The King's Return Chapter 115

translator: Oyen  editor: Ciel

At 10:00am on Saturday, countless netizens entered the official live broadcast room in Peerless Jianghu to wait for the live broadcast of the final round. Due to the small number of games, the officials decided to broadcast every single one. The first match was from the Zhuge Family mechanism flow, Drunken River VS Green Jadeite Bowl.

Shen He had already made preparations in the competition room. The competition officially began at 10:00am. After the referee read out the rules of the competition, he asked both players to roll a dice, one after the other. The one with the largest number of points would be able to select the first map. As a result, Drunken River threw 10 points, while Green Jadeite Bowl reached 86 points, so the other side chose first.

Xu Sizhe immediately submitted the map—— Stone Forest.

This map was once selected by Qin Mo in the summoner selection arena of Dragon Song club. Xu Sizhe had used the stone pillar obstacles to block Shen He's movement. Back then, Shen He's movement skills were not as good as Xu Sizhe's, allowing the other party to use a series of outbreak to kill Shen He. It was also the only match among the three in which Xu Sizhe managed to defeat Shen He.

His intention in choosing 'Stone Forest' in the finals was obvious—— he wanted to defeat Shen He again on this very same map!

Shen He was no longer the rookie who had come from the online game; this targeted map selection to mock him didn't affect his mood at all. During this period of time, Shen He had trained with Qin Mo at the Dragon Song club extensively, and his movement skills had definitely improved. Even if he once lost to Xu Sizhe on this Stone Forest map, Shen He had full confidence that he could win this game!

When the two sides were ready, the referee announced the start of the game. Both players were transported to the field together, with a ten-second countdown until the map refreshed.

In the live broadcast room, Xiao You began to introduce the equipment configuration of both contestants to the audience. "Drunken River comes from the Mojue guild, and carries the weapon 'Exquisite Orb', which reduces the cooldown of his skills by 20%. The rest of his equipment adds another 30% to cooldown reduction, while his other stats are quite balanced, which seems to follow the relatively high-end control field cooldown flow method among summoners. On the other hand, Green Jadeite Bowl is from Netcom district 2's Graceful Beauty guild. His weapon is the 'Black Jade Treasure Box' which adds critical strike rat, as does most of his equipment. It seems as though he's taking the route of pet outbreak!"

Nan followed up smoothly, "Both equipment have their advantages and disadvantages. However, the map of the first game is Stone Forest, which has extremely dense obstacles that pose restrictions to the cooldown reduction flow. From this, it seems that Green Jadeite Bowl has made a very targeted selection."

While the map was being introduced in the live broadcast room, the field had successfully been loaded.

The Stone Forest map was made of many stone pillars arranged in a dense and disorganised manner, forcing contestants to move around the stone pillars. The spawn points were at the lower left corner and the upper right corner of the Stone Forest respectively.

As soon as the match started, Drunken River ran into the stone forest; the scene of a short shota bouncing through the cracks in the stone with a large box on his back was both cute and funny, as opposed to Green Jadeite Bowl who was modelled after an adult man. Carrying the Black Jade Treasure Box, the adult summoner also quickly flashed into the stone forest. From the god's point of view, the distance between both contestants was gradually getting closer.

Both of them reached the center of the map. At this very moment, Shen He suddenly summoned a mechanical blood cow behind a stone pillar, while he swaggered around it to a relatively open space in the middle. Sure enough, Xu Sizhe's summoner also happened to be here. Seeing Drunken River standing in front of him, Xu Sizhe's brow wrinkled, and his hands moved quickly over the keyboard, continuously summoning a large wave of mechanical rats to ferociously bite Drunken River!

Drunken River quickly moved away from the mechanical rats, but was soon bitten and stacked with three layers of bleeding. Xu Sizhe was very happy and immediately summoned two mechanical snakes to surround him on both sides, simultaneously calling out four mechanical chariots before exploding them with a large 'boom'. This explosion immediately covered the little summoner with dust and it was estimated that if this attack continued, Shen He would lose at least half his blood if he didn't die…

However, what shocked Xu Sizhe the most was that after the explosion, Drunken River was still in a state of full blood!

