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Shining Cut! Charge! Colliding Stab!

Lord Grim used three movement skills back to back, attacking the three characters in a triangular formation.

All three players dodged. Not a single hit landed on any of them, but his attacks carved out a triangle deep into the sand.

Son of a bitch!

Tyranny felt astonished seeing the grooves in the sand. They hadn’t expected Ye Xiu to be able to find the key point to this map.

The sand dune was crumbling, and the sand was sliding downwards. However, Tyranny was also situated on the sand dune, yet their area was safe.

Why? How did he do it?

Ye Xiu didn’t know the details, but he clearly remembered that Tyranny’s two Gunners had started their assault with attacks towards the sand. In the beginning, he thought that their aim had been to lift the sand up to cover their movements, but now that he looked at it again, their attacks hadn’t been just to lift the sand up but to start the crumbling of the sand dune as well.

They used their attacks to create a hole in the surface of the sand to initiate the sinking of the sand. That was the idea that Ye Xiu was able to come up with at the moment, which was why he carved out that triangle.

In the blink of an eye, the triangle was erased by the sand. Ye Xiu could feel the movement of the sand underneath Lord Grim’s feet and confirmed his theory.

With the movement of the sand beginning to spread, Tyranny’s small safe harbor would soon be wiped away.

Tyranny knew that they couldn’t stay here much longer and began to retreat. However, at this moment, Bai Yanfei was startled by a realization.

His retreat path had been blocked by Lord Grim. In such a short amount of time, how many moves ahead had he planned? Cancelling Falling Light Blade to dodge Desert Dust’s attack, separating the three long-ranged Tyranny players while simultaneously destroying their safe zone, and also positioning himself such that he blocked off Bai Yanfei’s Rota.

Fortunately, Bai Yanfei wasn’t the only one who made the realization. Tyranny’s Zhang Xinjie, the strategist who refused to overlook even the smallest of details, caught on to Ye Xiu’s intentions.

Pray, Sacred Fire!

Bai Yanfei immediately understood, and Rota began to move.

Lord Grim moved forward to block him, when a burst of white flame leapt in front of his path.

Ye Xiu immediately had Lord Grim stop, but in this short instant, Rota was able to Teleport past Lord Grim.

Bang bang bang bang.

The ones who were able to escape first, Zhang Jiale and Qin Muyun, counterattacked, retreating while firing. However, the biggest threat came from behind.

Han Wenqing’s Desert Dust rushed straight for Lord Grim once again. Because he was moving with the sand, his speed was faster than before. As expected, since Tyranny had chosen this map, Tyranny seemed to be far more comfortable with the sand than Happy.

Boom boom boom!

But this time, before Desert Dust could reach Lord Grim, he heard an explosion. The sand in front of him had been blasted into the air, covering the sky. Even though it wouldn’t be able to stop him, it blocked his vision to a certain extent. No matter how brave Han Wenqing was, he didn’t dare get close to someone as crafty as Ye Xiu while blind.

Change directions!

Han Wenqing didn’t even try to approach the wave of sand to prevent Ye Xiu for using any underhanded tricks. When he turned around, he looked behind him and saw Su Mucheng’s Dancing Rain sliding down from the sand dune. The cover from the sandstorm didn’t differentiate between friend or foe. Once Su Mucheng’s Dancing Rain entered the sandstorm, Tyranny had lost her location as well. When she suddenly showed up in Han Wenqing’s view, she was already half way down from the sand dune.

No, it wasn’t just Su Mucheng.

Boundless Sea and Soft Mist. Fang Rui and Tang Rou were there as well.

Dragon Breaks the Ranks! Soft Mist raised her spear and charged forward. The sand swirled around the dragon as it flew towards Desert Dust. Not only had the sand not provided any resistance to the surging momentum of Dragon Breaks the Ranks, it had strengthened it.

On one end was Ye Xiu, who was hiding who knew what tricks behind the cover of the sand. On the other end was the powerful Dragon Breaks the Ranks. The two threats formed a pincer attack. Lord Grim’s position wasn’t just to seal off Rota’s retreat path. More importantly, he maintained a constant threat to Desert Dust. While the rest of Tyranny’s attention was on rescuing Bai Yanfei, Su Mucheng and Ye Xiu coordinated together to trap Han Wenqing.

Ye Xiu had simply picked a spot, yet it hid so many hidden motives. This was what it meant to be a top player!

But Han Wenqing was also a top player.

If there was no opening, then he simply had to make one. This sort of brute force method was his specialty.

Reinforced Iron Bones!

He moved while activating Reinforced Iron Bones. Desert Dust moved past the wall of sand, dodging Soft Mist’s Dragon Breaks the Ranks. But what did Lord Grim have in store for him?

Two hands stretched into the sand. In these hands was a dismantled Myriad Manifestations Umbrella, the Tonfa form.

Grab!

Han Wenqing was able to determine what it was immediately.

