Vi’s attempt to aggress turned into a disaster. He was a frozen solid in pce, effectively being a sitting duck for the enemy. Meanwhile, an ice wall stalled Kai and she couldn’t back him up.

  “ you get out?” Kai asked.

  “Does it look like I ? You’ll have to help me... ht. He created an ice wall between us. Haha, that Chessmaster, I'm telling you.”

  “You sure look happy for a dead man.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? These guys are nuts! Look at Gunz ing to wreck me as soon as I got frozen. Their timing is so perfect! That's why they're the Golden Duo!”

  “Huh,” Kai shrugged. The timing and coordination of that ter-offense was indeed solid, but she won’t let them get away with this nonsense. She'll ter their ter!

  Besides, there was nothing to worry about. Even though Vi was frozen, only the enemy Gunslinger could deal enough damage to kill a Viking quickly and he had to use Fan the Hammer masterfully to pull that off.

  But, they all saw how “masterful” this Gunslinger was with headshots. He either gonna miss all his shots or only deal subpar damage by shooting the body. So, Vi will be fine. Kai had more than enough time to turn this around-

  “Oh!” Vi shouted. “Here it is! The Gungnir Shree headshots in a row with Fan the Hammer! That's how it gotta be!”

  “Eh...?” Kai blinked. Did that guy seriously nd them? She had firsthand experieh hh it was to nd multiple headshots in a row during Fan the Hammer. Could somebody their age really pull that off in the heat of the moment?

  No way. Vi had to be exaggerating, right? With that said, Vi’s HP indeed plummeted at lightning speed. Darn it, if only this annoying ice wall wasn't in her way so she could see what’s going on.

  “Got ‘em!” Lars grinned. “Three headshots in a row! Headshot spree, yo!”

  “You missed the fourth shot, though,” Yuel said.

  “Geh, , dude! Would it kill ya to praise me sometimes?”

  “I guess you did alright.”

  “Haha, I swear dude,” Lars shook his head. “So, what’s ?”

  “We kill him,” Yuel ordered to tihe offe was checkmate. The three headshots came after bat Roll, so a bo of three headshots in a row stunned Vi for a short time.

  On top of that, each shot stacked a cripple effe Vihat’ll st even after his stun. While crippled, all movement abilities were sealed, even blinking. In other words, they sealed Vi’s escape route of telep back to his axe. Their prey was captured.

  “They got me good,” Vi smiled wryly after finally breaking out of the freeze. His panic button was disabled by the cripple, so he had no way to get out of there. The Golden Duo pletely turhe tables on him. It ic.

  However! That didn't mean Vi was ready to give up just yet! The enemy's py was quid crisp, but Vi didn't want to hand them the victory on a silver ptter like this. He'll struggle to the very end!

  Therefore, it was time to unleash his trusty minions! e forth, Viking Rangers!

  Vi activated Unstoppable Raid, which summoned forth five viking warriors. They were the heroes of justice who’ll save the day! They gon Vi out of this pinch with the power of friendship! Or, more accurately, by savagely assaulting his enemies.

  Eadividual viking minion was separately izable, so Vi put quite the effort into giving each of them a different color scheme. He eve some of his allowan these premium ization options. But, it was totally worth it. All for the sake of creating the Viking Rangers!

  “Yo!” Lars excimed as a rainbow-colored brigade appeared outta thin air in front of him. “Haha, what's with these dudes? They're sick!”

  “Ighem,” Yuel said. “Just kill the Viking and they'll die too.”

  “Roger!” Lars maneuvered around the colorful gang of warriors and snipped Vi.

  The warriors began charging toward Yuel and Lars, but the two of them ighat noise and focused on their prey. They had to finish Vi off before Kai arrives to the rescue.

  “Okay, almost got him!” Lars only needed one more hit to seal the deal but it wasn't easy to firm with a bungry vikings charging right at him.

  But, Gunslinger had the wallhack called Deadeye! Lars just had to get Vi into his field of view again and- Geh!? The ground around Lars was tainted red! A surprise Bze of Inferno was ining!

  Got him! Kai arrived on the se right before Vi dropped dead. She unleashed Bze of Infernht around the Gunslihe damage will be heavy enough to flip this euation on its head. Kai and Vi could reverse the euation!

  Kai drew the target area for Bze of Inferno pactly around the Gunsliherefore, almost all the ticks of damage will e down crashing on the Gunslinger. It’ll be a huge burst of damage that wasn't typically expected from this ult. It might even kill on the spot!

