[FLOTG] Chapter 3: Invitation

The qigong master could only watch as the dying assassin activated Stealth and disappeared without a trace.

Still, in the opinion of the qigong master, the assassin was just delaying the inevitable.

[All][Qigong Masters Always Win]: Brother, assassins are really no good anymore. Don't listen to those chumps on the internet calling for faith in assassins. What faith when you can't even rank up?

The devout assassin believers in the live-stream channel: ......

Brother, you probably don't know that this is being live-streamed when you said that, right? Do you know that there's a good chance you'll be torn apart by the assassin believers who are online tonight?

Shen Huai did not reply. Invisible, the assassin swiftly closed in on the qigong master, and starting with a Stun, he followed it up with "Shadow Mark - Assassination - Blood Blade - Pierce - Dark Razor".

Under 'Shadow Mark', the special effect of a successful combo was invisibility. Just as the qigong master recovered from the Stun status effect, Shen Huai's assassin landed his third combo-hit and vanished into thin air. And this combo had knocked off 40% of the qigong master's HP!

The qigong master did not panic, shifting into an attack stance and staying in place. He still had 45% HP left, so he probably wouldn't die even if he took another combo. In contrast, the assassin had only less than 10% HP remaining... just one more Qi Blast would be enough to kill him off.

At a calculated point of time, the qigong master blindly unleashed a skill ― Qi Shockwave.

Qi Shockwave would shatter the ground within a 3 metre radius from under the feet of the qigong master. Though the area of effect was small, it was enough to handle attackers like the assassin who needed to close in to attack.

Shen Huai was instantly rendered visible by the tremors, and the qigong master immediately fired a Qi Blast at the assassin who only had 10% HP left.

The fans in the live-stream channel felt like their hearts were in their throats, but then they saw Ash Wing's assassin tuck into a Back Roll as the Qi Blast grazed past his face by a hair's width... This not only let him successfully dodge the Qi Blast, but also let him move into place behind the qigong master to unleash Soul Steal!

Soul Steal could stun an opponent, but it could only be used when the opponent's HP was higher than your own.

Shen Huai only had 10% HP remaining, and this skill had a 100% stun rate. Moreover, assassins dealt bonus damage when attacking from behind!

Reaper's Mark - Assassination - Blood Blade - Scythe - Reaper's Dance!

The special after the three-hit combo perfectly triggered a critical hit, wiping out the leftover 45% of the qigong master's HP in one go. Meanwhile, Ash Wing's assassin still retained his 10% of HP!

The audience in the live-stream channel was dumbfounded.

[Can anyone tell me what happened? When has my beloved assassin's critical damage become so high? Did they roll back the nerf in S5?]

[It's Blood-Blessed Blades, the lower your HP the greater the damage. But just now God Ash Wing's HP was only 10%, why didn't he die from the Qi Shockwave??]

[Was I the only one who noticed God Ash Wing's HP regenerating...? Before he turned invisible, he only had 7% HP, but when he reappeared he had 10%! Aren't potions banned in the arena? bug?]

Just as the discussion was getting heated, a familiar ID flashed across the screen.

<(V)Guan He>: [It's Divine Blessing.]

Talent - Divine Blessing: When your HP is below 10%, you will recover 1% HP every second.

This talent was one that all tough-skinned warriors were sure to equip. After all, warriors had plenty of shields to absorb damage, as well as other life-saving skills. In contrast, damage-dealing classes would never touch it, because 1% HP or 10% HP made no difference at all. Their fragile builds meant that one skill would be enough to wipe them out in either case.

[Yes! Divine Blessing! But how is this talent useful? Even 10% HP wouldn't be enough to stand one skill, right?]

[Wait... wasn't that ID just now Captain Guan?!]

The crowd looked again, and it was true! The ID that had just posted a message was the platform-verified account of the team captain of Primo Wolf, Guan He!

Captain Guan was here to watch the live-stream? The crowd rushed to greet Guan He.

<(V)Zhou Ning>: [Ash Wing also chose the talents Desperate Counter and Salvation. Desperate Counter will extend the duration of stun inflicted when the player's HP is less than 10%, while Salvation can provide damage immunity when receiving a fatal blow.]

Damn, isn't that the vice-captain of Maple Moon?

But after what he said, the crowd instantly understood the core concept behind Ash Wing's points distribution.

Selecting the class-specific skill Blood-Blessed Blades would generate high damage at low HP, while equipping the life-saving talents would improve survivability. Divine Blessing would activate HP regen when HP drops below 10%, and Salvation would absorb one fatal hit, ensuring that the player's HP would remain steady at 10% — the perfect level to unleash the highest damage value of Blood-Blessed Blades!

The enlightened crowd could not help but send 666s{666: represents 溜溜溜 (as they share the same pinyin: liùliùliù). 溜 means something along the lines of amazing/fabulous/great/cool/smooth/slick... The term stems from chinese gaming slang, where gamers would put '666' in the chat after seeing another showing an impressive skill. Extra: Remember the live-stream channel number in Chapter 1? There was already a 'hint, hint, nudge, nudge' there by the author. XD} flying across the screen.

