Chapter 1018: At a Standstill

Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi

As Sun Xiang typed this out, his character never paused. One Autumn Leaf did a horizontal sweep with his spear after his Dragon Breaks the Ranks, using Tyrant's Destruction. Lord Grim had already been pulling away when he dodged the Dragon Breaks the Ranks, seeming to already be out Tyrant's Destruction's range and in a good position to counterattack. However, Lord Grim didn't stop backing away there. Just as he stepped back, the mud and stone on the ground were swept across. A place where Tyrant's Destruction shouldn't have reached had been affected by the sweeping effect through the force of this attack.

"Oh oh, this is Evil Annihilation's bonus effect, Landslide, which increases the range of attacks. However, the opponent is Ye Xiu, who obviously knows this better than anyone. You can see that he even considered the effect of Landslide in his dodge."

"The chances of these bonus effects on weapons activating isn't actually very high, but in an actual match it's better to prepare for the worst possibility," Li Yibo sighed.

Boom!

The two were still talking about Tyrant's Destruction when an explosion occurred on the field.

As he backed away, avoiding the attack, Lord Grim had discretely thrown out a grenade. Pan Lin and Li Yibo hadn't noticed at all. It was only until it exploded that everyone gasped in surprise.

The inconspicuous movement had fooled everyone, all except his current opponent, Sun Xiang. One Autumn Leaf's immediate pursuit made a sudden halt in the middle, obviously waiting for the grenade to go off. The timing was just right, so it looked like he had somehow ran right through the explosion, but avoided taking any damage whatsoever, Evil Annihilation still closing in on Lord Grim.

"Sun Xiang is eagerly going on the offensive, but it seems like Ye Xiu doesn't intend to face him head on," Pan Lin cried out.

"That's for certain. Veterans have an advantage in experience. Against young opponents, especially ace players like Sun Xiang, they have to fully utilize this advantage. Facing their opponent head on would be… would be…" Li Yibo was unable to continue, because Pan Lin had only said 'seems like'. This was a guess he had made in accordance with Lord Grim's act of retreat. Yet now, Lord Grim opened up his Myriad Manifestations Umbrella and parried One Autumn Leaf's attack, a true act of facing someone head on.

"Not bad!" In this direct face off, Sun Xiang actually found the time to type a message. One Autumn Leaf stepped diagonally, sending out a Sky Strike from a side angle.

Lord Grim didn't even turn his view, whipping out a sword from the handle of the Myriad Manifestations Umbrella as he jumped diagonally backwards and using a Collapsing Mountain as he avoided Sky Strike.

"Ah, a Collapsing Mountain in place. This is a type of technique that uses a backwards jump to cancel out Collapsing Mountain's forward jump. Ye Xiu is able to perform it with such ease. It's clear to see how familiar he is with the foundations of Glory. He truly deserves his title of Glory's Textbook," Pan Lin called out.

One Autumn Leaf turned, continuing his half-finished Sky Strike and using it to blockLord Grim's Collapsing Mountain. However, Collapsing Mountain had far greater priority than Sky Strike, so it was impossible to complete this block with just Sky Strike alone. Yet, by then, One Autumn Leaf had already jumped back, avoiding the Collapsing Mountain entirely.

"One Autumn Leaf dodged it… But why did he use this Sky Strike to block, adviser Li?" Pan Lin asked.

"Heh, there's no particular reason. It's just a habit of pro players to help them get into the rhythm of battle quicker," Li Yibo explained.

"I can't stand it anymore!" In the audience, Tiny Herb player Liu Xiaobie had been listening to the commentary on his phone as he watched the match again, but then yanked out his earphones once more.

"What is it this time?" Xu Bin asked.

"They said that there was no reason to One Autumn Leaf's Sky Strike just now," Liu Xiaobie said.

"Oh? That's not right. If it weren't for the block done with that Sky Strike, there would be no avoiding that Collapsing Mountain," Xu Bin said.

"The block done with Sky Strike slowed down the speed at which Collapsing Mountain descended and, at the same time, used the force to speed up his backwards jump," Gao Yingjie said.

"Commentators nowadays are getting more and more unprofessional." Liu Xiaobie put the earphones back in even as he said this and shook his head, making Xu Bin and Gao Yingjie rather speechless.

The battle raged on.

Neither of them managed to gain the advantage. Though both were continuously losing health, this exchange of health was carefully controlled and neither of them managed to land any critical hits. Fine techniques such as the Sky Strike block and Collapsing Mountain in place were endless in this battle. Audience members like the three Tiny Herb pros found it spectacular, but it was a shame for those who were watching the stream. Pan Lin and Li Yibo would probably only see 70 percent of finesse in this and in that 70 percent, they would misexplain 20 percent of it. This was probably one of the problems caused by the late start and rapid progress of the Pro Alliance of Glory.

Though they might have missed many amazing details of this match, that didn't affect the enjoyment for normal spectators. This fast and chaotic rain of attacks from both sides was exactly what the audience loved the most.

