The King's Avatar

No holes!

Lord Grim had been trapped, but Ye Xiu's intuition told him that he could only evaluate Zhang Jiale's performance as such.

Ye Xiu had been around throughout Zhang Jiale's professional career. He had watched Hundred Blossom's Berserker and Spitfire rise to fame to Blood and Blossoms dominance in the Glory scene to Sun Zheping's retirement to Zhang Jiale's bitter walk alone. Ye Xiu had been there the entire time, crossing hands with Zhang Jiale at every step.

His thoughts were the same as Sun Zheping's: the current Zhang Jiale was the best that he had ever been because Zhang Jiale had re-found his footing. The years of potential that had been bottled up the entire time were finally being put on display.

Ye Xiu couldn't find any openings, but that didn't mean he could just keeping waiting for one to come.

Zhang Jiale wasn't letting out fireworks for Ye Xiu to enjoy. The bullets fired by Dazzling Hundred Blossoms might not be heavy, but all of them dealt damage. The space that Lord Grim could maneuver around in was getting smaller and smaller, and his injuries were getting heavier and heavier.

Charge!

Lord Grim's Myriad Manifestations Umbrella suddenly opened. It seemed like he was planning on tanking the hits to escape from this predicament, but how could Zhang Jiale not have considered such a simple method like tanking the hits with a shield? As soon as Zhang Jiale saw the umbrella open, he immediately responded.

A grenade was thrown at the edges of the umbrella's canvas. Then, with a bullet, the grenade was knocked over the umbrella, directly into Lord Grim's line of sight.

There was no time for Ye Xiu to react. The grenade exploded.

Remote Control Grenade.

It had less power than the low-level Impact Grenade, but the user could blow up the grenade manually, naturally making it much easier to set off the explosion at a precise timing. The grenade had leapt over the umbrella shield and exploded. Although the damage dealt was low, it had been a direct hit. The knockback sent Lord Grim sliding back.

With Lord Grim swaying from the blow, the umbrella shield no longer fully covered him. Zhang Jiale seized the openings and fired all sorts of bullets.　

Boom boom boom!

Light and smoke intertwined, forming a dazzling picture of a hundred flowers blossoming.

Lord Grim had been swallowed by the brilliant light. All that could be seen was a blurry figure. Zhang Jiale didn't relax and continued to throw out attacks at Lord Grim up until even that blur could no longer be seen.

The attacks suddenly stopped.

Zhang Jiale realized that Lord Grim's health wasn't going down.

How is that possible?

There had been no place for him to dodge or block. Lord Grim had been cornered.

The artillery barrage stopped. The light dissipated. All that remained were remnant flames and smoke. In this enclosed space, the thick smoke would take awhile to disperse, but he was able to see what he needed to see. A hole had appeared in that corner of the room.

Zhang Jiale instantly understood what had transpired.

The walls were sturdy, but no indestructible. It just needed enough attacks. Ye Xiu had made a feint, baiting Zhang Jiale to launch a fierce counterattack. By borrowing the artillery barrage and the cover of the dazzling light, he broke through the sturdy wall and escaped.

Lord Grim had taken a considerable amount of damage to pull this off; only 19% of his health remained. However, in what seemed to be an inescapable position, Ye Xiu had been able to force an opening.　

He really is hard to deal with!

Zhang Jiale couldn't remember just how many times he had thought this in the past.

Zhi!

A door from the other end opened.

The other side of the wall was the neighboring room. Ye Xiu acted decisively, immediately launching a counterattack. Zhang Jiale had Dazzling Hundred Blossoms turn towards that entrance and started attacking wildly. As soon as a figure could be seen, the light engulfed him. However, the figure appeared shorter than usual was knocked down a lot faster. More importantly, Lord Grim's health hadn't gone down.

Zhang Jiale realized that the situation wasn't good. He quickly turned back, but Lord Grim had already closed the distance. Lord Grim had dashed out from that broken hole. As for what had pushed open the door, it was a Goblin. The Goblin had distracted Zhang Jiale for just an instant.

But an instant was enough. Lord Grim had left behind a shadow as he came through the hole in the wall. He had used Shadow Clone Technique, his fastest movement option, to instantly close the distance.

Dazzling Hundred Blossoms was knocked into the air. The Myriad Manifestations Umbrella transformed in a blur as the Unspecialized Blitz began.　

Blood splattered into the air.

Close combat resulted in this sort of bloody fight.　

Dazzling Hundred Blossom's health slid downwards rapidly. He hadn't taken any damage previously, so everyone thought that Zhang Jiale would be able to end this match without losing much health, evening up the disadvantage left by Qin Muyun's defeat.

But in the end, he hadn't been able to take care of Ye Xiu in one wave.

