The King's Return Chapter 111

translator: Oyen  editor: Ciel

The battles this morning featured the six groups of the guqin, jade flute, long whip, double ring, bone fan, and dagger. In the afternoon, the schedule featured the black umbrellas, poison masters, iron claw, dual swords, broadsword, and mechanisms. Finally, the longsword and short sword battles would be in the evening.

Due to the numbers of online players being largest on the weekends, the game officials were only given two days for the semi-finals, in order to capture the largest audience possible.

After the first stage of the group battles on Saturday, the points would be counted. The lowest two ranking members of each group would be eliminated directly, while the first two entered the second round, which would be held the next day. The top four players of each sect would be decided in the evening, and the finals to be held the following weekend.

While everyone was discussing the origin of the Frost Moon team, a message popped up on the screen of Xiao Han's computer—— the round robin match of Yongye City's dagger flow, group B, is about to begin. Please enter the competition room in ten minutes!

Xiao Han's account had already been logged in; upon receiving the prompt, he immediately led the account Thousand Miles Ice to the designated room.

The other three contestants in group B were Telecom district 2's "Assassin", Telecom district 3's "Endless Imprisonment", and Netcom district 2's "Flowing Stream". Xiao Han did not know these three IDs, and did not see them in the qualifying matches. Still, he had checked their winning rates in the audition stage, all of which were above 95%; obviously, all of them were rare experts.

The referee read out the list of competition rules. After the four players had confirmed their understanding, the system began dividing them into pairs—— Thousand Miles Ice VS Flowing Stream; Assassin VS Endless Imprisonment. Both sides would fight simultaneously.

After the grouping, both Thousand Miles Ice and Flowing Stream were transported directly to the arena.

At the same time, on the official live broadcast platform, the voice of the female commentator could be heard. "A warm welcome back to our audience friends, I am commentator Xiao You! We have just watched the match between the two great gods of Xuanbing Palace, both from the Frost Moon guild in Telecom district 3. Now, we will be broadcasting a match from group B of Yongye City's dagger flow, between "Thousand Miles Ice" of Telecom district 1 and "Flowing Stream" of Netcom district 2."

Seeing this, Shen He shouted in excitement. "Ah ah ah, god Han has won the lottery! This game will be broadcasted live by the officials!!"

There were too many games in the group stage occurring simultaneously, and the number of commentators were limited, making it impossible to broadcast every match. The officials had declared that all the videos would be released eventually, but the live broadcasts would be randomly selected. Coincidentally, Xiao Han's match happened to be picked by the director, and was going to be broadcasted live.

Seeing this, Qin Mo immediately reminded Xiao Han, "Don't type."

Xiao Han was stunned. Although he didn't know the reason behind that instruction, he would obey whatever Xiao Mo said. Immediately, he deleted the words that he had typed into the chat box, but had not yet sent out—— "Thanks for going easy on me."

Leaning over, Qin Mo peeked at the screen, and sighed in relief. "It's a good thing you didn't send it out, otherwise, your vest would have been ripped off immediately."

"Why?" Xiao Han asked.

Qin Mo could only smile. "You were about to use the phrase 'Thanks for going easy on me', but this phrase should only be used after winning the game. The match hasn't even started, yet you were already going to use this phrase; aren't you just proving to everyone that you don't know what it means?"

Realising his mistake, Xiao Han nodded. "I see. Before the match, I should say "please advise", and save the thanks for after, right?"

Qin Mo nodded. “Yes. Get ready, it's about to begin.”

Xiao Han immediately pressed the preparation key, causing a 10-second countdown prompt popped up on the screen.

Flowing Stream was a female account, but it was unknown whether the person behind the computer was male or female. Many players from Netcom district 2 flooded the screen with "good luck, sister Stream!", "get rid of that Thousand Miles Ice!", and "the goddess will definitely win!", which provoked the Telecom district players into firing back. "Great god Ice!" "Ice will triumph for sure!" In particular, the Mojue support group led by Little Medicine Fairy launched an overwhelming barrage of cheering bombs, instantly covering the live broadcast screen.

