The Queen's Avatar

Xuelian lunged forward as she swung her blade upwards as Wang Jiexi parried with his broom, propelling Vaccaria backwards.

Phoenix Falling Slash!

Seeing the distance grow between them, Xuelian had Forgotten Winds take a giant leap into the air before plunging down with a heavy sword light onto Vaccaria.

Seeing Forgotten Winds jump onto him, Wang Jiexi squinted his eyes as he took a step to the left before conducting a light sweep into the air.

"What is the captain doing?" Liu Fei glanced towards Yingjie in hopes of obtaining an answer, as he played the class.

"I'm not sure?" Yingjie saw the odd movement Vaccaria was displaying, and although he found it weird himself, he had absolute trust in his captain. 

He would never do something without a purpose!

The audience was stunned as well, was he deliberately losing the fight? To the world, Wang Jiexi was crazy as it looked like he was attacking the air.

"Oh!" Ye Xiu found the situation interesting as he sat straight and focused on the screen.

Even to some of the pro-players, the movements of Vaccaria was simply insane, and to Ye Xiu, although it was insane, the meaning was entirely different.

Xuelian's character Forgotten Winds transitioned her skill into a Falling Blossom Form, striking down with greater speed than her original attack.

"Sh*t…" Xuelian couldn't help but say aloud in shock as she couldn't believe Wang Jiexi had seen through her technique.

"How did he know?" Though she really wanted to know, the match wouldn't pause for her to go back and watch the replay.

Her character Forgotten Winds flew down a few feet shorter than her original destination, as she landed onto the sweep from Vaccaria.

The little action seemed slow yet dangerous, as if taunting her.

But there was nothing she could do!

Even if she cancelled her skill, she wouldn't be able to dodge in time! 

Besides, with the way she was mentally, it was practically impossible.

Although the skill didn't do much damage on its own, Wang Jiexi was able to not only interrupt Xuelian's skill, but change the tempo as Forgotten Winds would be knocked into the air as well.

"What?!" Yingjie cried aloud as he stood up in shock, the audience, the players on Tiny Herb were also stunned.

Only now did they realize that Wang Jiexi's actions were not illogical at all.

Although Yingjie had absolute faith in his captain, even he didn't expect such an outcome.

"Had he known that Forgotten Winds would switch her skill? Was it a fluke?" These questions flew around in Yingjie's mind as his admiration for Wang Jiexi grew.

Magic Missile!

Firing a burst of magical energy towards Forgotten Winds, Xuelian's chance of recovery was interrupted once again. 

However, Wang Jiexi didn't let up as he pressed forward. 

Flying over Forgotten Winds on his broom, Vaccaria struck his palm forward, throwing a white flask towards Xuelian.

Acid Rain! Ice Drill!

Clouds started forming as green rain fell onto Forgotten Winds, with a large blue drill falling downwards onto Xuelian's character.

Though Xuelian was able to evade the acid rain, the speed of the drill was quite slow, so she was able to do a quick-roll and jump back onto her feet, allowing her to bȧrėly dodge the drill in time.

But besides that, the audience grew into disarray as they all gasped and started shouting.

"Holy sh*t!" 

"What the f*ck? Who is that girl?"

"It's the magician!"

"Ahhh! Wang Jiexi, sarangeheyo!"

If Xuelian was outside, she would have choked on air. Did they think it was a Korean drama or something?!

To all the old veterans, the magician was a term that was bȧrėly brought up, thus they were all feeling a sense of nostalgia, excitement and nervousness.

To compliment Wang Jiexi's unpredictable and unique playstyle, the term magician was named after him.

However, the name was no longer being used to describe Wang Jiexi, as Glory was ultimately a team game. In order to adapt with his team, in order to synchronize with his team, he had to control and restrict his playstyle.

Yingjie glued his eyes onto the screen, refusing to even miss a second as he clenched his fist in excitement. "The magician!"

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Xuelian's health bar was red, and because of her strategy, she knew that obtaining a heal was practically impossible.

Just one short trade! The game was flipped entirely on its table.

With her competitive personality, she really didn't want to lose, but the hopes of winning were practically zero to none.

Triple Slash! 

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Xuelian wasn't able to run as Vaccaria had also casted frost powder onto her, reducing her movement speed.

With no other options, Xuelian had no choice but to fight and trade back. But Wang Jiexi was trading his health aggressively.

Vaccaria didn't even bother blocking as he took all the hits straight on, while returning a few attacks back.

Even with such a blunt playstyle, Xuelian's character would undoubtedly fall first.

Truthfully, even Xuelian was starting to get annoyed. The opponent was playing so brazenly, yet she was still squirming around!

Clenching her teeth, the fingers of Xuelian flew around the keyboard, leaving only a blur behind.

Even Xuelian herself hadn't realized how high her APM had grown. 

"Enough with this nonsense! Since it's come to this, let's fight!"

Casting shadow steps, seven after images instantly appeared on the screen as they all seemed real, leaving no traces of irregularities.

Formless Phantom Blade!

A blademaster's most powerful skill relies on higher combos to deal more damage

Boom! Boom! Boom! Pu, Pu, Pu!

In a short second, seven Forgotten Winds flew across the screen, leaving only sword lights that struck towards Wang Jiexi.

