Volume 5: Protracted War Chapter 52: Team Battle Begins
I finally won the most crucial game to advance to the quarterfinals, and the person I defeated was the fourth seed of the individual competition, Archbishop of Light, Saint Tiantang, who also possessed a divine weapon. The significance of this was even more extraordinary. Before the game, Long Xingtianxia came over in person to cheer me up - he was not sure that he could win the supreme honor. If I could defeat Saint Tiantang, who was also a magician, then even if I was awarded the supreme honor of "the best master in the world", our dark profession would not be completely at a disadvantage, and a situation would be formed in which the two wings of the Church of Light would fly together and dominate.
In a bloody fight, both Sheng Tiantang and I used all our strength. Although he was defeated and lost a two-winged archangel who could "descend", I can only call it a miserable victory. The combat effectiveness has also decreased a lot . Red Star lost the most powerful "Life-Calling Spear". At most, it is only slightly stronger than the Horror Lion Knight. Facing the top eight players, it is difficult to do much. Because the power of the "Life-Calling Spear" has increased, the quality of the bone spear has also been enhanced. It needs to absorb more soul energy and spend more time to make it. In order to cope with the upcoming team competition, it must be refined immediately. Wu Ma suffered a heavy blow. Even with the strong recovery ability of the Destruction Knight and the help of the Horror Knight Guard, it is estimated that it will not be able to recover in a day or two. It is hard to say when I will be able to join the battle, but I will definitely not be able to catch up with the next individual competition. It will be doubly difficult to go further. Fortunately, I don’t have too big ambitions and I am the type that is easily satisfied. My original intention of participating in the individual competition was just to make a little extra money. If I hadn’t bet heavily on myself and tried my best to win the "Top Ten", I might not have gone through so much trouble to plan and participate in the competition for the "master title" that seemed so out of reach before the game.
The eighth round of the competition was over. In addition to my victory, the seven teams, Supreme Honor, Dragon Travels the World, Desert Eagle, Fearless Warrior, Yamato Spirit, Nomadic Tribe, and Romantic Sakura, also defeated their respective opponents and successfully advanced to the quarterfinals, securing the title of "Top Ten". Most of the matches used "pseudo-artifacts". It seems that they all know the pros and cons and have tried their best to give it a try. In fact, there is no weakling who can make it to the top 16. It is possible for anyone to win or lose. However, such a result is an unprecedented blow to the light profession. Not only was the Holy Heaven with the artifact eliminated, but even another ace Angel in the world was unfortunately defeated in the match with Romantic Sakura. Both sides used "pseudo-artifacts", but Angel in the world is defensive, while Romantic Sakura is offensive. With the help of the mounts of both sides, the speed dragon against the pterosaur, it is obviously beneficial to Romantic Sakura, and finally won the game. The light profession only has Supreme Honor left in the quarterfinals. Facing the three strong attacks of the dark profession, it seems a bit weak.
In the ninth round of the competition, I was very sorry to stop in the quarterfinals. On the one hand, I had already achieved the predetermined goal and lost motivation. In addition, my strength was damaged and I lacked a strong desire to win. False reputation was like a cloud to me. There was not much difference between the first and the eighth. With the income of more than 400,000 gold coins from winning Hua Mantian in the underground gambling, I did not care about the prize money difference of 10,000 or 20,000 gold coins. On the other hand, it was because my opponent was Long Xingtian. He was the best candidate to challenge the Supreme Honor and had been eager to have a formal contest with the Supreme Honor. Judging from the combat effectiveness alone, his chances were much greater than mine. We were all family and had a good relationship. Naturally, I would not fight him for a momentary impulse and waste his energy. After all, fighting in a row was quite tiring. I stood on the field to respond to the situation and was easily defeated by him. If nothing unexpected happened, according to my record, I should only be the "eighth master in the world."
The top four were Supreme Honor, Dragon Walks the World, Fearless Warriors and Yamato Spirit. Desert Eagle encountered Supreme Honor in advance and lost again after a fierce battle, still unable to shake Dragon Walks the World's position as the "number one in the dark profession". Yamato Spirit defeated the nomadic tribe, while the civil war between Fearless Warriors and Romantic Sakura in the northern continent dragged on until the end of the game and still no one was determined. In the end, the referee ruled that Fearless Warriors won and both advanced to the top four.
