ARML CH53

Players’ names in the Gods’ War international server can be duplicated. The only difference is their unique 9-digit ID. Adding friends requires searching with this 9-digit ID.

Chi Shuo added Ye Shaoyang as a friend, recharged some vouchers into his account, bought all the jungler and mid-laner heroes, and carefully selected some skins with a good feel. After completing their preparations, the two grouped up to play ranked.

Chi Shuo asked Ye Shaoyang: “Which hero do you want to practice first?” Ye Shaoyang replied: “[World-Ending Mage].” Chi Shuo said: “Then I’ll take a [Paladin] to coordinate with you.”

[World-Ending Mage]‘s ultimate fires 6 curved clusters of black mist. The magic damage stacks continuously, so this mage severely tests skill accuracy and also requires substantial economic support. If the equipment is poor, even if all 6 clusters of black mist hit the opponent, it’s just like scratching an itch. Once fully equipped, one ultimate can instantly one-shot someone.

[Paladin] playing jungler doesn’t need the blue buff, so Chi Shuo could yield the blue buff to Ye Shaoyang the entire game. He could use his mass taunt skill to gather the opponents together, making it easier for Ye Shaoyang to cast his ultimate.

This is the classic strategy of a utility jungler bringing crowd control while the mid-laner deals the damage.

In low-tier matches, there was no need for Chi Shuo to play a jungle carry to stomp newbies. He first let Ye Shaoyang practice the mechanics of the new hero, so he chose a utility jungler to coordinate with Ye Shaoyang, trying his best to let Ye Shaoyang farm rapidly and find his rhythm.

The international server has no placement matches, so the two had to start from the Bronze tier.

With Chi Shuo‘s help, Ye Shaoyang‘s mid-laner not only secured the economy of the mid-lane minion waves but also a massive amount of jungle resources. His farming speed was incredibly fast; often, by the 10-minute mark, he could complete his core damage items.

The newbies in the Bronze tier experienced the terror of being dominated by dark magic. 6 clusters of black mist flew everywhere wildly. Wherever the World-Ending Mage went, the players in that lane would be insta-killed by him!

The international friends who were brutally crushed: “???” “This game is so hard!” “Where did this Great Demon King smurfing in the international server come from?”

The two coordinated seamlessly, continuously going on win streaks and accumulating points. They reached Platinum I that very night.

Chi Shuo discovered that Ye Shaoyang not only played mage assassins well but also had a very strong ability to pick up new heroes. He had only practiced [World-Ending Mage] for one day, yet his skill accuracy was exceptionally outstanding. He slaughtered the Bronze tier like chopping melons and vegetables, one-shotting kids left and right, frequently achieving terrifying scores like 15-0.

The next night, the two continued to play ranked. Countless newbies were slaughtered by Ye Shaoyang‘s [World-Ending Mage] along the way; the queue of them could wrap around the rift once. Many newbies even developed a severe psychological shadow towards the [World-Ending Mage]‘s 6 clusters of black mist.

At 1 AM, the two reached the Master I tier in one breath, about to begin their King tier promotion series. Chi Shuo suggested: “Let’s sleep first and play the promotion series after we wake up tomorrow.” Ye Shaoyang rubbed his temples: “I was thinking the same thing. My brain is numb after five continuous hours. Going to sleep.”

After freshening up at 7:30 AM the next morning, Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo went downstairs together for breakfast. After they were full, they went to the training room, turned on their computers, opened the international server, and prepared for the King tier promotion series. The other teammates were all sleeping at this time, but Chi Shuo‘s schedule had adjusted to sync with Ye Shaoyang‘s.

Chi Shuo logged into the game while saying: “The King tier promotion series on the international server is relatively hard to play. We will be matched with 5 King tier opponents, while our teammates will usually be around Master II, so there will be a skill gap. If we want to reach King, we’ll have to rely on the two of us to drive the tempo. We need to be more serious this game.”

