The King's Avatar

"Shameless!!" Fang Rui immediately shouted, after being caught in the trap.

Was he really angry enough to resort to such an outburst? Of course not. He already knew that there was absolutely no way for him to escape, but he refused to let Happy get away with this so easily. By yelling, he hoped that he could catch the attention of Misty Rain and Royal Style, drawing them over here to impede Happy's progress.

"Hahaha, go ahead and shout all you want, you can shout until you go hoarse and no one will hear." Ye Xiu said accompanied by a smirking emoji. Fang Rui turned his camera. It was true, there was no use! They were too far away, not to mention that they were fiercely fighting, with all sorts of sound effects from the skills they used. The sound of his voice had no way of carrying all the way over there.

"Kill him quickly!" Ye Xiu ordered, his Lord Grim acting first. A Back Throw pushed Fang Rui's Doubtful Demon into a dark corner, and the other four members of Happy weren't as polite as they unleashed a barrage of attacks on him. Fang Rui noticed that these guys were avoiding loud and flashy skills, instead using silent and subtle ones - they intended to smother him here.

Fang Rui was upset, but what could he do? No matter his skill, no matter his status as the master of playing dirty, there was simply no way for him to escape from this corner after being surrounded by five pros.

Doubtful Demon fell. Now, Team Wind Howl was completely wiped out.

The shard that Wind Howl had obtained was held by Doubtful Demon, as expected. Fang Rui had gone through great struggles to protect this shard, using all of his shameless tactics to escape from tight spots, but in the end, Happy snatched it just like that.

Fang Rui shook his head and let out a sigh, then stood up and stretched his arms. He glanced around the room, and saw Zhao Yuzhe still shooting glares at him out of the corner of his eye.

Fang Rui could only smile bitterly. He was a veteran player, having played for many years now, and the problems that Liu Hao had noticed, he understood even more clearly.

After Tang Hao had joined Wind Howl, it seemed as though Wind Howl's strength vastly increased, and they had even made it to the semifinals last season. However, Fang Rui's capabilities in this team had been suppressed. His dirty playstyle was entirely opposed to Tang Hao's playstyle, as well as that of the newcomer Zhao Yuzhe.

As time went on, he felt like more and more of a stranger to Wind Howl. They'd gotten through last season like this, but the problem was very apparent. Fang Rui felt it. Tang Hao and Zhao Yuzhe felt too. How could the club managers not have noticed either?

Fang Rui remembered how the club had acted when encouraging Lin Jingyan to retire last year, and he felt lost as to what his own future now looked like. Seeing the dissatisfaction that both Tang Hao and Zhao Yuzhe displayed toward him, Fang Rui felt that his footsteps toward the exit were only quickening. Tang Hao was the now core of Wind Howl. Zhao Yuzhe had a good future ahead of him and was being looked after heavily. Fang Rui had no chance of winning this battle. Should he just back off? Accept Wind Howl's new style?

Unfortunately, Fang Rui had been playing dirty for so many years. These skills and instincts had been thoroughly ingrained into him. To have him follow Tang Hao and Zhao Yuzhe, the fierce and direct playstyle of these youths, he simply couldn't do it. His class wasn't suited for it either.

It looked like his time was up…

In the training room, Tang Hao stood up, Zhao Yuzhe stood up, and the rest of the players followed, returning to their rooms to rest. Fang Rui tilted his neck back and stared at the ceiling. For these people who spent their lives in the game, this was the sky they saw the most often, the ceiling lights acting as their starlight. After so many years, he was used to this sight. But now, it looked like he would be saying goodbye to this piece of sky.

Let's take things one step at a time!

Fang Rui shut off his computer. As the last one to leave the practice room, he didn't forget to turn off all the lights and power.

Wind Howl withdrew from the event, but the battle in the Ghost Lair continued. Happy now had two shards, and they were in a good position as they watched the ongoing battle without either of the two sides knowing. Right now, the most important thing was patience, patience to wait until these two teams beat themselves bloody.

This wasn't a competition where the goal was to kill the opponent. In this competition, there was only one goal: shards!

A shard could only be held by one character on the opposing team, so in this battle, the strategy of attacking everyone and defending everyone wasn't used. Instead, both sides directed all of their attacks onto one target at a time. Kill one, see if they held a shard. If obtained, then retreat, if not, then repeat the process.

Ye Xiu hoped that both sides protected their shards well, that way more characters would be killed off one by one as each team tried to find the other's. At the same time, he was also studying the battle closely, seeing if he could guess from their movements which characters held their respective teams' shards.

"Did you find anything?" Su Mucheng asked, as she too watched the battle.

"Hm, there's nothing stand-out about Royal Style. They're protecting their healer, but that's to be expected. The healer could have the shard, though, so protecting him would serve two purposes," Ye Xiu said.

"So Misty Rain is currently targeting Gentle Angel," Su Mucheng said. Gentle Angel was the name of Royal Style's Paladin. As a healer, this sort of sweet and pleasant name was relatively common. This character was also a female character, and its previous owner was female. But now, the owner had changed. Ren Junchi, a manly man, but with an account called Gentle Angel. Just looking at the conflict of these names, it was fairly clear what kind of person this player was.

