Li Cangyu eventually left behind Dark Reef, a choice that Kou Hongyi didn’t understand. Yu Bing was also confused. It was because Dark Reef was the hardest of the three maps.
There are countless black reefs that blocked the vision of the players and it was a difficult labyrinth of obstacles. Death racing refreshed the players at random spots, greatly increasing the difficulty of the game.
Li Cangyu selected the map and Captain Park Joonseo followed up with the list of players.
The list appeared and the audience clapped in a thunderous manner.
The lineup was too luxurious!
Park Joonseo’s angel summoner, Shim Yoocheol’s terran swordsman, Kim Yoonhee’s elf archer, Hwa Jeongyong’s angel white magician and Kim Changmin’s blood kin assassin!
The five players were all famous players on the world rankings.
Maybe it was because the previous friendly game that they lost to the Chinese team on Dark Reef caused many Korean players to be stunned. Park Joonseo directly sent an ace lineup to the semi-final stage against the Chinese team to gain back a bit of face. Still, sending such a luxurious lineup greatly surprised Li Cangyu.
The knockouts adopted the BO5 five games, three win system. If the strength of both sides was equal, they were likely to play five rounds. The number of national team members wasn’t enough to play five rounds so the league stipulated that all players could appear up to two times in the knockout stages, but they couldn’t play consecutively. There must be a game between them.
Park Joonseo sending such a strong lineup in the first game meant the five players could no longer play in the second game.
Despite this, the South Korean team had many masters. Apart from the five players, there were still several trump cards in the team. Park Joonseo’s move was understandable since it helped improve the morale of the whole team.
How should the Chinese team respond?
Should they also send an ace lineup to fight them head on? Or avoid it to lay the foundation for the next game?
Li Cangyu lowered his head and thought carefully.
He thought for a long time and the domestic audience rushed him. The live broadcast comments were going crazy. [What will Cat God choose?] [Fight with them head on!] [We should also send many great gods to kill the South Korean team!]
There were thousands of comments in the blink of an eye and with 10 seconds left on the countdown, Li Cangyu still hadn’t submitted the list.
Kou Hongyi couldn’t help feeling anxious. “Cat God submitted the lineup very fast in previous games but he is taking a long time today. It is obviously because the lineup sent by Park Joonseo was too unexpected. Still, the countdown is almost over. Cat God hasn’t decided yet?”
He just said this when the list submitted by Li Cangyu finally appeared on the big screen.
The domestic audience was almost scared to death by him.
If the commander was too slow to submit the lineup and exceeded the specified time, the system would randomly select players to participate in the game. Li Cangyu submitted the list at almost the same time the countdown ended. It was simply frightening since the players were almost randomly selected!
However, many viewers couldn’t understand the list he submitted after careful consideration.
—Tan Shitian, Cheng Wei, Zhuo Hang, Xiao Han and Qin Mo.
The youngest captain in the MIracle League brought four players who were less than 20 years old to face five super-powerful gods of the South Korean team. As soon as the lineup was released, the domestic audience widely wrote ellipsis.
[What does Cat God mean by this?] [Sending a weak horse to hit the strong one?] [Who said that our Captain Tan is weak? Captain Tan is the strongest among the younger generation of the league!] [Xiao Han, Qin Mo and Zhuo Hang are newcomers!]
The audience was worried and Kou Hongyi also didn’t understand. “Cough, objectively speaking, we don’t have an advantage with the lineup sent by Cat God.”
Yu Bing was very calm. “No one can guess Cat God’s thoughts until the last moment. I believe that he must have his reasons. We might be feeling restless but we should watch the game.”
There were a number of viewers who questioned the lineup but Li Cangyu had led the Chinese team all the way here and gained countless true love fans. Everyone decided to take a ‘believe in his decision’ attitude.
As Yu Bing said, It was hard to say if Li Cangyu’s decision was right or wrong since they never understood his tactical ideas. Five games might be played in the knockouts and there were restrictions on the number of times players could appear. Keeping people back was reasonable.
***
The commander on the Chinese side was naturally Tan Shitian. He might be carrying three newcomers under the age of 20 but his expression was very relaxed. He smiled and said, “Don’t be stressed. This is a rare opportunity to fight against world-class masters. Play well and cherish the opportunity given to you by Cat God.”
He patted Zhuo Hang’s shoulder and the latter nodded earnestly. “Rest assured!”
Qin Mo and Xiao Han glanced at each other before following Tan Shitian.
Cheng Wei sat in front of a computer and quickly tapped the keyboard. He said with excitement, “What are you afraid of? Isn’t Park Joonseo the best assistant? We’ll set fire and kill him later!”
The map countdown ended and both sides refreshed on the Dark Reef.
The game was from the player’s first perspective and this was a labyrinth of reefs, so the images in front of them were almost the same. The high black reefs blocked their view and it was difficult to determine where they were.
Fortunately, professional players could judge their position and their teammates’ position according to the coordinates of the mini-map. Tan Shitian glanced at the mini-map and made a decision. “Xiao Wei and Zhuo Hang come to meet me. Qin Mo and Xiao Han will enter stealth to find the other side.”
From a god’s perspective, the five Chinese players had refreshed in a quite scattered manner. Tan Shitian, Cheng Wei and Zhuo Hang were close in the southwest while Qin Mo and Xiao Han had refreshed in the northeast. Tan Shitian selected the nearest gathering location in order to avoid a single player being caught by the Korean team.
The Korean team was also very scattered and their distribution of people was exactly the opposite of the Chinese team. There were three people on the northeast and two in the southwest.
