1484 Faster at Finding Spots

What is he going to do?

Those who understood the change felt more nervous than Ye Xiu. Pan Lin and Li Yibo were even more so. The two wished this wasn't a live stream. They wanted to press pause and then give a detailed analysis of the change for the audience to hear, but unfortunately, they couldn't. It was a match where a myriad of changes could happen in an instant.

Hua!

Without any trace of Negative Nine Degrees to be found, for a moment, Ye Xiu had Lord Grim raise his Myriad Manifestations Umbrella.

Hide-and-seek?

Maybe it looked like that, but it was a hide-and-seek deathmatch. The goal of the game wasn't to find the opponent, but to kill the opponent.

After losing sight of Negative Nine Degrees, Ye Xiu's response was to lift his umbrella to be on guard against any sudden ambushes from Negative Nine Degrees. Then, Ye Xiu quickly recalled where Negative Nine Degrees had been when his Lord Grim had fallen to the ground with Collapsing Mountain.

Next, he tried to predict where Negative Nine Degrees could be.

For Negative Nine Degrees to vanish, he obviously had to have moved, which meant that he first had to pick a spot.

Team Happy had chosen this map. How could Ye Xiu not be familiar with this map? He didn't need to look around. He could deduce the optimal position in his head.

Charge!

Lord Grim held the umbrella shield above his head as he dashed towards a direction.　

But at this moment, a pitch-black gun reached out from the other side and aimed towards Lord Grim.

Everyone thought that Lord Grim would be hit from behind by the bullet, but then, he suddenly stopped.

Lord Grim cancelled Charge and turned around. Light flashed. 　

Bang!

Sparks flew out from that pitch-black gun. Qin Muyun had put in the inputs. It was too late for him to stop. However, between pressing the trigger and Lord Grim turning around, one of them came first. Ye Xiu had somehow known that Negative Nine Degrees would be here before the gunshot rang. Had he looked over here before?

The broadcast director checked a replay, but he found nothing.

Lord Grim had never looked towards Negative Nine Degrees' position.

How had he known?

Everyone looked at one another. Li Yibo didn't know, but Pan Lin had thrown the question to him already.

He didn't answer for now. Lord Grim stopped abruptly, turned around, and then flickered towards Negative Nine Degrees with a Shining Cut.

It was true that Sharpshooters had the strongest close combat capabilities among Gunner classes, but given a choice, very few Sharpshooters would choose to fight at a close range. Gun Fu wasn't an easy technique to perform. Without this technique, just their few Taijutsu skills alone were nothing worthy of praise.

So when Qin Muyun saw Lord Grim heading towards him, his first thought was to retreat!

Bang bang bang bang!　　

Gunshots continued to ring. Negative Nine Degrees leaped backwards and open fired. Bullets sprayed out from his dual guns, the recoil helping to push Negative Nine Degrees back. In this enclosed area, even if the bullets missed Lord Grim, they would hit other objects in the room. The wall, tables, and all sorts of ornaments were shattered by the bullets.

Lord Grim was unscathed though.

Lord Grim drew a beautiful arc across where he moved, traversing through the rain of bullets. Although Negative Nine Degrees' Aerial Gun technique allowed him to move fast, it couldn't compare to an actual movement skill. The distance between the two characters was slowly erased step by step.

Seven steps.

Six steps.

Five steps.

Four steps.

The bullets suddenly formed a net that flew towards Lord Grim. Negative Nine Degrees had also stopped retreating. His movements seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, but he would constantly maintain an angle that he could attack from. The distance between the two was subtly kept under control.

Four Step Gun Fu!

Those who knew what was what instantly recognized it. It could be considered a part of the Gun Fu technique. The number of steps was a way to look at a player's mastery over the technique. Zhou Zekai's Three Step Gun Fu was something no other player in Glory had achieved. It was a realm that only he had reached. The other pro Sharpshooters hovered around four steps. If they were feeling good, they could reach three and half steps. If they weren't, four or even four and a half steps could be riddled with mistakes.

Gun Fu wasn't a survival technique for when opponents got close. It was an offensive technique for Sharpshooters. Qin Muyun's main role in Team Tyranny wasn't as an attacker. His main responsibilities were to restrict his opponents. Gun Fu could occasionally be seen from him, but it never drew too much attention.

But right now, Four Step Gun Fu... ah!

The viewers didn't even have time to appreciate it, when Negative Nine Degrees suddenly stepped forward. Bang bang bang! He continued to exert pressure onto Lord Grim, but the distance between them was... three steps!

Three Step Gun Fu?

Everyone was astonished. Qin Muyun, whose existence in the team seemed so weak, was actually able to perform what up until now only Zhou Zekai could do?

But before the viewers could appreciate this peak Three Step Gun Fu, Negative Nine Degrees jumped back, pulling the distance from three steps to five steps.

This...