19%. The remaining health on Lord Grim came back to bite him.

Would he be swept away by Lord Grim's combo?

Everyone started worrying for Zhang Jiale.

Ye Xiu's unspecialized had done this too many times in the regular season. Just one bite, and he would never let go.　　

Zhang Jiale obviously understood this point. Ye Xiu had undoubtedly been their main focus point in their research on Happy. He was an old rival that Team Tyranny was incomparably familiar with, but he just had to switch classes. It had truly been a headache for them.　　

A class change meant a change in playstyle. However, a person's experience, intuition, knowledge, habits, etc. wouldn't change.　　

Team Tyranny's Han Wenqin had fought with Ye Xiu for ten years.

Zhang Jiale and Lin Jinyan were the Alliance's second generation of players.

The players, who were most familiar with Ye Xiu and had fought against Ye Xiu the most times, were coincidentally all from Team Tyranny.

The complexity of the unspecialized class put them in a bind just the same as everyone else, but in terms of grasping Ye Xiu's thoughts, no one else had more of an advantage than them.

Time would take away things, but also leave them with things.　　

Take me out in one combo?

Zhang Jiale was the only one, apart from Ye Xiu, who had experienced four finals. No one had as much experience at the apex of Glory as much as these two had. Zhang Jiale had gotten second place all four times. The experience had tempered his heart even further.

He had experienced the greatest setback four times. It was just a single up-and-down in one small part of a match. For him, it was insignificant.

The second he had been launched into the air, he began resisting. While in the air, Dazzling Hundred Blossoms kept throwing down grenades as if Lord Grim was a piggy bank.

No one had expected Zhang Jiale to actually launch such a powerful counterattack from a disadvantaged airborne state. There were a few grenades that Ye Xiu had no choice but to deal with, but most of them couldn't be dealt with if he wanted to keep his offense going.

Grenades poured from the sky.　　

Amidst the blooming light, Lord Grim tenaciously moved.　　

This sort of powerful counterattack didn't force him back. To think that he would insist on continuing his attacks.

Everyone was astonished.

Tyranny's Han Wenqing, who had never known the word "retreat", had backed down in front of Ye Xiu today. But now, it was Ye Xiu who bravely stood his ground in this situation like Han Wenqing would.

A trade!

The pro players watching the match such as Yu Wenzhou, Huang Shaotian, Sun Zheping all saw through it.　　

Apart from the grenades that would disrupt his offense, Ye Xiu would do his best to dodge the grenades while dealing as much damage as possible to Dazzling Hundred Blossoms.

A trade was a standard group arena method.

What Ye Xiu seeked wasn't a victory this round, but to pave the road to victory for his next teammate.

"Isn't he just trying to make things easier for himself?" Huang Shaotian messaged Yu Wenzhou.

"Maybe..." Yu Wenzhou replied.

Some of the viewers watching were hoping to see Zhang Jiale break open the situation. Others were hoping to see Ye Xiu end the fight in one wave. However, the experts all knew that this round would end in a trade.

Finally, Lord Grim fell. Dazzling Hundred Blossoms had 61% of his health left.

Victory?

In the group arena, it was a bit difficult to say who truly won.

Ye Xiu had lost, but he had taken out 39% of his opponent's health, keeping Happy in the lead.

Zhang Jiale had won, but compared to the expectations towards him when he had cornered Lord Grim, the outcome was somewhat disappointing.

Pan Lin and Li Yibo usually gave a summary or a few comments after a round ended, but right now, the two were sidetracking the main topic.

This individual round seemed brilliant and straightforward. Everything had been directly observed by them, but just talking about those points made the two feel they weren't being thorough enough for some reason. What were they missing? The two were puzzled.

As Ye Xiu walked down from the stage, the crowd clapped in approval. This outcome was acceptable, especially that last comeback. It was a bit unfortunate that he wasn't able to take down Zhang Jiale in one wave, but facing these tyrants, hoping for a 1v2 was too much!　　

Who would Happy field next?

The audience applauded as they fixed their gaze on the big screen. They wanted to know who Happy's next player was.　

Mo Fan!

The name appeared.　　

Mo Fan, known as the Godslayer, had a stable position in Happy's group arena line-up. And his style was recognized by many as very suitable for the group arena.

After his name appeared on the big screen, Mo Fan got up and headed towards the stage. Along the way, he walked past Ye Xiu, but none of them said anything. They just nodded to express "I see you".

Pan Lin and Li yibo wasn't sure how to summarize the previous round, so they shifted the subject to the next round.　　

"The Godslayer facing the 61% health Zhang Jiale." Pan Lin said thoughtfully. Though their starting health wasn't even, if Mo Fan won, another name would be added to the Godslayer's list of kills.