He soon understood that Shen He had resisted this wave of damage with the help of his mechanical blood cow.

Qin Mo, who was watching the game from behind him, also felt that Shen He's play was very clever. He deliberately placed the mechanical blood cow behind a stone pillar and blocked it from Xu Sizhe's sight; taking advantage of this man's desire to kill him immediately, the blood cow's protective skill to take on all damage for its master was used to eliminate Xu Sizhe's explosive combo.

Then, Shen He immediately counterattacked without hesitation!

A large wave of mechanical rats was summoned to bite the opponent, two mechanical snakes to set Green Jadeite Bowl in place, followed by the explosion of four mechanical chariots!

——This series of moves was exactly the same as Xu Sizhe's just now!

He had obviously learned from watching Xu Sizhe just now; this imitation skill was really infuriating.

The terrain of the Stone Forest map was complex; if the mechanical chariots surrounded the opponent in a relatively wide place in the middle of the map, the attack would be unavoidable. Shen He found that Xu Sizhe's play was actually very good, and so he imitated it, using two mechanical snakes to set Xu Sizhe in place, before blowing him up with four chariots. The chariots struck in succession, forcing Xu Sizhe's blood volume to drop to 65%.

Because Shen He's equipment did not add much to his attack power, the damage caused by this set of combos was only 35%. However, he took a short time to finish this wave of damage, and only consumed a little blue.

The teenager in front of the computer frowned even more. Without grabbing the advantage, Xu Sizhe was immediately counterattacked by the other size. In the end, his left hand quickly tapped on the keyboard, and opened up a mechanical puppet—— a young man with a black mechanical box on his back who looked exactly like him appeared in his location, and Green Jadeite Bowl disappeared instantly.

Shen He stopped at once. Because Green Jadeite Bowl's blue had dropped, he must have summoned a pet. Shen He immediately realised that this was a mechanical puppet!

Realising this, Shen He wanted to flee the battlefield with qinggong, but Xu Sizhe's movement skills were really good. In just a few seconds, he had actually used qinggong to move around several stone pillars, arriving behind Shen He!

——Mechanical Horse!

A mechanical horse was twice the size of the summoner, and Drunken River had a height that was shorter than average. In the end, the mechanical horse summoned by Xu Sizhe was almost four times larger than him. Once the huge mechanical horse appeared, it would have the negative effect of 'fear' on all enemies in the area. Drunken River was inflicted with this status, and could not move or use any skills.

Xu Sizhe took advantage of this opportunity to attack at a rapid speed, even launching an airstrike by mechanical hawks to lower Drunken River's blood volume to 50%.

Shen He did not hesitate to open the mechanical puppet after the fear effect was over, leaving a little shota with a mechanism box on his back. He used the teleportation effect of the mechanical puppet to fly behind Xu Sizhe and hide in the stone forest.

Xu Sizhe had once been fooled by Shen He's mechanical puppet, and naturally, would not be fooled a second time. After seeing through the summoning of the mechanical puppet, he immediately turned and gave chase. The two quickly shuttled back and forth through the stone forest, chasing each other, but because Drunken River moved flexibly between the stone pillars, Xu Sizhe couldn't find his position for a while.

Currently, Shen He's blood volume was at 50%, while Xu Sizhe had 65%. Shen He had already used one mechanical blood cow, and still had his mechanical hawk's air attack and the control effect of the mechanical horse. On the other hand, Xe Sizhe still had his mechanical blood cow despite having used both big moves. In fact, neither side had a particularly big advantage; it would depend on who could seize the opportunity first.

In the blink of an eye, Shen He arrived at the challenge arena pit where Yan Zhou was killed.

The stone pillars in this place were shorter than those in other places, and could be climbed upon.