Female commentator Xiao Yu's voice was broadcasted again. "It seems that both players are very popular. Nan, do you know the origin of these two people?"

"I know Thousand Miles Ice," the male commentator with the ID of Nan declared strongly. "He's the great god of Mojue guild in Telecom district 1, and part of the first team to clear the 'High Mountains and River' dungeon. However, I don't know much about Flowing Stream, because my account is in Telecom district 1, and I have never been to Netcom district 2."

"She belongs to the Graceful Beauty guild in Netcom district 2," Xiao You informed. "The origins of this guild are rather mysterious; it is said that there are many local tyrants in the guild."

"Is that right?" Nan Fang questioned. "Then, can I open a small account to hug the thighs of these local tyrants…?"

While the two commentators chatted freely, the countdown ended, successfully loading the arena map. Commentator Xiao You immediately returned to the topic. "Alright, the game is about to begin. Today's random map seems to be the Chamber of Secrets in Yongye City!"

Yongye City was a mysterious sect located in the deep valleys of southern Xinjiang. The underground castle was dimly lit, and its interior was full of traps. The sect's disciples were mostly dressed in black clothes, allowing them to hide completely in the darkness, and kill while invisible. 

The Chamber of Secrets map was just a section of the scenes selected from the palace of Yongye City sect. Divided into three small rooms, left, middle, and right, two doors connected the three spaces. The refresh positions of the two players were set at opposite ends of the rooms, one left and one right.

Flowing Stream was a slim female assassin with a high ponytail, black leather boots, and a pair of daggers that shone with a dazzling silver light. While Thousand Miles Ice was dressed in the same black robes, the weapons in his hands glowed a bloody red, causing the viewers to feel frightened.

"Let's have a look at the equipment on both sides," Nan introduced. "Thousand Miles Ice's weapon, 'Twilight', increases his critical hit rate, as does most of the equipment on his body… unexpectedly, he has managed to stack his critical hit rate to over 80%! On the other hand, Flowing Stream's weapon, 'Crane's Cry', adds twenty health points, while the rest of her equipment adds 40% to both her critical hit rate, and her basic attack. From their stats, we can see that Thousand Miles Ice is going for the fast outbreak route, while Flowing Stream has gone for a more mainstream approach!"

"As a player who uses the same dagger flow," Xiao You questioned, "which of these two styles do you think is better?"

Nan thought about it for a few moments. "The critical hit rate of Thousand Miles Ice is very high, and his other attributes will be lowered correspondingly. This style of play requires one to seize opportunities well in order to kill the opponent. If they can't kill their opponent, the player will quickly fall into a passive state while their skills are on cooldown. On the other hand, Flowing Stream's attributes are relatively balanced. If you don't have confidence in your skills, I suggest that online game players adopt a more balanced distribution of points."

"Well said!" Xiao You exclaimed. "Let's continue to watch the game; we can see that both players have refreshed on the map, with Ice on the left side and Stream on the right."

The semi-finals were broadcasted live using a god's point of view, indicating that nothing would be hidden from the audience. However, because the games were held online, players were not required to enter a soundproof room at the competition venue. This gave contestants the opportunity to turn on a second computer at home and watch the live broadcast while playing the game, enabling them to find their opponent's position. In order to prevent players from cheating by watching the live broadcast, the officials cleverly delayed the live video footage by ten seconds, as compared to the real match.

Ten seconds were enough for an expert to break out a wave of damage and take away their opponent's residual blood, so watching the live video would affect their judgement. Naturally, Xiao Han didn't have time to spare on the video to find his opponent.

From his computer screen, Xiao Han had obviously started to fight his match, yet the broadcast was still showing the moment when the two players refreshed on the map. Too impatient to watch the delayed video, Qin Mo simply decided to move his stool behind Xiao Han to watch the game.

