.

Yes, dirty playing!

This Warlock was truly very dirty. This sort of match attitude couldn’t be erased by new strategies or skills. It was like how Fang Rui was still dirty even after changing classes to Qi Master.

It was really hard to imagine. The old Swoksaar was actually a dirty-playing Warlock? Li Xun tried to compare Wei Chen and the current user of Swoksaar, Yu Wenzhou, and instantly shuddered.

The difference was too great!

Li Xun thought.

In general, when teams searched for someone to inherit such an important character, they would try and choose someone with a similar style. That way, the team’s overall style wouldn’t have to change much, and the transition would be smoother. But Blue Rain, this… Li Xun honestly had no idea how they’d transitioned. Wasn’t there another person between Wei Chen and Yu Wenzhou at the time?

Was that person both dirty-playing and hand-crippled?

To Li Xun, Season 3 was a long time ago, and he wasn’t a Blue Rain fan, so he didn’t really know much about this extra Swoksaar user hidden in Blue Rain’s history. Even Wei Chen - if he hadn’t jumped back into the spotlight by joining Happy, how many young players would know about this old senior from Blue Rain?

Against dirty-playing guy, he couldn’t become overconfident. Especially since this guy had that massive cast range. Li Xun couldn’t let himself die without even managing to touch him.

Li Xun’s Assassin Ghost Lantern walked along the streets, quickly arriving at his planned destination. And then Ghost Lantern jumped up, displaying the Assassin’s special passive skill Air Jump. Jumping with his left and then right foot, he easily hopped atop this small two-story building.

The roof was spacious. Although it wasn’t very high up, the angle and field of view from this position were really quite good. From here, many regions on this map could be examined. As soon as Ghost Lantern jumped on here, Li Xun found where Windward Formation was.

He’s taking the middle road!

Li Xun silently watched for a while, judging what Wei Chen’s plans were.

Windward Formation was using the most standard method of strategic movement, heading toward the map’s center in a roundabout way, finding the target so a sneak attack could be launched from the side or back.

But too bad, I’m over here!

Li Xun’s Ghost Lantern crouched on the rooftop, and he continued to silently study Windward Formation as the character appeared and disappeared. Finally, Li Xun made his judgment and Ghost Lantern gently jumped from the roof, directly landing upon another two-story rooftop across the street, and then directly headed toward where Windward Formation was.

”Hm? How come I don’t see anyone, the little guy’s hiding?” At this time, a message from Wei Chen arrived in the chat.

Dirty playing, as expected!

Dirty-playing guys always liked saying a few words in the chat to rile up the opponent. Speaking of this style, Blue Rain had really succeeded in carrying it on. But Huang Shaotian’s method was entirely different from the dirty-playing style of riling up. His method was just straight-up bombing the opponent to exhaustion!

What in the world had happened in Blue Rain? How had the senior’s talents been passed on like this? No more dirty plays, but the trash talking became so frenzied.

As Li Xun controlled Ghost Lantern forward, he actually grew quite curious about Blue Rain’s past. He even made the decision, next time he met Blue Rain, he had to ask about their story. As for whatever Wei Chen said after that, apologies, but he didn’t look! It was just trash talk, who wanted to see it?

Li Xun chose to ignore it, and his gaze didn’t even wander toward the chat window.

Ghost Lantern continued to move, and finally, Windward Formation’s sneaky-looking posture clearly appeared in front of him. Ghost Lantern rolled onto the ground. From now on, his movements needed to be even more careful.

How should he go about this? If he directly went up and used a Life-Risking Strike, could that take care of him?

As soon as he thought of this possibility, Li Xun instantly became fired up.