088 True Hunters Fear No Attack!

Summon pet!

Ye Xin had no other choice. Since Morning Wind had entered stealth, she could only summon her ghostly tiger. Ye Xin's ghostly tiger possessed a human form, clearly having undergone two mutations, and should boast extremely strong burst capability. Seeing Ye Xin and her ghostly tiger standing back-to-back searching for his whereabouts, Morning Wind found it quite amusing. At least Ye Xin had learned a few subtle details about playing a hunter.

According to Cheng Xue, Ye Xin practiced in the arena for an hour every night, never missing a single day over the past month. While she had accumulated a fair amount of arena experience, she lacked experience in dueling against top-tier experts. Too lazy to bother with her, Morning Wind walked over to a corner of the arena, sat down, and waited patiently.

Since it was not an official professional match, there was no penalty for passive play, and Morning Wind could do whatever he pleased. Arena combat relied on brains. Following his encounters with Outland, Morning Wind felt that using one's brain was far better than acting on impulse. Winning against Ye Xin would be effortless; his true goal was simply to impart some lessons to a newcomer, especially since she would eventually become a teammate. Giving her more exposure to various situations could only benefit her.

"Duan Chenfeng, what kind of tricks are you playing? Come out!" After waiting for a full two minutes without any reaction from Morning Wind, Ye Xin grew impatient. Morning Wind completely ignored her, continuing to sit on the ground and wait while simultaneously controlling his shapeshifter alt to carry Li Xiaoyue through leveling zones.

Zhang Xinting understood Morning Wind's intentions and sent a message to Ye Xin: "Sometimes patience is crucial in the arena. This isn't the professional league, so Chenfeng isn't violating any rules."

Ye Xin was completely out of ideas. She had originally thought she could deal with Morning Wind and vent her frustrations, but she never expected him to simply hide. This made her feel as though her previous momentum had completely vanished. In the arena, when an opponent displayed overwhelming momentum, confronting them head-on was unwise; slowly wearing down their momentum until impatience set in was a valid tactic in itself.

Concussive Wave!

At the five-minute mark, Morning Wind finally made his move. He charged directly in front of the ghostly tiger and immediately unleashed a Concussive Wave, stunning both player and pet. Morning Wind's main hand immediately struck the ghostly tiger with Bloodthirst, followed by a roar to trigger his Battle Shout stance, generating twenty rage points.

Gale Strike!
Tiger Strike!
Thunderstorm Strike!

Executing two skills with independent cooldowns in succession, paired with his off-hand delivering three consecutive free Gale Strikes, Morning Wind instantly reduced the ghostly tiger's health to a sliver. At that moment, Ye Xin immediately activated her PvP medallion to remove the stun effect; she could not allow her pet to be killed by Morning Wind. Given Morning Wind's burst output, eliminating her pet within four seconds was exceedingly simple.

Intintimidating Shout!
Miss?

Luck was not on her side. The area-of-effect fear skill failed, merely converting the ghostly tiger's status from a stun to a fear, allowing Ye Xin to narrowly avoid the worst of it. Morning Wind immediately activated Berserker Rage, bringing down a Furious Slash upon the ghostly tiger that completely depleted its remaining health. The resurrection effect of the Advanced Divine Protection failed to trigger this time, and Ye Xin's most formidable pet was slain by Morning Wind.

When a warrior fights a hunter, eliminating the pet first in the early stages—when the hunter's pet options are limited—is an excellent strategy, followed closely by closing the distance to eliminate the hunter. Once a hunter's pet is killed, resummoning one takes precious time, leaving Morning Wind entirely free to press the melee attack. Seeing that her pet was gone and she had not yet resummoned another, Ye Xin quickly retreated two steps, stepping out of Morning Wind's melee range in an attempt to kite him.

Kiting me outside the eight-yard range?
At least hit me with a Wing Clip first!

