The first individual game started poorly, which disappointed the ACE team fans a little. Sensing this emotion in the venue, Park Xinyang felt quite depressed. After returning to his seat, he could only say two words: “I’m sorry.”
Devin didn’t blame him, just patted his shoulder and said, “Keep up the good work.” After finishing speaking, he cast his eyes on the teenager who had become restless, and said: “Follow your instincts and perform well.”
“Yes, sir!” Ahn Jung-Cheol answered in an excited voice and walked toward the stage.
At this time, the audience’s attention fell on the second game setup displayed on the big screen.
Ahn Jung-Cheol’s ghost priest from the ACE Team VS Shen Changyu’s summoner from the Black Rose Team.
After debugging the system, the map selection session ended very quickly. Ahn Jung-Cheol banned the Horror Tomb in the final selection, leaving the Polar Icefield map where he fully demonstrated his skills in team games.
After the map loaded, the characters refreshed at their spawn points.
Ahn Jung-Cheol’s ghost priest was the first to attack.
It seems his fighting style has always been like that, decisive, direct, and without any hesitation. Even in that battle with Yan Duzhou, where the disparity in strength between the veteran and the rookie was deeply felt, he still had no doubts about his fighting methods and was extremely determined.
However, although Ahn Jung-Cheol directly attacked in the same way, this time something seemed to be slightly different. After that mentoring match, it could be seen it was the same opening as then, but the subtle changes in his position seemed to reflect his evolution.
Compared to Ahn Jung-Cheol’s directness, Shen Changyu moved much more unhurried, and unlike other maps, the Polar Icefield map didn’t have many landmarks, so it didn’t have much of an impact on wherever the two parties met.
Was he going to dig holes again and trap his opponent? Thinking of the Black Rose team’s performance against the MTG team, everyone could not help but make such speculations, but judging from Shen Changyu’s current actions, it seemed that he had no intention of doing so.
After all, that tactic required a high degree of cooperation from teammates and was ill-suited to the individual matches.
Under Ahn Jung-Cheol’s proactive advance, the two sides soon met on the map. Even when the opponent’s figure appeared in sight, he still did not stop for a moment. As soon as he entered the casting distance, he waved his staff and started chanting skills.
With the unobstructed view of this terrain, Shen Changyu also spotted Ahn Jung-Cheol early on. Without hesitation, he immediately summoned a Sky Vine. A large string of green vines spread toward the ghost priest, moving like a wave.
This skill release was more deftly than Ahn Jung-Cheol’s, but even seeing that the ghost priest was about to be locked in place, Ahn Jung-Cheol did not interrupt the chanting. Instead, only after completing the release of the skill, he performed a Leap Step, narrowly avoiding the Vines.
The black circle formed by the Void Ground Thorns rose under the summoner‘s feet. At the same time, the ghost priest made a tricky move and secured a safe position. From there, he continued to chant the next skill.
This judgment was very accurate and showed incomparable confidence in a situation where a mistake of a few tenths of a second would completely render him in a passive situation.
Admiration flashed across Shen Changyu’s eyes, while his hands did not stop operating. When the Void Ground Thorns spread from the soles of his feet, he took a few precise steps and avoided them with great accuracy. Glancing at Ahn Jung-Cheol’s position, he threw out a few gophers, while taking a few steps back, waiting to see the opponent’s next move.
Ghost Fire.
Ahn Jung-Cheol did not use control skills this time but instead threw a black flame that fell next to Shen Changyu’s summoner, and quickly burned the ground around him, dazzlingly bright against the pale scenery of the ice sheet.
Shen Changyu was prepared and quickly rolled over to get out of the damage range. Although his blood value dropped by a small amount, the overall impact was not significant, and his decisiveness reduced the damage value to the minimum. However, this roll didn’t get him completely out of the opponent’s attack range, and without a moment’s hesitation, he continued with a sideway cartwheel.
Compared with the previous action, this flip seemed a little confusing, but soon the audience saw a bunch of icicles appearing at the place where the summoner had been a moment ago. Ahn Jung-Cheol perfectly predicted his position after the Ghost Fire and quickly released the Ice Curse skill. If Shen Changyu hadn’t continued the dodging action, he would have been locked in place by the opponent at this moment.
Ahn Jung-Cheol did not have the slightest intention of underestimating the enemy. For him, the whole process of the game was undoubtedly attack, attack, and attack again. When the Ice Curse was released, he wasn’t sure if his opponent would be able to avoid it or not. It was just an extra backup just in case, but regardless of whether it was due to perfect prediction or not, this approach of ‘maybe you can kill him‘ produced excellent results.
