The King's Avatar
chapter-1602

Artillery shells began being fired again.

Before Su Mucheng circled around to where she could see Lu Boyuan, she began using the splash damage from her Launcher attacks to hit behind the stalagmite. An Electronic Eye was released again to expand her view from another angle.

Step by step, steadily and surely. Su Mucheng played patiently. Her attacks weren’t dense, even though she was using more normal attacks. Normal attacks didn’t use mana. Their threat was low, but they were AoE attacks nonetheless. She didn’t know where exactly Chaotic Cloudy Mountain was located, but it didn’t matter if her attacks hit. If they hit, then it would deal some damage. If they didn’t, then it would scare him.

Lu Boyuan was indeed feeling the pressure. He had thought of the possibility that Su Mucheng would chase after him, but he hadn’t expected her to play so patiently.

Artillery shell after artillery shell landed beside Chaotic Cloudy Mountain. Sometimes, they landed far from him. Other times, they landed close to him. Evidently, the other side wasn’t certain of his location. But at the same time, Lu Boyuan didn’t know her location. When he had taken cover behind the stalagmite, he had turned around to confirm her location one last time. However, it had been some time since then.

As a result, he had no way of figuring out how far away Su Mucheng was from him. He had no way of knowing whether rushing out from hiding would be an opportunity for him. He also had no way of knowing how much cover the stalagmite was giving him.

All that remained was pressure.

Explosions were still happening all around him.

Lu Boyuan hadn’t forgotten that Su Mucheng had Electronic Eye. The Electronic Eye didn’t need to be placed right in front of him. As long as it was looking at him from a different angle than Dancing Rain, Su Mucheng would be able to attack him more precisely. Her calm attacks showed that she was still feeling him out.

He couldn’t keep waiting. He needed to act, but should he advance or retreat? He needed to make a decision.

Lu Boyuan checked his surroundings.

The terrain wasn’t ideal. He could try and move towards another stalagmite. It was somewhat far though, so this third option didn’t seem to be a good one this time. Could it be… Su Mucheng had intentionally let him move here? Had she known that this place was a dead end?

No, it couldn’t be considered a dead end.

Luo Boyuan was familiar with the map. When he had looked at this stalagmite, he had checked which nearby ones he could move to. But now…

Lu Boyuan turned around. The direction he wanted to move towards would leave him open to Dancing Rain’s attacks.

This path hadn’t originally been a dead end. However, Su Mucheng had blocked the path, turning it into one. He had fallen into Su Mucheng’s grasp. This was why she was calm and unhurried.

Okay!

Even if that was the case, he couldn’t hesitate. He was trapped in a corner, and his only choice was to force his way out of it.

Facing this predicament, Lu Boyuan didn’t become discouraged. Instead, he strengthened his resolve because there was no other way out. He would have to create his own bloody path.

Chaotic Cloudy Mountain spun around to the other side of the stalagmite, exposing half of his body to the open.

Dancing Rain saw him. Her Electronic Eye saw him too. Su Mucheng reacted quickly, immediately adjusting her aim and firing at him. Chaotic Cloudy Mountain hastily pulled back, but the explosion landed right beside him. The splash damage hit him, and Chaotic Cloudy Mountain rolled on the ground to reduce the knockback. Then, he got up and went to the other side to try again.

Left or right?

Su Mucheng only had two choices. As a result, Lu Boyuan had Chaotic Cloudy Mountain expose his left side to as a feint to shift her attention over to the left. Then, he immediately rushed out from the opposite side to the right. He was fighting for this tiny opening.

Last chance!

Lu Boyuan knew it was his last chance. Chaotic Cloudy Mountain moved like the wind as he charged towards Dancing Rain.

Boom!

Su Mucheng fired at him as she jumped back, using the recoil to retreat. Dancing Rain didn’t try to stand her ground and attack. With Chaotic Cloudy Mountain charging towards her relentlessly, she needed to keep away from him.

Fire and smoke surrounded Chaotic Cloudy Mountain. He dodged and ran. There was only one option left for him: get closer. If he could get close to her, even if he was at his last breath, he would still have a chance.

One advanced, while the other retreated.

A chase had begun. The distance was slowly closing, but Chaotic Cloudy Mountain’s health was slowly dropping too. From 42% to 35% to 30% to 20%…

I can catch her!

Lu Boyuan was ecstatic. He had calculated it. He would be able to hang on until he reached Dancing Rain. This was the small opening that he had fought for in the beginning. That small opening allowed Lu Boyuan to perceive that Su Mucheng’s offense wasn’t perfect. Her tempo was slightly off, and the distance hadn’t been perfect for her firing line. She had put pressure on him and blocked off his escape, but it wasn’t nearly as focused and oppressive as before.