Ye Shaoyang understood: “Then let’s stick with mid-jungle synergy, it’s easier to carry teammates.” Chi Shuo asked: “[Stealth Rogue] and [Illusionist]?”

Ye Shaoyang flipped through his hero pool, eager to try: “How about we try the Double Flight strategy?”

The Double Flight strategy was an extremely strong but very difficult to coordinate combination in mid-jungle synergy. —Jungler [Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm], an envoy of the Spirit Race, possesses the ability to fly. —Mid-laner [Soaring Mage], the only mage assassin capable of flight.

The most powerful aspect of this combination lies in its ability to ignore terrain.

[Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm] has a pair of snow-white wings and can easily fly over walls; [Soaring Mage] can also traverse obstacles through the air. If the two group up for an invasion, the opponents will have a very massive headache.

Even if the invasion fails, they can quickly escape across obstacles.

The match began. During the BP phase, their team banned the new hero [Abyssal Lord] and two annoying supports, while the opponents banned the stealth jungler [Stealth Rogue] and two long-range marksmen who were relatively hard to dive and kill.

The BP style on the international server was very casual. Everyone just banned the heroes they hated without any consideration for team composition; after all, they didn’t know each other. There was also relatively little text communication due to language barriers. Most people’s English was half-baked, easily leading to scenarios like a chicken talking to a duck.

It was their team’s turn to select heroes. The Player 1 teammate instantly locked [Flame Goddess], directly snatching the mid-lane role. The Player 2 teammate picked the top laner [Black Dragon Knight], and Player 3 picked the marksman [Holy Spirit Archer]. This left Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang with the support and jungler roles.

Chi Shuo‘s deep voice came through the headset: “Still choosing the flight combination and leaving the marksman to fend for himself?” Ye Shaoyang thought for a moment and said: “How about trying a double jungler strategy? Let the marksman stay in the bottom lane alone. Before our marksman gets slaughtered, we’ll slaughter the enemy marksman first.” Chi Shuo nodded: “That works too.”

Player 4, Moonlight, selected the hero [Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm], with Smite as the summoner spell. Player 5, Sunshine, selected the hero [Soaring Mage], with Smite as the summoner spell.

Teammates: “????” Two junglers, are you here to be a joke?!

This was a Japanese player. Ye Shaoyang roughly understood that he was cursing about why no one picked a support.

[Bear]: Deux idiots.

He didn’t understand what this international friend was cursing, probably something like idiots or fools, it looked like French.

This one was easy to understand! The ellipsis expressed this person’s speechless mood.

At this moment, in the Little Bear TV stream of game streamer [Kevin], under the camera, a handsome guy with curly chestnut hair typed the ellipsis while smiling and saying: “Everyone, look at this couple, quite interesting! One Sunshine, one Moonlight, picking a Double Flight combination. Is this the rhythm of flying wing-to-wing and crashing together?”

The stream’s bullet screen dissolved into laughter. [Even the Double Flight combination has appeared, the international server is indeed fun haha~] [Even the professional league might not necessarily play this combination well, it’s too hard to coordinate.] [Double flight crashing into walls, learn about dying together in a plane crash for love.] [Is he from North America? At this time, it should be 8 PM over there.]

Kevin said: “That’s right, it’s indeed 8 PM over here, I’m the time-zone guy.” Kevin, affectionately called Master Kai by his fans, was a well-known streamer on Little Bear TV. Although his popularity couldn’t compare to Whale’s Yao Mu and Xiao Wei, his streaming style was very distinct—he was a Chinese-American who only played on the international server, and his streaming hours were very “yang” (normal daytime) for Chinese netizens. Due to the time difference, he streamed from 7 AM to 12 PM every day, and slept during the evening peak hours, reversing the schedule of most game streamers. Growing up abroad, it was said he knew quite a few professional players from the North American region and sometimes pulled professional players to play ranked together.