Shen Changyu glanced with a frown at the bleeding effect on the summoner, then looked at the opponent’s feet. The gophers were already lurking in front of him, and under his control, they jumped out quickly and climbed onto the ghost priest‘s legs. At the same time, a Slime monster transformed into a frozen blade and stabbed straight at the opponent’s body.
As long as it hits, it will be frozen on the spot.
The audience held their breath as they watched so many changes in an instant. When the ghost priest was about to be attacked, they saw him interrupting the skill and dragging with difficulty his legs grabbed by the gophers. With this slowing debuff, he managed a back jump and barely avoided the attack.
No matter what, the on-the-spot adaptability of this ACE team’s rookie player was amazing.
This failed attack made Shen Changyu feel a little disappointed, but at this moment, he didn’t have much time to express his feelings. Ahn Jung-Cheol’s ghost priest quickly raised his staff after being forced to interrupt the chanting. Ignoring this deceleration debuff, he directly activated his ultimate move Myriad Ghosts Void.
In this situation, this choice might not be the best, but it certainly had an unexpected effect.
A precious ultimate move was actually treated by Ahn Jung-Cheol as an ordinary control skill, and he did not show any hesitation at all. Through the camera, he could be seen staring at the big screen with great intensity while his fingers were typing rapidly on the keyboard. After activating Ghost Sprint to control the distance between them, one damage skill after another was released, landing accurately on the summoner, and suppressing a large amount of his energy and blood in a short time.
Shen Changyu naturally expected the other party to counterattack, but not to this extent. Being deprived of vision, he still didn’t hesitate for a second and summoned several beasts one after another while moving position. With an incomparably sharp intuition, he just blindly controlled them toward Ahn Jung-Cheol’s ghost priest, approaching at a fast pace, and quickly surrounding him.
The summoner had lost a lot of energy and blood in such a short time, but after this offensive wave, it was the ghost priest who was surrounded by the summoning array and found himself in a crisis.
The crowd stared in disbelief at the rapidly changing situation on the field.
Ahn Jung-Cheol was in a difficult situation at this time. He wanted to continue chasing Shen Changyu’s summoner, but he had already pulled away. In front of him were several summoned beasts brandishing their teeth and claws, some ferocious and terrifying, and some cute and soft. But they all firmly blocked the ways around him, making him unable to advance or retreat.
With only a few tenths of a second of hesitation, Ahn Jung-Cheol didn’t make too many evasive moves. After turning on his damage buff effect, a series of skills were directly launched toward the summoned beasts, very decisively.
Everyone was stunned: This rookie player is really… decisive! Decisive to the point of insanity.
This almost suicidal waste of energy actually allowed Ahn Jung-Cheol to escape from the summoning array quickly, but now his condition was not much better than Shen Changyu’s summoner. In terms of energy, maybe even worse.
If other players were placed in this situation, they would probably worry about whether they could survive until the end of the game, but on Ahn Jung-Cheol’s face, there was no such worry at all.
Sprint! He sprinted again toward Shen Changyu’s summoner!
Once he entered the spell-casting range again, the attack came without any hesitation.
A look of admiration flashed through Shen Changyu’s eyes and faced with the opponent’s relentless attacks, he finally chose to fight head-on.
For a time, the entire Polar Icefield map was completely enveloped in skills’ brilliant effects as both sides used their hand speed to maximize the damage as much as possible.
Both players’ blood values were declining at a rate visible to the naked eye.
During this period, Shen Changyu actually had two opportunities to try to retreat, but Ahn Jung-Cheol seemed determined to fight to the death. Whenever he saw that he wanted to retreat, he was very decisive and did not give him any chance to catch his breath.
“Shen Changyu is a little too careful.” Looking at the situation, Xu Qingli sighed deeply as he watched the status bar that was gradually increasing the gap in blood volume. Many times, caution was one of the essential qualities for a professional player, but at this moment, because of such excessive caution, Shen Changyu unknowingly let An gain the upper hand in his successive attempts to buffer.
Shen Changyu soon discovered the problem exposed by Xu Qingli, but at that moment, when he finally made up his mind to collide head-on with the opponent, it was already a little too late.
500 Blood Units.
When the summoner‘s blood bar was completely cleared, the opponent’s ghost priest still had the 500 last units. If Shen Changyu had attacked unwaveringly a few seconds earlier, with just one more skill, the outcome might have been different.
However, there are not many “ifs” in this world.
In the e-sports arena, winning or losing was sometimes just a matter of a split-second decision.