Fighting back while keeping your HP at 10%, where a single hit might finish you off at any moment, required extremely skilful positioning and the ability to anticipate your opponent's skills. Only Ash Wing with his profound knowledge of assassins could pull this off!

Recalling Ash Wing's words before the match — "Of course assassins are still playable, but the minimum threshold has been raised." — the crowd despaired.

This wasn't just raising the minimum threshold... this was an outright god-level of operation! This was completely beyond them!

<(V)Zhang Jia-Yan>: 6666666! PS: Vice-Captain Zhou, where's Captain Song?

<(V)Zhou Ning>: He's sending rockets.

<(V)Song Xue-Yang> gifted Rockets x100!

Only then did the crowd realise that many professional IDs had infiltrated the audience without them realising it. Even some of the other well-known streamers on the platform had come over to send gifts.

[Loudspeaker][(V)Zhang Jia-Yan]: Ash Wing, come join WG! Next year's champion will definitely be WG!

Everyone: ...... Captain Yan, this again?!

Year after year, he would try something like this. How many times do you need to be rejected before giving up?!

[Captain Zhang, stop wasting your time and effort. God Ash Wing hasn't gone into e-sports in all these years...... and there must have been others besides WG trying to recruit him!]

<(V)Guan He>: Yes

[Great God Ash Wing, why don't you go pro? I want to see god's face! I want to lick god's face!]

[God Ash Wing's doesn't even have a fixed time for his live-stream...... how could he go pro? But if god goes pro, then I'll be able to watch god play live in person! Sudden goosebumps!]

[I admit that Ash Wing is very strong, but assassins are just like that in the end. How many assassins have you all seen in the pro circuits? When has an assassin not been thrashed in-game? Ash Wing does well entertaining us as a streamer, but if he really goes pro, I'm afraid you all will be quickly disillusioned.]

[Loudspeaker][(V)Zhang Jia-Yan]: Ash Wing, come join WG! Next year's champion will definitely be WG!

As Shen Huai looked at the messages in the live-stream channel, no one was aware that he really was considering which pro team he wanted to join. It was December right now. The transfer period of "City of Despair" would continue till the end of the month. He needed to make his decision within this window of time.

He was still thinking about this when a private chat message popped up at the bottom of his screen.

[Friend][Pretty Easy to Name a Smurf]: Beep-beep!

The fans in the live-stream channel had also noticed this ID, because the note Ash Wing had attached to it was: Booster.

[Is this the Sir Booster who God Wing said we would not be able to afford?]

[Boss! However much Ash Wing is paying you, I'll pay 10 times that!]

When he saw this ID, Shen Huai immediately typed out "Today's live-stream ends for now" on the public screen and exited the channel.

The crowd who was abruptly left facing a black screen: ???

They endured for 3 months and 7 days to finally catch a live-stream by God Ash Wing, and in the end he only fought a single 1v1 Arena match and that's it? Why so short?!

The unsatisfied fans flooded the screen with indignant complaints, while the players who had been inspired by the match they had just watched left to tweak their skill trees and talent trees before entering the Arena. Meanwhile, the number crunchers had scrambled over to the forums and Tieba{贴吧: Short for 'Baidu Tieba', a Chinese communication platform hosted by the Chinese web services company Baidu. You can consider it the Chinese equivalent of Reddit.} to begin analysing the playability of the "living-on-the-edge" style assassin.

Shen Huai knew nothing of all this. He had clicked on the the chatbox for <Pretty Easy to Name a Smurf> and replied:

― Captain Song.

The owner of this smurf account, who was also his booster, was none other than the captain of the pro team Maple Moon, Song Xue-Yang.

Shen Huai and Song Xue-Yang had known each other in the game for several years. It would even be fair to say that Shen Huai only had so many fans because Song Xue-Yang had once recommended Shen Huai's channel on his Weibo account.

[Friend][Pretty Easy to Name a Smurf]: 2v2?

Shen Huai's response was brief. [Ok.]

Song Xue-Yang was the first professional player he had gotten to know. Back when they first met, Shen Huai had still been just another player, an unknown among the masses. He had started live-streaming simply because the platform made it easy for him to record his screen. At that time, Song Xue-Yang had also just become the captain of Maple Moon, a fledgling newcomer to the professional arena.

By pure chance, Song Xue-Yang had stumbled into his live-stream channel and had become his first fan.

Now, Shen Huai was an assassin big shot with 3 million fans. Though he was very rarely online due to work reasons, every time he logged onto the game, Song Xue-Yang would definitely invite him to team up for the 2v2 Arena.

This time was no exception. There weren't that many players at Immortal rank, so matchmaking for 2v2s tended to take a while. Shen Huai had not spoken to Song Xue-Yang in a long time, so they began chatting as they waited.

[I watched the finals this year. Rolling Snipe, very impressive. It's a shame you didn't get the cup.]

