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Positioning.

Zhang Xinjie reminded everyone, and so everyone took a look at Lord Grim's position.　

Because the map cave was an enclosed space, the bird's eye view showed two layers. The cave ceiling was depicted as a translucent layer that overlapped with the ground underneath. For normal viewers, it was easy to get confused, but the pro players had no trouble distinguishing between the two layers. After finding Lord Grim's position through the bird's eye view of the map, everyone quickly realized what they should be paying attention to.

The dripstone surrounding Lord Grim. 

The pro players quickly understood the reason why Ye Xiu and Zhou Zekai had yet to encounter each other.

Luck was a part of it, but the foundation for this luck was purposefully constructed by Ye Xiu. Lord Grim had been taking advantage of the surrounding dripstone to hide himself. It wasn't as simple as just hiding behind a piece of dripstone. He was carefully keeping track of what sort of cover the surrounding dripstone could provide him. As a result, the surrounding ten units of dripstone formed a sort of net that blocked the enemy's vision. Lord Grim would always move towards the area in the net that provided him the most cover.

Under this protection, if Zhou Zekai wanted to find Lord Grim, his Cloud Piercer would need to fortuitously be in a few specific positions. However, what was more depressing for the viewers was that Ye Xiu clearly knew where these positions were, so he would constantly be adjusting his positioning.

After recognizing this point, Zhang Xinjie turned to look towards his teammate, Qin Muyun.

Qin Muyun understood his vice-captain's intent and slowly shook his head: "I wouldn't be able to do it."

Qin Muyun was a player with exceptional talent as positioning, but he didn't hesitate to reach this conclusion. He wasn't able to move around like Ye Xiu could in this map.

"This sort of positioning requires a lot of experience to do," Han Wenqing explained why Qin Muyun wasn't able to do it.

"What about you, captain?" Song Qiying asked.

Han Wenqing stared blankly for a moment before shaking his head helplessly: "I wouldn't be able to do it as meticulously as him."　

Experience. Han Wenqing didn't lack experience. Positioning was a fundamental part of Glory, and after so many years of playing Glory, his fundamentals couldn't be lacking either. Experience alone wasn't enough to do what Ye Xiu was doing though. Ye Xiu's positioning required careful calculations, and that wasn't Han Wenqing's strong point.

"What about you, Wang Jiexi?" Zhang Xinjie asked the person next to him.

"Hard to say," Wang Jiexi shook his head. He understood how Ye Xiu was positioning himself, but unless he was there himself, he couldn't be certain.

"There's no bird's eye view while playing," Wang Jiexi pointed out where the difficulty lay. This made many of the players, who thought that they could do it too, wake up from their glee.

"But so what if he can do it?" No one knew who asked the question, but there was no lack of spite in it. This person was right, though. So far, it hadn't seemed to amount to anything.

What was Ye Xiu planning?

They began trying to figure out Ye Xiu's intentions. However, they weren't the first to figure it out because they didn't know what the two teams had planned out before the match.

On the sidelines, Samsara's Jiang Botao noticed Ye Xiu's actions and quickly realized his goals.

Finish him off in a burst of energy!

Samsara's Zhou Zekai had come onto the stage with this goal in mind. Samsara wanted to try overwhelm Happy mentally.　

But Ye Xiu used this sort of evasive positioning to destroy their plans.

Three minutes. The two sides hadn't even crossed blows yet, but even if Zhou Zekai won in the end, the momentum that Samsara had wanted to ride all the way through the group arena had already been put to a stop.

Only the two opposing teams could understand the subtlety in Ye Xiu's actions. The current Happy looked calm and relaxed. As for Samsara? It was as if a knife had stabbed through their hearts, their spirits dampened.

"As expected of Ye Xiu." Jiang Botao had no choice but to accept the outcome. They had sent Zhou Zekai out first to put mental pressure onto Happy, but Ye Xiu had already dispelled it. Next, they would just have to wait and see how the battle would turn out.

Lord Grim continued to wander around, using the same positioning tactics. During these three minutes of avoiding, Ye Xiu became more and more familiar with the map, and Lord Grim began to move a lot faster. But for a moment, it didn't seem like he would be encountering Cloud Piercer any time soon.

Just when everyone was wondering how long this grind would last, they suddenly heard a gunshot.

Without any warning, Lord Grim raised his umbrella and fired a shot into the air.

The sound of the gunshot echoed through the cave. Zhou Zekai clearly heard it. Cloud Piercer stopped, turned around, and then headed towards the direction of the sound.

How precise!

The crowd cheered. The gunshot had broken through the previous silence, invigorating everyone's spirits again.　

Cloud Piercer was already moving toward the direction of the gunshot.　

Lord Grim didn't move though. He simply stood there, looking around.

Most people just thought that Ye Xiu was taking the initiative to lure Zhou Zekai here. Right now, he was looking around to find his target.　

They weren't wrong. Ye Xiu was indeed doing this, but there was an even deeper level.

With how Ye Xiu positioned himself, he knew exactly which spots Cloud Piercer could come from. As a result, when he looked around, he was only paying attention to these few spots. He was ready to attack the moment Cloud Piercer appeared.

Some of these spots were farther than others. The farthest one could be considered mid-range. Ye Xiu hadn't fired the gunshot at any random moment. He had specifically picked this location. At this position, when he and Zhou Zekai finally found each other, the two would be at a relatively close distance, which was more advantageous for his unspecialized.

These three minutes of avoiding Zhou Zekai hadn't just been to get rid of the psychological pressure from Samsara, but also to pull the snake from its hole and seize the initiative.

Cloud Piercer appeared!

Of the several possible spots, Cloud Piercer rushed out from one that was neither the farthest nor the closest.

Bang bang!

Two gunshots. Ye Xiu had carefully thought up plans for each of the several spots. As soon as he saw Cloud Piercer, he immediately attacked. After firing twice, Lord Grim rushed out. But suddenly, the glimpse of the gray windbreaker that he had seen disappeared from his sight....

Zhou Zekai had seen Lord Grim, but he didn't immediately attack. Cloud Piercer seemed to be in a hurry, quickly dashing past that spot. He had only appeared for an instant before disappearing.

Ye Xiu had tried to seize the initiative, but Cloud Piercer was unexpectedly already gone.