Seeing the name Kevin, Chi Shuo guessed they had likely bumped into a streamer on the international server. He softly reminded Ye Shaoyang: “Don’t type smiley faces when we win later, it’s easy to get recognized.” Ye Shaoyang nodded seriously: “Understood, Captain, I won’t type.”

The match began. The top laner and mid-laner teammates were quite irritable. After all, their composition this game was very strange—double junglers, no support. The two of them were already in a semi-collapsed mental state.

Kevin’s marksman ran to the bottom lane alone. While clearing the minion wave, he lamented: “Playing marksman this season is too hard. When encountering a bad support, I become an orphan. Let alone this game where there’s not even a support! Then I am simply an orphan among orphans. Getting casually beaten down by the enemy jungler and mid-laner… sigh, guess how many times I’ll die this game?”

He was already prepared to lose. He wasn’t very optimistic about this couple picking the Double Flight combination to show off their affection in a ranked match. After all, the Double Flight combination was far too prone to “dying together for love.”

Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm was the best-looking among all junglers. Moonlight was using the legendary skin, adorned in gorgeous feathers, radiating brilliance; Soaring Mage was also the most handsome among all male mages. Sunshine was also using the legendary skin, ethereal and graceful, like a celestial being.

Unfortunately, after you two take flight, once you fail to kill anyone, you’ll just crash on the spot and die for love.

Because the Double Flight combination had another nickname: The Plane Crash Combination.

As soon as the match started, Ye Shaoyang quickly went to set up vision in the river. His playstyle this game was half-support, half-jungler, and he brought vision items with him when leaving the base. The two grouped up to invade the blue buff.

The enemy jungler was fighting the blue buff, only to see the two of them fly over from over the wall. Chi Shuo used Smite. Ye Shaoyang immediately followed with another Smite.

Double Smite to snatch the buff, simply completely unreasonable. The enemy jungler choked speechlessly, watching helplessly as the blue buff was stolen away.

Seeing Ye Shaoyang grab the blue buff, Chi Shuo asked: “Protect you to level 6 first?” Ye Shaoyang said: “It’s fine, you get to 6 first.” Chi Shuo didn’t stand on ceremony. He returned to their own jungle and took the blue buff. Ye Shaoyang bought a jungle item and very considerately helped Chi Shuo leash the red buff down to a sliver of health. Chi Shuo went over and took it directly, greatly saving jungling time.

The enemy jungler was level 4, Ye Shaoyang‘s Soaring Mage was also level 4, while Chi Shuo‘s Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm was already level 6. Ye Shaoyang leeched some minion waves in the mid-lane, teamed up with Chi Shuo to secure the river scuttler crab, rapidly leveled up to 6, and learned his ultimate.

Chi Shuo asked: “Going bottom lane?” Ye Shaoyang smiled and said: “Okay, let’s relieve some pressure for the poor marksman.”

Their marksman was fighting 1v2 in the bottom lane and had already been suppressed under the tower. Kevin was just feeling depressed about being abandoned when, right at that moment, two icons appeared on the map almost simultaneously—

[Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm] is on the way.

[Soaring Mage] is on the way.

Kevin felt a surge of joy and smiled: “Yo, the couple is coming to help me!”

He immediately pretended he couldn’t fight the opponents and retreated two steps towards the tower. The enemy support and marksman indeed pushed forward, but the next moment—a flying bird draped in snow-white feathers and a handsome guy wearing a pure white mage robe suddenly flew over simultaneously from across the wall!

The Spirit Bird’s mid-air crowd control froze the support and marksman in place.

The mage immediately flew over and unleashed burst damage. Countless white orbs of light descended from the sky like brilliant fireworks. The health bars of the two enemies plummeted. Seeing their health drop below the dangerous 30% mark, the two immediately began to retreat the moment they were unfrozen!

Right at this moment, the Spirit Bird, which had been circling in the air waiting for an opportunity, swooped down fiercely, using its ultimate to secure both kills.

