Chapter 355: Playing Fancy Tricks Is Useless

"Sob sob sob, I lost, Talitaluosi, help me get revenge."

About half an hour later, Vivian, who had successfully finished the match with a 0:3 record, returned to the preparation area with an expression of disbelief.

Although she had already been told to be careful, but... Yun Mu glanced at the green-haired one whose expression hadn't changed much.

Actually, even if she had given it her all from the start, given Vivian's level, she probably wouldn't have been that guy's match anyway.

It really is quite surprising.

Recalling the match between Vivian and Tea Cup in her mind, Yun Mu swapped herself into Vivian's position, hypothesizing what she would have done if she were the one dueling the opponent.

Hmm... they were all moves that were easy to deal with, it's just... that was Vivian's match after all.

The opponent's true strength likely hadn't been revealed yet.

If she were to underestimate the opponent because of the match just now, she would undoubtedly suffer a great loss.

Just like the guy beside her who was crying and asking Talitaluosi to help her get revenge.

Of course, Vivian wasn't actually crying; that was just an exaggerated way of putting it.

The third match began quickly.

The dueling contestants were 【Good Name】, ranked third on the leaderboard, and 【Ball of Yarn】, ranked ninth—the Dwarf uncle whom Yun Mu had complained about earlier.

And that guy with the ID 【Good Name】, as introduced before, was a guy who loved using disgusting tactics.

His specialty was filling the area in front of his opponent's gate with defensive structures, making it impossible for people to even get out.

Actually, it was similar to the playstyle of the contestant Cauliflower earlier, but this guy's experience was much richer than Cauliflower's.

Even Yun Mu would sometimes be disgusted by him.

Originally, she had thought that if she could meet him in the competition, she would definitely have to teach him a lesson, but now it seemed there was no need for that.

Because the operation style of that Dwarf uncle named 【Ball of Yarn】 was quite a hard counter to the opponent.

If Yun Mu had to describe it, he was like a constantly erupting volcano; as long as he had money in his hands, he was a battle maniac who would never stop his offensive.

Most importantly, this guy's operations were also very good.

Even in situations where he didn't have the advantage in military strength, he could still achieve a surprising kill-death ratio.

Just as the first round began, the repair worker 【Good Name】 sent to scout and build a Barracks in front of the opponent's base had only finished half the construction when dozens of Executors burst out from the fog of war, and with a "rat-tat-tat" burst of fire, they blew up his half-finished building.

Subsequently, these Executors boarded a Transport Vehicle, crossed the entire map to the front of his home, and struck a pose as if they were about to attack at any moment.

Scared, 【Good Name】 hurriedly built a Bunker to guard his gate, while simultaneously interrupting the Armed Mining Vehicle being produced in the Tank Factory to go build a Flash Silver Tank instead.

At the same time, 【Ball of Yarn】 controlled the Executors to jump down from the Transport Vehicle and unleashed a barrage of fire at the Bunker in front of 【Good Name】's home, blowing it up in less than two seconds.

This damage gave 【Good Name】 a shock, and what surprised him even more were the Transport Vehicles following behind the Executors.

Not knowing what skill was loaded, those Executors near the Transport Vehicles were actually slowly regenerating health!

【Good Name】 widened his eyes, stood up directly from the seat inside the Duel Pod, and almost pressed his entire face against the screen.

There was actually a skill like this!?

No, he seemed to have some impression of it, but he felt it was useless and had forgotten it... Besides that, the damage of these Executors was also not quite right.

Even with Executors strengthened by skills, they shouldn't have this level of damage; wait, could it be!? He suddenly thought of something, clicked on the opponent's Executor panel, and sure enough, he saw a familiar name in the skill bar.

It's 【Overload】 aaaaaah—

Each activation consumes one-tenth of health, then increases the unit's movement speed, attack speed, and damage dealt for a short time; how could anyone bring this skill!

"It's already over."

Outside the arena, Yun Mu looked at the image on the screen and shook her head.

Do you understand the gold content of a biochemical unit-spam rush? Repair vehicle paired with Overload, everyone who's used it says it's good!

It's just a bit taxing on the hands and the power window is very short, only about two or three minutes; if you fail to kill the enemy in one wave, then it's your turn to die next.

However, it's very suitable for dealing with contestants like 【Good Name】 who like to play fancy tricks and slow down both sides' development.

You don't like to drag out development? Good, I was just worried you were developing too fast.