  The enemy had a brief window of time to see the red lines and dodge before it started raining fire. But, in practiobody had the rea time to do anything with that warning. Maybe some pros could dodge fast enough, especially the crazy Korean pros. But, some middle schooler? No ce.

  Therefore, all this heavy damage was guarahat Gunslinger was a goner.

  Whoa, it's hel packed! Lars noticed that all of Inferno's lines were trated around his feet. Rather than a rain of fire, it was more like a meteor was ining and it gonna crash right on his head! He'd be dead meat if that stuff nds, yooooooo!

  Lars rolled before he even finished processing the ehing. Fet killing Vi, he had to evacuate right away!

  “Yeah! !” Lars pumped a fist as he got out of the danger zone.

  “Wha...” Kai choked. Did that guy just dodge her Inferno? In that brief, almost ent, window of time during which he could see the red lines? No, that’s...

  Kai’s trated attack backfired. By drawing all the lines in a spiral around the Gunslinger, it made the fmes easier to dodge by rolling away. Normally, nobody was fast enough to react to this fierce assault. Even in Diamond rank, she only ran into a handful of oppos who rolled out of su attad even that usually looked like sheer luck.

  But, in this case, Kai clearly saw the dodge. Lars was desperately chasing Vi in order to nd the finishing blow, but he stopped in the middle and performed a dodge rht before the fmes came down crashing. Such a quick shift of priorities had to be the result of godlike rea speed. Was that guy a superhuman? An alien?

  “Okay, got ‘em!” Lars recovered from the roll and booted Deadeye. He got the Viking within his field of view and also added the Pyromancer as aarget because why not.

  Bam! Two bullets erupted from his revolver and flew at the desigargets. Nothing could stand their way and no distance was too far for them. The bullets struck true at both targets and delivered the fatal blow!

  You have killed an enemy!

  After Vi fell, his gang of vikings also vanished into thin air.

  “The mighty rangers are defeated!” Vi raised his arms theatrically.

  Welp, this was about what he expected. In fact, he was surprised he survived for so long and almost got away. The Golden Duo was must have been using only 10% of their real power on tablet. They were awesome! They might really pull Stratus far in the uping regionals!

  But, that’s iure. Right now, they were enemies and Vi had to figure how to beat them. Well, it wasn’t like he and Kai had a real ce of winning, but still. It’s the struggle that mattered, right?

  “I think you should retreat,” Vi advised.

  “You don’t say,” Kai already booted Burning Spirit to enhance her movement speed and turned her back to the enemy. It seemed like she finally began to realize the pap between herself and the Golden Duo. So, she scrammed.

  “You ain’t going nowhere!” Lars gave chase. Now, that the rainbow viking brigade was gohe ne was clear. That Pyromancer was the only enemy in sight, son a double kill, yo!

  She’s fast to retreat. Yuel o himself. So far, he couldn’t find any gring fws in Kai’s performa was both impressive and ing.

  So far, every move Kai made in this teuation was solid. She quickly maneuvered around Yuel’s ice wall, she unched a powerful attack to startle Lars and when it failed she was quick to flee. So, even though Yuel and Lars outpyed the enemy as a whole in this situation, Kai’s quick responses made their life hard. She must have had nerves of steel to py this rationally uhe pressure of su unfavorable situation.

  Even now, with Lars oail, Kai didn’t it any notable mistakes. In fact, she was... dodging some of the attacks? Or, was Lars missing again because of the tablet?

  “You ’t hit from this distan tablet?” Yuel asked.

  “Nah, it should be fine. But, like,” Lars’s tone sounded as fused as Yuel’s. Something wasn’t quite right about this chase.

  Lars fired a bullet and his amazing “200% accuracy” should’ve made it nd for sure. Yet, the bullet missed.

  “What the heck, yo. I totally should’ve hat,” Lars cocked his head. “Dang it, another one!”

  Another miss. This one was closer and only missed by a hair’s breadth, but it still missed. What the actual heck? It’s not like Kai was doing anything special, yet Lars’s shots were missi and right.

  “Are y too hard to aim for the head?”

  “Nah, I’m not even aiming for the head. I’m keeping it real and going for the upper body.”

  “Huh,” Yuel knotted his brows. This was iing.

  While running away, juking the chaser was an important skill. This generally involved moving irregurly to throw off the enemy’s aim. But, to sistently pull this off against somebody like Lars, one needed an amazing reading ability like Ellen’s.

  heless, Kai arently doing something to that effect right now. Somehow, Kai was reading Lars’s moves and juking his shots while esg.

