[FLOTG] Chapter 36: The Battle to Block the Holidays

Under the "Protect the King" mode, each team chooses a player to be the "king". Each player other than the king may be resurrected twice, while the king cannot be resurrected. The first team to kill the opponent's king wins.

In order to prevent the opponent's king from hiding and deliberately prolonging the match, the kings carry a proximity buff which strengthens the attack of nearby allies by 10%. In other words, the side without their king present during a battle will be at an absolute disadvantage. By the time his teammates' three lives are all used up, the isolated king will have no chance of staging a comeback. As such, the key focus of "Protect the King" is the team battle.

The randomly assigned map loaded. It was Butterfly Valley, with rainy weather.

In rainy weather, fire attacks would be weakened by 5% while lightning attacks would be strengthened by 5%. Though 5% may not look like much, it was equivalent to an additional head count in the early stages.

This was good news for Maple Moon. WG had a fire mage, while Maple Moon had Shi Yi who played an elementalist specializing in lightning.

The spawn points for both sides were randomly generated on the map. Players from the same team would all be dropped at the same spawn point.

As soon as Zhang Jia-Yan's character landed, he swiftly instructed, "Let the healer be the king. Take the main road. Heavy swordsman, protect the back row. Watch out for invisible assassins!"

The party charged along the main road directly. This was common practice for teams that were good at team battles. Rather than splitting up to spy on the enemy's movements, they would rather stick together as a group. If you dare to come, then let's fight!

The tanky warrior was right at the front. When he got to the centre of the map, he saw that Maple Moon was also charging over at them directly. They were out in the open, not dodging or hiding, and even their assassin was still visible. It looked like they were planning to fight head-on.

The WG players had at first been worried that Maple Moon would hide in order to drag out the match past 10 minutes, but Maple Moon was surprisingly proactive and actually came to meet them. WG looked at the Maple Moon team like they were a pie which had fallen from the sky right into their laps. They were just waiting for the word from their captain to pounce and wipe out Maple Moon.

Although Zhang Jia-Yan was usually easily provoked, he was extremely calm when he was playing in a match. He quickly sensed that something was wrong after a moment of thought.

"They can't beat us head-on, so they must have something hidden up their sleeves. Warriors take the lead. Focus on scouting for now, and watch out for a trap."

The captain's words cooled the team's heads. Putting aside the fact that the strength of the veteran players in Maple Moon had already been verified in multiple rounds of competitive games, even if they were up against a team of rookies, with Song Xue-Yang behind their opponents, things were probably not as simple as they seemed.

WG's tank warrior hoisted up his giant hammer and charged forwards. Tank warriors are the warrior subclass with the "thickest skin", characterized by excellent shields, damage reduction, and or damage nullification skills. Although their ability to deal damage isn't very high, no one could beat them in sheer resilience and survivability.

The Maple Moon team did not avoid the incoming warrior. The assassin <MuWanGe> was the first to rush forwards, landing four consecutive hits on the warrior with her dual blades and passively activating invisibility.

Zhang Jia-Yan immediately registered that the assassin was trying to sneak over while invisible and look for an opportunity to ambush the king. Sure enough, almost as soon as the assassin became invisible, the opponent's heavy swordsman also accelerated and charged towards the king.

Abandoning his cautious scouting, he immediately summoned two turrets with a burst of hand speed to attack Zhou Ning's heavy swordsman. Simultaneously, he also summoned an aerial battleship to fire a flare unerringly in the direction of his own team's healer.

Flares do not cause any damage, but they could reveal any hidden units within range. This flare would catch the assassin before he was ready to attack.

The flare exploded above the head of WG's king, but to everyone's surprise, there was no sign of the assassin within its range. And at the same time, the other holy priest in their team, Jia Yun-Ge, was suddenly stabbed in the back!

As if they were telepathically connected, Zhou Ning and the assassin moved at the same time — Soul Steal! Mountain Cleave!

Their crowd control skills struck the two holy priests of WG, and in the same second, Zhou Jing swiftly tapped her keyboard twice.

—— Cursed Light! Divine Aura!

The was a core part of this play strategy by Song Xue-Yang. Cursed Light could lower the opponent's defense by 30% while Divine Aura would increase the attack power of allies within range by 30%.

Hai Xing had long been keyed up just waiting for this exact moment. He immediately unleashed his ultimate "Mortal Strike", shooting out consecutive blasts, while Shi Yi fired off a grand combo of Water Spell and Heaven's Wrath at the same time.

A dazzling light show of special effects from the skills crashed right on top of Zhang Jia-Yan. The combined range of all the skills was so wide that there was no way he could dodge them all.

Lightning attacks already had a bonus 5% increase in rainy weather to begin with, and since Maple Moon's king was Zhou Jing's light spellcaster, the addition of her King's Halo and Divine Aura attack bonus directly doubled the combo attack damage of the two attackers. Even gods and demons would not survive.