Isn't this just walking right into the muzzle?

So I say, hard power is the most important thing; these tactics and fancy tricks should only be used occasionally—do you really think others have no way to crack them? Yun Mu refocused her attention on the match, and when 【Ball of Yarn】's Executors broke through the defenses at 【Good Name】's gate like a hot knife through butter, the opponent decisively chose to surrender.

After the halftime break ended, both sides quickly began the second round of competition.

This time, contestant 【Good Name】 didn't pull any fancy tricks and just developed in a standard way, but as a result, he was defeated again when facing the combination of Executors and repair Transport Vehicles after the 【Ball of Yarn】 contestant sold his Command Center.

Is this guy unable to play if he doesn't pull fancy tricks?

Yun Mu, who was watching from the preparation area, complained in her heart.

I don't know how many contestants who hadn't seen these tactics fell for it to let a guy like this reach third place on the leaderboard.

But that's as far as it goes; wait, what is this guy doing? In the third match, after the game started, 【Good Name】 immediately built two repair workers and simultaneously had his Command Center perform an Ascension, flying directly toward the direction of 【Ball of Yarn】's base.

As for the two repair workers, one stayed behind to build an Energy Plant, while the other headed straight for another Mining Field next to 【Ball of Yarn】's home.

Because the repair workers ran much faster than the Command Center, the repair worker arrived at the Mining Field location one step ahead of the Command Center.

Then 【Good Name】 controlled the repair worker to build an Ore Refinery at the Mining Field.

At the same time, the repair worker who had previously built the Energy Plant also ran over and built a Barracks next to the high ground where contestant 【Ball of Yarn】's base was located.

And the Command Center finally arrived at the destination at this time, landing next to the newly built Barracks.

At the same time, 【Ball of Yarn】 was controlling a Transport Vehicle to carry Executors toward the direction of 【Good Name】's 'base'.

This guy is completely gambling.

Gambling that 【Ball of Yarn】 wouldn't scout the vision next to his home a second time, gambling that the opponent would still use the Executor and Transport Vehicle tactic like the last round.

And it turned out he actually won the gamble!

Taking advantage of the fact that the combat units inside 【Ball of Yarn】's base were empty, 【Good Name】 decisively controlled the Command Center to produce a large number of Executors, then, with the help of the Barracks' research technology 【Climb】, let the Executors jump onto the high ground—that is, into 【Ball of Yarn】's base—catching the opponent off guard.

At the same time, the two repair workers also jumped onto the high ground and began building a Combat Bunker.

【Ball of Yarn】, who never expected the opponent to pop out from here, could only hurriedly call back his military strength while trying his best to build Executors, attempting a Knockback on 【Good Name】's troops. However, he never expected that the opponent's Command Center was right below the high ground, and a steady stream of Executors jumped onto the high ground from the fog of war, forcefully pushing his base buildings until nothing was left.

The winner of this match was naturally the contestant 【Good Name】, and after finishing this match, he chose to forfeit.

Perhaps he had no other strategies left in his hand.

However, opposite him, that Dwarf brother seemed to have been angered by his actions.

"You damn bastard, running away after winning one game, right? If you've got the guts, play another round with me!"

The irritable Dwarf brother grabbed the collar of contestant 【Good Name】 after the match ended and roared.

"Don't, don't shake me."

Contestant 【Good Name】 appeared to be a young man of the Deer-person race with rather delicate features; looking at his appearance alone, it was truly impossible to connect him with his in-game avatar.

"I'm out of strategies, why play when I know I'll lose?" The young man broke free from the Dwarf brother's large hand.

"Hmph, I don't care. No matter what you say, you are playing another round with me today." The other party clearly did not want to listen to his explanation and gave a light huff.

"Wouldn't it be fine if you played another round in private after the tournament ends?" Yun Mu looked at the two people blocking her way with some helplessness: "You are blocking me."

"Oh, oh, sorry." The young man apologized hurriedly after hearing her words.

As for the Dwarf brother, he glanced at her, then shifted his gaze away: "Forget it, since this kid already admitted defeat just now, I won't hold it against him."

After finishing his words, he returned to his seat and sat down, while the young man smiled at Yun Mu: "Thank you very much, um... I won't disturb you all from watching the match, farewell."

"The next match should be my turn, right?" Brenna looked up at the constantly refreshing screen at this moment and said.

As soon as the words fell, the images and text on both sides of the screen became fixed.