"Yes, exactly. It's more difficult to judge Misty Rain's side though. The four long-ranged attackers have the safety of distance, and Li Hua's Ninja is nimble and evasive, the shard could easily be on any of them. Using what you know about Chu Yunxiu, who do you think she would have assigned the shard to?" Ye Xiu said.

"Like you said, it could be anyone," Su Mucheng said.

"Alright." Ye Xiu was helpless. The current situation couldn't be considered too good.

"Better pay attention closely. If Royal Style did give it to Gentle Angel, and he's killed first by Misty Rain and drops it…" Ye Xiu trailed off. That would be the worst outcome for these lurkers. They were hoping for both sides to suffer heavy damage, so if only one person died before the battle finished, they wouldn't be at as large of an advantage.

"Footsteps!" Tang Rou suddenly said.

"Huh? Where?" Ye Xiu immediately asked. After all, Tang Rou's ears had been trained professionally and were sharper than those of anyone else here.

"From the way we came!" Tang Rou said.

"I didn't hear anything?" Steamed Bun was still confused, controlling his Steamed Bun Invasion to crouch on the ground, turning this way and that as he pressed his ear to the ground.

This seemed to be the legendary "ear to the ground" listening method, Steamed Bun must have have learned it from somewhere. But would Glory have this sort of mechanism? Ye Xiu, the man titled the "Glory Textbook," made a face at Steamed Bun's idiocy.

"From the way we came." Tang Rou confirmed.

"It's Tyranny!" Ye Xiu said. It couldn't be anyone else but Tyranny.

With this, Happy was stuck in the middle. On one side, there was the fierce battle between two teams, and on the other side there was the rapidly approaching Tyranny. Happy had no way out. Although their current position hid them from the two fighting teams, there was no way they could evade the notice of Tyranny unless they were completely oblivious or distracted.

"Prepare for battle…" Ye Xiu was helpless. For another team to come from behind, they really were unlucky here.

Right now, should they try to keep their battle with Tyranny separate from the ongoing one, or should they try to group all four teams together into a one big chaotic free-for-all? Ye Xiu thought rapidly, and eventually reached a decision. A huge four-way battle like that would be disadvantageous to the parties without healers, which included Happy. Plus, Happy had three rookies who lacked experience and judgment. In such a chaotic battle, they would certainly fare worse than the more experienced pros.

Better keep the two battles separate!

Ye Xiu led his team out of the corner to advance towards where Tyranny was approaching from, to further separate themselves from Misty Rain and Royal Style so that they wouldn't discover their battle here.

The footsteps grew closer and closer, until finally, the silhouettes of Tyranny's five finally appeared in their view.

"Don't act rashly, follow my lead," Ye Xiu said in the team channel.

It could be said that there were no secrets between the Ye Xiu and Tyranny's old veterans. They understood each other extremely well, having fought for so many years, and it would be difficult for either side to surprise the other. With no surprises, then there was only direct confrontation left as an option. But Happy was much weaker than Tyranny. Ye Xiu would have to figure out some sort of tactic if they were to survive this.

Tyranny's five, upon seeing Happy's five, came to a stop. The two sides had already identified each other. Ye Xiu heard someone on Tyranny say, exasperated, "How come it's you guys again?"

"The feeling is mutual," Ye Xiu said.

Right after saying that, Ye Xiu heard the sound of an explosion from behind him.

He knew that there was a fierce battle ongoing back there, and he didn't want Tyranny to find out, so he arranged their meeting a little farther away. They shouldn't have been able to hear the battle from here, but that explosion… The battle over there, was it moving?

Ye Xiu heard the sound, so of course Tyranny heard as well.

"Flash Bullet? Who's over there?" Zhang Jiale immediately recognized the sound effect of one of his Spitfire skills.

"Royal Style it seems." Zhang Xinjie immediately made this judgment. Flash Bullet, a Spitfire skill. Among the 25 players who entered the Ghost Lair, there were only two Spitfires, Zhang Jiale's Dazzling Hundred Blossoms and Chen Wanhe's Flash Save.

"Who are they fighting?" Zhang Jiale asked.

"Misty Rain?" The sound of numerous bullets gave them their answer. Only Misty Rain had brought three Sharpshooters.

How did the fight between those two teams move all the way over here? Ye Xiu was quickly thinking over this question - but in an instant, he understood.

It was Fang Rui!

That guy, harming others even without any benefit to himself! Before he died, he must have sent a message to those two teams telling them that Happy was over here waiting for an opportunity. Since everyone was using their professional accounts this time, they had each other added as friends and it was easy enough to send a message like this to them.

So these two teams pretended to fight, either trying to pull Happy into some kind of trap, or steadily approaching Happy until they could suddenly turn and attack them. In any case, they weren't going to let Happy just wait for easy pickings.

As expected of the master of playing dirty, he had played a dangerous game that could have backfired.

Messages were very easy to send, but Happy had forgotten this point. Good thing that Tyranny had come and caused a change in plans, otherwise who knew what would have happened?