The character class Song Xue-Yang played was gunner, specifically the specialised branch of sniper. In the national finals this year, his beautiful execution of Rolling Snipe had been included in the Top 10 highlights of the professional league, which had also catapulted him into the position of #1 for the gunner class.

Although this was just a domestic ranking, as the gunner class was the only physical damage long-range DPS{DPS stands for Damage Per Second, and has two meanings. 1) As an adjective, it describes how much damage a weapon or spell does each second. 2) As a noun, it refers to a character class or specialization which focuses on doing a lot of damage quickly, or in bursts. (Urban Dictionary, 2009)} within the game, the class could be described as a gathering of masters. Thus, the number one in a national ranking would not fare too badly even at the world level. Unfortunately, Maple Moon's journey ended at the top 4. Not only did they not get a trophy, they did not even obtain a spot in the global tournament.

Song Xue-Yang quickly replied: [Not at all. The gap in abilities is very wide. Placing 4th is already pretty good.]

Shen Huai sighed. Song Xue-Yang was a classic example of a strong individual leading a weak team. Before he became the captain, Maple Moon couldn't even rank within the top 8. The fact that they had nabbed 4th place this year was already enough to blow everyone's minds.

[Any changes in team members next year?] Shen Huai asked tactfully. He genuinely hoped that Song Xue-Yang could have some strong teammates.

[Of course, take a look at Weibo.]

Shen Huai rarely browsed for news on e-sports even when he did go on Weibo, but at Song Xue-Yang's prompting, he deliberately looked it up. Shockingly, once the games for the year are done, two members would be retiring while another would be transferring out from Maple Moon!

Retirement was just a nice way of putting it. Shen Huai could tell at a glance that the two retiring members were being fired. Both members weren't that old, so they had no reason whatsoever to be retiring right now, and they also just so happened to be the weak links in the team.

Before Shen Huai could delve deeper into the news, the system had successfully matched them with an opponent.

Unlike the fixed stage of the 1v1 Arena, the map for 2v2s is randomly selected from the in-game map library, and the weather or time of day within the selected map would affect gameplay.

This time, a desert map was selected at random. The weather was windy and hot.

The wind attribute associated with the map could increase the distance of all displacement skills and lengthen the duration of acceleration skills. This was very advantageous to Shen Huai's assassin. The heat attribute could boost fire attacks but would attenuate ice magic, and Song Xue-Yang's smurf account just so happened to be an ice mage.

Shen Huai activated Stealth and forged ahead to scout. Their opponents were a gunner and a mage. The good news was that both those classes were fragile types, and the bad news was that the skills of both classes dealt fire damage.

Song Xue-Yang's mage encountered them head-on. The two opponents did not see the invisible assassin and assumed that the enemy mage had been left on his own, so they immediately honed in to attack him.

Song Xue-Yang kept his cool, unhurriedly using Chains of Ice to lock down the mage, and then he activated the ranged group attack "Frostbite" to slow the gunner down. Fire mages had a super long-range acceleration skill, so the typical speed debuff skills were no use against them, but gunners only had very short-range displacement skills, so they could be handled just by constantly slowing them down.

Even as he was besieged by two people, Song Xue-Yang was able to accurately judge the situation in short order.

After being released from his binding, the mage decisively activated Flame Dash, a skill which propels a character forward, damaging all enemies in its collision path. With this map's wind attribute bonus, the mage blazed forward at high speed, but just as he was about to chase up to the speed-challenged ice mage, an Ice Wall abruptly rose from the ground, stopping him in his tracks.

At this time, the fire mage had been lured a distance away from his companion. Song Xue-Yang had created an excellent opportunity for Shen Huai to attack! Shen Huai burst out of hiding in a cold flash of blades, striking with precision and pulling off a most explosive combo!

Only then did the fire mage realise that there had been an invisible assassin lurking around him, but by then it was too late to run.

At the very moment when Shen Huai reappeared, Song Xue-Yang tacitly followed up with his special skill, Frozen Tundra, and then released his ultimate skill, Blizzard. This chaining of the ice mage's special and ultimate skills was basically unbeatable. If successfully unleashed, the result would be a field of corpses. Late to the party, the gunner was unfortunately just in time to fall within attack range, and his HP was instantly crippled by the two skills.

Shen Huai's blades danced, efficiently reaping the lives of their two opponents. Glittering golden letters appeared on the screen ― VICTORY!

Playing with Song Xue-Yang in 2v2s was very comfortable. Not only would he always help create opportunities for Shen Huai, he was also always able to guess Shen Huai's intentions. Like just now, if anyone else had been his teammate, Shen Huai would have had to mark the intended target for attack, but because his teammate had been Song Xue-Yang, he didn't have to waste time doing so.

Shen Huai sent the other a thumbs-up. [You'll definitely be able to get a trophy next year.]

The other side replied quickly. [If you will join Maple Moon, I can become champion.]

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Previous: Chapter 2: Live-stream
Next:Chapter 4: Live-Stream Announcement

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