In the semi-finals, Long Xing Tian Xia defeated Yamato Spirit, defending his position as the "No. 1 in the Eastern Continent" again, while Supreme Honor defeated Fearless Warriors, just as many players expected before the game, and successfully met in the finals. The Light Knight vs. Magic Knight, "Holy Cross" vs. "Poison|Dragon Spear" was the most exciting match. Both sides played very well and did not leave too many opportunities for the other side. After half an hour of fierce competition, no one was able to kill the opponent. After discussion and judgment by five referees, Supreme Honor won the game with a very slight advantage of 3 to 2, and was awarded the title of "No. 1 Master in the World", which can be regarded as saving a little face for the Light Profession.
In the previous competition, the eight defeated players in the top 16 went through two rounds of playoffs and the last two players who entered the "Top Ten" were produced, namely Shengtiantang and Bajiugaoge. Angel in the World was unlucky again to encounter Shengtiantang in the second round of playoffs, performing a fierce duel between the bright professions. It was a pity that there was no "pseudo-artifact" to rely on, and finally lost to the "Angel Robe".
At this point, the individual competitions of the "Heroes of the World Conference" have all ended, and the "Top Ten Masters of the World" have been produced. The ten players who won the "Top Ten" are ranked in order of their ranking as follows: Light Knight Supreme Honor, Earth Demon Knight Dragon Travels the World, Earth Berserker Fearless Warrior, Earth Angry Swordsman Yamato Spirit, Earth Demon Knight Desert Eagle, Earth Knight Romantic Sakura, Earth Demon Archer Nomadic Tribe, Undead Wizard A'dai, Light Archbishop Holy Heaven, and Earth Berserker Drinking and Singing. Supreme Honor won the title of "The World's No. 1 Master" and a championship prize of 30,000 gold coins, Dragon Travels the World got 20,000 gold coins, and the rest of the eight masters got 10,000 each. As for the reward for the other "exploration mission", we will have to wait until the team competition is over and the "Heroes of the World Conference" is officially over before making specific arrangements.
With the emergence of the "Top Ten Masters in the World", some are happy while others are sad. Xue Wuxia, Afeng and I became rich overnight, so we are naturally very happy. I think the most "sad" person should be Hua Mantian. For him, I am definitely a dark horse. We have to pay more than 2 million gold coins for this one deal. Even if this underground gambling game does not lose money, it is estimated that it will not make too much profit. The plan to expand the power of Huadu will not be so easy to succeed. The Church of Light and the "Resistance Alliance" can be said to have tied. We have one more person, and they have the title of "the best master in the world". We have our own gains and losses, and it is still difficult to tell who is better.
The individual competition has ended, and before the audience's enthusiasm has subsided, the more competitive team competition will be staged. It is still divided into 32 groups for preliminaries. The top two in each group will advance, and a total of 64 teams will advance to the main competition. The most powerful teams among them are Glory and Longteng. The former has Supreme Honor and Holy Heaven, and the latter has Dragon Travels the World and Singing with Wine, each of which has two top masters who won the "Top Ten" in the individual competition. Our Tongxin League is the oldest mercenary group, and we have me, the "Eighth Master in the World" who is good at group battles. Xue Wuxia, Afeng and a few others also performed well, so we also became one of the thirty-two seeded teams. The others, such as the Sun Never Sets Mercenary Group of Yamato Spirit, the Sun Mercenary Group of Desert Eagle, the Fearless Mercenary Group of Fearless Warriors, the Star-Moon Mercenary Group of Romantic Sakura, the Flower City Mercenary Group with Flowers All Over the Sky, the Galaxy Mercenary Group of Real Madrid, the Zhongtian Mercenary Group of Autumn Water and Long Sky, etc., also qualified as seed teams and launched a fierce competition for the honor and rewards of "Top Ten Mercenary Groups in the World". After all, the number of mercenary groups in Tianxia is limited, and it is difficult to generate new mercenary groups. More than a thousand mercenary groups have only attracted more than a million players to join, which is only one percent of the total number of online players of hundreds of millions. Being able to upgrade to a "large mercenary group" earlier and expand the number of formal members to 10,000 means that more relatively excellent players can be attracted to join first, and the mercenary group will be able to take the lead in the increasingly fierce competition, which is extremely beneficial to the future development of the mercenary group. Moreover, the issuance of quotas for medium-sized and above mercenary groups will be subject to increasingly strict restrictions, and only a very small part of them can be upgraded. Every opportunity cannot be given up. Once the quota for upgrading is full, they can only seek new development opportunities through large-scale "group battles", which will inevitably cost a greater price and be relatively difficult.