Like a little monkey, Shen He immediately controlled Drunken River to climb up the stone pillars. He used this high vantage point to look around, and indeed found Green Jadeite Bowl's position at a glance.

Shen He was delighted to see Green Jadeite Bowl headed in this direction, and was fast approaching the foot of the stone pillar. He decisively summoned the mechanical blood cow below—— Although the attack power for cooldown reduction flow was not as good as the fast outbreak summoners, the cooldown time of the blood cow, which he summoned at the beginning, was 1/3 shorter, and could now be summoned again!

Shen He summoned a mechanical blood cow to block the entrance so Green Jadeite Bowl couldn't pass through.

Xu Sizhe sneered when he saw this—— Did you think I would be as stupid as Yan Zhou, to get killed with this skill in order to 'taste your own medicine'? Dream on!

The mechanical blood cow had a skill that could absorb all the damage for its master. Earlier, Xu Sizhe had seckilled Shen He's mechanical blood cow with his mechanical rats and snakes. Now, he summoned the mechanical blood cow himself, guessing that Shen He would perform the same trick again by summoning mechanical chariots inside, and waiting for him to walk into the trap.

With the protection of a mechanical blood cow, Xu Sizhe walked in confidently. Not to mention four mechanical chariots, even if Shen He planted bombs, he would not be afraid!

After passing through the gap between the two pillars, an open space could be seen. The available space had a radius of about 10 meters, and was surrounded by many stone pillars. The shota Drunken River was just above one of the pillars—— just like when he killed Yan Zhou!

You thought I couldn't climb up? Smirking, Xu Sizhe immediately flew up the stone using the Zhuge family qinggong skill.

However……

He flew up the pillar, only to see a cute mechanical horse appear under it!

Compared with Xu Sizhe's huge mechanical horse, the shota Drunken River's mechanical was small in size and looked like a funny toy.

At this critical moment, Green Jadeite Bowl and his mechanical blood cow were struck by the fear effect from the mechanical horse!

Green Jadeite Bowl was struck by fear while mid-air, so he couldn't use his qinggong skill, and directly fell with a large 'bang'. His mechanical blood cow was also hit by fear and couldn't protect his master!

Shen He summoned mechanical rats, mechanical hawks and mechanical snakes without hesitation. First, he used mechanical rats to stack up the bleeding states, then he used mechanical hawks to attack from the air, throwing dense hidden weapons downward in order to deal damage. Finally, he strangled the other summoner with two mechanical snakes—— After this series of combo attacks, only 35% of Green Jadeite Bowl's blood was left, and his blood cow had been killed before it could protect its master.

Xu Sizhe: “……”

He didn't expect this kid to play this sort of trick to pit him!

Xu Sizhe was so angry that he almost dropped the keyboard.

By the time the fear status was lifted, Drunken River had already left the stone pillar. Biting his lips, Xu Sizhe used his qinggong skill to catch up, and eventually caught sight of the little shota jumping on the stone pillars not too far away. He was so angry, he wanted to crawl through the computer screen to crush that damned Drunken River.

Shen He ran immediately after finishing his combo, not because he was afraid of Xu Sizhe, but because the cooldown for Xu Sizhe's mechanical hawk and snake had already finished. He wanted to avoid Xu Sizhe and wait for his own pet cooldowns to finish before engaging in another round of fighting.

Xu Sizhe controlled his summoner to follow Shen He closely, leaping on the stone pillars. After a while, Shen He couldn't leap any more because the stone pillars before him were too tall, forcing him to go down and walk on the ground. Seeing Drunken River jump down, Green Jadeite Bowl followed closely, and immediately summoned a large number of mechanical rats as soon as he landed!

At the same time, Drunken River made identical movements.

Obviously, they wanted to break out a wave of output at the same time!