—First Blood! —Double Kill!

After securing the double kill, the Spirit Bird cleared a minion wave together with the mage. Once their flight skills finished cooling down, the two tacitly flew into the air again, passing directly through the wall and charging into the enemy’s blue buff jungle.

The enemy jungler was speechless, jumping up and down in anger.

Kevin was somewhat surprised: “This couple is pretty good! The Double Flight combination coordinates very well.”

The operation just now looked incredibly gorgeous, but it was actually full of details everywhere.

First, the Spirit Bird’s mid-air freeze—this skill requires strong predictive game sense. If aimed poorly, it’s just a snowball falling from the sky, hitting nothing.

Moonlight perfectly used the snowball to crowd-control two people with extremely precise prediction, and then Sunshine immediately followed up with damage.

The Soaring Mage’s damage model relies on bursting hand speed to spam orbs of light, requiring extremely fast execution and accuracy. Kevin observed carefully; all 10 of Sunshine’s orbs just now smashed onto the two enemies without a single miss. The burst hand speed and accuracy within that short timeframe were both astounding!

However, the Soaring Mage’s early-game damage is relatively low; 10 orbs won’t kill anyone. Therefore, after reducing both enemies to critical health, he immediately withdrew. At the most opportune moment, the Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm swooped down from the air, and its ultimate completed the execution.

From the moment this combination flew over, every procedure seemed calculated.

The Spirit Bird initiated the crowd control, the Soaring Mage burst to lower their health bars, and then handed it over to the Spirit Bird to secure the kills. The two cast their skills methodically, their transitions incredibly smooth, their operations precise and meticulous. It was as if their minds were completely synchronized, knowing exactly what their teammate would do.

Kevin couldn’t help but say: “This doesn’t seem like an ordinary couple showing off their affection, right? Both of them are very strong!”

The netizens in the stream also sensed something was wrong.

[Is this fucking experts smurfing?]

[My Soaring Mage only knows how to crash. If this mage doesn’t kill anyone, his skills won’t refresh.]

[My Spirit Bird too, breaking its legs every day.]

[Killing someone refreshes the flight skill, coordinating together is too strong!]

[The two of them traversing obstacles and flying wildly all over the rift, the enemy jungle has collapsed.]

—Double Kill!

This time, the kills were secured by the Soaring Mage. The two visited the bottom lane once again. The Spirit Bird used a burst combo to lower the health of the enemy support and marksman, and the Soaring Mage immediately took flight to complete the execution.

The health calculations were extremely precise. After getting the kills, they took the dragon, invaded the jungle, and stole buffs.

The tempo of the match was quickly completely controlled by them. Because both heroes can fly, and both their skills have a “refresh flight skill upon kill/assist” design, whenever their Ganks successfully killed an opponent, their flight skills could continuously refresh.

Taking flight simultaneously, traversing obstacles, going wherever they wanted. The flexibility of this combination was utilized to the absolute limit by Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang.

Victory in the match.

[Spirit Bird of the Spirit Realm] KDA: 8-0-7.

[Soaring Mage] KDA: 7-0-8.

The two of them were constantly roaming and killing. When Chi Shuo got a kill, Ye Shaoyang got an assist. When Ye Shaoyang secured a kill, Chi Shuo got an assist too. The two of them combined for 15 kills, directly crushing the opponents.

Looking at the post-match settlement screen, Kevin couldn’t help but feel puzzled: “I haven’t seen this pair of names at all. Where did these experts pop out from?”

He had played on the international server for a long time and had a ton of smurf accounts; he had heard of most of the well-known experts on the international server.

But Sunshine and Moonlight, this pair of experts who looked like they had couple names, it was truly his first time seeing them. For a Double Flight combination to coordinate so seamlessly, they must have been duo-queueing together.

—Could it be professional players from some region practicing on smurf accounts? This felt like the rhythm of the international server welcoming two Great Demon Kings again!