Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
No one had expected the situation to turn out this way. Everyone had thought that Lord Grim would be running for his life. Everyone had been wondering whether Lord Grim would end up dying or living. But now? The one who needed to worry about dying or living was Zhang Jiale and his Dazzling Hundred Blossoms.
It was a pincer attack. Just splitting your attention between two ends was a headache already. Even if pro players practiced for these situations, that didnt mean defending against a pincer attack was by all means easy.
Kill Lord Grim?
As time went on, Zhang Jiale felt more and more that his priority should be his own survival instead. If he tried to kill Lord Grim in this situation, Dazzling Hundred Blossom would lose health at a frightening speed, and his attacks towards Lord Grim wouldnt be very effective either. He would mostly likely end up as the one dying.
Retreat?
It seemed to be the safe option. If Little Cold Hands was suppressed, they wouldnt need to be in a hurry to kill Lord Grim, and Han Wenqings Desert Dust would soon arrive as well.
Thats what it looked like on the surface, but Zhang Jiale knew that this safe option was wishful thinking. As soon as the pressure that he put on Happy was put to a halt, Happy wouldnt need to continue attacking because their goal would have been accomplished. In that case, Happy would certainly shift their attention towards Lin Jingyans Dark Thunder to rescue Little Cold Hands.
Once Little Cold Hands was safe, their advantage would be consolidated.
No matter how many twists and turns occurred in the team competition, attacking the healer would always be a good move. By pressuring Lord Grim with his attacks, Zhang Jiale became a chain preventing Happy from protecting their healer. From a certain perspective, it showed just how important Ye Xiu was to Happy.
Any other team would have likely abandoned one of their players to prioritize protecting their healer. Even if it ended up becoming a 4v5 later, having a healer while the other side didnt meant that their chances of winning wouldnt be low. This principle was backed by hard data. In all ten years of Glory pro play, this sort of 4 with healer versus 5 without healer situation had happened 101 times. In 74 of these 101 matches, the 4 with healer side won.
It had happened in Season 4, when Zhang Xinjie helped Han Wenqing topple Team Excellent Eras reign. In Season 5 and Season 7, the God of Healing, Fang Shiqian helped Wang Jiexi lead Team Tiny Herb to two championship wins, giving birth to the saying Whoever has the healer rules the world.
The healer was immensely important to a team, and as a result, many strategies targeting healers had been created. During the regular season, Happys healer wasnt looked upon highly, but Happy took advantage of this opinion, setting up traps around their healer. It was a classic example of using the value of a healer to ones advantage.
Healers wouldnt be sacrificed. Even if Happy was currently using Little Cold Hands to protect Lord Grim, as soon as the pressure on Lord Grim lessened, Happy would immediately turn fire.
As a result, he definitely could not back down.
It was a 1v3, but he had to fight it. Attack Lord Grim!
Zhang Jiale didnt retreat. Dazzling Hundred Blossoms didnt retreat.
Everyone could feel his determination and the meaning behind it. Happy wanted to force Zhang Jiale back and then save Little Cold Hands. It would be killing two birds with one stone. However, Zhang Jiale refused to back down.
If he didnt back down, Happy could not turn fire. If they turned fire, an opening would appear, and Zhang Jiale would certainly take seize it to kill off the 7% health Lord Grim.
What now?
Happys one hit kill against Immovable Rock had been a miraculous play. And now? How would they get out of this impasse? Desert Dust was getting closer and closer. Farther away, Qin Muyuns Negative Nine Degrees was also approaching.
Could he burst down Dazzling Hundred Blossoms before they arrived?
Unlikely!
Even if it was a 3v1, Ye Xius Lord Grim couldnt play too boldly. After all, he only had a sliver of health left. He needed to attack cautiously with safety in mind. As for Concealed Lights summons and Dancing Rains artillery fire, although their damage was impressive, it wouldnt be enough to burst him down instantly. After all, Zhang Jiale wasnt a dead tree.
Ye Xiu would most likely have to risk it, using his 7% health Lord Grim to get close to Dazzling Hundred Blossoms.
The camera had switched over to Lord Grim. Suddenly, light shone from beneath Little Cold Hands and Dark Thunder. A summoning circle had formed, turning the soil black. A Devil Worlds Flower broke through the earth and bloomed!
Shua!
Vines immediately shot towards Dark Thunders feet. He had no choice but to dodge them. If he didnt, he would be CCed, and it was exactly because Devil World Flower had outstanding crowd control that every Summoner would learn it. Whenever anyone faced against a Summoner, killing it was their first priority.
Luo Jis presence was too tiny. No one had thought that he would be the one to break the impasse.
With the interference from Devil World Flower, Dark Thunders attacks towards Little Cold Hands immediately stopped. An Wenyi seized this opportunity to get Little Cold Hands away from him. But Lin Jingyan was old and experienced. He continued to keep pressure onto Little Cold Hands while inside the Devil World Flowers range. The difference was that his pressure was considerably lower than before. However, with this reduction in pressure, An Wenyi was more than capable enough to escape. It was just a matter of time.
Luo Ji seemed to have gotten the sweet taste of success. Concealed Light waved his staff again, and another summoning circle began to form. Summoners had the advantage of using summons to fight for them, allowing them to fight in multiple places at once. Luo Ji was putting this advantage to use.
The summoning circle quickly completed. The summon clearly wasnt a high-level one.
Goblin.
The Summoners lowest-level skill. But since it was a prerequisite for many other skills, every Summoner could summon one. This extremely weak summon very rarely posed a threat on the battlefield. It was usually used as a sacrifice.
But for Lin Jingyan, who was urgently trying to keep pressure onto Little Cold Hands, this Goblin was extremely annoying.
No matter how weak it was, the Goblin could still attack. To dodge the attack or get rid of the Goblin, Dark Thunder would have to perform an action. Whatever this action was would be an opening for An Wenyi.
The Goblin hobbled its way over and threw a rock as if it were throwing a difficult problem towards Lin Jingyan.
At the same time, Lin Jingyan saw a third summoning circle...
Luo Jis Concealed Light played the Four Beast Style, so the number of beasts he could control well at one time was around four or five. However, that didnt mean his Concealed Light only had those four beasts and a Devil World Flower.
Hua... a Death Knight walked out from the summoning circle. It was the core of a different Summoner style, so for a Four Beast style Summoner, it could only play a small role. As a result, it was a very rare choice, after all, the skill points needed to learn Death Knight was rather high.
But... skill points happened to be the area where Happy was number one in...