However, Tao Xuan, sitting on Excellent Era's bench, was anxious. To be honest, he liked this sort of spectacular match as well. This beautiful scene was exactly what Tao Xuan hoped for for Excellent Era. But… not at a time like this. Who was Sun Xiang's opponent? Ye Xiu! The person, whose ability had deteriorated, whose performance had slipped, who had been replaced by Sun Xiang. To make sure this went smoothly, Tao Xuan had put in a lot of effort. Yet now, Ye Xiu was fighting Sun Xiang to a standstill. This was already slapping Excellent Era's face harshly. Like this, it was hard to say who would win and who would lose. Though Lord Grim had started the match with 70 percent of his health and was at a disadvantage from the beginning, this standstill wouldn't last until the end of the match. There would definitely be fluctuations and peaks in performance in the match, especially from Ye Xiu, who was behind. How could he possibly let himself die slowly in this exchange of damage?

Tao Xuan couldn't stay calm. Even after telling himself that One Autumn Leaf was the stronger character and Sun Xiang was younger and had more energy, he just couldn't build up any confidence when it came to facing Ye Xiu.

"The match is at a standstill right now,"

"Er, I feel, that Lord Grim actually has the slight advantage right now," Li Yibo said.

"How come?" Pan Lin was confused.

"Because the characters have a difference in power. Although the level 75 Orange equipment has helped Happy greatly reduce the gap between them and Excellent Era, this reduction is only in basic stats. However, if you take a detailed look, Orange equipment can't be as perfect as Silver equipment," Li Yibo said.

"But we can also see that Team Happy does have some Silver equipment. Wei Chen's Warlock, Windward Formation, is even at pro level with 8 pieces," Pan Lin argued.

"Heh, but you can't judge Silver equipment just by the number of pieces of Silver equipment you have. What's the biggest advantage of Silver equipment? They're specially tailored to suit the player. Only if it suits the user's playstyle and needs can it be utilized to its fullest.In contrast, if a piece of Silver equipment isn't tailored to their needs and only made to maximize stats, it would still be stronger than Orange equipment of the same level, but it will lose its greatest advantage. Some players like faster attack speed, some players want each strike to do more damage. If you give attack power equipment to a player that prefers speed, the equipment is good, but it doesn't suit their style, so how well can its stats truly be utilized?" Li Yibo smoothly explained.

"I understand now. You mean to say that Team Happy's Silver equipment might not necessarily have reached that level of specialization," Pan Lin said.

"Heh, first of all, Team Happy doesn't have that much Silver Equipment. In addition, we don't know how Happy obtained their Silver equipment, but I doubt that they have a development team working on it like Excellent Era does. So they don't really have much flexibility with their Silver equipment. If they have Silver equipment then they will use it. They don't have much choice. It'll be very hard for them to reach perfection!" Li Yibo exclaimed.

"You're very right, Adviser Li. If we look at it from this perspective, it'd actually be very hard on Ye Xiu to have Lord Grim fight Sun Xiang's One Autumn Leaf to a standstill. It's hard to believe that he still has this ability at this age," Pan Lin said.

"In the end, all matches depend on performance. When we say a player's ability is deteriorating, we don't get that conclusion from just one or two matches, but from a long period of observation. In this period, he might perform spectacularly sometimes. This sort of fluctuation is common for everyone. The performance in single match can't really tell us anything. Zhou Zekai might lose in a one on one battle, but can we say that the player that beat him is now the new best player in the Alliance?" Li Yibo said with a smile.

"I understand what you mean now." Pan Lin nodded.

"Okay, let's continue watching the match. The two are still at a standstill and both characters have lost around 20 percent of their health. However, since Lord Grim only had 70 percent in the beginning, he's currently falling behind. Hey, Adviser Li, do you think Ye Xiu will suddenly escape halfway through the battle to replenish his health and mana again?" Pan Lin suddenly asked.

"I doubt Sun Xiang will give him the opportunity to do that. If he's going to let his opponent run away to heal so easily, then I'll probably even be able to beat him."

"Hahahaha." The two began to laugh in the live broadcast.

That was when Sun Xiang typed out a another sentence in the channel. "I say, isn't it time to speed up now?"

"Speed up?" Pan Lin yelled out in shock. "Does this mean Sun Xiang hasn't been going all out before now?"

"This… is probably a purposeful suppression of the rhythm so he can suddenly speed up and throw his opponent into chaos!" Li Yibo said.

"Speaking of, the two sides seem to be doing a lot of communicating in this match!" Pan Lin said.

"Yeah, Sun Xiang usually doesn't say much in matches! This is surprising. Seems like Ye Xiu is a very different kind of opponent for Excellent Era. From the conversation between the captains of new and old, Sun Xiang probably hopes to prove he can do better than Ye Xiu with a victory here!" Li Yibo guessed.

"So, is he going to speed up?" Pan Lin asked in excited hope.

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