"Tianjing has fielded their mainstay assassin, Emily, a little miss hailing from the assassin aristocratic family, Assassin! Although she's young, it's rumoured that she has already completed the Assassin Family's assassin training! Furthermore, she had made a rather dazzling performance during the elimination rounds!" Ruo Zhi gave an introduction about Emily. "During Tianjing's match against Bella Dean, Emily did not appear on the stage. Perhaps it was due to the arrangements made for the strategies they employed, or perhaps it was to conceal her strength. However, there's no doubt that she's one of the pillars of Tianjing, other than Wang Zhong and Grai, who has always performed above average! This should be Tianjing's strongest counterattack with the exception of All Mouthy King being fielded; victory or defeat rests on this duel! Let us hope for a magical performance from her!"
Indeed, the Assassin Family was nothing in the face of the Zhao Family. However, when placed within this mysterious black horse squadron, it would more or less give a certain level of anticipation towards her performance. What's more, no one could be certain that Emily wasn't a trump card for Tianjing!
A male walked out from the Divine Dragon squadron's preparation area.
"The Divine Dragon Academy has also played an odd card, as they have fielded their mainstay ranged soldier, Zhao Zhancheng. Ranged soldier against assassin. This Divine Dragon Academy is starting to prepare their shaming of Tianjing! The Divine Dragon Academy using the initiative to suppress an assassin using the power of their ranged soldier, could this be considered as a form of suppression, brother Ruo?" Wind God asked with a smile.
"Looks like little Wind is especially knowledgeable about the Divine Dragon Academy." replied Ruo Zhi with a chuckle. " Although Zhao Zhancheng is a ranged soldier, he is an assassin by birth, and has a rather deep understanding towards assassins. Furthermore, he also possesses extremely powerful and potent movement skills and techniques. He is an extremely good representative of a successful occupation switcher. With his abundant experience in dealing with assassins, he even has the nickname of "assassin killer" within the Divine Dragon Academy. Using him to deal with Tianjing's Emily would be a rather appropriate counter. Naturally, an assassin would still possess the advantage when facing off against a ranged soldier. We can only wait and see how Emily will perform in the upcoming duel.
Tianjing's hope.
Two fiery red daggers appeared in Emily's hands.
Those were the runic daggers created specifically for her body and skills by vice dean Moore, with the blazing runic patterns on their surfaces being extremely prominent.
Wang Zhong had previously mentioned that she would have to learn how not to rely on external aids in order to be a true assassin. Therefore, despite already receiving these daggers upon starting her studies at Tianjing Academy, she had never used them before. That was the case even during the most difficult of times while undergoing her family's special training.
Finally, this was the moment that they should have their first taste of blood!
Victory? Or defeat? Would it be the radiance from achieving victory, or would it be the dark abyss from walking into despair?
The entire arena turned rather silent, as all of the Tianjing supporters stared anxiously towards the stage, both within the arena and on Skylink.
Both parties were already at their starting positions, with their expressions being rather calm and silent. A feeling akin to the calm before a storm permeated throughout the arena, while the fiery red daggers and the Chasing Wind Arrows gleamed with a chilling glow, illuminating the stage with their devilish radiance!
Ding!
The duel had begun!
In a flash, Emily had already disappeared from her original position!
There were countless textbook examples of fights between an assassin and a ranged soldier. Unless there was too great of a disparity in strength, the fight would definitely be a battle of distance.
Emily's instantaneous movement speed was so astonishingly quick, her instantaneous disappearance actually gave people an impression of elegance that one would expect from an S rank assassin, which caused their eyes to light up.
However, although the large screens weren't able to display the instant when she had made her move, she clearly wasn't able to mask herself from Zhao Zhancheng's senses.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh...
It was common knowledge that a bow and arrow ranged soldier was known to be a long-range shooter with outstanding trajectory control, and with strong firepower that could be coupled with one's control of Soul Power. However, there was absolutely no correlation between their occupation and their firing rate.
Not only did a bow have a slow drawing speed, even the arrow's flying speed was also slow. After all, it would travel in a parabola. Unlike a crossbow or bullets shot out from hot weapons, it was difficult to raise the speed of an arrow's flight.
However, Zhao Zhancheng's arrows had caused people's perceptions of archers to shake upon seeing his bow drawing speed, which was astonishingly quick. There were many cases where the body of his bow had yet to whip back into its undrawn form after firing an arrow, before being notched once again. In an instant, ten successive arrows had been fired out!
