TuxedoTranslations

Chapter 77

Shi Ya didn’t deny it — which basically meant he admitted it.

Xia Tong felt like he’d lost all faith in the world. He crouched on the ground, drawing circles in despair.

The other four didn’t dare to provoke him right away, giving him time to mentally prepare himself for the cruel reality ahead.

Fortunately, Xia Tong was good at adjusting his emotions. After sulking for a while, he perked up again. “Zero!” he called out, still sounding uneasy about the uncertain future. His babyish voice came out in an attempt at sternness.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Lin Mingfei answered right away, his tone gentle as he crouched down beside him.

The two squatted at the same level, like they were sharing a moment of dejection.

“So…” Xia Tong fidgeted, picking at the hem of his robe. “Can you tell me some basic strategies? I’m afraid that once I get up there and start panicking, my brain will just turn to mush. If no one tells me what to do, I’ll probably just stand there, completely lost.”

“Basic tactics, huh.” Lin Mingfei stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Alright, let me break it down for you. Once you’re in the arena, you’ll probably face one of two situations.”

“Huh? Which two?”

“First, you get focused down. Second, you don’t.” Lin Mingfei’s deep, calm voice flowed steadily — like the low hum of a high-quality bass, resonant and soothing. “If it’s the first, your priority is survival. Dodge as much as possible, then use your skills when you can to help us pressure the opponents’ health bars. But — and this is important — don’t use your key skills. You must save your burst combo. Because when the enemy focuses on you, they’ll likely let their guard down elsewhere. That’s when the three of us will pressure them and force them to use key mitigation or cleanse abilities. Once those are gone, they’ll enter a short vulnerability window. That’s when we’ll call for you to switch targets. That moment is incredibly valuable — it can decide the match — but it passes fast. If you’ve already blown your burst, you’ll miss it.”

“I got it,” Xia Tong nodded thoughtfully. “So what if no one targets me?”

“That’s easy then.” Lin Mingfei smiled. “If no one’s focusing you, go wild — deal as much damage as you can! The enemy will be done for soon enough.”

Xia Tong’s face brightened. “You’re right! That’s awesome!”

Lin Mingfei immediately brought him back to reality: “But I’d say the odds of that happening are pretty low.”

Xia Tong: “…”

“Anyway, that’s about it. Are you ready, Blink player?” Lin Mingfei propped his chin on his hands, smiling at Xia Tong like a radiant sunflower.

Xia Tong looked up at the alpha’s handsome face.

He’d always thought Lin Mingfei was a mature alpha, much older and more composed than him — someone who handled everything with calm perfection. That gave him a deep sense of safety and admiration, almost like looking up to a mentor or older brother.

But right now, when Lin Mingfei smiled, showing a row of bright white teeth, that distance between them seemed to melt away. His perfect good looks were mixed with a kind of youthful energy — like a big boy who smelled of sunlight.

Xia Tong felt a flutter in his chest, like a feather brushing lightly against his heart — soft and ticklish. Unconsciously, he licked the corner of his lips, then pressed them together firmly.

“I’m ready,” he said clearly, each word steady and full of conviction. “I’ll work hard to get stronger.”

“Then get up,” Lin Mingfei said, pulling him to his feet.

The two returned to the group. Zhou Yanjun grinned and said, “Hey, shortie, I just remembered the first time you, me, and little Bo went into a 3v3 arena match against that cleaver team — damn, that was wild. Truly unforgettable!”

Bo Yu said flatly from the side, “Unforgettable my ass — the moment we went in, we got matched against KUQ’s King Kong.”

Zhou Yanjun choked for a second, then raised his voice defensively, “…We won that match though!”

Shi Ya gave him a sidelong look. “Though?”

Lin Mingfei added, “What happened to ‘unforgettable,’ huh?”

Zhou Yanjun glared back. “We won! We totally won! Without breaking a sweat!”

Bo Yu said mildly, “Your memory might be… slightly off.”

Xia Tong cried out, “My head got blown clean off in that match!! QAQ!” He paused, then tilted his head, his soft little voice suddenly curious: “Hmm? Do you think this time we’ll get matched against a professional team again, like last time?”

Zhou Yanjun: “…”

Bo Yu: “…”

Lin Mingfei: “…”

Shi Ya: “…”

The four teammates all turned to look at him — their gazes equally grim and unified.