As expected, Ye Xiu had expected him to brute force his way out. He had also predicted correctly that he would use Reinforced Iron Bones to give himself Super Armor.

Grab skills ignored Super Armor.

Ye Xiu had predicted what Han Wenqing would do, but Han Wenqing had also predicted what Ye Xiu would do.

Stomach Kick!

Desert Dust kicked so fast that it was all just a blur to the audience. Then, they heard a “pa”. The Stomach Kick was fast enough to produce a sonic boom.

He had attacked later, but it was fast enough to arrive first.

However, it didn’t hit!

To be able to dodge such a fast kick, Ye Xiu must have predicted it.

Han Wenqing didn’t delay. The instant his Stomach Kick retracted, he kicked again.

Whirlwind Kick!

As he spun, he kicked up a bunch of sand.

His body had turned, but his head was still locked in the same direction. Han Wenqing was adjusting his line of sight as he used the move.

The Whirlwind Kick could be dodged, but the sand couldn’t be.

Crash…

Sand rained down smashing into Lord Grim, allowing Han Wenqing to see Lord Grim’s outline.

The Whirlwind Kick fell, and then another kick chased after that outline. The purpose of the Whirlwind Kick hadn’t been to attack the opponent, but to sweep up the sand.

Pa!

So many exchanges had happened in an instant. The kick should hit, but Han Wenqing immediately noticed that his kick had struck Lord Grim’s Myriad Manifestations Umbrella shield.

Nothing could be done. Ye Xiu was too familiar with him. Ye Xiu knew that he would use the kicked-up sand to attack. The attack had been too quick for him to dodge, but using his umbrella shield to block it wasn’t a problem.

Jump off the umbrella and then Eagle Stamp.

Han Wenqing instinctively wanted to use this move, but a thought suddenly flashed into his mind.

Wasn’t Ye Xiu able to predict what he would do because of his instinctive habits? Facing an opponent who knew him this well, it was only by doing something unexpected would he be able to give him a surprise.

But with this slight hesitation, Han Wenqing immediately noticed that the moment Desert Dust missed, Lord Grim’s Myriad Manifestations Umbrella had retracted.

A cold light flashed as a sword swung towards him.

It was only then did Han Wenqing realize that his Desert Dust was in a situation no different from being knocked up into the air.

It had only been an instant, yet in this instant, Han Wenqing had lost the initiative. He didn’t panic though. His Desert Dust straightened up in the air, Thousand Ton Drop!

His Reinforced Iron Bones was still active. With Thousand Ton Drop, no matter how powerful the attack, it wouldn’t be able to make his Desert Dust budge. Han Wenqing was prepared to take the sword slash. But when he saw the sword light spinning, Han Wenqing suddenly realized that something wasn’t right.

It didn’t deal much damage, but wherever the sword light passed, space itself seemed to warp, giving it a different type of strength. Because of the yellow sand, it wasn’t until it got close that Han Wenqing was able to recognize it. But it was already too late to react.

Spellblade skill, Wave Wheel Slasher!

Sword light cut apart the void. The spell waves formed a seal, locking the target in place. For Swordsman classes, whether or not you were a Spellblade, it was a must-learn skill to deal with Super Armor.

Facing a Swordsman, Han Wenqing would have been 100% on guard against it.

But because he was facing Ye Xiu, an unspecialized, in such a fast-paced fight, Han Wenqing had overlooked this possibility.

The difficulties of the unspecialized lay here. No matter how familiar he was with Ye Xiu, he wasn’t familiar with this class because of its uniqueness. The more experienced the player, the more the player relied on what possible options their opponent’s class had in a given situation. However, these sort of intuition didn’t work facing an unspecialized.

And Han Wenqing was an old rival of Ye Xiu and understood him incomparably well. However, he would instinctively think of him as a Battle Mage. He had to force himself to unlearn his habits against him because he wasn’t facing One Autumn Leaf. After that, he had to comb through what possible options an unspecialized had. But because each form of the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella could have a bonus skill added to it, in theory, it meant that apart from class advance skills, Ye Xiu had access to any skill in Glory. Han Wenqing wasn’t a robot. No matter how big-brained he was, how could he sort through so many options in an instant?

The unspecialized was indecipherable.

You had no experience against the class. Your intuition would fail you. The transformations that Lord Grim’s weapon had access to broke through the limits of what a player could think up. And because of the extremely fast-paced combat, there was simply no way to predict what skills an unspecialized might use. Even if he understood Ye Xiu’s style and his habits, he couldn’t pick out what Ye Xiu would do next. There were simply too many options to consider.

This familiarity became a burden. His familiarity made him instinctively react a certain way, which gave out an opening.

Han Wenqing had been trying hard to remind himself that he was no longer facing a Battle Mage.

But just telling himself that couldn’t stop the battle habits and intuition he had built up through eight years of rivalry. In a crisis, his instincts had been polished through many years of experience, and that made his skills incomprehensive.

“How difficult!” His evaluation from ten years before never felt closer today.