Green Jadeite Bowl's critical strike rate and damage were very high. In addition to the negative statuses inflicted by the mechanical rats and snakes, Drunken River's blood volume was forced down to 30%. If Green Jadeite Bowl summoned the mechanical hawks to strike with hidden weapons, his blood would be completely emptied!

However, Green Jadeite Bowl's own blood volume was a mere 35%.

Drunken River did not deal as much damage, but had a shorter cooldown. After the cooldown time for the mechanical hawk ended, Shen He used his hand speed to summon pets continuously. Mechanical rats, snakes, chariots, and hawks were summoned all at once to launch attack after attack, emptying Green Jadeite Bowl's blood volume right when Drunken River's blood volume fell to 10%!

——Drunken River has killed Green Jadeite Bowl!

Looking at the system prompt on the screen, Xu Sizhe was immediately vengeful. He chose this map to tell Shen He that he was not as good as Xu Sizhe himself was. Unexpectedly, this guy, Shen He played flexibly, pitted him twice, and killed him instead!

Xu Sizhe was so angry that he almost exploded. In the end, he drank a glass of cold water before pressing the preparation button.

In the Dragon Song training room, Qin Mo patted his apprentice on the shoulder and offered some encouragement. “You fought well, it was a good idea.”

Smiling, Shen He scratched his head. “The mechanical horse can control people from the air, hahaha, it's all thanks to master finding this setting!”

The mechanical horse could inflict the 'fear' status on the enemy target within 10 meters of their surroundings, which included not only the ground, but also the air. This was something Qin Mo discovered when he played qualifying matches with an undercover small summoner account, so he taught it to Shen He. In fact, he didn't expect Shen He to use it so cleverly in combination with the terrain today.

Qin Mo had known for a long time that Shen He had a strong learning ability and a creative way of playing. This alone would let him compete with Xu Sizhe, who was only thinking of revenge.

On the second round, it was Shen He's turn to choose the map.

Shen He chose the map from the second stage of the 'Jianshen Valley Ruins' dungeon, Sword Altar, which was modified accordingly for the battle—— there were a total of twelve floating stones, ranging in size from small to large. They would not be divided like in the dungeon, but instead, constantly move around. This was a difficult air combat map; because the ground was full of barbs, once a player fell, they would be directly impaled and killed.

Both players refreshed on a floating stone, high in the air. Angrily, Xu Sizhe controlled Green Jadeite Bowl to fight Drunken River head on as soon as the match started. Shen He would naturally not be polite and chose to fight back. As Green Jadeite Bowl dealt higher pet damage, with the help of his mechanical rats and a set of fierce critical attacks, he beat Drunken River to 55% blood, while he himself was still at 65%.

Shen He took advantage of the moving stones to jump, leaving Xu Sizhe temporarily unable to catch up with him.

Ten seconds later, the stone moved again, shrinking the distance between the two people. At this moment, Green Jadeite Bowl summoned the mechanical horse decisively—— clearly, he wanted to control the other side with fear!

As expected, when the stone was near, Shen He summoned—— mechanical puppet!

The summoner could teleport 10 meters in a blink when the puppet appeared. Shen He placed his puppet in his location and controlled Drunken River to move to the side, right where the next floating stone was moving into the distance. This flexible operation allowed him to directly avoid the fear status of the other side's mechanical horse.

Xu Sizhe became angrier after his big move was useless. Turning around to catch up with Drunken River, he immediately summoned the mechanical hawk, which spun its wing to attack. Unable to dodge, Drunken River's blood volume was cut to 35%.

However, Shen He was calm, because he knew that his chance was coming!

——Mechanical horse, mechanical rats, mechanical snake, mechanical hawk!

Four kinds of pets were summoned continuously at an extremely fast speed!

The mechanical horse was summoned behind Xu Sizhe and he immediately affected by fear; the mechanical rats bit him and stacked three layers of weakness; the mechanical snakes and hawks attacked him fiercely, causing Green Jadeite Bowl's blood volume to plument sharply, falling to 30% in a single breath!