A minute later, they queued into a 5v5 arena match. When the opposing team’s IDs loaded in, they all saw:

rainbow_lucas

rainbow_jazz

rainbow_士多啤梨 (Strawberry)

rainbow_pipa

rainbow_熊黄 (BearYellow)

On the Polaris side, their prep camp went dead silent — so quiet it felt like someone’s funeral.

After a long moment, Bo Yu murmured, “That’s… the actual Rainbow team, isn’t it…”

Shi Ya said blankly, “What, you think you just happened to queue into five perfect lookalikes? You should go buy a lottery ticket.”

Zhou Yanjun glanced down at the little wizard frozen beside him, his face contorting. “Shortie, your mouth… it’s cursed or something.”

Xia Tong, eyes wide and shiny like two fried eggs, slowly raised his little hands and clasped them over his mouth. “Mmmph…”

“At least no one’s in our stream,” Zhou Yanjun muttered in consolation. “Even if we lose, no one’ll know — heaven knows, earth knows, you know, I know.”

“Are you stupid?” Lin Mingfei looked at him like he was mentally deficient. “Sure, our stream’s empty — but you think Rainbow’s isn’t?”

Zhou Yanjun: “…”

Just as Lin Mingfei predicted — at that moment, across the field, the Rainbow team’s five separate livestreams had combined viewership nearing five digits. The comment sections were absolutely exploding — fans and haters at war, chaos everywhere.

Lucas, Rainbow’s wizard player and captain, was the one who’d decided to temporarily give up their dungeon raid that morning — and he’d been getting roasted online for it the entire day. He’d been stewing in frustration with nowhere to vent… until he entered the arena, saw the enemy team’s IDs, and instantly felt his mood lift.

“Guys, look who we’ve got here,” he said loudly, like a drowning man grabbing a floating log — desperate to climb up and save himself by stepping on someone else. His voice was deliberately loud enough for the livestream audience to hear. “I just don’t get it. Sure, Rainbow’s had some setbacks, but at least we’ve worked hard and raided honorably. Yet here’s a certain freeloading team that snuck into the league without even stepping foot into the new dungeon map! And they’re the ones the fans give a free pass to? You’re flaming us instead of them — how does that make sense?”

“Don’t bother,” said Jazz, their hunter, coldly. “We’re a proper club. No matter what the fans say, we know who we are. We’re not like those freeloading, washed-up old teams. We’ve still got pride and principles. That’s why in this match, we’re going to show everyone the difference between us and them.”

Maybe their “underdog” act was just manipulative enough — or maybe Polaris’s recent performance had really been that embarrassing — because the mood in Rainbow’s chat actually began to shift.

【That’s true, at least Rainbow still put in the work.】

【Not every club has the same resources as Saber-tooth — can’t expect the same results.】

【Say what you want, they’ve still got the esports spirit, and that deserves respect. Why keep flaming them?】

【Exactly. The ones worth roasting are those freeloading teams!】

【Haven’t they been playing PvX all week instead of arena? I bet they’ve forgotten which leg to move first when the match starts.】

【I heard they actually finished the Scorpion Trench run on Floor 39 — like that’s something to brag about.】

【Is that supposed to be impressive? You think we’ll praise them for that? What a joke!】

【All they do is ride old fame and milk past glories. Total disgrace to the spirit of esports.】

【Even if Rainbow’s not top-tier anymore, they were still top 4 last year — way better than some wannabe team that can’t even make qualifiers. They’re gonna teach these clowns a lesson.】

【Ohhh, I can’t wait to see these freeloaders get wrecked. Lovely!】

…

Lucas glanced at the chat scrolling by, secretly thrilled. What a gift from heaven, he thought. They’d barely queued up, and already luck dropped the infamous has-been team Polaris right into their lap. If they could crush Polaris here, it might repair their reputation after the failed dungeon attempt — and boost morale. After all, that old team had nothing left but some irrelevant controversies. They’d never even meet again on an official stage. Using them as a stepping stone wasn’t a bad deal.

But then, when Lucas casually clicked open one of the enemy’s stat windows — his expression froze like he’d been hit in the head with a hammer.

“Why is his HP so high?”

“Maybe Island’s using the Demonblood Heritage trait?” their warrior, Strawberry, suggested. It was a talent that increased a berserker’s HP pool.

“It’s not Island — I’m looking at Zero,” Lucas said. “He’s got over sixty thousand HP!”

