“First group, Chen Xiaoyan wins. Second group, Xian Yun versus Salted Fish. Step forward and prepare.”
With the shout of the NPC disciple.
Chen Xiaoyan and Naige Hammer left the stage, while Xian Yun entered with the Zhenwu Puppet.
Her opponent was called Salted Fish, who chose the Yihua Palace Puppet.
Yihua?
This left the audience baffled.
Tangmen was already considered sinister enough, but instead of picking the versatile Shushan Zhenwu Shence or any other jack-of-all-trades, she picked the gutter-level Yihua?
Is this sister here just for laughs?
If you ask among the eight great players who looks down on Yihua the most,
Other than Tianxiang claiming second place, no one would dare say they’re first.
Conversely, Yihua also looks down on Tianxiang.
“Our grand Yihua has healing, shields, crowd control, and damage; we’re the true all-round support. Are we not better than you, pitiful Tianxiang, who can only heal?”
And so, players from both sects kept looking down on each other.
Yihua Palace as a sect.
Chen Xiaoyan had looked into it as well.
Other than their slightly more graceful movement skills, they didn’t really have any other unique advantages.
If you had to name one, it would be that their skills are indeed diverse.
They can heal, provide shields, control enemies, and even deal some damage.
But the strength of Yihua Palace’s skills is not high—in fact, it’s the lowest among all sects.
So, this sect’s position in a team is rather awkward.
As a healer, their healing isn’t enough to keep the team alive.
As a damage dealer, their damage isn’t enough to be the core DPS.
As a heartless shield-bot?
But their shield isn’t thick enough either; it can only block a boss’s basic attack.
Their defense is fragile, cooldowns are long, and they only work in easy battles.
Once they face a slightly tougher dungeon, they’re useless.
The only place where Yihua shines is in PvP efficiency.
Healing, shields, support, and damage—all together. It’s honestly infuriating.
[Chen Xiaoyan: Xian Yun, time your Liyuan Sword Formation. Don’t be fooled into wasting your skills.]
Both Yihua and Zhenwu are ranged attackers, but the former’s attack range is much shorter than the latter’s.
Their only means of restraint is their control skill.
But Yihua’s control skill has a long wind-up.
If Zhenwu catches it, Liyuan Sword Formation can break it right away and cut her off.
Even if Yihua manages to control Zhenwu, she can’t dish out any damage.
Seeing Chen Xiaoyan’s private message, Xian Yun nodded in vague understanding.
Salted Fish attacked first.
Yihua’s attack range isn’t as long as Zhenwu’s, so she had to move closer to get within range.
But Salted Fish didn’t really know much about Yihua either; she’d only started to get familiar over the past few days and was far from being skilled.
So, she didn’t know the exact range and just had her puppet get as close as possible.
For this tournament, all puppets were standardized at level twenty.
A level-twenty Zhenwu had decent HP and attack power.
The Zhenwu Puppet pressed two fingers together and pointed skyward.
The sword sheath on its back shook violently, releasing a piercing Jianshe.
Eight Han swords shot upward like thunder, aiming for the Yihua Puppet.
The Yihua Puppet waved its jade flute.
White spiritual energy condensed in the air, forming a circular shield that tightly enveloped it.
With a “clang,”
The eight Han swords struck the shield, emitting the sound of clashing metal.
Right after, the Yihua Puppet played its jade flute, sending a melodious sound swirling around the plaza.
With the sound, an array filled with gong, shang, jiao, wei, and yu notes rose beneath its feet.
“Wow, does Yihua come with its own BGM when fighting? So cool!”
“Clad in white, like an immortal descending to earth—honestly, this Yihua Puppet is really handsome.”
“How come Yihua has male members in the sect, but our Tianxiang doesn’t?”
“Ah!!! I want a male healer too!”
The musical note array appeared!
Each note hovered above the formation, radiating killing intent.
As the flute music faded, the notes instantly turned into deadly talismans and shot toward the Zhenwu Puppet.
The notes moved too fast; the Zhenwu Puppet couldn’t dodge and could only stand firm.
Its HP dropped by one-fifth.
“Does this girl even know how to play? Who uses their ultimate move right at the start?”
Seeing this, Chen Xiaoyan couldn’t help but complain.
This note attack is called Jueyin.
Also known as Jueming.
It’s the only damage skill of Yihua Palace.
And Jueyin is meant to be used in combination with Yihua Grafting for damage.
Yihua Grafting applies a few seconds of defense reduction when it hits the enemy.
But this Salted Fish went ahead and used Jueyin first.
What can you say?
As expected of Salted Fish, truly laid-back.
[Chen Xiaoyan: The opponent doesn’t know what they’re doing. Attack directly.]