Before Zhang Jia-Yan could even react, his screen had already turned grey. He froze in shock for a second, even forgetting to issue any commands.

WG's healer, the holy priest, might have tossed out an Invincibility to save his captain, but Zhou Ning's heavy swordsman had kept him busy with a barrage of slashes, chasing after him and controlling his movements. The holy priest had not been able to take even one step, much less use any skills, and could only watch helplessly as Zhang Jia-Yan fell.

The WG team members were flabbergasted. It's not that they had never seen a light spellcaster cast a combo of Cursed Light and Divine Aura before, but it was completely unheard of and unseen of for specials to be cast upon the first meeting between the two centre-positions of each team!

What's even more terrifying was how the skills had been connected so seamlessly, so quickly that there was no time for others to react at all. If they weren't so certain that these skills came from different classes, they would have suspected that the skills had been unleashed by the same person!

Zhang Jia-Yan did not panic. In Protect the King mode, all players except the king could revive twice. Although he had just lost one life, it would not have much impact.

"Catch the swordsman and the assassin! Trade them a 2-for-1!"

The team instantly rallied. Their captain might be dead, but the opponent's assassin and swordsman were still in their midst, and neither of the two classes were tanky types. In particular, the assassin was extremely fragile and was sure to die once here, perhaps even be wiped out from the game completely!

In order to control the two holy priests of WG, the positioning of both Shen Huai and Zhou Ning had been very deep forward. WG immediately rained attacks upon them, dumping skills as quickly as they could onto the two players, just waiting for the system to announce their deaths. However, Maple Moon's light spellcaster suddenly cast her special "Divine Summoning", which directly teleported all members of her team on the map to her side!

WG, who saw all their skills land on empty air: "..."

God dammit! What the hell are they playing at?! Running all over the place!

The speed by which Maple Moon retreated was even faster than when they had attacked, too fast for anyone to react, and even if someone had managed to react, it would have been pointless. The special move "Divine Summoning" was one which could not be interrupted.

Zhang Jia-Yan was dumbfounded. Maple Moon was applying guerrilla warfare! They made it seem like they were raring for a full-on fight, but in truth, they had run away after killing just one of WG's members. They had never had any intention for a head-on confrontation!

"We can't let them get away like this. Attack!"

Jia Yun-Ge was the first to attack. As the only offensive holy priest player among the pros, he had always been dubbed as the No.1 cursed healer within the industry. The damage of a cursed healer could not compare to that of the other DPS character classes, but its strength was in dealing continuous AoE damage. Most importantly, he was the first link in the chain of WG's chained bonus play-style!

The settings of the various classes in "City of Despair" were closely related. One such special relationship was that of boosting and weakening — for example, fire and ice attacks, and dark and light magic will weaken each other, whereas a poisoned status can boost the damage received from light attacks, and light attacks also boost fire attacks. That was the core of the WG chained bonus play-style!

With a raise of his arm, Jia Yun-Ge unleashed a large cloud of poison, and the vision of everyone in Maple Moon took on a purple tint. At the same time, Zhang Jia-Yan summoned a Demon God Mecha. A long-range laser shot dealt immense damage to the poisoned group, and Liang Ming-Hui's fire mage instantly activated his special move — Blazing Wildfire!

Roaring flames rose up all around them, forming a circular barricade. This skill was ridiculously overpowered — those within the barricade would receive double the damage, and anyone who touched the surrounding wall of fire would be stunned for 0.5 seconds. Basically, it was death whether one chose to advance or retreat.

The final fire attack in the boosted chain dealt extremely high damage. Zhou Ning's heavy swordsman had already taken a lot of damage prior to that, so he died almost as soon as the special was activated.

As the king, Zhou Jing had to prioritize her own life. She immediately put a shield on herself and charged out of the barricade, but even so, she still lost 50% of her HP.

Using his elementalist's godly skill of "Arcane Flicker", Shi Yi managed to instantly teleport 15 metres, and his character would not be targetable during the displacement. Thus, he was the first to escape the range of "Blazing Wildfire", only taking damage from the first two links of WG's damage-boost chain, so he did not lose much HP.

Hai Xing wasn't as fortunate. His fragile speed-challenged gunner was killed instantly by this combo chain, losing its first life.

WG's chained bonus play-style killed off two of Maple Moon's members in an instant, one of which was a gunner at full HP. This terrifying ability to deal such explosive team damage instantly made up for their disadvantage at the beginning of the game!

WG pressed their advantage. Their frontliners, the warrior and heavy swordsman, charged into the enemy camp, brandishing their weapons. Suddenly, Zhang Jia-Yan had a bad feeling... where was Maple Moon's assassin?

The thought had barely crossed his mind when a knife flashed behind him. A female assassin in black appeared out of thin air like a ghost. She had the barest sliver of HP left, but her damage output was horrifyingly high!

Reaper's Mark - Assassination - Blood Blade - Dark Razor - Wild Blade Dance!