“Sixty thousand HP? No way! I only have sixty-one thousand myself!” their team’s hunter, Pipa, exclaimed. “How could Zero, as a hunter, possibly have that much…?”

“They’re all wearing 1500-tier gear! Their total gear score’s over a thousand higher than ours—of course their HP’s higher!” the healer, Xionghuang, shouted back. But before they could finish strategizing, the countdown ended.

“Who are we bursting down, Luca!!” Strawberry yelled in team voice, a beat too late.

Lucas hesitated for two seconds, a flood of thoughts racing through his mind.

Sure, everyone mocked Polaris for beating some no-name amateur team that couldn’t even pass prelims, but clips of that match had still circulated for a while, and people had been talking—especially about that omega wizard named “Blink,” who had put on a spectacular performance. When a burly Russian warrior had chased him down relentlessly, Blink not only survived but even pulled off a “Soul Reversal Combo,” forcing the opponent’s HP bar down and helping the sniper god Zero secure a kill.

Looking at it now, Blink was just as dangerous as Zero. Definitely a must-eliminate.

“Pear, you and I focus Blink—burn him down,” Lucas ordered crisply. “The rest of you hit the healer. Follow my call to switch targets.”

“Got it!” everyone shouted in unison.

This arena map was an abandoned palace ruin. Carved, hollow pillars stood scattered throughout—some cracked, some tilted—ghostly white remnants of grandeur dividing the vast space into irregular sections.

Maybe it was the influence from Rainbow Team’s stream, but the once-deserted Polaris livestream began to gather viewers again.

【Wait, what? These five guys are back in the arena again without saying a word??】

【Seriously?! Can’t they at least let their fans know they’re returning to PvP?!】

【They don’t care about fans. They don’t care about anyone but themselves!】

【So they’re not PvE players anymore??? Remembered they’re supposed to be PvP now??】

【You guys don’t know? They already finished farming the Scorpion Trench dungeon. Hah, real model PvE players!】

【Wait, are they seriously wearing those diving-suit sets in the arena…?】

【“Diving suits” is way too accurate, LOL.】

【Good lord, I can’t watch this.】

【Wow. Facing Rainbow in that gear… they’re asking to get executed publicly.】

【I don’t know if I can even watch… I’m an old Polaris fan, okay? I still have feelings.】

…

Lin Mingfei swept his gaze quickly around and spoke in a rapid-fire tone:

“Bo, you keep an eye on Lucas. Fire, you’re with me on Xionghuang. Whoever pops their survival skill first—we nuke them. I bet they’re thinking the same thing we are.”

“Got it!” Bo Yu and Zhou Yanjun answered in sync.

Then Lin Mingfei turned to whisper, “Xia Tong, hold back a bit. Stay behind Timer, use the pillars to block sightlines as much as possible. Drag it out—don’t get yourself killed too fast.”

“Okay,” Xia Tong nodded nervously.

The countdown hit zero, and both teams charged toward the center of the map.

Following Lucas’s plan, Strawberry immediately focused on finding Xia Tong, but all he saw in his vision were the hulking axe-warrior Bo Yu and the loud, heavily armored knight Zhou Yanjun roaring alongside his mount.

In the arena, to every opponent, those two were like rocks in a latrine—filthy, immovable, impossible to kill or shake off. They were the most annoying kind of players. Wasting a burst on them was pure stupidity. Strawberry instinctively avoided them, scanning frantically for Xia Tong—only to find that the little wizard had barely left the spawn area, trailing far behind the rest of the team.

“Damn, he’s really good at hiding!” Strawberry cursed. “Fine, I’ll go for the healer—what the hell?! The healer’s far away too!”

While he hesitated, Xionghuang was already being pinned down and pummeled by the fat knight, Zhou Yanjun, and had taken two precise shots from the enemy hunter. His HP bar was dropping fast.

“Stop talking and HELP ME!!! Z-god is too damn cocky!! He’s just standing there shooting me! So close!! So close!!” Xionghuang screamed.

“He’s drawing aggro to protect his team,” Lucas saw through Lin Mingfei’s strategy. He rolled aside from Bo Yu’s swing and turned to fire a shot toward the hunter, shouting, “Then focus HIM!”

Lin Mingfei’s reflexes were lightning-fast—almost as if he had eyes on his sides. He ducked slightly, and a red Soul Rend spell scorched the ground right where he’d been standing. Calm and composed, he even turned to give Lucas a deep look—one dripping with mockery.