Switching to the Dark Rhino Shield, Morning Wind easily blocked her incoming Distracting Shot. He then swept his main hand outward to unleash a Rime Strike—a ranged, area-of-effect attack that also slowed the target, proving far more versatile than a hunter's standard Distracting Shot. With Ye Xin slowed and Morning Wind unhindered, the outcome was entirely predictable.

Morning Wind deliberately took a backward hop to bait an Intercept, but the moment Ye Xin saw him prepare the skill, she promptly used Disengage. Having fought Morning Wind previously, she had learned how to evade a warrior's Intercept. Recently, she had even undergone specialized training specifically to avoid warrior Intercepts and Charges, determined not to fall for it again. As long as she remained outside the eight-to-twenty-five-yard range, a warrior's Intercept attempt would fail and trigger a cooldown. Furthermore, having entered the Trial Pagoda, she had learned a passive skill that removed movement-impairing effects upon using Disengage while boosting her movement speed by forty percent for four seconds—a tremendously powerful utility.

Ye Xin had originally believed she could force Morning Wind's Intercept to whiff, follow up with a Distracting Shot after her Disengage, and then kite him from beyond forty yards. Instead, she discovered that before she even landed from her Disengage, Morning Wind dashed forward with blinding speed. The exact microsecond her feet touched the ground, he entered the effective range of Intercept and lunged straight toward her.

The enhanced Intercept inflicted a three-second silence effect, rendering Ye Xin completely unable to use skills during that window!

"Beauty, you tricked me with my Intercept last time—did you really think you could pull it off again? Too green!" Morning Wind initiated with Giant Strike, followed instantly by Furious Slash, Tiger Strike, and Thunderstorm Strike. Ye Xin's health bar plummeted rapidly.

Hamstring!

Trying to run? Without understanding why she had been silenced, seeing her health drop so precipitously while Morning Wind closed in, Ye Xin panicked and grew flustered. Amidst her panic, Morning Wind's Tempest Blade struck deep into her thigh, applying the slowing effect of Hamstring. Silence combined with a slow, and without a pet—how could she possibly cope with Morning Wind?

Flawless victory! Morning Wind did not take a single point of damage, completely dominating Ye Xin.

"Beauty, it doesn't make any difference whether you use a white-tier bow or an orange-tier one! A weapon only inflicts damage if you actually hit the opponent with it..." Morning Wind won effortlessly, under virtually zero pressure. The hunter class was notoriously difficult to master, but in skilled hands, it was formidable. One might say that playing a hunter was a pursuit of pure technique, encompassing countless aspects: marksmanship, shooting experience, tactical awareness, arena familiarity, knowledge of every class matchup, dirty tricks, counter-dirty tricks, kiting positioning, and melee escape tactics... In short, the comprehensive demands of the hunter class were simply too vast. It was nothing like a warrior blindly charging in for a slugfest, nor a mage thoughtlessly slowing targets with an array of anti-restriction abilities.

The greatest hunter Morning Wind had ever witnessed was an Australian professional player whose in-game ID was "Wild Rabbit." Morning Wind had played five matches against him back in the day, and every single time he had been relentlessly kited; had Morning Wind attempted to force a desperate all-in, it would have resulted in certain death. Wild Rabbit possessed an extraordinary understanding of a warrior's Intercept, Charge, and Heroic Leap skills, knowing precisely when his opponent would use them and when they were merely baiting his own Disengage. In the past, Morning Wind had been utterly helpless against him. This time, the player representing the Australian region in entering the Allied Military Depot to select orange gear was none other than Wild Rabbit. Morning Wind knew that a confrontation with him was inevitable down the line, and he wondered whether that player would still be able to kite him then.

"A true hunter fears no attack!" That was a tremendously famous saying. Any hunter who truly grasped the philosophy behind those words was undoubtedly an elite. If you could execute kiting with absolute fluidity, you could never fear being attacked. Since you were capable of kiting others, others were equally capable of attacking you—it was entirely reciprocal. A hunter had no need to fear attacks, nor any reason to, because a true hunter always believed that they would emerge as the ultimate victors.

