Mutated Pheromones

“Fuck!” 

The moment Yue Ran saw the two names, he blurted out the foul language.

Yep, he was throwing another hissy fit.

Hearing the very soft teeth grinding, Jiang Xiao asked with interest, “Didn’t you curse the same word when we first met?”

Yue Ran snapped, “No!” 

Jiang Xiao listened to his nasty tone and slightly raised his eyebrow.

During their ten fights, the little summoner rarely spoke, but he could hear the voice slowly change from gloomy to light, a clear sign that the junior’s mood was improving. But now the little summoner’s mood went south again from this elite match.

“We would inevitably be at a disadvantage against a high ranked team,” He said calmly. “No big deal. We won’t lose our accumulated points if we suffer a defeat.”

Yue Ran continued to grind his teeth.

He knew that!

A player’s technique and equipment quality were very significant in PK.

In terms of equipment, he bought this account today so all of his equipment was very poor. Although his senior bought his account a few days ago and could switch to a better set of equipment, they were only mid-level. Their opponents most likely used their points from grinding in the higher rank arena for high-level equipment already. Even a toddler could conclude that Yue Ran and Jiang Xiao’s gear was far inferior to their opponents.

In terms of technique… 

Sunken Moon had been a legendary player long before he started his career as a streamer. Yue Ran’s win rate against Sunken Moon was about sixty-forty during his peak, and that was adding his White Phoenix into the formula.

Now he had just recovered a little bit of his skill, compared to Sunken Moon, who had been fine-tuning his own. If Yue Ran rushed right in, he would be beaten to death in the blink of an eye. Although his senior’s technique wasn’t bad, he was not on par with Sunken Moon. Not to mention the Dying Star imposter. If the imposter could carry random players through the instance dungeon, his technique must not be bad either. This battle was most certainly a loss.

When Yue Ran decided to accept the bonus match, he was ready to lose.

But why did it have to be these two? Here he was giving them a free kill when he hadn’t settled accounts with them yet! 

This made him furious!

The more fiercely he stared at the monitor, the angrier he became as the countdown was ending. He exclaimed, “Husband!”

Jiang Xiao replied after a brief silence, “Yes?”

Yue Ran angrily declared, “When the battle starts, ignore Dying Star and focus everything on Sunken Moon. I will drag him to hell with me even at the cost of my life!” 

Jiang Xiao had some idea on the reason for his partner’s displeasure and asked, “You hold a grudge against him?”

Yue Ran hissed, “Anti-fan.”

Jiang Xiao didn’t ask further and turned his attention to the match.

Sunken Moon should be streaming at this time. 

As one of the five legendary players in ‘Lie Yang Xing Yue’ or ‘Tempestuous Sun, Stars and Moon’, he had a lot of fans. On top of being handsome and with no black mark on his reputation, his livestream would attract over one million viewers.

Tonight, as usual, he pulled Dying Star to do duos and was unexpectedly drawn by the system for a bonus match.

Higher-ranked players had no option to refuse. As long as they are matched, they have to fight. Like the other party, winning or losing does not affect their overall points.

“Obbxr ilxf rbwfbcf tjr kbc afc ujwfr lc j gbk lc atf ibkfg gjcxr…Qfii, atfs wluta tjnf rbwf qbafcalji, bg atfs wluta pera yf iemxs,” Vecxfc Zbbc ibbxfv ja atf wjamtlcu cjwfr jcv mtemxifv. “Ktlr PG…Glvc’a P fja atflg vbu obbv pera fjgilfg abvjs?” Ktf mbeqif’r jmmbeca cjwfr ifoa j vffq lwqgfrrlbc bc tlw yfmjerf bo atf rilutais rtjwfoei wfjclcu ktfc atf akb cjwfr kfgf abufatfg. 

His fans also saw his opponents and the live stream chat blow up.

[Ahhhhh, help! I’m pregnant by Moon God’s smile!]

[Moon God, tell them what it means that excessive PDA would cause death!]

[Don’t be jealous, you and Star God are also a couple accounts hahaha…] 

[Shipper, please be respectful. Moon God belongs to everyone!]

Sunken Moon showed a lazy smile and watched his opponent slowly walk forward. He sized them up offhandedly and said in the arena voice chat, “A support summoner and heavy blade combination. We see this match all the time so I won’t be going into too much detail. Heavy blade has high defence. Generally, it’s better to target and kill the support first, then we kill the swordsman slowly. CC him and I will go after the support…Oh!”

