San Tian Liang Jiao

Chapter 1459 Middle Game, Offense and Defense Gambit

Chapter 99 Between Battles
Players would have five minutes to rest between the vanguard battle and the mid-game battle.

During this time, the two players who had just finished the first match would be teleported back to their respective team's spectator space; at the same time, the system would repair and clean the battlefield, restoring it to the state it was in before the fight.

Although the members of "Super Monster Team" were mentally prepared to lose the first battle, they really did not expect to be defeated by such a method as "missile sniping."

It can be said that Snow's tactics refreshed his opponents' understanding of the game... and, to a large extent, once again dampened their fighting spirit.

In such an atmosphere, the second match of the first round, the 2v2 mid-game battle, soon began.

Accompanied by a system prompt, Wang Tanzhi and Gu Xiaoling were teleported into the battlefield and stood on the arena.

On the other side, the "Super Monster Team" sent out their captain, Jiedun, and their teammate, Bemustaine.

[The match will begin in thirty seconds] The system voice arrived as scheduled.

As soon as the voice fell, Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling both turned around... and ran away.

"Here we go again?" Jiedun, who saw this scene, blurted out almost instinctively.

"Don't panic, Captain." Bemustaine was the strategist of the opposing team, and he was relatively calm. He immediately reminded, "Didn't we watch the S2 recording together? Wang Tanzhi is an assassin-type player, and Bei Ling Xiaogu is a sniper... it's normal for them to create distance and lurk, they aren't going to build missiles."

"Hmm..." Jiedun thought for a moment and muttered, "What made you think... 'as long as the opponent isn't making missiles, there's nothing to panic about'?"

"Uh..." Bemustaine was stunned when he heard this.

Then, the two looked at each other and shouted in unison, "Dodge!"

When they shouted these words, there were less than ten seconds left before the isolation barrier disappeared, and Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling had already disappeared.

Jiedun and Bemustaine seized this last bit of preparation time, desperately fleeing in the opposite direction from their opponents, searching for something to use as cover.

Fortunately, the terrain on this wasteland was slightly undulating, and there were many protruding, wave-shaped mounds. Jiedun and Bemustaine were both players in their fifties, and if they didn't worry about stamina, their maximum running speed far exceeded that of ordinary people. Ten seconds was enough for them to run more than a hundred meters and find a place to hide.

[Three... Two... One... Fight!]

The two had just settled behind a small hill when the match officially began.

"Phew..." Bemustaine, leaning against the hillside, breathed a sigh of relief, "Okay, now that we know the other side has sent out a scout and sniper combination, let's discuss..."

Bang—

The last syllable of his first sentence was interrupted by a gunshot.

A bullet arrived a moment earlier than the sound.

"How... is... this... possible..." Amidst a sharp pain, Bemustaine slowly lowered his head and looked at his abdomen.

Just a split-second before the gunshot reached his ears, a flower of blood suddenly bloomed on his stomach…

If this were reality, his intestines and the excrement within would probably have been blasted out and smeared all over the ground. Fortunately, this was a game, and he was a player; the system had limitations on the display of player body injuries (the most typical example being that clothing in certain areas of female players' bodies would never be damaged or fall off), so the things blasted out of Bemustaine's abdomen were "harmonized" into balls of blurry blood stains.

"Damn it! Run!" Jiedun reacted quickly. His peripheral vision immediately caught sight of the hole in the hillside behind Bemustaine and deduced what the opponent had done. "Cover is useless against them, we need to run out of weapon range!"

…………

At the same time, about seven hundred meters away, on the mid-slope of a certain small hill.

Xiao Ling had already set up her sniper rifle on a tripod and was steadily aiming in a comfortable prone position.

Xiao Tan was kneeling next to her, using [Eagle Eye Vision] to stare at the direction of their opponents, muttering, "Hit Bemustaine's abdomen, the damage should be pretty significant, but he hasn't lost his ability to move... hmm... looks like he's done some simple treatment and can jog now, he's starting to move further away with Jiedun."

"Ah... I see them." Two seconds later, Xiao Ling added leisurely.

Since the two opponents had already run out of the range shielded by the hills, Xiao Ling could directly see them through the scope.

As she spoke, the muzzle of the gun in her hand was also slightly adjusting. Her sniping posture was stable and precise, like a sophisticated instrument; hand, eye, and heart... working together seamlessly.

Bang—

Seconds later, her second bullet left the chamber.

This time, the target was further away and moving, making it undoubtedly more difficult to hit.

But…

"Ah!" As soon as the gun fired, Bemustaine, who was running, screamed and staggered to the ground.

This time, he was shot in the leg. A fist-sized hole was blasted through his right thigh, and the surrounding area of the wound was a bloody mess.

"Damn... we were already running, and we were so far away, how could they still..." Jiedun said, preparing to pick up his teammate.

"No... don't!" Unexpectedly, Bemustaine pushed Jiedun away. "She deliberately shot my leg, just so you would carry me... that way, for her, two targets become one, and the movement speed will be slower... she can get two birds with one stone with the next shot."

As Bemustaine spoke, he didn't forget to crawl on the ground, away from Jiedun.