Park Joonseo also adopted a split-gathering approach. The audience saw players moving quickly and within half a minute, three people from the South Korean team gathered.
Qin Mo and Xiao Han were in an invisible state at this time. The two of them circumvented a huge reef only to see three players of the South Korean team—the angel summoner Park Joonseo, the terran swordsman Shim Yoocheol and the white magician Hwa Jeongyong.
Qin Mo instantly marked a location on the mini-map and typed on the team channel: [Three this way!]
Tan Shitian told them, “Understood. Don’t start first.”
Two against three was obviously unwise. Qin Mo and Xiao Han hadn’t planned to do anything but the surprising thing was that Park Joonseo suddenly cast a skill, Summon the Light God!
White light spread around his staff and a light goddess wearing a white angel costume appeared in the sky. As the goddess opened her eyes, the surrounding area became bright and white. Qin Mo and Xiao Han’s whereabouts were shown under the influence of the light god!
“Not good! Quickly retreat!” Qin Mo anxiously placed the retreat symbol. He rarely saw angel summoners in the domestic league and had ignored the fact that Park Joonseo summoning the light god could illuminate the surrounding area. This skill was very easy to use in a group battle. As long as the light god appeared, they would have no need to fear invisible enemies.
Park Joonseo summoned the light god to bright the area. Once Qin Mo and Xiao Han were revealed, Hwa Jeongyong immediately released the control skill, Holy Seal!
The female player was very aware and her reaction speed extremely fast. The moment the captain revealed the opponent’s position, she followed with the group control and almost seamlessly sealed Qin Mo and Xiao Han in place.
Park Joonseo followed with releasing the pet auxiliary skill, Light God’s Blessing!
The blessing instantly doubled the attack power of all teammates surrounded by the halo!
Shim Yoocheol and Hwa Jeongyong were no longer polite. The hand speed burst quickly and then instantly turned Qin Mo to a residual blood state.
Qin Mo crazily gave the retreat signal on the map. “Xiao Han, run!”
The meaning was quite obvious. He was going to sacrifice himself to let Xiao Han run away.
Xiao Han understood his intentions and was no longer polite. He immediately opened Combat Stealth and flexibly bypassed a reef. His traces were lost in seconds and this escape speed was worthy of his master Li Cangyu.
—First Blood!
The death prompt appeared on the big screen after Shim Yoocheol decisively killed QIn Mo with Breaking Bone Sword.
Xiao Han succeeded in escaping. He quickly circled to the other side of the map and avoided the range of Park Joonseo’s light god.
The Chinese team lost one head first and Xiao Han ran away thanks to Qin Mo. The result of the 2v3 northeast situation was decided while a 3v2 situation in the southwest reef was ongoing.
Zhuo Hang placed traps around the reef and revealed the invisible assassin of the Korean team.
“HIt them!” Tan Shitian unceremoniously ordered.
Cheng Wei used God’s Light and Voice of Combat, hitting the assassin Kim Changmin to half blood.
Kim Yoonhee saw her brother was hit and that the other side had three people. She didn’t hesitate to turn around and ran away with Flying Feather Steps.
Tan Shitian definitely wouldn’t let her go and chased her with Flying Feather Steps.
Kim Yoonhee was ranked in the top three on the world’s archers list while Tan Shitian was never on the list. The fact that he dared to chase Kim Yoonhee alone surprised many people.
Kou Hongyi wondered, “Captain Tan is very fierce. Does he want to kill Kim Yoonhee alone?”
Yu Bing declared calmly, “It is hard.”
Players of the same class would find it hard to kill each other solo unless the level gap between both sides was too wide. Tan Shitian killing Kim Yoonhee alone was almost impossible to accomplish. What did he mean by following Kim Yoonhee? It was better to stay and take care of the assassin first.
Many viewers expressed doubts but Tan Shitian confidently handed the assassin to Zhuo Hang and Cheng Wei to solve.
Zhuo Hang’s traps made it impossible for the assassin to escape and Cheng Wei’s various control skills meant it wasn’t difficult to kill the opponent. Sure enough, as Tan Shitian expected, the assassin faced Zhuo Hang and Cheng Wei and his blood plummeted. His life was soon extinguished.
The ratio of heads on both sides became 1:1.
Kim Yoonhee used Flying Feather Steps through the labyrinth and Tan Shitian chased her. Finally, Kim Yoonhee was just bypassing a reef when Tan Shitian found a chance. He aimed Quenching Arrow at her back!
The freezing effect triggered and Kim Yoonhee was frozen in place.
Tan Shitian decisively pulled the longbow and fired Shock Shot and Seize Life Shot!
Kim Yoonhee was hit to half blood before the frozen effect ended. She immediately returned tit for tat by firing Quenching Arrow and freezing Tan Shitian in place. Then she also hit Tan Shitian to half blood!
Kou Hongyi was excited. “This is really worthy of the top archers. They aren’t worse than the other person and even the amount of damage is almost the same!”
Kim Yoonhee saw that Tan Shitian’s freezing effect was lifted and used Flying Feather Steps around a reef. She obviously didn’t want to fight Tan Shitian but wanted to join her teammates as soon as possible.
The surprising thing was that the moment she passed a reef, she was greeted by the blood kin assassin’s cold blade.
It was Xiao Han!
The domestic audience finally realized that Tan Shitian chasing Kim Yoonhee was to force her to this corner of the reefs in order to let Xiao Han complete the kill!
Tan Shitian, the young captain’s foresight convinced the audience at this moment!