The ‘CC him’ was naturally directed to Dying Star behind him.

Dying Star didn’t need further instruction as he immediately summoned Ice Spirit to aim at the swordsman. But at the same time, the summoner on the opposite party also waved his staff to materialize a delicate Light Bird. 

At the moment of the Light Bird’s appearance, it disintegrated into scattering light and cast a golden buff on the summoner and his teammate. The buff removed the status effect, and the freezing status effect from the Ice Spirit vanished immediately.

After casting Light Bird, the two on the opposite side rushed forward together. This was exactly the reason Sunken Moon signalled his teammate—as a ‘’, why would the other team’s summoner head out recklessly instead of being in the backline? Are you trying to get yourself killed?

But it saved him some trouble.

He met their attack and planned to kill the support. When he saw the swordsman was raising his enormous sword for an attack, Sunken Moon kited back. Then he saw the swordsman actually paused and took the chance to pass him and went straight to Dying Star, along with his teammate. 

It was obvious that the opposite team planned to kill the support first, too.

Dying Star didn’t go into the battle face first like the enemy support. He quickly ran backward to put distance between them. Yue Ran and Jiang Xiao continued to chase after him, and completely put Sunken Moon at the back of their minds.

The fans loved it.

[Amazing, they actually treat my Moon God as air!] 

[I can already predict how this will end.]

[Such tragedy for the opposite team, light a candle.]

Of course, Sunken Moon wouldn’t stand idle and do nothing. He sprinted after the support.

The moment he closed the distance, Jiang Xiao turned around and used a piercing ability. 

This ability had a knockback effect and immediately sent Sunken Moon two meters backwards. Yue Ran turned almost at the same time and summoned his own Ice Spirit with a raise of his staff.

Having a rich experience, Sunken Moon uttered another ‘Oh!’ with a little surprise.

Their timing was extremely accurate. Because, as they were chasing Dying Star, the gap between him and his teammate after the heavy blade’s knockback pushed him out of Dying Star’s casting zone. If Dying Star was to summon his Light Bird for the resistance buff, it wouldn’t reach Sunken Moon.

His job class also had the ability to prevent and cleanse crowd control. The moment he saw the incoming Ice Spirit, he used the spell. 

However, the Ice Spirit stopped half a meter in front of him. It showed no intent to attack. Instead, it happily hopped back to its owner.

Now he was completely surprised.

A fake!

The summoner deliberately faked an intention to freeze him and put his skill on cooldown! 

Jiang Xiao saw everything and praised again, “Nice!”

Then he shifted his attention to Sunken Moon and swung his sword.

Using his rapid apm, Yue Ran quickly called forth a spirit beast that deals damage—White Wolf. The wolf gave the senior a crit buff and used {bite} toward Sunken Moon.

When Sunken Moon’s immunity buff ended, Yue Ran used his Ice Spirit to freeze his opponent without mercy, and shouted with great energy, “Get him!” 

Under the two-on-one siege, Sunken Moon lost 35% of his HP instantly.

But Sunken Moon played the healer class.

As one of the best combat healers in the game, besides his high damage output, he could also heal. That was the most annoying thing about Sunken Moon when Yue Ran had PK’ed him in the past. Sunken Moon would eat hit after hit and heal his HP back up. It was super frustrating to fight against.

When the freeze status was about to end, Sunken Moon hovered his finger over {quick heal}. But at the same instant, the heavy blade stabbed his sword to the ground. This was an animation for {erosion}, an ability that does zero damage but causes the target a single status effect—daze. 

Sunken Moon was worried that he would be chained by crowd control. He wanted to quickly heal back some of his missing HP, but instead, the other party was faster than him. To execute this, the swordsman must be familiar with the Ice Spirit’s freeze time, and able to move quickly and accurately so that he could connect his skill seamlessly.

Sunken Moon was stunned. He is in the presence of a master!

He made this judgment in his heart.

Dying Star finally closed the gap between him and his teammate as he hurriedly summoned his White Bear to take damage for Sunken Moon, and then called out his White Lion, which was his sixth summoned beast and one that could deal damage. 

Yue Ran cussed another foul word.

In the past six years, White Lion was one of the rare spirit beasts with its refined formula known to all. He had already assumed that Dying Star would refine a temporary rare summoned beast before creating the White Phoenix, but to see it with his own eyes? He couldn’t stomach this anger!