This set of operation was fast and dazzling, and could only be seen clearly by the slow motion playback on the live broadcast, and by Qin Mo, an expert who knew the summoning flow very well. By taking advantage of the the mechanical horse inflicting the fear state, Shen He launched three kinds of attacks against Xu Sizhe in those few moments, instantly pulling the blood volume gap back. From this, it could be seen that Shen He's explosive power was really quite terrible!

Originally, Xu Sizhe's summoner Green Jadeite Bowl had a blood volume advantage. But he was too eager to win and thus played anxiously, using a mechanical hawk only to be controlled by his opponent. In contrast to Shen He's calmness, Xu Sizhe's mentality was still not well adjusted. If Shen He was beaten by an opponent and lost a lot of blood, he would probably just stick out his tongue and run away…

In fact, their actual strength was about the same. If they were both stable and played seriously, the chances of winning for the both of them would be 50-50.

It was Xu Sizhe's psychological gap when compared to Shen He that had caused the present situation. Although Xu Sizhe had been actively looking for opportunities to attack Shen He and seemed to be playing fiercely, in fact, his actions were actually following Shen He's predictions!

After the fear effect was over, Xu Sizhe found that the cooldown of his mechanical snake had finished. Seeing that the stone was about to move, he decided to summon the mechanical snake to lock his opponent in place, only to hear a loud bang——

Four chariots had suddenly appeared, instantly smashing into him from behind!

The most common way of using mechanical chariots was the 'cross-encirclement', which focused on encircling opponents from four directions before exploding to deal a lot of damage. However, there was no stipulation in the game that chariots had to be summoned from four directions.  In fact, the operation of mechanical chariots was very flexible, depending on how they were used by the summoners.

This time, Shen He broke the routine; all four mechanical chariots came thundering from a single direction!

Not good!

Xu Sizhe was startled, but it was simply too late to use his qinggong skill…

With a loud 'bang', the momentum of the four chariots directly knocked Green Jadeite Bowl off the floating stone!

The summoner Green Jadeite Bowl suddenly fell from the floating stone, landing on the ground with a loud 'thump' only to get impaled so many times to the point where he resembled a hedgehog!

——Drunken River has killed Green Jadeite Bowl!

Xu Sizhe's face turned ashen after the system prompt appeared. He clutched the mouse tightly, unable to believe that he would lose two matches to the little guy!

Indeed, in addition to dealing massive damage by explosions, the mechanical chariots had another use—— to hit people and objects.

When the chariot made contact with an object, it would knock the target back by a certain distance. Shen He obviously took advantage of this characteristic; grasping the time when the stone was about to move, he summoned the chariots to hit Green Jadeite Bowl from behind, directly knocking Xu Sizhe's summoner off the stone and using the terrain to seckill him…

Due to a total ban on speech in the competition room during the finals, Xu Sizhe could not vent his anger, and had could only throw the mouse.

On Mojue's side, everyone applauded Shen He happily upon seeing that he won two matches in a row.

Smiling, Shen He jumped up from his seat. "Master, Xu Sizhe must really hate me, right?"

Stretching out his hand, Qin Mo gently rubbed the little monkey's head. "Don't worry, he hates me more. He probably thinks that I was the one who taught you those routines." Qin Mo felt sorry for Xu Sizhe. In fact, the other teen's talent was not bad. He had thought that Xu Sizhe would reflect on his problems and seriously improve his own strength before returning to Peerless Jianghu. If he could face his shortcomings, he would be an excellent player. However, up until now, Xu Sizhe still hadn't realised his biggest problem—— with his tendencies of fighting violently in pursuit of quick success and instant benefit, it was only normal for Xu Sizhe to lose to the clever Shen He.

Shen He asked worriedly, "If he hates you more, what then? What can we do?"

Qin Mo only smiled. "Then let him hate me. I am not the Virgin Mary; I don't have the duty to care for those who do not repent."

Chapter end