"Let's go again!"

Demanding a rematch, Ye Xin insisted on continuing. Since he had committed to educating her, Morning Wind did not mind indulging her for another round. This time, Ye Xin refrained from opening with Camouflage; such a god-tier skill could not be wasted at the start. Morning Wind resorted to a dirty trick of his own: he charged forward without attacking, dropped low to the ground, and swept Ye Xin's legs, knocking her sprawling onto the arena floor. One could only imagine how humiliating it was for a hunter to be tripped and grounded. Activating God Mode, Morning Wind completely ignored the ghostly tiger's counterattacks and rained destruction directly upon the prone Ye Xin, securing victory once more.

"You little punk, I've tolerated you for long enough! Can you stop using such despicable tricks? I conceded when I lost the previous round, but how could you resort to such underhanded tactics this time!" Never in her life had Ye Xin lost her temper and hurled insults like this; this time, she directly branded Morning Wind a little punk. Only a petty hoodlum would use such low-class methods to trip someone before attacking. To use such gutter tactics in the arena made Ye Xin genuinely want to commit murder.

Morning Wind felt not a shred of shame, viewing the tactic instead as a badge of honor. "Beauty, are you out of your mind? Who ever told you that despicable tricks aren't allowed in the arena? Winning is all that matters. In the professional league, nobody cares about your underhanded methods—victory is the absolute law. As a hunter, to actually allow yourself to be tripped—do you even know how to play a hunter? If you don't know how, you might as well delete your character and start fresh."

Do you even know how to play a hunter?

Ye Xin froze in place. Did she know how to play a hunter? As a competitive shooting athlete, Ye Xin had never imagined that such low-class tactics would ever appear in a competition, which was why Morning Wind's actions filled her with indignation. From Morning Wind's perspective, however, it was entirely normal: winning the arena match was paramount; who cared whether a method was considered dirty or not?

"Beauty, don't assume that just because you're a shooting champion you automatically know how to play a hunter. Marksmanship is merely the most basic prerequisite for a hunter. If you still think being some Olympic shooting champion makes you a big deal, you shouldn't be playing a hunter at all. An Olympic shooting champion is absolute trash compared to a gaming e-sports champion." Morning Wind really felt like chewing her out this time. This beauty truly thought too highly of herself. If she failed to grasp the vast gulf between real-world marksmanship and competitive gaming, she would never master the hunter class.

Professional shooting sports were typically pursued by athletes who had undergone rigorous training since childhood, accessible to only an extremely select few. Gaming e-sports, on the other hand, spanned the entire globe, open to anyone aged sixteen to fifty. The sheer demographic scale was incomparable. The gaming arena was a murky swamp of hidden dragons and crouching tigers; as long as victory could be secured, every conceivable tactic would be exploited, making the variables endlessly complex.

"Xiao Xin, Chenfeng is right. The gaming arena accommodates every conceivable tactic, and everyone has their own distinct style. In the professional league, plenty of people love employing these kinds of petty methods." Zhang Xinting felt compelled to remind Ye Xin. The tricks utilized in the arena were boundless, and the number of people who relied on dirty, street-fighting tactics was vast—Morning Wind was hardly the only one.

The priority now was to prepare for the upcoming professional league. From the elimination rounds to the promotion matches and finally the round-robin tournament, they could not afford a single defeat, or their chance at the finals would vanish entirely. Morning Wind held very few expectations for this group of rookie players; reaching the round-robin stage would already be their absolute limit, and whether they could even survive the promotion matches remained a questionable prospect.

Logging off his warrior character, Morning Wind switched to his shapeshifter alt to focus his concentration entirely. The days ahead promised to be quite thrilling—another storm of blood and slaughter was brewing across the great continent!