Chapter 93   – That Wasn’t An Intentional Loss

Spectators, even the commentator and the honored guest, all thought that Excellent Era, would easily defeat their low-moraled opponents with their momentum from their imposing 1v3. But who knew that once the match started, Team 301 Degrees showed an extremely energetic and positive look. When the match started, the guild leader Yang Cong’s Scene Killer took the initiative to storm towards Team Excellent Era.

“Wow, what spirit! It’s probably because he found that losing three times in a row was too embarrassing, right?” The Internet Cafe spectators all poked fun at them causing the whole room to roar with laughter.

Even the commentator Pan Lin had a similar guess: “Oh? 301 opened with such energy! Coach Li, do you think it’s because they want to take back the face they lost last match?”

“Yeah, this is a possibility. After all, the skill level and characters between everyone in the Professional Alliance are all very close. Situations like Sun Xiang’s 1v3 are extremely rare. If I remember correctly, from the first season up until today, this has only happened twice, right?” As an honored guest, Li Yibo was still quite dedicated to his work and had a few statistics prepared.

“Yeah, once was by Huang Shaotian’s Troubling Rain.” Pan Lin said.

“The other was by Han Wenqing’s Desert Dust.” Li Yibo said.

“However, these two times were against weak teams. Team 301 Degrees are still relatively strong. This is probably the reason they can’t accept it.” Pan Lin said.

“Hey, let’s look at this match! Right now, both sides are directly clashing face to face. It looks like this match will be decided quickly.” Li Yibo said.

“Right, the player leading the charge on Excellent Era’s side is Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf. What type of opening attack is he going to use on his opponents this time?”

“Oh…….what……Yang Cong’s Scene Killer isn’t going to attack One Autumn Leaf face to face. They’re all scattering.”

“It looks like they’re getting ready to go around One Autumn Leaf!” Li Yibo added.

“This….if the five are scattered, no matter how skilled Sun Xiang is, there’s no way he can block these five players at the same time!” Pan Lin said.

“It’s a team competition, no? You can never count on one person to win it.” Li Yibo said.

“Yeah, Team Excellent Era’s other players are all getting ready to confront their opponents. Oh, what? They’re running now?” Pan Lin was astonished.

“I don’t understand what 301’s planning to do!” Li Yibo was also puzzled.

“Nice! Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf has finally tangled with an opponent. Let’s see how long his opponent can hold. In theory, there’s no one on 301 can contest with Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf one on one.” Pan Lin said.

“301’s players should be coming back to save him! If someone is killed off in the beginning of the match, then it’ll make things very difficult for them.” Li Yibo said.

“I understand 301! It looks like they’re not attaching any importance to the strength of Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf.” Pan Lin said.

“Wait a second!” Pan Lin suddenly shouted, “Who is One Autumn Leaf facing?”

It was quite troublesome spectating the team battle. The characters were all in a mess and often changed positions. It was often difficult to tell who was who. When the battle intensified and those flashy skills flew about everywhere, it became even harder to distinguish between different players.

“This……it seems like……” Li Yibo was also trying hard to identify the player.

“It’s Tide!!!” Pan Lin’s words sounded like a scream. He held back a “D*MN” with great difficulty. “D*MN”, this sort of everyday life phrase, wasn’t usually seen as a very vulgar word. However, in this sort of broadcast program, it definitely had to cared about. If Pan Lin used it once on this program, then there would be a lot of criticism.

Hearing this, Li Yibo was also speechless. All of the spectators were all completely speechless too.

Tide, “Grind King” Xu Bin’s character.

“Did we make a mistake? It wasn’t One Autumn Leaf who went to tangle with Tide, but the other way around?” Pan Lin said.

After all, Pan Lin was only a commentator so he didn’t really care. However, Li Yibo was an honored guest who represented power and prestige. Him admitting to his mistake would make it seem like he had lost a lot of face. As a result, he immediately started “evading the subject” and after randomly saying a “Yeah”, he followed: “This Xu Bin really is unusual. There are very few players in the Professional Alliance who use Knights, that type of solely defensive class! He could probably be considered the most outstanding among them.”

“But isn’t it hard to display this type of class’s strength in a PVP setting, Coach Li?” Pan Lin smoothly picked up the topic.

“Correct…..” Li Yibo finally brought back a bit of his power and prestige.

“Right now, Xu Bin’s Tide is fighting Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf. Yang Cong’s Scene Killer has also avoided being tangled with three of Excellent Era’s players. His target…… His target is Dancing Rain, Su Mucheng’s Dancing Rain. Who would have thought! So 301 has placed Dancing Rain as their number one target?”

“This…..” Li Yibo was clearly quite puzzled. Whether it was towards determining skills or analyzing tactics, he felt that they were becoming harder and harder for him. This sort of situation intensified year after year. In every match, he would always come across a few awkward moments where he had to use his evasion tactics to resolve them.

Fortunately, he saved some trouble this time because the match was so intense. There was simply no time for him to reply to Pan Lin’s stream of questions. He immediately said the following commentary: “Beautiful! Yang Cong’s Scene Killer turned two times beautifully in the air to dodge Dancing Rain’s two shots. He lands and rolls, a Shining Cut!!!! He perfectly dodged another shot. He’s closed in. He’s closed in! Dancing Rain’s about to be in his range!!”

