1557 Protect Yourself

Although the wave of attacks from Zhang Jiale's Dazzling Hundred Blossoms failed to completely hold down Tang Rou's Soft Mist, it had still proved a significant hindrance to her escape. Soft Mist couldn't keep moving straight and had to change directions many times to dodge, allowing Tyranny to close the distance by a considerable amount. The final Implosion Grenade had helped Soft Mist move forward a bit because she had taken that extra step, but it had also disrupted Tang Rou's rhythm. While Soft Mist was sent forward, it had been diagonally. And to her sides were the walls of the canyon. She wouldn't be going very far before she crashed.

Lin Jingyan's Dark Thunder had predicted where she would end up and suddenly picked up his speed. He was breaking away from the team's formation. However, battles were constantly changing. Formations had to adapt according to the circumstances. Dark Thunder broke away from the team to deal with the change in circumstances.

Poison Needle!

Dark Thunder flicked his wrists and threw out a needle.

The needle was as thin as an oxen hair. It was practically invisible to the eye. Lin Jingyan was even borrowing the light cover from Dazzling Hundred Blossom's attacks. Let alone Tang Rou, even the spectators who could see the entire picture hadn't noticed, keeping everyone but himself in the dark.

Tang Rou hadn't noticed it. She didn't have the energy to keep an eye on everything at the moment. 

The Implosion Grenade had sent Soft Mist flying extremely fast. In the blink of an eye, she had reached the wall. But just when everyone thought that a crash was inevitable, Soft Mist suddenly rolled up into a ball.

Roll!

She completed a roll on the wall, Quick Recover!

The impact was negated by the Quick Recover. As a result, when she landed back onto the ground, she had complete control over her balance. Then, a nearly imperceptible needle whistled by her. It was the Poison Needle from Dark Thunder.

It was only then did everyone realize that Dark Thunder had let out this sneak attack. The broadcast quickly rewinded to figure out when the needle had been thrown. People were now even more shocked at Tang Rou's keen senses. Although this time, they went ahead of themselves. Tang Rou hadn't noticed the Poison Needle either. In reality, she had dodged it by a stroke of luck.

That's too crazy, no?

Countless viewers were awestruck. The Tyranny players weren't in shock though. In an instant, the entire team accelerated. The fastest member, Dark Thunder, didn't land the Poison Needle, but before the light had faded, he had followed with a Powerful Knee Strike, chaining the attacks tightly. The needle had missed, but he was there now!

Soft Mist hadn't steadied herself yet. She didn't have time to dodge, so she lashed out with her spear, wanting to use an attack to parry the blow and keep her balance. Then, she could use the impact from Powerful Knee Strike to help her escape.

Bang!

Dark Thunder struck Soft Mist's spear, causing Soft Mist to sway. Tang Rou immediately knew that something wasn't right. The Powerful Knee Strike from Lin Jingyan had been quick and fierce, but when it struck, the impact put a downwards pressure onto her. At the final moment, he had adjusted the angle of his attack, not wanting to give her a chance to use the impact to escape. Instead, he was going to pressure her into place.

Tang Rou was very sharp, noticing the change. Soft Mist sunk down and then rolled back.

She wasn't able to borrow the force of the impact to move away, but she wasn't suppressed by Lin Jingyan's Powerful Knee Strike. With this roll, she still took damage from the attack, but she was able to eliminate the skill effects.

The normal viewers hadn't noticed the little sneaky trick in Lin Jingyan's Powerful Knee Strike. They just thought that Tang Rou had been forced into a hasty response because the attack had come too quickly.

Just a roll backwards wasn't ideal. Lin Jingyan had seized the initiative, and his Dark Thunder could still cover Soft Mist's backwards roll. The Powerful Knee Strike didn't have the effect that Lin Jingyan had wanted, but Tang Rou was now held in place. He simply needed to follow up with a few attacks to make sure she didn't escape. Then, the rest of Tyranny would arrive, and the rest was exactly what Tyranny specialized at.

Brick!

Sure enough, Lin Jingyan grasped the timing of the roll. Before Soft Mist was able to get up from the roll, Dark Thunder threw a Brick at her. Tang Rou knew that her situation was worrying. As she rolled, she tried her best to observe Dark Thunder's movements and saw the Brick coming. While rolling, she flicked her spear, using the tail of her spear to knock the Brick aside. Flying weapons generally had very weak priority.

Lin Jingyan seemed to have predicted it would happen. The moment Soft Mist knocked the Brick away, Dark Thunder quickly stepped forward and pushed out with his hands. Tyrannical Chain Punch! He wanted to directly knock Soft Mist down.

But to his surprise, after Soft Mist knocked the Brick aside, her spear continued to move.

Tyrant's Destruction!

