Chapter 122 - 99: The Style Has Gotten Strange
Chapter 122: Chapter 99: The Style Has Gotten Strange
Lin Yu found it even harder to reply. He mainly wasn’t sure how to answer without hurting Ding Dong’s pride. ’My Shadow Reapers are the absolute bane of stealth units.’
The Shadow Reapers’ "Dark Vision Realm" could ignore shadow-type stealth.
Furthermore, their "Shadow Strike" allowed them to attack enemies in the shadows without breaking stealth, while also dealing double pure damage.
They could see stealthed enemies in the shadows and attack them without revealing themselves, all while dealing double pure damage. Conversely, they would only be revealed when attacking normal enemies.
The Shadow Reaper was perfectly designed to target units that stealthed in shadow, and Ding Dong’s assassins were, as it happened, Shadow Assassins.
At that moment on the livestream, the Spiny Porcupines and Withered Messengers were slowly approaching.
Amuti watched the Steel-backed Porcupines, which were curled into balls. Their back quills fired out ceaselessly, but unfortunately, none of them hit the enemy.
The Highly Poisonous Bees swarmed the Steel-backed Porcupines for a closer look, but all they could see were wounds appearing out of thin air. They couldn’t find the attackers.
After summarizing the situation and combining it with his own knowledge, Amuti made his judgment.
"Assassins! And they’re the really annoying kind, the ones that are invulnerable while stealthed!"
"What truly annoying enemies!"
"Shadow Reapers, go see if you can find the hidden enemies with your Dark Vision Realm."
Amuti didn’t believe assassins who could avoid damage while stealthed were using simple optical camouflage. A dense swarm of Highly Poisonous Bees could have just crashed into assassins like that to reveal them.
Soon, the Shadow Reapers returned.
"Sir, we’ve found the enemy. There are many stealthed Beastmen in the shadows—Shadow Werewolves, Shadow Leopard Men, Shadow Lizardmen..."
"Haha, Shadow Reapers, I’ll leave the enemy to you. Show them what you’re made of."
Amuti sent the Shadow Reapers to attack the enemy assassins while he took the Withered Messengers to heal the Steel-backed Porcupines, whose health had become precarious after being attacked for so long.
Fortunately, the Steel-backed Porcupines had high defense and damage reduction, allowing them to endure for a long time with just a sliver of health. They didn’t need to be fully healed, just kept from dipping too low. Otherwise, the Withered Messengers—who didn’t have much health themselves and couldn’t use lifesteal here—wouldn’t be able to restore much health anyway.
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Ding Dong: "See that? This is the power of my Shadow Corps. When you fight them, you can only take hits without fighting back. Badass, isn’t it?"
Zhang Jing: "It’s badass, alright. Too bad my Sky Corps isn’t afraid. Come fly up here and get me if you’ve got the guts."
Yun Qihao: "Still, it’s very powerful. It’d be a real pain if you don’t have a counter."
...
On the livestream, Ding Dong adjusted the view to make stealthed units visible.
You could clearly see Ding Dong’s Shadow Beastmen relentlessly attacking the Steel-backed Porcupines. The scattered quills passed right through their bodies without harming them.
It was as if the two sides were in different dimensions, yet the Shadow Beastmen could still attack.
Opal Hass: "I have to say, your Shadow Corps is pretty cheesy."
Ding Dong: "Hahaha, I’ll take that as a compliment."
...
Just as everyone in the chat group was heatedly discussing how to deal with Ding Dong’s Shadow Corps, a Shadow Assassin on the livestream suddenly fell to the ground, motionless.
Opal Hass: "Huh? Old Ding, why’d your assassin just fall over?"
Ding Dong: "Hm? Did it? Let me take a look."
Ding Dong stopped typing in the chat and looked at his corps’ battle screen.
Beyond the livestream’s view, more Shadow Assassins were suddenly struck from behind, falling to the ground dead.
"This is impossible! Those porcupines’ quills definitely weren’t hurting my assassins!!!"
With a look of utter disbelief, Ding Dong zoomed in to examine the screen closely, but he couldn’t find any enemies in the shadows.
And yet, his own assassins were dropping one after another.
It was exactly as he had boasted before, only now it was his troops who could only take hits without fighting back.
So he hurriedly shut down the livestream.
Ding Dong: "Sorry, everyone. Ran into a little problem."
Opal Hass: "Why’d you stop streaming?"
Zhang Jing: "You got owned, didn’t you! Hahaha~~"
...
Ding Dong stopped talking in the group chat and went to privately message Lin Yu, wanting to get a clear answer.
Ding Dong (PM): "Brother Lin, do you have a unit that counters Shadow Assassins?"
Lin Yu (PM): "Sorry, Brother Ding. It wasn’t a good time to say it in the group chat. I just happen to have a unit in my corps that counters Shadow Assassins, so..."
Ding Dong (PM): "Can you tell me what skills that unit has?"
Lin Yu (PM): "Well..."
Ding Dong (PM): "Ah, my bad, sorry. That was too forward of me!"
Lin Yu (PM): "It’s not a big deal. My unit can see stealthed units and attack them, and it stays stealthed itself, so..."
Ding Dong (PM): "Holy shit, an assassin’s bane? Fucking awesome!!"
