1603 Believe in the Power of Love

In the group arena, Happy finally established a clear lead for themselves. Lu Boyuan quietly left the stage. The Samsara fans in the stadium didn't blame him though. 

In this round, no matter who won or lost, it would be very easy to widen the gap between the two teams. This was something that any experienced Glory player would understand, simply due to the two player's classes. One was a Launcher, and the other was a Grappler. If an appropriate distance was maintained, the Grappler would simply have no way to land attacks on the Launcher; if the Grappler could close the distance and latch on to the Launcher, the Launcher wouldn't be able to put up a proper fight. 

Victory and defeat would be determined by the to-and-fro of controlling the distance. The resulting difference in health would definitely be influenced by the disparity in distance control between the two players, something decided by the uniqueness of their classes. 

In the end, the result really was determined by such logic. 

Samsara still had two players left. Would they be able to close the gap?

The audience gazed at Samsara's player bench, waiting for their fourth player to take the stage. 

Du Ming! 

Samsara's fourth player was Du Ming, meaning that one of their ace players, Sun Xiang, was set to come out as their fifth, a somewhat conservative arrangement. After Zhou Zekai was the first to take the stage, the one viewed as the second best in 1v1s, Sun Xiang, wasn't their third or fourth player, but instead their last. The purpose for this was already something that people had started to discuss as soon as the list of players for the group arena had first been broadcasted. 

But at this time, when Samsara had fallen behind, needing to win a two versus two and a half, having Du Ming go up first and Sun Xiang bringing up the rear seemed more stable. 

Conservative, but also stable. 

As Du Ming rose from the player benches while talking to his teammates, he couldn't help but cast a glance at Happy's player bench. 

But no matter how many times he swept his gaze across, Tang Rou still continued to single-mindedly watch the review of the previous round that was being played on the large TV screen. 

"What's the point in looking, it's not like anyone's looking back!" Someone on Samsara's side noticed Du Ming's wandering gaze and said. 

"Could she be avoiding me?" Du Ming said to himself. 

"You joker! Quickly get on stage!" Most of the Samsara players couldn't take it anymore. 

Du Ming raised his head, looking at the list of players for both teams displayed on the large screen. If he wanted to face off against Tang Rou, he had no choice but to fight till the very end! That meant that not only did he have to beat Su Mucheng, whose character was still at 59% health, he also had to beat their next player, Fang Rui…... 

He had to do his best! 

Du Ming silently clenched his fists, firmly walking towards the stage. 

"Is this why you kept suggesting that he play fourth?" Jiang Botao watched all of Du Ming's actions and asked the Cleric player, Fang Minghua. 

"Believe in the power of love!" Fang Minghua wore an experienced look on his face. As one of the few married players in the Glory Alliance, he felt that he had a particular authority on the topic. On top of that, most of the players in the community were still very young, and were always on the computer, meaning that most of them didn't even have a girlfriend. 

"At the very least... it's safe," Jiang Botao evidently didn't allow for this arrangement of players due to such a childish-sounding reason. More importantly, he believed that having Sun Xiang as the fifth player to bring up the rear was a more dependable decision. So in the end, Samsara's decision meant that they would bear witness to "the power of love". 

"Happy's group arena arrangements almost always seem to have Tang Rou as their anchor. By putting Du Ming as the fourth player, if he happens to directly run into Tang Rou, he will use everything he has to defeat her, to make her take note of his abilities. If he doesn't run into Tang Rou, then he will use everything he has to kill his way to this goal." Once again, Fang Minghua expounded on why he believed in this particular arrangement. 

"Brilliant," Jiang Botao nodded and said. 

Everyone else was completely speechless. Perhaps only their vice-captain would be able to accept all of these things without batting an eyelid! Everyone felt that Du Ming's looked extremely solemn and tragic as he walked onto the stage. What exactly was he fighting for? 

Du Ming walked onto the stage and entered his player booth. A new round began as the characters loaded in. 

Within Samsara, Du Ming could definitely be considered part of the main force, even though his fame wasn't as resounding as Zhou Zekai and the rest. That being said, in the recent few years, Samsara had invested more and more into their team, making remarkable improvements to all of their characters. Even his Blade Master, Moon-Luring Frost could now be counted as being mostly kitted out in Silver gear. The Lightsaber in his hands, Ice Shards, didn't have a high-class sounding name, but after repeated refinement, it was now considered to be one of "Glory's Top Ten Swords" by many players, so it was clearly exceptional. 

Deep breaths! 

Du Ming calmed himself. At this time, he couldn't afford to think too much about Tang Rou, who had yet to take the field. If he wanted to have a decisive battle with her, he still had to get past the next two obstacles. Now, he would concentrate and take out Su Mucheng first. 

Battle start! 

.

Du Ming's attitude was resolute. Moon-Luring Frost quickly set off, directly moving towards the center path. 

On Su Mucheng's side, Dancing Rain also didn't opt to take a roundabout way, and similarly headed for the centre. However, she knew that the center path had a stalactite running from top to bottom, which would block her view of the other side. As such, Dancing Rain strategically headed in a slightly slanted direction from the beginning, so that her view wouldn't be blocked by the stalactite. 

Advance! 

The distance between the two characters continued to shrink. 

Just when the respective players had advanced halfway, Du Ming's Moon-Luring Frost instead changed his direction, heading horizontally to the side. 

He didn't resolutely take the middle path, as everyone had expected. Once he had taken the middle path halfway, he suddenly started to take a roundabout route. 

The roundabout route wasn't that far away, but with the field of view from the strategic angle that Su Mucheng had Dancing Rain take, she wouldn't be able to notice Moon-Luring Frost's movement. 

With regards to using the stalagmites in this map, all of Samsara's players were extremely masterful. With the final path that Du Ming's Moon-Luring Frost took, instead of calling it a roundabout route, it was more like the strategic angle that Su Mucheng had taken, slightly offset from the centre. It was just that this slight slant made full use of the distributions of the stalactites. Obviously, this was a route that Samsara had researched to advance towards the center while still being able to conceal oneself. 

Su Mucheng's Dancing Rain reached the middle of the map and stopped moving. 

Seeing that her opponent hadn't appeared, that meant that he hadn't taken the middle path, or that he had hidden himself... 

Even though she didn't exactly know what trick Du Ming had pulled, after these few rounds, the way in which Samsara used the stalagmites in this map was something that an experienced player like Su Mucheng could already faintly infer. 

Instead of advancing, Su Mucheng had Dancing Rain use an Electronic Eye. Afterwards, Su Mucheng began advancing again, but she maintained an appropriate distance with each and every stalactite within her field of view. 

Her footsteps were so soft that the match was suddenly devoid of sound, as if someone had muted it. 

Through their omniscient point of view, the audience could see that both the characters were moving closer to each other, step by step. However, Dancing Rain maintaining a cautious distance from any stalagmite meant that Du Ming didn't have any opportunity to make a move. 

The Blade Master wasn't like the Grappler that required a zero-distance confrontation, but it still couldn't take a long-ranged fight. In reality, this match actually followed very similar logic to the previous one. 

What would happen next? Everyone held their breaths and watched on.