"Hurry! You run first! There's still a chance if you escape beyond their scouting range. There's no way I can escape in this condition, I might as well buy you some time!"

It is necessary to explain here that Xiao Ling's first shot was just a "test shot."

There were three reasons: first, when she fired that shot, she couldn't see the enemy herself, and she was completely relying on Xiao Tan's description to locate them; second, she couldn't accurately grasp the influence of the wind when she fired the first shot; third, even if she used a special "armor-piercing bullet," the bullet would still have a certain probability of deviating when it passed through irregularly shaped cover.

In summary, for the sake of safety, Xiao Ling aimed this shot low... after all, the torso is always easier to hit than the head.

However, this second shot was different.

This time Xiao Ling could see the target, and the target was already injured; as long as she fired another shot at the most easily hit torso, Bemustaine would likely die on the spot.

However, she deliberately shot the opponent's leg…

This move, of course, had other intentions.

Of course, a "strategist" of Bemustaine's level couldn't think of that much. He was just deducing according to common sense... since the other party's marksmanship was so strong that they could hit the leg of a moving target, they must also be able to hit the easier-to-hit torso; so why didn't the other party directly hit the torso to take his life? There must be a conspiracy.

"Okay!" As he spoke, Jiedun quickly responded after receiving Bemustaine's instructions, and ran away without looking back, his speed even faster than before.

Although we can often see in film and television or literary works, in similar scenes, two or more people engage in "You go... no, I can't leave you... do you want me to die in vain? But... I... if you don't leave, I'll die in front of you..." this kind of anxious "touching" dialogue, but Jiedun and Bemustaine didn't intend to do that...

Their thinking was very clear - when your teammate is risking his life to buy you a chance to fight, you better shut the hell up and take action.

"Not bad..." Holding the gun, Xiao Ling witnessed the situation over there through the scope. Although she couldn't hear the dialogue between the opponents, she could roughly guess the content. "It seems that it won't work to solve everything with sniping..."

Her judgment was correct. Currently, the distance between Jiedun and them was rapidly increasing. The greater the distance, the lower the killing power and accuracy of the bullet. If she fired the next shot to chase Jiedun, even if she hit him, it wouldn't have much of an impact.

"Hubby." A second later, Xiao Ling called out to Xiao Tan.

"Yeah." Xiao Tan responded.

"Go chase him." Xiao Ling added.

"Okay." Xiao Tan nodded, "Which one should I chase?"

"Of course, the one who's running." Xiao Ling said.

"Got it." After confirming the target, Xiao Tan flashed... and disappeared.

Bang—

Almost at the same instant he rushed out, the cooldown time required for Xiao Ling's shot also arrived. She immediately aimed at the downed Bemustaine and fired the third shot.

However, this shot was "blocked" by the opponent.

A blue protective shield with water patterns floating on the surface suddenly appeared just as the bullet was about to hit Bemustaine, forcibly withstanding the armor-piercing bullet.

This move was Bemustaine's title ability, [Ripple Shield]. After the skill was activated, the shield would automatically appear around him to defend him, no matter what attacks he received in the next ten seconds.

As a defensive skill, this move was quite powerful, the only downside was... the duration was too short.

If this move could last for ten minutes, Bemustaine would have already used the skill; but "ten seconds"... he could only use it at the critical moment when he was sure to die.

"Okay... success." Bemustaine said while treating his wounds, "That first shot was indeed unexpected and impossible to defend against; and that second shot showed... that in front of your marksmanship... 'movement' is useless; but... when the second shot was fired, your 'shooting interval time' was also exposed, which gave me the opportunity to calculate the lead and activate the skill to defend against the third shot."

His hands and feet were fast. As he thought about this, he had already stopped the bleeding and released a summoning skill - [Summoning Art - Air Elemental].

This was only a C-level summoning skill, not very strong. However, Bemustaine was not originally majoring in summoning. He was a player who was good at "spiritual arts"; summoning this elemental was to cooperate with his spiritual art skill [Spiritual Transformation].

With this move, Bemustaine could absorb the summoned creature like a buff, greatly increasing his maximum health, instantly restoring 50% of his survival value, and gaining some of the summoned creature's abilities.

"Turning into this form should allow me to negotiate with them for a while longer, right..." When Bemustaine's transformation was complete, gusts of gray, swirling "small tornadoes" wrapped around his limbs and torso like armor.

Whoosh—

Just as Bemustaine was slightly distracted by the transformation, a hidden arrow suddenly broke through the wind, directly attacking his temple.

Bemustaine reacted quickly, raising his hand and grabbing, actually stopping the hidden arrow.

"What the hell?" Although Bemustaine blocked the attack, he was still in shock. He suddenly turned his head and looked in the direction the hidden arrow came from, but he couldn't see a ghost.

Because Xiao Tan, who released the hidden arrow, ran even faster than the hidden arrow...

Moreover, Xiao Tan didn't come specifically to attack Bemustaine. He just happened to pass by, saw that the range was suitable, and casually threw an arrow, and then continued to chase and kill Jiedun.

On the other hand, Xiao Ling, who was far away, also decisively cancelled the sniping state after seeing Bemustaine's change, and took out several other guns from her bag and activated the skill [Assembly Magic]...