303 Top 100 Part 7

Actually, the Xin Xin Mercenary Guild wasn’t the sole cause of their suffering.

If it weren’t for the Peacetime Dynasty’s repeated losses, their points wouldn’t have been low enough to warrant their elimination.

Drizzle Court, Gale Legion, Azure Guard and Glory Capital were all involved in their elimination.

They should probably take their complaints to the Brotherhood Guild instead.

There was actually one important reason as to why the Peacetime Dynasty had been eliminated so early.

They had two core members of their team – Song of Sorrow and Hot Twitch. These players were also their top players. However, Hot Twitch (the Hunter) was stolen away by the Brotherhood Guild for 2.6 million dollars.

As such, they had no choice but to substitute in a different hunter for Hot Twitch. The new player wasn’t as strong as their star player, and the team’s synergy was destroyed.

What happened to the Peacetime Dynasty was upsetting, but had no bearing on the following matches.

The next match involved the Xin Xin Mercenary Group against Purple Lunar Paradise.

Purple Lunar Paradise was ranked 12th, with their star players Dark Destroyer (Warrior) and Lone Smoker Long (Warlock). Their Druid, Mini Meow, was also quite famous because she was cute and ranked among the top ten on the beauty rankings.

Dark Destroyer was a long Warrior veteran and had been famous for nearly a decade.

Lone Smoker Long, on the other hand, was on par with Hornet’s Nest and was in contention for the title of ‘number one Warlock player’.

It was Purple Lunar Paradise’s Warrior, Warlock and Druid composition against the Xin Xin Mercenary Group’s Warrior, Thief and Priest.

Purple Lunar Paradise had unexpectedly decided to send out Lone Smoker Long.

This wasn’t what the audience wanted to see and many of them began to boo.

Lu Li stood among the stands and bitterly shook his head. It seemed as though they had worked out Moonlight and Lu Li’s sending-pattern and were taking advantage of it.

Even so, he restrained his to change players.

Although the Magic Professions had some advantages over Warriors, Lu Li still had full confidence in Moonlight.

Moonlight was incredibly skilled with his Charge, had many damage reduction skills and had strong skills like Whirlwind. It wouldn’t be easy to defeat him.

Additionally, it wasn’t as though Moonlight had never beaten Magic professions before; he had actually done it on more than one occasion.

But having said that, Lu Li’s heart sank when he saw the scene.

Lone Smoker Long must have had many bonus Agility points and his shoes must have been exquisite. He was surprisingly much faster than the Berserker.

He also had two escaping skills that were actually Special Effects.

One of them appeared to make him slip forwards. It looked amusing but was actually quite effective.

The second created a shadow four yards in front of him, which he could then teleport to.

These weren’t Warlock Skills, so they must have been Special Effects from equipment. Lone Smoker Long obviously spent a lot of time in refining his equipment set.

However, because he had prioritized mobility, his attack and defense attributes were quite average. His damage was irritatingly pitiful.

Moonlight was hit by him and only lost a few dozen HP. Even the Warlock’s damage over time skill only dealt a little bit of damage on each tick.

He was using his speed to engage in guerilla warfare, repeatedly attacking his slow opponent to slowly wear him down.

Lu Li shook his head bitterly. He could only praise Lone Smoker Long for playing this kind of alternative Warlock.

This match turned out to be the longest individual match of the Shadow Cup Tournament, lasting for 47 minutes.

In his previous individual matches, Lu Li’s opponents could only last for 4 or 5 minutes. In fact, the victor was mostly determined in one minute.

Moonlight eventually lost the match by a narrow margin.

Lone Smoker Long was almost out of HP as well.

"Sorry, I lost."

Moonlight had a sad expression on his face. All experts had a sense of pride and he really didn’t want to lose this match.

"It’s just one match; don’t worry about it. We’ll get it back on the next round."

In the group round, Lu Li and Moonlight didn’t hesitate. They rushed at Lone Smoker Long the moment they saw him.

This happened so quickly that Purple Lunar Paradise’s Warrior Dark Destroyer and Druid Mini Meow were unable to react.

Lone Smoker Long’s expression turned dark – did they really hate him that much?

He had to run away; he had no other choice.

Fortunately, he was very mobile and was almost able to shake off his pursuers.

However, there was no way that he could outrun Lu Li.

Lu Li cast Sudden Thrust, then applied a Slow poison with a few slashes of his dagger.

After this, Lu Li stepped back and let Moonlight deal with him.

Lu Li had to go back to save March Rain. While he and Moonlight were chasing down Lone Smoker Long, Mini Meow had cast Creeping Vines on March Rain and binded her. She then worked with Dark Destroyer to try and quickly kill her.

Lu Li activated his cloak’s effect and appeared behind the Warrior, then stunned him with Cheap Shot.

He then aggressively attacked, rapidly bringing down the Warrior’s HP. However, with Mini Meow healing him, Lu Li was unable finish him of on his own.

March Rain took this opportunity to return her HP to full.

Now that Lu Li had achieved his goal, he turned around and frantically attacked Lone Smoker Long.

The player, who was also considered one of the most handsome men, could only helplessly run away. His HP was dropping too quickly even for his Healer to keep up.

Who allowed him to run such a non-meta build?

The rest of the group round wasn’t particularly eventful. Lu Li used his speed to restrain Lone Smoker Long and used Gale Steps to avoid Dark Destroyer’s Whirlwind. Moonlight then cast Whirlwind in response to this and quickly killed Lone Smoker Long with Lu Li.

After Lone Smoker Long died, Lu Li turned and mercilessly knocked Mini Meow out of the match.

The third match pitted the Xin Xin Mercenary Group against the Great Qin Empire. They were a very united guild, but they had been unable to cultivate any star players. As such, the results could easily be imagined.

At this point, the Xin Xin Mercenary Group had already qualified for the top 16.

Their fourth match was against the 18th-ranked East Sea Fleet. Despite the fact that Lu Li’s team had already qualified, they still mercilessly knocked their opponents out from their precarious position.

On the current leaderboard, the Xin Xin Mercenary Group placed fourth with 47 points.

Glory Capital, Blood Red War Flag and Drizzle Court placed before them with the full 48 points.

Drizzle Court had been quite lucky. They didn’t face any particularly strong opponents and they had Water Fairy to carry the individual rounds. Their Mage, Deadly Green Orange, was also an expert. He had managed to defeat Song of Sorrow.

Behind them were the Gangnam Royals at 46 points, Wings of Dawn at 46 points and Peerless City at 45 points. The remaining final-16 teams were Seventh Heaven, Azure Guard, Gale Legion, Stellar Union, Majin Temple, Purple Lunar Paradise, Gods of Dusk and Brotherhood.

There were six Evil Faction teams and ten Light Faction teams. The proportion was quite similar to what it had been previously.

Although the Gods of Dusk weren’t ranked very highly, they had managed to hold their own with their unnaturally strong player, Wood Fearing.

There were still many people lamenting about Peacetime Dynasty’s elimination as they were predicted to make it into the top 10 of the tournament.

Blood Red War Flag had three teams in the top 100, but unfortunately, only one had survived.

Glory Capital had masters like Sorrowless and Blood Dagger on their team, so their journey had been smooth sailing.

The Xin Xin Mercenary Group was the dark horse of these final 16 teams. They had subverted the expectations of the players about who would be in the top 10.

As Lu Li, Moonlight and March Rain became more well-known, so did the other members of the Mercenary Group.