The Chamber of Secrets had three rooms, with both players refreshing on the opposite ends respectively. Xiao Han chose not to conceal himself and walked directly to the middle room. On the other hand, Flowing Stream hid herself with the sect's qinggong skill before rushing to the middle room, where she saw Thousand Miles Ice. Immediately, she activated her qinggong skill; flashing behind her opponent's back, she prepared to launch a series of critical strikes——Deadly Ice Silkworm!

The silver daggers in the hands of the female assassin were stabbed downward, right at Thousand Miles Ice's unprotected back!

However, it was almost like Xiao Han had a premonition, for he suddenly activated his skill——Thousand Lights Ghost Walk!

In a flash, the black-clothed assassin split into five shadows, all moving in different directions. Flowing Stream's big move hit a shadow, which immediately shattered and disappeared. However, there were still another four identical shadows; Thousand Miles Ice had long since entered invisibility by using Thousand Lights Ghost Walk.

Startled, Flowing Stream was about to activate her qinggong skill to flee. However, before she could move, a blood red light suddenly appeared before her—— Phantom Dreaming!

This was the dagger flow assassin's single control skill, which forced the opponent to enter a "dreaming" state, causing them to hallucinate. In fact, the control effect was quite similar to the "blindness" state caused by the poison masters of Fangcao Hall, only that "blindness" caused the vision to turn dark, while "dreaming" caused the player to see a field of flowers. At this time, a large flower bed appeared before Flowing Stream's eyes; she could no longer tell where she was, let alone where Thousand Miles Ice was.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Xiao Han immediately burst into a series of attacks– Thousand Lights Ghost Walk, Rainbow Through The Sun, Meteor!

Using Thousand Lights Ghost Walk, the four shadows were gathered in an instant, and made their way towards the randomly moving Flowing Stream, each with a dagger in hand. Thousand Miles Ice's main body finally appeared; throwing out his dagger, he activated the next two skills, stacking a ten-hit combo on Flowing Stream. Unable to resist this wave of pressure, Flowing Stream was immediately beaten to half blood!

Sensing that her opponent was behind her, Flowing Stream immediately opened her big moves, 'Golden Cicada Shell' and 'Shadowless Dragon', attempting to escape the bombardment by vanishing from sight.

Golden Cicada Shell could remove all negative states on the player, as well as move them to a designated location, while Shadowless Dragon enabled the player to turn invisible for ten seconds. However, if Shadowless Dragon was manually cancelled, not only would the cooldown of all skills be refreshed within three seconds, the player would also be able to deal double damage!

Golden Cicada Shell was generally used to get rid of an opponent's control, or to change positions instantly. Shadowless Dragon, on the other hand, was used to break out a large wave of damage; netizens jokingly named it "three seconds to heaven". During those three seconds, all skills would be refreshed, and the damage dealt was doubled. If your hand speed was fast enough, you could drop your opponent to residual blood in that time.

Flowing Stream vanished from Xiao Han's field of vision, but he was in no hurry. Instead, he opened the sect skill 'Darkness Valley', and quickly left the secret room in the middle.

Darkness Valley was a general qinggong skill of Yongye City, and could be used by players of both the dagger flow, and the iron claw flow. The first time this skill was used, the stealth effect would be triggered.

As a result, Thousand Miles Ice was also invisible, causing Flowing Stream to be unable to take advantage of Shadowless Dragon's outbreak effect—— because she couldn't find his location!

At the beginning of the game, she used Darkness Valley to hide behind Thousand Miles Ice, only for him to guess her train of thought and predict her position, launching a beautiful counterattack. This time, he saw her open a big move and opened Darkness Valley to hide, which was equal to using a simple sect qinggong skill to directly waste her Shadowless Dragon skill.

The longer she waited, the more panicked Flowing Stream became. The ten-second invisibility of Shadowless Dragon was about to come to an end; using this big move would have been in vain if she couldn't find Thousand Miles Ice soon.