  “Here it is!” Vi boomed. “The Rhythm Reader is unleashed! Oh.”

  A bullet hit Kai just as Vi made his grandiose annou.

  “ you keep it down?” Kai grumped.

  “Oh, my bad. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.” Vi shut his mouth. He wao keep hyping up this amazing csh of superpowers but, for the sake of Kai’s tration, he had to pipe down.

  Here it is! Beat’s special ability: Rhythm Reader! Vi tihe entary in his head. He had nothier to do anyway while he was dead, so he hyped up the ability for an imaginary crowd.

  Rhythm Reader is a high-level teique which diss the oppo’s rhythm and allows Beat to adjust her tempo to it! Like you see right here, she nailed down the rhythm of Gunz’s shots and dodges ead every single one of them! It appears as if even Gunz’s Gungnir Sniper ’t defeat Beat’s Rhythm Reader!

  Though exaggerated, Kai was doing pretty much what Vi described. She was mostly running in a straight li, whehought a shot was ing, she strayed from the path just enough to dodge the shot.

  To pull off this trick, Kai didn't rely on the sound of the shot or anything like that. In the first pce, most people didn’t have the necessary rea time to dodge a shot after hearing it. Instead, Kai downloaded Gunz’ shooting pattern and pyed around it! She was reading his rhythm!

  “Beautiful!” Vi excimed.

  “Ahem,” Kai cleared her throat.

  “Oops, my bad,” Vi covered his mouth before he blurts something else. This was just too hype! It was a csh between Kai's Rhythm Reader and Lars's Gungnir Sniper! He couldn’t tain himself!

  Judging by the data so far, Rhythm Reader pletely nullified the effect of Gungnir Sniper. No matter how accurate Gunz was, said accuracy meant nothing when the oppo could predict the timing of the shots and dodge them i split-sed. It wasn’t like Gunz was “missing”, his aim was actually spot-on. But, it’s his oppo who dodged everything!

  In fact, it's probably because Gungnir Sniper was so accurate that Rhythm Reader did such a great job. If Gunz's aim wasn't pitch-perfect, he might have nded a few inaccurate shots by act. Kai's st-moment dodges were minimal, so a slight inaccuracy from the shooter’s side might have made the shot graze her.

  So, what will Gunz do now!? He has to adapt or he'll let Beat get away. At this point, it's safe to say Beat will get away alive. But, Gunz still has a few more attempts to redeem himself for his earlier misses. he nd any of the remaining shots!? He had about four more ces to shoot. Let’s see how it goes!

  The first shot missed. Or, more correctly, Kai dodged it.

  “Gah!” Lars jumped. “I don't get it, yo! I totally had her marked down! How did that miss!?”

  So, he thinks that should've nded, Yuel pohis was indeed peculiar. Whenever Lars was about to miss, he usually could tell his aim was off. In fact, he'd often shout some nonsense and bme himself for the miss.

  But, this situation was different. Lars didn't think his aim was off, so it most likely wasn't. If so, the only remaining expnation was that Kai was somehow dodging all his shots. Was that even possible? She was in the middle of fleeing and her back was turo her oppo. It should've been impossible...

  Let's see if she moves, Yuel squinted his eyes and focused entirely on Kai.

  Bam. Another shot, another miss.

  No, that wasn't a miss. Yuel definitely saw it: just before the bullet reached Kai, she turo the right and dodged it by a hair's breadth. What a godlike split-moment dodge!

  Did she react to the sound of the shot? No, she wouldn't have made it in time like that. This was an iing phenomenon. It’s almost as if Kai had eyes on her bad could see when Lars was about to shoot.

  Once Lars pulled the trigger, there was no going baobody could alter the bullet's trajectory and it was guarao nd oarget because Lars was the shooter. So, if Kai could somehow move exactly the moment Lars pulled the trigger, it was theoretically possible to dodge the bullet from this distance.

  But, how did Kai rea such a timely fashion? Did she have a superhumaion time like Lars? No way, there couldn't be so many superhumans around. Yuel refused to believe in such statistics.

  In that case, Kai must have been using something else to react with perfect timing. But, what could it possibly be? It couldn't be a pure guess because she dodged way too many shots at this point. There was a limit to how lucky a person could be.

  Bam. Another shot. Yet again, Kai moved aside and dodged the bullet's i nanosed. The way she has been running in a straight lihe whole time and only moving aside i moment was incredibly risky. Yet, it worked for her. It’s like she khe exact timing for Lars's shots... wait. May that’s it!