Under "Reaper's Mark" which boosts an assassin's damage output to the maximum, "Wild Blade Dance" perfectly triggered the critical hit effect. This one super explosive combo was enough to drop Zhang Jia-Yan's HP to below 50%!

His brows furrowed as he realized that this assassin had to be Ash Wing!

Joy surged through him, and his eyes seemed to ignite. His fingers trembled, and an unconscious smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Ash Wing. That's great!

He had finally come to play professionally. Even if the team he chose wasn't WG, Zhang Jia-Yan was thrilled just thinking about competing with him in the professional arena that symbolized the highest level of "City of Despair" in China.

Ever since he had inadvertently found the streamer via Song Xue-Yang's Weibo recommendations and had seen Ash Wing's amazing plays, he had been waiting for this day to come!

He swiftly entered the zone. Even though this was just a friendly match, Ash Wing was definitely someone he needed 120% of his concentration to deal with.

Ash Wing must have used Stealth to avoid being roped into the barricade of Blazing Wildfire. The common skills of the various classes in the game had pretty long cooldowns, and Ash Wing had just used Stealth and he had not triggered Invisibility from a combo under Shadow Mark — in other words, Ash Wing would not be able to go invisible to escape!

Zhang Jia-Yan decisively launched his special summon, Martial God. The colossal figure of a martial god descended from the sky, wiping out the one-time immunity of Shen Huai's chosen talent Salvation. Without the protection of Salvation, Shen Huai was unable to survive for more than a few seconds no matter how good his positioning skills were. However, he still managed to whittle away a considerable amount of Zhang Jia-Yan's HP in the process.

WG's healer was just about to heal him when a golden light shield dropped from the sky to envelop Zhang Jia-Yan, which blocked the healing skill from taking effect!

The healer wanted to spew blood. Today's friendly match was the most frustrating one he had ever played. He had an arsenal full of skills but he just couldn't use any of them, which grated on him so much he felt like grinding his teeth.

The move covering Zhang Jia-Yan didn't just end at blocking him from being healed. It was a skill which all players least want to see, the ultimate move of a berserker ― "Duel"!

Duel, the signature skill of berserkers, designates an enemy player to duel with the berserker one-on-one. During the duel, a stage will appear on the field and last for 10 seconds. When it appears, it would repel nearby enemy units, and neither of the duelling parties would be able to leave the stage until either the timer runs out or one side is killed. While the duel is ongoing, neither of the duelling players may be targeted by the skills of the other players.

If Fan Jing-Ming was facing Zhang Jia-Yan in a 1v1 arena, he would definitely be no match for Zhang Jia-Yan. However, since Shen Huai had already wiped out half of Zhang Jia-Yan's HP, the outcome here was almost predetermined!

The duellers on both sides were forcefully transported onto the stage. The stage would only last for 10 seconds, so there was no time to waste. Fan Jing-Ming activated his special move "Battle Fury" — his character's damage reduction, control defense, and all other major attributes would be buffed by 50% for 10 seconds!

Blood-red fighting spirit surrounded the berserker, and the sledgehammer in his hands left sparks in the air as he chased after Zhang Jia-Yan, swinging furiously. He gave Zhang Jia-Yan no chance to fight back, KO-ing him in just 3 seconds.

Zhang Jia-Yan died for the second time, never having considered that the god of death had been targeting him alone from the very beginning.

Shen Huai sat before his screen, expression calm and neutral. He was the commander for this round of "Protect the King", and his strategy was very clear — eliminate Zhang Jia-Yan first!

The greatest threat in WG's chained bonus attack play may seem to be the fire mage at the end with the highest damage, but it was actually Zhang Jia-Yan in the middle who plays a critical role in connecting the chain! As long as he's out, the chained bonus play-style would break on its own, and Maple Moon excelled at explosive attacks!

Zhang Jia-Yan was down to his last life. While Maple Moon had suffered more deaths overall, theirs were spread evenly across the team. In "Protect the King", body count wasn’t the deciding factor — victory hinged entirely on which side could take out the opposing king first!

By now, the battle had been going on for 13 minutes, exceeding the duration betted on... but no one noticed. Their attention was fully on the match being played, with thoughts of bets or holiday plans entirely forgotten. Everyone had only one thing on their minds: victory!

Zhang Jia-Yan was a hot-blooded youth to begin with, who knew no fear when playing games. Even though he only had one life left, he did not flinch at all, leading his team to focus fire upon Maple Moon's king, Zhou Jing.

Zhou Jing quickly used an immunity skill, but still died due to her overly low health from before. However, there was another benefit to choosing a spellcaster as the king. Spellcasters had the common skill "Wraith", which let them be resurrected as a wraith when they died, with 30% of their initial HP and MP.

Unfortunately, Zhang Jia-Yan did not give Maple Moon another chance to kill him again. He activated his ultimate "War God's Descent" and charged into the midst of the enemy, cooperating with Jia Yun-Ge and Liang Ming-Hui to instakill Zhou Jing.

The game ended with WG winning, with a game time of 17 minutes!

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