Xian Yun’s eyes lit up and she immediately unleashed Liyuan Sword Formation.
Without Jueyin, Yihua Grafting was nothing to worry about.
A massive Taiji Yin-Yang Eight Trigrams Diagram instantly covered half the plaza.
The Yihua Puppet’s movement speed plummeted, making every step as hard as moving mountains.
The Zhenwu Puppet seized the chance to attack with flying swords.
Zhenwu Puppets have two body refinement skills, one sword-flying technique, one mental power-boosting art, and one sword formation—no movement skills or lightness techniques.
Of course, that’s just the standard setup for Zhenwu.
The rest depends on how the player allocates their skills.
There are tanky Zhenwu, high-spirit-point glass cannon Zhenwu, and agile movement-focused Zhenwu.
For Zhenwu, apart from the basic mind-refining art given by the sect, the rest are distributed by the player.
Likewise, they don’t need any fancy skills—the stronger their spiritual power, the more damage their sword attacks do.
Salted Fish panicked.
The Yihua Puppet was trapped in the Liyuan Sword Formation, and she instinctively wanted to use movement skills to jump out of the formation’s range.
But Xian Yun didn’t give her the chance, blocking her movement with flying swords.
“Yihua Grafting!”
Unable to escape, Salted Fish decided to go head-to-head with Xian Yun—control her so she couldn’t attack.
The Yihua Puppet played its jade flute again, but this time the melody wasn’t as murderous.
Two streams of spiritual power gathered at the feet of both puppets.
The Zhenwu Puppet was immediately immobilized.
Two seconds later, as the flute fell silent, the Zhenwu and Yihua Puppets suddenly swapped places.
Moreover, beneath the Zhenwu Puppet, the illusory image of a spiritual tree sprang up, trapping it and dealing continuous minor damage.
Three seconds later, the illusion disappeared, and everything returned to normal.
Then…
Then, Yihua got chased down by Zhenwu.
Without any skills left, Yihua was just like Tianxiang—a total useless case.
Yihua’s normal attacks might hurt squishy classes like Shushan or Tangmen.
But against a half-tank Zhenwu, it was completely ineffective.
Watching the once-ethereal Yihua Puppet, now being mercilessly slashed by flying swords and its white robes stained red with blood, many Tianxiang players couldn’t bear to watch.
Salted Fish admitted defeat.
She hadn’t intended to fight for ranking anyway—isn’t lying flat and doing nothing more comfortable?
“Second group, Xian Yun wins. Third group, Yilian Youmeng versus I Want to Be a DPS Healer.”
Yilian Youmeng, Shence Mansion Puppet.
I Want to Be a DPS Healer, Shushan Puppet.
Yilian Youmeng was a Tianxiang player Chen Xiaoyan had just recruited.
Over six hundred spirit points, and had cleared the Monster Village dungeon.
I Want to Be a DPS Healer was a member of Reincarnation Hall.
Her spirit points were unknown for now.
As soon as the match started, DPS Healer used a dash skill, scaring Yilian Youmeng into quickly activating super armor.
However, DPS Healer was only feinting; as soon as she saw the super armor, she pulled away.
“This girl knows how to play,” Chen Xiaoyan commented in surprise.
She baited out the Shence’s super armor right away.
As long as she waits for it to end, she can catch those few seconds when super armor is on cooldown and deal damage without worry for maximum effect.
The Shushan Puppet moved nimbly around the plaza, while Shence Mansion’s spear couldn’t touch her at all.
This frustrated Yilian Youmeng greatly.
“Why are you running? Is all you can do run?”
Faced with her taunt, DPS Healer was unfazed.
To make a Shushan stand still and trade blows with a tank like Shence Mansion—only a fool or someone with a screw loose would do that.
[Chen Xiaoyan: Youmeng, save your Canglong Break. Don’t fight head-on with Shushan.]
Yilian Youmeng hesitated upon reading the private message.
Without Canglong Break, how could she catch up to the Shushan?
But since the expert said so, she couldn’t disobey and did as told.
The Shence Mansion Puppet stopped chasing and instead put distance between itself and the Shushan Puppet.
DPS Healer was puzzled.
Super armor should still be active, so why did the opponent retreat?
She didn’t think much about it and immediately commanded her puppet to give chase.
If the enemy advances, I retreat. If the enemy retreats, I advance.
“Huh, how did she suddenly change so much?”
Chong Chong stared at Yilian Youmeng on the field, then glanced back at Chen Xiaoyan’s fingers tapping away in the air.
In that moment, she seemed to understand everything.
Wow, using private messages to command teammates—no one else could pull this off.
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