He just bought this account today! He didn’t have a sixth. Abusing new players!

In desperation, he could only use White Bear to block the damage for himself and continue to suppress Sunken Moon. 

After a few seconds, the daze effect on Sunken Moon wore off.

Yue Ran’s Ice Spirit and Jiang Xiao’s {erosion} were on cooldown. Having no follow up skill, they had no other choice but to brute-force attack.

They continued to ignore Dying Star and went after Sunken Moon.

But as the fight dragged on, they started to feel the equipment disadvantage. Yue Ran’s glass cannon summoner took several hits in a row, and his HP plummeted quickly. However, before his HP hit zero, his Light Bird was off cooldown, so the little bird immediately joined their battle as it blessed the swordsman an immunity buff. 

Dying Star’s Ice Spirit was also off cooldown. Originally, he wanted to freeze the swordsman and finish him with Sunken Moon. Watching the buff on top of the swordsman, he wanted to vomit blood.

Jiang Xiao said for the third time, “Nice!”

That was the word Qin Xiujie heard as he came out of the bathroom.

A clear expression of joy was in Jiang Xiao’s tone, and even a hint of admiration, which was very rare from his usual calm and collected behaviour. Qin Xiujie had to ask, “What happened?” 

Jiang Xiao didn’t have time to reply and made a beeline for Sunken Moon with the golden buff.

During the onslaught, Sunken Moon got hit with two ‘crowd controls’. Although he healed some of his missing HP back, the deficit was too much. His remaining HP was very alarming, but instead of running, he focused on the swordsman in a similar state. He saw an opportunity to finish the swordsman and attack.

In a flash, he saw the swordsman’s figure hurtle sideways.

The swordsman made a quick sidestep to dodge the attack while continuing his pursuit forward. As if moving at the speed of light, he appeared in front of the Sunken Moon. 

Sunken Moon’s heart leapt.

The next moment, the heavy blade player swung his sword, and Sunken Moon’s blood dropped to zero immediately.

Quickly followed by the swordsman losing all of his HP from Dying Star’s attack, and the [Victory!] system message appeared on the screen.

Everything happened so fast, between their opponents changing their target and the tempo of the match. Some micro details were missed completely. 

The fans saw the couple chase Sunken Moon without regard to their HP and spectated in a trance as they beat Sunken Moon to death.

But this wasn’t the end yet, because the couple still had something to say.

[(All) Vault of Heavens Essence<: My hubby is super amazing (happy splits)!]

[(All) Vault of Heavens Essence<: He told me we can take one out, and we really did it (finger heart) (finger heart) (finger heart)!!] 

[(All) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: I always keep my promises.]

[(All) Vault of Heavens Essence<: (kiss)]

[(All) >Smashing Vault of Heaven: (kiss)]

After showing their affections, they exited the arena together. 

Sunken Moon: “…”

His fans: “…”

Two seconds later, Sunken Moon’s stream chat exploded.

[Hahaha, the cute couple wanted to kill you and feed you a mouthful of dog food!] 

[I am laughing so hard even though Moon God is dead, send help!]

[Don’t cry Moon God. We will give you finger hearts as well, hahahah!]

Dying Star never turned on his mic when Sunken Moon was streaming. But he also joined the excitement by posting a series of laughing emotes in the arena’s all chat.

[(Party) Dying Star: How are you feeling?] 

Sunken Moon cried laughing. “My feelings are very complicated.”

[(Party) Dying Star: Another match?]

Sunken Moon replied, “Yes, but give me a second. I want to watch the replay.”

He had a habit of recording arena matches, so he rummaged through the recording just now. 

After watching it once, he watched it a second time and was lost in his thoughts.

Meanwhile, his stream chat was still laughing like a festival.

Dying Star also had a browser of Sunken Moon’s livestream opened on the side. Knowing that Sunken Moon was not one for idling, he sent him a WeChat message: [What?]

[Sunken Moon: Looked very familiar.] 

[Dying Star: Which one?]

After pondering over it, Sunken Moon typed a single word: [Both.]

Translator has something to add:

Teo: Hello, I learned that I mistranslated Star Destroyer’s name. The raw is ‘星滅’ which is star + to extinguish or wipe out. But instead of being the one who destroyed the star, he is the destroyed star. So the new name for Star Destroyer is ‘Dying Star’. I guess that’s one good thing about working ahead, catching my mistake very early on…