Each team is composed of thirty members from the same mercenary group. Twenty players can be selected for each game based on the situation of the opponents, which makes it more targeted and more flexible in tactical design. It is not only conducive to a comprehensive assessment of the overall strength of the mercenary group, but also makes the game more valuable for viewing, so as not to reduce audience interest due to a single style of play.
Xue Wuxia was determined to win the title of "Top Ten Mercenary Groups in the World" and was unwilling to give up the opportunity to obtain the "Ten Thousand People Order" through the "Adventure Mission". Most of the contestants selected had relatively high-level sixth-level magic pets and rich PK experience. I rarely played in the group preliminaries, and sat on the bench to watch the games in most of the games, unless it was necessary to practice tactics, or the opponent also had a relatively strong undead wizard, so I would be sent to play for safety reasons. Generally, according to the specific situation, the other two undead wizards who joined the Tongxin League, Guo Po Shanhe, and Moonlight Treasure Box, would cooperate with other team members to fight, trying to give newcomers some opportunities to exercise, so that they can accumulate some contribution points and get more rewards.
In the current Tianxia, everyone has understood the important role of the necromancer in group battles. The invention of potions to replenish and speed up the recovery of mental power, or the use of auxiliary magic by high-level priests of light and water magicians to replenish their mental power, can speed up the casting of "Summoning the Dead". In normal treasure hunting PK, it can at least replace several people. Therefore, except for mercenary groups like Glory and Galaxy that are heavily inclined to the Church of Light and will exclude players of dark professions from joining, general mercenary groups will try to recruit some strong necromancers. In order to compete with each other, they will even offer various more favorable conditions. Tongxin League has also contacted other more powerful necromancers, but because of its own financial resources, it cannot offer attractive enough conditions. In addition, with me as a "big tree" in front, they can only be my substitute. The good things they play or make must be equipped by me first. As the saying goes, it is better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of an ox. One by one, they refused and were hired by other mercenary groups with "high salaries". Skynet, which Xue Wuxia and I had originally placed high hopes on, turned out to be a guy who "values love over friendship". The wife followed the husband and ran off to the northern continent to fool around with her girlfriend whom she fell in love with at first sight, and together they joined the Star-Moon Mercenary Group jointly established by Romantic Sakura and Qingwu Feiyang. Besides, the couple was only concerned with their lovey-dovey behavior all day long. It was more like they were sightseeing than leveling up, and they could no longer be considered outstanding necromancers.
In desperation, Afeng and Longkong, after careful screening and investigation (I never care about these "trivial matters"), recruited a dozen undead wizards from the "Resistance Alliance" who were not very powerful (relatively behind in level) but had "potential" (good foundation and enterprising spirit), and joined the United Alliance for key training to speed up their growth. I also took care of them in the "Dead Space" from time to time , provided some conveniences, and helped them develop faster, and they gradually caught up one by one. Finally, before the current "World Heroes Conference" was held, the two best among them, Guo Po Shan He, successfully advanced to the sixth level of the Undead Wizard with Moonlight Treasure Box, and Guo Po Shan He had a black bat under his command who also transformed into a blood bat two months ago. He used the third-level "pet scroll" of the second profession to successfully sign a contract with Moonlight Treasure Box, and was lucky to be accepted as a pet. The black warrior pet that Moonlight Treasure Box signed until the fifth level of the profession turned out to have the same evolutionary attribute as Tao Tao. Now it has just undergone an evolution and become a black warrior leader. It has great development potential. Considering all these factors, it is barely qualified to represent the Tongxin League in the competition. Then there was an emergency assault. I took the time to help them each subdue some terrifying giant bear knights, and pulled them to this team competition for training. It was also a means of winning over and motivating them, so as to win their hearts and minds, so that they would not "change jobs" because of poor treatment. If they can grow up, they don't have to bother me all the time for some not-too-big things in the future, and they won't lose out in the competition with other mercenary groups.
Judging from the situation in several preliminaries, as newcomers, their performance is not bad. However, because they have fewer "resources", they are quite stingy in using them. They are reluctant to sacrifice easily in battle. They lack a desperate momentum, which affects their strength. The role of undead creatures who are afraid of death in battle is greatly reduced. But it's no wonder. I have a lot of things to do. I am busy all day and don't have much time to help them. Their own strength is still not enough. It's a little difficult to face the Horror Giant Bear Knight. They can't sign the "Soul Contract" quickly. Therefore, each of them only subdues more than 20 Horror Knights. To deal with consecutive games, they naturally can't be as "generous" as me, and the Horror Mad Lion Knight can be sacrificed at will.
