The Great Thief

Normally, the ice bolts didn’t slow, otherwise, mages would be too strong.

Unforgettable Maple’s ice bolts slowed because of his Magic Staff – Illusionary Rod. It was originally an exquisite Gold Magic Staff that had now been upgraded to Dark Gold.

The Illusionary Rod was dropped from the Scarlet Library on Nightmare Difficulty. The drop rate was so low that Lu Li didn’t even think about it when completing the First Clear.

Unforgettable Maple had only successfully upgraded the staff yesterday. This gave it a new effect which allowed him to shoot ice bolts that slowed for 60 seconds. Although they dealt relatively low damage, the high fire rate and the 60 second duration made it quite strong.

Of course, this assumed that the target wasn’t able to escape.

He had saved this effect until now because Lu Li had no other way to escape and even if he did, he would still be able to catch him. To him, Lu Li was no ordinary professional player.

Lu Li was constantly being hit by the ice bolts and his speed had been reduced by at least 30%. After struggling for a few steps, he activated the second special effect on his shoes.

Wirt’s Fake Leg, Instant Cast, leap eight yards forward or backward. 120 second cooldown.

Lu Li’s whole body shot towards Unforgettable Maple, shocking him so much that he almost dropped his Magic Staff.

Gouge!

After Lu Li stunned Unforgettable Maple, he grinned and circled around him.

The shocked Mage was still trying to wave his hand, but they weren’t responding to him.

Lu Li went into Stealth and casted Shadowstrike followed by Premeditation and Cheap Shot. He then casually strolled around the mage to make sure he didn’t have any more escape skills.

Now, Lu Li was sure that he didn’t have any left!

Unforgettable Maple had thought he was playing a game of cat and mouse, that he was depleting Lu Li’s escape skills while conserving his own.

However, all that had happened was according to Lu Li’s plan. He wanted to Unforgettable Maple to leave his team and fight a 1 v 1 with him, and had deliberately exposed himself to two of Unforgettable Maple’s crowd-control skills.

The audience was mesmerized by this whole process, but they didn’t know that Lu Li had been faking his condition.

No one knew, until now, that Lu Li was actually feeling perfectly fine.

After getting hit by this crowd-control, Unforgettable Maple hesitated. He didn’t want to call for help as his teammates were fighting a fierce battle of their own.

However, it was only then that he realized that Lu Li had asked his teammates to charge not because he needed rescuing, but to stop Unforgettable Maple’s teammates from helping him. He could now only pray that Lu Li’s rotation of skills wasn’t enough to kill him.

The moment Unforgettable Maple recovered from the stun, Lu Li cast Deep Defile (an effect from the Shard of the Defiler) onto him.

Deep Defile. Instant Cast. Reduces the target’s Armor and Movespeed by 25% for 6 seconds. 360 second cooldown.

This applied 6 seconds of slow and armor pierce, and Unforgettable Maple resented it. He now knew the despair and suffering of being slowed. To make matters even worse, Lu Li’s attacks also often came with silences or interruptions.

In order to maintain his sustained attack, Lu Li finally activated his cloak.

For a short time, he became immune to magic effects which naturally included crowd-control effects.

When a Mage was that close to a Thief, all they could do was block and try to get as far away as possible. However, seeing that his HP was higher than Lu Li’s gave him hope. He just needed to wait for his flash’s cooldown to reset.

As for Lu Li, it didn’t matter whether he could kill Unforgettable Maple. He was just thinking about dealing as much damage as possible.

It was only when Unforgettable Maple was about to cast Polymorph that Lu Li stopped and gave him a Kick.

”I’d like to see who would die first,” Unforgettable Maple said as he started attacking Lu Li alongside his Water Elemental.

After this long battle, neither of them had particularly much HP left.

”I can heal. Can you?” Lu Li grinned as he activated Pamela’s necklace and instantly recovered 20% of his HP.

Only a Dark Gold equipment could regenerate that much HP.

”Damn you, you cheater,” Unforgettable Maple cursed in his heart before waving his hands and flashing away from Lu Li.

Now that his flash’s cooldown had reset, it was easier for him to escape. He intended to keep his distance from Lu Li and use his Water Elemental as an obstacle.

He was going to let the Water Elemental reduce Lu Li’s HP while he waited for his crowd-control cooldowns…

Suddenly, he felt like something wasn’t quite right. He looked back at Lu Li to see that he was also moving away.

Could it be that he was going to find a place to regenerate all of his HP and start over? If that were the case, then all their efforts would be wasted.

But wait! Why was Unforgettable Maple still bleeding? He had suddenly lost 100 HP which shocked him, and he didn’t have much HP left.

Lu Li smiled at him and quickly left the attack range of the Water Elemental.

Arugal’s Nephew’s Gift. Instant Cast. Curse the target so that it loses 100HP every 5 seconds for 300 seconds. 30 minute cooldown.

This was a special effect on the exquisite pants that the Son of Arugal had dropped.

Unforgettable Maple looked back at his teammates. They were too far away and Lu Li probably wasn’t going to let him go back for support. He thought about all the skills and effects he could use and sadly resolved to sitting and eating bread to survive.

But was Lu Li going to give him the opportunity to have any bread?

No, of course not. Unforgettable Maple looked at Lu Li angrily to see him take out a strong Dark Gold crossbow.

It was difficult for Thieves and Warriors to get high damage on crossbows, but Lu Li didn’t need damage. He just needed to shoot Unforgettable Maple occasionally to stop him from eating bread.

He had decided on dragging out Unforgettable Maple’s death.

Unforgettable Maple didn’t hesitate either; he quickly gave himself a shield and started retreating.

Lu Li continued to shoot at his back, slowly chipping away at his HP and triggering the crossbow’s special effect.

The fighting at the bridge was quite intense. Although the four Majin Temple players weren’t as strong as Moonlight and the others, they defended the bridge fiercely and stayed in formation. They had been playing very well.

Both sides had a healer and were able to tank high amounts of damage. They were on almost equal footing.

”You won’t be able to reach your team; you still have 70 yards. You might as well stay with me,” Lu Li teased.

”You’re really annoying,” Unforgettable Maple said. He was trying to dodge Lu Li’s shots while also healing himself as he ran towards his team. However, he didn’t want to directly ask for his healer’s support, otherwise, the line they were holding might collapse.

”Hey, you were so arrogant before. I should get a chance too,” Lu Li said, trying to infuriate him with this psychological attack.

”You knew from the very beginning,” Unforgettable Maple coldly grunted.

”Oh, were you thinking about these dark circles? I put them on for fun.” Lu Li almost burst into laughter.

The Majin Temple players soon found out about their situation. Their Boss was being chased around by the monster, Lu Li, even though it was not too long ago that he seemed to have the upper hand.

With Lu Li sticking behind him and berating him, Unforgettable Maple unfortunately never returned to the rest of his teammates.

After losing a player, Lu Li collapsed onto the rest of Majin Temple at the bridge. Although he didn’t survive until the end, he had already won a significant advantage for his team which allowed Moonlight to defeat their opponents and win the match.

Peerless City, Gale Legion, Seventh Heaven and Ruling Sword had made it into the semi-finals.