"What?!" Liu Xiaobie jumped up in awe causing the other players from Tiny Herb to look at him.

"What's wrong?" Liang Fiang who played a berserker asked as he raised his left eyebrow.

But Xiaobie didn't respond as he continued to look at the match while standing.

Seven after images with no irregularities was already hard enough, yet she was able to control them perfectly with the blademaster's ultimate skill?! 

Even Huang Shaotian struggled with seven after images alone, yet she was raising the bar to a whole new level!

Only professional Blademaster players would realize how perfect Xuelian was playing.

Spotting an irregularity in an afterimage was quite hard to find if it was not obvious.

Of course, everyone refused to believe that the girl was able to control the afterimages perfectly. But Xiaobie knew, there were no flaws or openings in her attacks.

Pu, pu, pu

Formless Phantom Blade was a skill that required the user to calculate the distance, angle, and the enemy's movement as even a slight error could interrupt the combo.

Star Ray!

Quickly summoning in a bright star in the sky, streaks of light shot out towards Xuelian. Of course, with no irregularities in her shadow steps, Wang Jiexi could only test out his luck.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Upon being hit by the light, a few shadows withered away, only leaving a trail of smoke behind as Xuelian continued her combo.

Pu, pu, pu!

Six! 

Lava Flask! Magic Missile!

Wang Jiexi remained calm, throwing out more skills, in an attempt to disperse all the shadows and fish out the real avatar.

The spectators couldn't even watch the fight as they were blinded by the visuals of the skills, it was a huge mess, they didn't even know what was happening! They only knew that the health bars of the two were still dropping.

To say that she wasn't exhausted was an understatement, because she had taken a 2 year break from Glory, she was a bit out-of-shape as keeping such a high APM was extremely difficult.

On the bright side, because Wang Jiexi was an extremely calculative player, she who currently played on intuition had the upper hand as there was nothing to calculate! Her moves didn't make any sense, and would naturally change based on the actions of Vaccaria.

Pu, pu, pu

Nine!

At this point, the audience were stunned, the highest combo executed for the blademaster's ultimate skill was 13, and although many blade-masters could complete it, there had never been a player who dealt the 14th strike. 

Still, nine hits alone was extremely hard, but most importantly, she was using the skill against Wang Jiexi!

Wang Jiexi, the magician!

"F*ck! Who do I cheer for?" 

"What are you talking about? Wang Jiexi is just having fun, just continue watching!"

"There's no way Wang Jiexi would lose!"

Ice Rain! 

Using the split seconds he had between strikes, Wang Jiexi continued to dish out spells without any emotions shown on his face. It was as if he had everything under his control, giving his fans more confidence.

But despite this, Forgotten Winds was able to continue her combo relentlessly.

Twelve!

The next set of actions would enable her to break the record! Now, no one cared for the match, they all wanted to see the 14th strike, a Glory record that had yet to be seen!

Pu!

13 strikes!

All the spectators, including the pro players held their breath as they watched the screen. 

The fourteenth strike!

Forgotten Winds lunged forward with her blade striking towards Vaccaria at an immense speed, leaving a trail of smoke behind her movements. 

Formless Phantom Blade's last strike was a skill that induced a strong knockback effect, however there was also a 1 second stun animation at the end, thus the skill had to connect, otherwise the opposing player could easily turn the tides.

Boom!

Forgotten Winds collapsed onto Vaccaria when a loud explosion broke out, leaving smoke that clouded the electronic screens, as the audience were bewildered with the ending.

What happened? Did the attack connect?

Hypnosis! Smoke Stream!

GLORY!

On the electronic panel, Forgotten Winds health bar dimmed as her avatar turned grey, signaling her death. 

"Ah… what a shame." Xuelian thought as she saw the bold word appear on her screen.

Still, although she had fallen, the audience wasn't able to figure out what had happened as Zhifei was still alive. 

But the outcome was obvious, a cleric 1v2ing was impossible and the audience were no longer intrigued, thus the host showed the replay in clear view of what happened during the collision.

As soon as Xuelian struck forward with the last hit of Mirage Blade, the attack was infinitely close to landing when Aweto appeared right in-front of Vaccaria at the perfect timing, casting a hypnosis onto her character. 

He had returned!

Because the match was in an intense moment, the host had minimized the chat, only showing the fight, thus the audience wasn't able to see that Wang Jiexi had ordered Aweto to quickly return.

During the combo, there was also an opening where Xuelian had actually miscalculated the distance between the two of them, allowing Wang Jiexi time to type out his words. 

Although Zhifei was holding down Aweto for a while, that was only because Aweto had followed along with her actions, the difference of skill between the two were still there. Knowing that she couldn't stop Aweto from heading back to Vaccaria, she also typed out to Xuelian.

But what could she do? She was already in the middle of the combo! If she cancelled her attack and Aweto came back to support Vaccaria, their chances of winning would immediately drop to 0%, thus she took the risk.

So close yet so far... 

Still her performance had managed to shock everyone watching. As the game ended, the players walked down from the booth, onto the stage.

Except… where was the blademaster?

Why hasn't she appeared yet? 

It was only when Zhifei did a light cough and apologized to everyone that Xuelian had to use the restroom and would not be coming back.

What the f*ck? Use the restroom?

Sh*t! Why does this excuse sound so familiar?