  Lars was keeping his finger pressed on the left mouse button to fire every shot as quickly as possible. Unlike Yuel, whled to nd such fast shots in succession without adjusting his aim iween, Lars’s godlike accuracy allowed him to fire nonstop at top speed.

  As a result, the interval between Lars’s shots remained sistent the whole time. The shots were fast and accurate, but they had very distinctive timing. If Kai had the ability to nail down this timing, she could dodge the shots with perfect timing!

  “Wait,” Yuel said. “Dey your shot by half a sed.”

  “Wut? Ah,” Lars paused to listen and that made him dey the shot just like Yuel wanted. “Dunno what's up, but I guess I gotta shoo- oh!” Lars saw it! He saw it clearly! Just before he pulled the trigger - the Pyromancer moved ever so slightly to the left!

  “You ain't dodging this, yo!” Lars shifted his aim a little to the left while pressing the left button. He gonna nd this, yo!

  I do it. Kai o herself. The rhythm of the enemy's shots was eg in her head: wait, wait, shoot. Lars has beeing this exact pattern every siime with amazing accuracy. So, all Kai had to do was: wait, wait, dodge.

  It’s a beautiful rhythm. Kai admitted. It brimmed with boundless fidehe shooter was 100% fident in his ability to nd every single shot. Maybe it was even 200% fidence.

  However, that made it all the easier for Kai to adjust her movements to that rhythm: wait, wait, dodge. Worked like a charm every time.

  The music beating in her left ear helped her synize her movements even more. If she wore earplugs on both ears, her dodges would have been even sharper. Unfortunately, she had to make sure she could hear her teammate, so she had to keep one ear unplugged.

  So far, all her dodges were on point except for that oime when the noisy fool distracted her. So, she was going to get out of this sticky situation with minimal damage. The Golem's area was just a couple of steps away, so the enemy had only one more ce to shoot her; maybe two if he really pushes it.

  The shot was ing. Wait. Wait. Dodge! Following the beat, Kai shifted her movement to the left. Another bullet dodged! Or, that’s what would have happened if any bullet was fired in the first pce.

  Did the pursuer already give up? Then, all the better for- bam! A bullet hit her from behind!

  “Eh?” Kai blinked. Did she mess up the rhythm? No, it was the usual “wait, wait, dodge”. She pulled it out perfectly.

  So, the only expnation was that the enemy deyed his shot. Was that on purpose? Eh, whatever. Kai got out of danger and safely reached the Golem's area. That’s all that mattered.

  After reag safety, she turned around to check whether the enemy was greedy enough to dive under Golem. If he were, Kai would retaliate without hesitation. After all, she still had over 60% HP to spare.

  “Yo!” Lars excimed as he tinued chasing. “I actually hit her!”

  As I thought. Yuel o himself. Kai adjusted to the pattern of Lars’s shots and relied oiming to dodge everything. It was an impressive show, but her over-relian that teique exposed her. From now on, they’ll know how to deal with her dodges.

  But, right now, there was a more important topic at hand. Lars being Lars, he tinued chasing Kai even though she already retreated intolem's area. This goof had to be stopped, or else he'd dive uower and will get tered.

  “That's enou-”

  “Geh, she got away,” Lars stopped oep away from Golem's area before Yuel even finished his warning. Yes, Lars actually stopped a chase out of his own volition without Yuel warning him. That only happened on a blue moon. It was simply amazing. Yuel had er words to describe this otherworldly phenomenon.

  “Okay, what's ?” Lars asked as he jogged back to their side of the ne. “We gonna push them hard while it's a 2v1?”

  “No, I don't think we'll get much mileage out of that,” Yuel expined. “That Pyro knows what she’s doing. She's not Diamond just for show. She got her fuals down.”

  “Yeah, she's pretty slick.”

  “I don't see her itting any big mistakes even if we pressure her in a 2v1. And, from mid-range, Pyro clear minions about as fast as us. So, let's use this time to gear up. Recall to base and buy Fury Knuckles.”

  “Gotcha,” Lars began the recalling animatiht there on the spht in front of the enemy.

  “Don't be obvious like that,” Yuel smacked his forehead. “At least do it in the jungle or something.”

  “ht, haha,” Lars ughed awkwardly. “Well, I already started so better finish it.”

  “Yeah, I agree with,” Yuel sighed.

  With the initiative in their hands, Yuel made the call that it was best to have a brief downtime and gear up for the uping fights. However, this was just the calm before the storm...