Lucas’s fury exploded.

Moments later, Lin Mingfei became a living target dummy. All four members of Rainbow Team focused their fire on him. No matter how elegant his movements were, he couldn’t dodge everything under that much pressure. Lucas landed a binding control spell, slamming him hard against a pillar, followed by a brutal hit from Strawberry. His HP bar finally started to plunge.

Through it all, Shi Ya didn’t heal Lin Mingfei once. As the hunter’s HP flashed red, Lucas roared, “FINISH HIM! KILL HIM!!” and everyone unleashed their ultimates at once—

Only for the hunter to vanish into thin air.

Lucas’s heart plummeted into the abyss.

“Didn’t he already use Stealth!?” he yelled at Strawberry. “You said he’d burned it!!”

Stealth was a hunter’s ultimate self-preservation skill—it granted immunity to control and five seconds of complete untargetability, long enough to escape any heated fight. Its long cooldown made it precious; no one used it lightly. If a hunter had already burned it and failed to recover… it meant certain death.

“Maybe he moved too fast! I must’ve seen it wrong—” Strawberry shouted in a panic. Moments ago, all four of their team members had unleashed their abilities at Lin Mingfei; it was a literal storm of effects—blindingly chaotic. He hadn’t seen where Lin Mingfei went and simply assumed the hunter had already used his self-defense skill, Stealth. But in truth, he was doubting himself—under that much concentrated firepower, how could Lin Mingfei possibly have survived without using it? Was he made of iron?

“Now!” Shi Ya’s low voice cut through the chaos.

He and Xia Tong appeared one after the other. The little wizard had been forced to watch Lin Mingfei get beaten up for quite a while, and his eyes were already bloodshot with frustration. While sprinting toward the center, he had been charging a massive glowing spell orb—now it exploded with a boom, landing squarely on Lucas.

Blood sprayed. Lucas was blasted so hard he had to burn his emergency skill immediately. Dizzy and disoriented, he saw Lin Mingfei reappear right where he’d been—and be instantly healed to full by Shi Ya.

Lucas nearly spat blood.

So all of their team’s ultimate bursts—every single one—had hit thin air.

Lin Mingfei had baited out all of their cooldowns!

That sneaky bastard!!!

“FOCUS THE HUNTER!!!” Lucas screamed hysterically. “We can lose the match—but ZERO MUST DIE!!!”

Strawberry’s blood was boiling; he didn’t care about anything else. He charged straight at Lin Mingfei, axe whirling. A sweeping strike tripped the hunter, pinning him squarely in sight of everyone. With no self-preservation skill left, the hunter was now in the most dangerous position possible. Strawberry locked onto him with Mountain Splitter Slash and blink-charged forward, slamming Lin Mingfei to the ground.

For a few seconds, Lin Mingfei was immobilized—completely unable to move.

Bang, bang! A few heavy blows chopped his HP down to the last bit of red. Strawberry roared, ready to finish him off—

“Die!!”

At that exact moment, Xionghuang’s panicked scream erupted over comms:

“I can’t heal the party HP anymore!! Use your own damage reduction!!”

Strawberry froze.

What do you mean you can’t heal the team HP?

Their axe warrior and knight were both single-target fighters; one of the enemy’s DPS carries was pinned down under him—how could their team’s health be dropping that fast? Just one wizard… was suppressing everyone’s HP?

The words impossible flashed through his head.

And then, instinctively, he glanced at his own health bar—

It was flashing red.

How—why am I low HP?!

In the blink of an eye, Strawberry forced himself to stay calm. It’s fine… none of their DPS can target me right now. Blink just nuked Lucas—Lucas had to use his damage reduction, he’s in downtime—they’re probably all focusing him…

Wait.

Lucas is dead?!

No, no—it’s fine. As long as he could finish Zero off quickly, they’d still have a shot in the second round—

BANG!

His thoughts cut off with the sound of a gunshot.

Strawberry froze.

The screen before his eyes turned black and white as his character collapsed backward.

Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Lin Mingfei’s face—calm, confident, with a pure, masculine smile—and the faintly smoking barrel of his gun.

What… what was that…?

Where was the targeting line?! He hadn’t even seen the targeting line!!

“Point-blank snipes have a 100% hit rate. Did you forget?” Lin Mingfei rose swiftly from the ground, saying coolly, “Thanks for delivering yourself to my doorstep.”

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