Thinking of this, Flowing Stream grit her teeth and immediately rotated her camera, opening Rainbow Through The Sun directly behind her.

The first attack of Rainbow Through The Sun was to throw a dagger at the target, following a straight line. If the second and third attacks were connected quickly enough, players would be able to throw countless daggers and launch a fan-shaped group attack!

Flowing Stream played this combo of attacks on a whim, not knowing that she would be lucky enough to actually hit the invisible Thousand Miles Ice! Even more coincidentally, the third attack triggered a critical strike; adding on the double damage from the Shadowless Dragon skill, this attack managed to hit the opponent's health down to 60%!

An opportunity!

Her eyes widening in excitement, Flowing Stream immediately followed up with 'Meteor', flashing behind Thousand Miles Ice!

However, she did not manage to land more than a single hit. Thousand Miles Ice had backhanded her with a normal attack to interrupt her combo, before using 'Golden Cicada Shell' to quickly move away.

Flowing Stream naturally wanted to catch up, but the other party deliberately walked circles in the three secret rooms to drag out the time, causing the three seconds of doubled damage from Shadowless Dragon to come to an end.

At this time, Thousand Miles Ice's blood volume was at 40%, while Flowing Stream still had 45%.

At first glance, it seemed as though Thousand Miles Ice had fallen into a disadvantage, but he had more skills still available to be used!

At this moment, Thousand Miles Ice finally brought out his skill, 'Shadowless Dragon'!

The assassin in black suddenly vanished from everyone's view, disappearing like a ghost. Flowing Stream was terrified, because with this person's explosive power, the assistance of Shadowless Dragon's outbreak would cause her to be seckilled! Seeing that Thousand Miles Ice had turned invisible, she chose to run away with qinggong, only for the other player to appear before her after two steps.

How could he have moved so fast? She had intentionally kept a distance of about 10 metres from him, and turned around to escape with qinggong. How could he have appeared in front of her?

Flowing Stream was stupefied; by the time she regained her focus, it was too late.

——Thousand Lights Ghost Walk!

This skill had been used again; the figure that had appeared in front of her was actually a shadow!

Unfortunately, there were still four shadows behind her.

The siege of five shadows, along with the double damage effect of the Shadowless Dragon skill, caused her blood volume to instantly plummet, right down to 10%!

Then, Thousand Miles Ice himself appeared in front of her, and the bloodied dagger in his hands was easily pierced into her chest.

The sound of flesh being cut through echoed in her ear, and her screen immediately turned grey to signify her death.

——Thousands Miles Ice has killed Flowing Stream!

Flowing Stream stared at the grey screen in a daze. She hadn't expected to die so soon; not only was she far away from her opponent, she also ran away at a very fast speed with her qinggong skill. If it had been her, there was no guarantee she'd be able to catch her fleeing self. Therefore, Thousand Miles Ice directly opened Thousand Lights Ghost Walk to chase her with the shadows, because they could be moved freely within 20 meters range.

In other words, he had used this skill to teleport 20 meters.

After the shadows caught up with her, the following series of outputs took away all but 10% of her health, and the other party ended her life with a normal attack.

A normal attack would only reduce her blood volume by 5%, but with the buff from Shadowless Dragon, the damage would be doubled.

Even the skill damage could be counted accurately, without wasting a single drop of blue, allowing the opponent to be finished with a sharp and agile knife…

This person's awareness really was terrifying.

In the Mojue training room, Qin Mo couldn't help but offer Xiao Han praise. "Not bad, it was a beautiful win."

Shen He jumped around excitedly, screaming, "Great, god Han won!"

No one wanted to wait for the live broadcast, which was delayed by ten seconds, so they all gathered behind Xiao Han to watch the game.

Turning around, Xiao Han offered his teammates a smile. "Do you think I will lose?"

Everyone: "………………"

This sentence was simply too domineering, to the point where he would likely lose all his friends!

Yes, how could god Han possibly lose?

Chapter end