When she knocked the Brick away, the swing had been the start of a skill. Tyranny's Destruction was unleashed. The fire attribute Dancing Fire Flowing Flames flashed out in a streak of red. Although Tyrannical Chain Punch was a high-level skill as well, it didn't have extremely priority like a Dragon Breaks the Ranks. The Tyrant's Destruction was enough to sweep aside the Tyrannical Chain Punch.

Lin Jingyan hadn't expected there to be a counterattack. Seeing that he was about to be caught in the attack, he immediately canceled his skill. Dark Thunder dodged to the side, unfortunately wasting one of his high-level skills.

Soft Mist immediately leapt backwards to pull apart the distance. Although Dark Thunder's attack didn't achieve Lin Jingyan's original goals, similar to Dazzling Hundred Blossom's assault, it had resulted in a significant hindrance to her escape. She was able to use Tyrant's Destruction to widen the distance between her and Dark Thunder, but Dazzling Hundred Blossom's assault had begun again, and on the other end, Han Wenqing's Desert Dust had arrived.

Soaring Tiger!

Han Wenqing didn't hold back. His very first move was fierce and resolute. Desert Dust had arrived even before Dazzling Hundred Blossom's bullets did as he rushed towards Soft Mist.

Soaring Tiger had very high priority. Learning from her experience with Powerful Knee Strike, Tang Rou didn't dare to try and borrow the force of its impact to escape. She was still too inexperienced against these old generals in the usage of these small tricks.

Dodge.

Desert Dust came afterwards, so he was still a bit far away. Tang Rou had time to dodge. Desert Dust's kick missed, whistling past Soft Mist. Although the attack missed, Desert Dust had landed in a position that cut off Tang Rou's retreat path.

The moment Desert Dust swept past Soft Mist, she thrust her spear at him.

Circle Swing!

Tang Rou had noticed his intent and wanted to try and toss Desert Dust back. 

The Circle Swing had been extremely accurate. Just when she was about to land the grab, Soft Mist suddenly leapt to the side. The Circle Swing missed. Suddenly, white flames roared to life where Soft Mist had been standing previously.

Sacred Fire!

Immovable Rock's Backlight cross was still glowing from using the skill. Tang Rou had no choice but to give up on the Circle Swing.

Desert Dust landed on the ground and turned around. His imposing figure made it seem as if the canyon was impenetrable as long as he stood there.

Dazzling Hundred Blossoms' attacks arrived in an instant. Having dodged the Sacred Fire, Tang Rou had no room to breathe. Soft Mist quickly ran, avoiding the rain of bullets from Dazzling Hundred Blossoms. Lin Jingyan's Dark Thunder and Han Wenqing's Desert Dust had formed a pincer on Soft Mist, the former in front, the latter behind. They kept a distance from her, not immediately rushing at her just in case. Zhang Xinjie's Immovable Rock and Song Qiying's River Sunset, who was protecting him, was hurrying over as well.

A 1v5. It was now a true 1v5.

Tyranny was no longer harassing her from a safe distance, nor were they just sending out probing attacks. In the end, Tyranny had trapped Tang Rou's Soft Mist. These old generals weren't going to miss an opportunity just out of caution. Their caution only made their choices timed more perfectly.

After making sure that their encirclement was faultless, Tyranny began their assault! 

With this sort of encirclement, how long would it take for them to kill a single character?

It was hard to give a precise answer. Compared to the five with the overwhelming advantage, it was more dependent on the single player defending against the five.

Intuition, reaction speed, technique... in these moments, these attributes were key, but more importantly was the player's willpower.

A 1v5...

It wasn't an equal playing field. Many people would give up facing this kind of situation.

Tang Rou didn't though. No pro player would so easily give up in such a crucial match.

But Tang Rou's current situation was particularly troublesome.

She didn't have a strategic goal in mind. She also didn't know if there was any hope the others could get to her in time. She could only give it her all and survive as long as she could.

Soft Mist's health dropped rapidly, but her struggle could clearly be seen.

Protect yourself.

Who knew why, but Ye Xiu's previous instructions to Tang Rou suddenly floated to many people's minds. 

1v5. Protect yourself.

Everyone just thought of it as a casual remark, but it looked like these words spoke true. While in this encirclement, she was doing her utmost to carry out these orders.

Just a bit more...

People began to pray. Because they could see the situation more clearly than Tang Rou. From their omniscient view of the map, they could see Happy's other four players hurrying over to her location. For Tang Rou, it was hope.

But since they were trying to get here as fast as possible, they gave up on moving together as a whole. For example, Happy's fastest member was undoubtedly Ye Xiu's Lord Grim. By using movement skill after movement skill, he had left the other three in the dust. In an unbelievably short amount of time, he had reached the battlefield.

Even so, wasn't it still a 2v5? When comparing it to a 1v5, it wasn't really that much better. Ye Xiu had Lord Grim rush over nonetheless. After locating Tyranny, he didn't hide himself and went straight for them.

"I'm here!" Ye Xiu announced his arrival in the public chat.