“Oh? Su Mucheng’s reactions are very quick. She hops and uses Aerial Fire to fly backwards!”

“Wow, Yang Cong’s Scene Killer is even faster! Diving Arrow….. Dancing Rain’s been stepped on. It’ll be troublesome for her this time. What about Excellent Era’s players? Wow, they’ve all been restrained. No one can come over and help. Su Mucheng’s in a dangerous position!”

“Brilliant!! That backwards leap was too beautiful, right? Coach Li?” Pan Lin shouted.

“That’s right! He just happened to dodge the knock-up knee from Su Mucheng’s BBQ. We can see Yang Cong’s sturdy basics from this backwards leap! Viewers who like Glory……”

“Dancing Rain also leaps backwards!!” In such an intense battle, Li Yibo still wanted to give the viewers a lesson, but Pan Lin heartlessly interrupted his commentating, “Open fire! Dancing Rain finally used Aerial Fire to fly backwards.”

“Dodged!! Dodged again!!! Even with such a short distance between them, Yang Cong’s Scene Killer was still able to dodge it.”

“Shadow Move and Swift Run!! Glory’s quickest movement skill on the ground. Its speed surpasses Aerial Fire, and Scene Killer instantly closed the gap with Dancing Rain. Dancing Rain still can’t break away from him!” Pan Lin continuously gasped. Happy Internet Cafe, on the other hand, was completely silent. They had originally thought that Excellent Era would utterly destroy Team 301. Who knew that such a situation would unfold.

Currently, even the normal players, who weren’t listening to the commentating or expert analysis, could tell that 301 had the absolute advantage. Excellent Era’s five player team had been split into three parts.

“Grind King” Xu Bin’s Tide was wrapped around Sun Xiang’s One Autumn Leaf.

Gao Jie and 301’s other two players were fighting Excellent Era’s three players in a 3v3.

For the moment, it was difficult to see what the outcome would be in the 3v3. But the worst situation was in the final split: Yang Cong’s Scene Killer versus Su Mucheng’s Dancing Rain. Su Mucheng was the true target 301 wanted to isolate. Dancing Rain was also the first target they wanted to kill off. Possessing the longest firing range, the Launcher wasn’t like the Sharpshooter, which had several close combat skills. Dealing with an Assassin’s close combat attacks would be extremely difficult. It would also be impossible to break away from.

“This…..this…..how could it be like this!!” Seeing her idol in such a predicament, Chen Guo was the most worried in the Internet Cafe. She couldn’t help but tightly grip onto Ye Xiu and discuss with him.

“301 clearly understood Sun Xiang and One Autumn Leaf’s strength. They had never looked down on him from the start.” Ye Xiu said.

“What?”

“With Sun Xiang and One Autumn Leaf overseeing the group competition, they knew that they had a very small chance of winning, so they simply gave up on the group competition.” Ye Xiu said.

“So you’re saying that they had intentionally lost the previous group competition?” Chen Guo was astonished.

“They didn’t intentionally lose. They gave it up.” Ye Xiu corrected Chen Guo, “This is one option as an overall tactic. Them losing the group competition was already arranged by them. The first round’s Yang Cong plays delicately and quickly. When he fought with Sun Xiang, he effortlessly brought up Sun Xiang’s hand speed to excite Sun Xiang. Afterwards, the second player lost extremely quickly. This stirred up Sun Xiang’s arrogance. As for the third round’s Xu Bin, he made Sun Xiang, who was flushed with the success from the previous two rounds, want to quickly make him fall. In this round, his hand speed exceeded his hand speed when he fought with Yang Cong. However, Xu Bin displayed his strength as the “Grind King” making Sun Xiang keep up his extremely quick hand speed. In the end, he also wasn’t Sun Xiang’s opponent and lost. But after the 1v3, Sun Xiang’s state of mind and hand speed reached the peak.”

“So what?” Chen Guo didn’t really understand.

“His hand speed’s already gone out of control.” Ye Xiu said.

“Hand speed’s gone out of control?”

“He’s unknowingly been caught in his opponent’s trap. To put it simply, he’s already in way over his head.” Ye Xiu said.

“What…..what then?”

“There are a lot of possibilities. To say the least, his excessive excitement will mess up his coordination with his other teammates. He had just recently joined Team Excellent Era, so his synergy with the other members isn’t that good yet. Him being excited to this degree is already fatal. The team competition has never been decided by a single player. It has always depended on the team’s strength. 301’s current tactic is to isolate Su Mucheng and put her Dancing Rain as the priority target. But seeing this arrangement, it looks like the first target they isolated was Sun Xiang. But if we were to rank 301’s priority targets, he would probably be last.”

“Why?”

“All in all, his strength is tyrannical. If Xu Bing continues to grind him down, then under such a violent hand speed, it looks to me that his hands will cramp up. Although 301’s team captain is Yang Cong, a lot of their tactics are actually done with Xu Bin as the focus. This is a team supported by two core members.” Ye Xiu said, “For both of their two strongest core members to appear in the group competition, do you still think that they ‘intentionally lost’?”