【Metal Gear vs Jinmao Shiwan】

"It's finally my turn, aw~" The blonde Cat Ear Young Girl, Yikeshi'er, stood up excitedly and said.

Hm? Yun Mu looked at her with some surprise: "When did you appear?"

"I've been here every day, okay?" Yikeshi'er pouted with some dissatisfaction. She tilted her head and looked at Yun Mu with one eye: "You guy, you don't come to say hello when you see me?"

Actually, she had originally wanted to greet Yun Mu, but because she saw Yun Mu and Brenna and the others chatting quite happily, she felt a bit embarrassed to interrupt.

So she had been hoping for Yun Mu to take the initiative to greet her.

As a result!

For these two days, Yun Mu acted as if she didn't see her and ignored her completely!

It's really infuriating, meow!

But Yun Mu was actually not doing it on purpose.

She just saw that Yikeshi'er didn't come over to greet her, so she thought the other party didn't want to interact with them.

As for not discovering the other party, that was naturally something she pretended.

Hehe~ "Unh." Yikeshi'er gave a light huff at this time, and she walked toward the direction of the competition arena: "Don't think that I will go easy on you. If you want to win the Champion title, you at least need to have the strength to defeat me."

"That goes without saying." Brenna stood up with a smile, then waved at Yun Mu: "Then I'm going to the match."

"Mm, good luck!" Yun Mu clenched her fists to cheer her on.

"I will." Brenna was waiting for these words; she nodded and left, feeling satisfied.

The match started quickly. The map randomly selected by both sides this time was a desert map that was completely mirrored on both sides.

The resources were not considered very abundant, but because of the Precious Mineral Vein on both sides of the map, the development speed in the early stage would be slightly faster than a normal match.

As for what a Precious Mineral Vein is?

To put it simply, it is ore that is more valuable. In the same amount of time, the Resource Point produced by a Precious Mineral Vein is 2.5 times that of ordinary ore.

However, it is precisely because of this that the total amount of minerals in a Precious Mineral Vein is usually not very large.

It will probably be exhausted after mining for two or three minutes.

Because it was the first match, both sides played quite cautiously. No one chose to rush, but instead developed honestly.

However, Yikeshi'er's line of thought was different from Brenna's.

After she finished building the Tank Factory, she only produced one Mining Vehicle before starting to increase the number of Flash Silver Tank units, while more Mining Vehicles were added by having repair workers build an Ore Refinery.

As for Brenna, while continuing to produce Mining Vehicles, she built an Ore Refinery to speed up the development.

Therefore, when Yikeshi'er's Flash Silver Tank drove to her Gate, Brenna had absolutely no intention of clashing head-on.

Although she didn't have a Flash Silver Tank, there was no need to panic.

The opponent only had one Flash Silver Tank, which couldn't stir up any trouble. Brenna had no intention of interrupting the production of Mining Vehicles, but instead started producing executors and let the repair workers build a Bunker for defense.

Yikeshi'er immediately let the Flash Silver Tank go to crush the executors, but Brenna hurriedly controlled them to scatter, causing Yikeshi'er's Flash Silver Tank to be beaten to low health after crushing four or five executors, forcing it to retreat backward.

However, her follow-up reinforcements had also arrived, a brand-new Flash Silver Tank.

And the second Mining Vehicle in Brenna's Tank Factory had just been produced.

At this time, there was no need to continue producing Mining Vehicles; Brenna hurriedly maxed out the number of Flash Silver Tanks in the build list.

Yikeshi'er saw that Brenna's Flash Silver Tank had not come out yet and immediately realized that the opportunity had arrived.

Charging head-on would definitely lead to a disadvantage, but she still remembered the opponent's maneuvers from her first duel with Yun Mu.

She decisively let the Flash Silver Tank use its speed advantage to bypass Brenna's executors and go attack the Mining Vehicle in the Mining Field.

Seeing this, Brenna could only manually control the Mining Vehicle to shrink back, while simultaneously letting the executors run over to protect the Mining Field.

But delaying mining time like this was not a good thing, not to mention she also saw Yikeshi'er's third Flash Silver Tank rushing over from the fog of war.

Fortunately, the Flash Silver Tank in her own base had finally finished production at this time, and she could perform a moderate Counterattack.

At the very least, Yikeshi'er's plan to suppress her Mining Vehicle and make her unable to mine was unlikely to be executed.

And that little bit of mining time that was just delayed didn't count as any big problem at all.

(End of this chapter)