Some players might not see anything strange, but the skilled players, especially the Sharpshooters, were very surprised.

Gun Fu was about moving in and out, but that didn't mean going from three steps to five steps to three steps. Moving in and out was a way to describe a position, which the user could move in to attack or move out to retreat.

The number of steps was defined as how many steps it took to move both in and out. Qin Muyun had just performed a Three Step Gun Fu, but in the blink of an eye, it turned into Five Step Gun Fu... there was nothing inherently wrong with this sort of change, but how long had Ye Xiu and Qin Muyun been fighting for? Four steps to three steps to five steps, wasn't he changing it too much? Was his Gun Fu not stable?

There were too many questions, and the two most worried people among the audience were Pan Lin and Li Yibo, who needed to explain it to their friends watching. Li Yibo seemed to have a vague idea, but he wasn't confident in it. Taking advantage of the intensity of the match, he decided not to talk about it. Instead, he and Pan Lin listed out what skills the two players were using.

After five steps was seven steps!

Seven steps was somewhat far. Gun Fu combined gunfire with the Sharpshooter's several kicking skills. At a distance of seven steps, the majority of a Sharpshooter's close combat threat was out of the picture. At this point, he was probably planning on breaking away from using Gun Fu and running away, right?

The audience focused their eyes on Lord Grim.

The other side was getting ready to run, what will he do?

Lord Grim made movements, but it was simply to attack. He didn't give chase. Ye Xiu let Negative Nine Degrees reach seven steps away.

Qin Muyun felt a shiver down his spine.　　

Was he seen through?

Seven steps was bait to lure Lord Grim forward. However, Ye Xiu didn't move. Lord Grim aimed his attacks towards a very specific direction. It was to counter what Qin Muyun would have done if the bait had succeeded.

He really did see through me!

Such a specific direction of attack let Qin Muyun make a firm decision.

Bang bang bang, gunfire continued to sound. Lord Grim didn't give chase, so Qin Muyun followed along and had Negative Nine Degrees begin to retreat. He had already figured out what route he wanted to take. Even though he wasn't very familiar with this map, he was exceptional at picking spots, which also meant that he was exceptional at adapting to all sorts of maps.

But then, Lord Grim decided to move.

As soon as Qin Muyun gave away his intent, Ye Xiu acted.　

Slide Kick!

Lord Grim slid across the ground, the bullets flying past him, as he headed towards Negative Nine Degrees.

Qin Muyun immediately had Negative Nine Degrees adjust by lowering his aim. He predicted where Lord Grim would slide to and attacked.

Bang bang bang bang.

The glossy marble ground became riddled with holes.　　

Lord Grim had suddenly jumped.　　

While he had been sliding across the ground, he sprung up into the air just as Negative Nine Degrees adjusted his aim.

Lord Grim had a gun too!

The tip of his Myriad Manifestions Umbrella opened and aimed at Negative Nine Degrees.　　

Bang bang!

Bullets shot out.　　

However, the Myriad Manifestation's gun form was a Rifle, and Lord Grim didn't have the class advancement skill "Gun Proficiency". Lord Grim could not fire rapidly like Sharpshooters using normal attacks. Lord Grim only shot out two bullets, seemingly negligible out of all the other bullets flying through the air.

But Qin Muyun didn't neglect them.

Lord Grim jumped, the muzzle of his gun gleaming in the light. Qin Muyun immediately had Negative Nine Degrees roll, while also adjusting his aim, pointing his gun towards the sky.

A bright fiery radiance flashed where Lord Grim was.

Flying Meteor!

The Exorcist skill was an above Level 20 skill, which meant that Ye Xiu had chosen to put this skill onto his Myriad Manifestations Umbrella.　　

This skill had probably been used before Lord Grim had fired those two shots. Those two shots were bait to lure Qin Muyun into dodging. Before Negative Nine Degrees could press the trigger, the Flying Meteor had already descended.　　

Boom!

A sea of fire swallowed the area. This time, Qin Muyun didn't have time to dodge. The Flying Meteor had been timed too precisely.

"But the attack only landed because of Qin Muyun's skill in picking the optimal spot and moving there." Huang Shaotian received a message from Yu Wenzhou.

Yes! These top experts understood this reasoning.

Positioning was originally Qin Muyun's strongest point. However, Ye Xiu took advantage of that strength.

It was true that Qin Muyun could quickly find the most optimal position and move there precisely, but because he always made the optimal choice, it meant that he lacked mix-ups.

If Ye Xiu could figure out what that optimal choice was, he could accurately predict where Qin Muyun would move to.　　

That sounded simple, but it wasn't something anyone could do. Positioning was Qin Muyun's speciality, which meant that he was better and faster than others at figuring out what the optimal position was at any given moment.

But since Ye Xiu could keep up with his pace, it meant that Ye Xiu was no worse than Qin Muyun in terms of positioning. It could even be said that he could find the right spots faster than Qin Muyun could!