I can do it! I can do it! This time, I have to seize this opportunity properly. I don’t have much health, but it doesn’t matter. 10% is enough as long as I don’t let Dancing Rain escape.

Five steps! Five steps away!

The next step he took would be the turning point. Once Su Mucheng was five steps away, there would be huge holes in her Launcher’s offense. Su Mucheng might be able to use her experience to cut that distance down to three or four steps, but nevertheless, with this next step, her threat would be drastically reduced. He would be the one in control!

Lu Boyuan stared intently at Dancing Rain. He couldn’t make any mistakes. Suddenly, he saw Dancing Rain suddenly put away her handcannon and take out a rifle.

Gun Switching Style?

Lu Boyuan felt his heart tighten. The Gun Switching Style or the Weapon Switching Style had its clever uses in combat. One of these uses was to help give the character another skill, since a skill could be attached to each weapon.

Dancing Rain had suddenly switched to a Rifle. Perhaps it was to increase her attack speed, but Launchers that didn’t use their class-specific weapon would deal significantly less damage. In addition, they lose the bonus from their class advancement skill “Heavy Gunfire Control”. All of their skills would become less effective. As a result, she wouldn’t be using her Launcher skills to retake control. What’s more, the rifle was only slightly faster than the handcannon.

Then… it was very likely that the bonus skill on the rifle could turn things around. What could it be?

Luckily, she wasn’t an unspecialized, so there was no need to consider skills from all 24 classes. He could narrow it down to the 4 Gunner classes. However, instantly coming up with an answer was too difficult. He could only be wary of it. At this moment, the rifle began to fire at him.

What is it?

Lu Boyuan opened his eyes wide. He noticed something rise up from Dancing Rain’s feet. It was a Mounted Gun.

What?

Lu Boyuan wasn’t the only one surprised. Hadn’t Mounted Gun just been used? This Level 75 skill’s cooldown wasn’t so short. It couldn’t a Mounted Gun from her rifle. If the skill added to the weapon wasn’t a new skill, then the skill level would be raised by one. It didn’t mean that the user would have two of the same skill.

It wasn’t possible for it to be a Mounted Gun. Switching to a rifle wouldn’t refresh the skill and get rid of its cooldown.

Uh? Refresh?

He understood now.

It was the Sharpshooter skill: Dual Load. It was a skill that let the user instantly refresh a skill on cooldown, and Su Mucheng had chosen to refresh Mounted Gun.

So it’s like that…

Lu Boyuan let out a bitter laugh. He hadn’t expected Su Mucheng to come out with this move. This was his loss.

Grappler grab skills were high priority moves, but there were things that couldn’t be grabbed such as the Summoner’s Devil World Flower. Once it put down its roots, it could not be moved. Grappler grab skills would only deal damage. There would be no secondary effects. To put it simply, grab skills only dealt damage when used against targets that could not be moved.

A Launcher using Mounted Gun was considered a target that could not be moved.

His grabs would only deal damage. He wouldn’t be able to stop Dancing Rain from attacking. Mounted Gun would increase her attack power by a massive amount. It would also increase her defense and give her Super Armor. There was no way to stop a Launcher using Mounted Gun from attacking. Su Mucheng could easily finish him off. She would simply have to sacrifice a bit of health to do so.

Boom!

A Satellite Beam descended, and Chaotic Cloudy Mountain fell. Chaotic Cloudy Mountain didn’t have much health left. He could not retreat. During his final moments, he could only try to deal as much damage as possible to Dancing Rain. When he fell, he was able to take out 28% of Dancing Rain’s health. Even though his grabs didn’t have secondary effects, just the damage alone was frightening. Unfortunately, Chaotic Cloudy Mountain didn’t have much health left. If not, if he could survive a bit longer, it would be hard to say who would win.

Happy’s Su Mucheng had won with 59% health, giving Happy a substantial lead. This fight had the clearest winner and loser in the group arena so far. In the match between Jiang Botao and Mo Fan, when Jiang Botao had no skills available, Mo Fan had given him quite the beating. In this match, although Lu Boyuan was able to take out 28% of Dancing Rain’s health during his final moments, much more than what Su Mucheng did to him during that period of time, it couldn’t really be said that he had the upper hand the majority of the battle. Ever since Su Mucheng was able to escape from his grasp, Su Mucheng took complete control over the fight. She fully deserved this win.