Perfect arrow trajectories instantly obstructed all of Emily's available paths for advancement.
Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang!
With just a slight halt in her movements, Soul Power circulated through her fiery red daggers. Whether it was Soul Power transmission pathways or amplification, specialized runic weapons could accomplish them easily with just a single thought. This allowed her to smash all of the arrows that were sealing her movement paths.
Emily's rushing momentum did not drop. However, in the next instant, Zhao Zhancheng's bow had already started to shoot out successive arrows. One after another, the arrows appeared just like locusts that blotted the sky out as they travelled in their parabolic trajectories, surrounding Emily in a flash! At the same moment, Zhao Zhancheng's feet had also started to move. Unleashing a confusing set of feet movements as he travelled quickly across the stage, his speed was unexpectedly not one bit inferior to Emily's!
In a flash, the two on the stage had turned into silhouettes, with arrows flying in the air like swarms of locusts. A battle focused on obstruction, movements and counter-movements had instantly switched to a close-ranged fight!
Close-ranged combat was the combat style that swayed the audience's emotions most easily, and was the best at creating heart-stopping moments for the audience. The distance between the two combatants was constantly changing, while being broadcasted live on the large screens, showing different points of view of the match.
The movements of the two were extremely quick, with their continuous movements keeping the distance between them to remain around 50 metres. Emily was unable to break through, while Zhao Zhancheng's arrows were unable to injure her.
Exhaustion, pressure. The two switched back and forth between offence and defence, ending in a deadlock.
Both the arena and Skylink were extremely quiet, and whether it was the Tianjing supporters or the Divine Dragon Academy supporters, everyone had forgotten to make any noise. Instead, they were focusing all of their attention to the duel that could very well decide Tianjing's life or death in this match.
It had to be said that the standard Emily had displayed so far had a rather considerable difference as compared to the other members in Tianjing's main lineup. It could be said that after her solid foundation had been stimulated, Emily had been advancing by leaps and bounds every single day, and this could seen just by her taking action. Although Barran had won a duel in the CHF, he had won in an extremely "inelegant" and emotional manner, it couldn't be considered as a high standard in combat prowess. However, everyone could see the training system employed by aristocratic families present in Emily's actions.
However, it was exactly this sliver of hope that had already caused the hearts of the Tianjing fans to be lodged at their throats.
Under ordinary circumstances, everyone's emotions might have been slowly whittled down while viewing a battle like this. In fact, such a battle could allow them to sit back and enjoy for quite a while. However, at this moment, this feeling of being on a knife-edge had frankly brought everyone to the brink of madness.
"Emily's performance truly is astonishing! Be it the strength and vision she had to block the arrows raining down from the sky, or her outstanding movements, she indeed is above average in these aspects. She is constantly finding opportunities to decrease the distance, though it looks like she is facing some difficulty in doing so. Zhao Zhancheng is already a master at obstructing movement via his arrow shots, not becoming flustered or forceful, but continuing his obstruction as per usual. This kind of pure fundamental output with not one bit of fanciness is the hardest to deal with. If he chooses to engage head-on, he would definitely be bogged down by his opponent's dashing speed. However, if he chooses to evade, he will definitely give up on obstructing his opponent's movements. As for Emily, she's currently having quite a headache dealing with him. Under the suppression of the arrows, her speed has been reduced by 30% at the very least. On the contrary, I feel that Zhao Zhancheng's current movement speed is even faster than her. With this duel already crossing the 2-minute mark, the distance between the two has remained at around 50 metres or so, with no one being able to widen or narrow it. Zhao Zhancheng is using the kiting technique of ranged soldiers to its fullest effect!"
Just when Ruo Zhi's words rang out, Emily's speed suddenly increased!
She had researched on her opponent, the so-called "assassin killer" Zhao Zhancheng. Relying on his assassin background to achieve outstanding movement speeds, quick and strange long-range shooting as well as hard to judge parabolic arrow trajectories, he had felled innumerable assassins via his kiting. It was this confidence he had in himself that was the opportunity that Emily was seeking!
All of a sudden, flames started to sprout out from Emily's body, while her speed received a massive boost! The understanding and usage of special abilities were varied when used by different occupations. What Emily needed was to the fire's boost to her speed!