Ding Dong asked for the gist of it. Realizing he’d run smack into a brick wall and met his perfect counter, he didn’t feel too disappointed.
This lineup was a new experiment for him anyway. Running into a counter was just a reminder that he needed to work on compensating for this weakness in the future.
He thought for a moment and turned the livestream back on.
[Cuiwei Star Experts Group]
Ding Dong: "Haha, I just asked Younger Brother Lin. Turns out he has the perfect counter for my units."
Ding Dong: "I’ll leave it on for everyone’s entertainment. Just for fun."
Ding Dong: "You can also use this as a case study—a cautionary tale, even. See for yourselves the pros and cons of such an extreme army composition."
On the livestream, Ding Dong’s Shadow Corps were still dying in silence. Unable to find their attackers and knowing they were doomed, they shifted their targets to the distant Scarecrows.
These Scarecrows were flimsy and had no armor—they looked like easy pickings.
However, the Scarecrows had already figured out the Shadow Assassins’ attack pattern. They all scattered to stand in the sun, making sure they weren’t in any shadows.
To attack the Scarecrows, the assassins moved to the nearest patch of shadow, then broke their stealth to lunge at them.
However, the surrounding Highly Poisonous Bees were no pushovers. The moment the Shadow Assassins broke stealth, the bees were on them.
It only took a few light stings. The Shadow Assassins’ limbs grew numb and they stumbled to the ground. As the paralyzing toxin spread, they became completely immobilized.
Then, they were easily reaped by the Shadow Reapers.
Ding Dong: "Younger Brother Lin, what’s this unit now? How did it paralyze my assassins?"
Lin Yu: "Can’t say, can’t say! If I tell you, it’ll lose its magic!"
Ding Dong: "With so many people in this group, we’ll figure out all your secrets sooner or later!"
...
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The battle ended with the complete annihilation of Ding Dong’s Shadow Corps.
Within Lin Yu’s corps, the Steel-backed Porcupines had suffered the worst damage they had ever taken. He was lucky he’d upgraded the Withered Messengers’ skill to "Life Link"; otherwise, he definitely would have lost some of them in that battle.
After their match concluded, everyone in the group became intensely interested in both Lin Yu’s and Ding Dong’s armies, and challenges started pouring in for both of them.
(After entering Tier 3 matchmaking, the Training Camp had added a new "challenge" function. It allowed players to challenge a specific opponent, and if the opponent accepted, a match would begin.)
Ding Dong, far from being discouraged by his loss, quickly started battling other people from the group.
He thoroughly trounced many group members who had been confident they could crack his Shadow Corps, which excited him enough to start livestreaming again.
Lin Yu, for his part, acknowledged the combat strength of his groupmates. He grew interested in these exciting, back-and-forth battles full of surprises, so he accepted their challenges one by one.
The challengers knew Lin Yu could detect stealth, so they all sent out armies built for a direct, head-on fight. However, they were ultimately defeated, unable to overcome the Steel-backed Porcupines’ ever-increasing damage, tankiness, and lifesteal.
Lin Yu’s moniker, the "Pig Team," began to spread through the small group chat.
Ironically, this only made everyone admire Ding Dong’s Shadow Corps—which had nearly defeated Lin Yu—even more.
Lin Yu’s army won several more battles with relative ease. After that, he stopped accepting challenges and went back to random matchmaking.
Although his randomly matched opponents were still mostly group members, their army compositions were no longer just monotonous, head-on assault builds. As time went on, the lineups he faced became stranger and stranger.
The main reason for this was Ding Dong.
Although Ding Dong’s Shadow Corps had lost to Lin Yu, it displayed extraordinary power in subsequent battles. If an opponent couldn’t counter the abilities of his Shadow Assassins, they were completely helpless against him.
However, a situation where five different unit types all possessed the same ability was exceedingly rare.
And so, a few group members went to Ding Dong’s territory, grilled him for half a day, and after promising numerous benefits, finally learned the secret to how he built his Shadow Corps.
The method was simple. In the Tier 3 exchange list, among the vast selection of rewards, was a one-time use item: the Energy Injector. It could infuse a soldier with Extraordinary energy, temporarily granting them a new skill for 24 hours.
There was also a permanent, one-time use item, the Skill Injector, which could infuse a soldier with Extraordinary energy to permanently grant them a new skill.
And then there was the Barracks Transformation Device, a one-time use item that, when combined with a large amount of Extraordinary Energy Crystal Stones of a matching attribute, could permanently add a new skill to a unit type in the Recruitment Office.
Ding Dong might not have been the first to discover these exchange items, but he was the first to experiment with them and apply them in battle.
The effects of these items were bound to get out sooner or later, so it wasn’t a bad move for Ding Dong to seize the opportunity to gain some benefits from it.
To split the cost of the benefits they had promised Ding Dong, those few group members then sold the information to others, until eventually, everyone in the group knew.
After that, the nature of the group members’ armies grew increasingly bizarre.
There were Death Curse Teams, Burrowing Teams, Venom Teams, Illusion Teams, High-Speed Assault Teams, Counterattack Teams... you name it.
The difficulty of Lin Yu’s battles skyrocketed.