——  The two sides finished choosing and the screen showed the remaining three maps—Sydney Opera House, Koala Garden and the Mechanical City. The first two were Australian submitted maps while the last one was China’s submitted map. The three maps would be randomly assigned to the three game modes.

  Li Cangyu followed up with the lineup submission and calmly returned to the rest area.

  Ling Xuefeng glanced at him and whispered, “It is necessary to release both maps from the other side?”

  “I just want to let Su Guangmo and Tan Shitian perform well.” Li Cangyu spoke into his ears. “In the group stage, it is better to have more combat experience with unfamiliar maps. This will be good for the later knockout rounds.”

  Ling Xuefeng nodded in agreement. “Yes, that is true.”

  The two people quietly whispered together while Yan Ruiwen was forced to look straight ahead from where he was sitting next to them.

  ***

  The game soon began. First was the pairs arena and the Chinese team sent the Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu double hunters combination. The players from Australia were a swordsman and assassin.

  Yu Bing saw the names and immediately said, “The two hunters are double melee and the lineup on our side won’t suffer. Speaking of which, the two players sent by Australia aren’t very famous but the map for this game is the Sydney Opera House. Perhaps they can play well on this map.”

  The map for the arena was Sydney Opera House. This was a map developed independently by Australia and it was the first time world audiences had seen it.

  Anyone who knew some things about Australia would know this was an iconic building in Sydney, Australia. It looked like stacked sails and was very unique. With Sydney Harbour as the background, the entire opera house seemed like a giant ship at sea that could set sail at any time.

  The interior of the opera house was chosen for the competition and this was known as soon as the map was loaded.

  In front of Zhuo Hang, there were rows of seats in the opera house. They could walk through the aisles between the seats and a curtain on the large stage in front obscured the view of the sides of the curtain.

  According to the thumbnail terrain on the mini-map, it could be judged that this big stage was the centre of the map. In other words, the two Chinese players refreshed on this side of the map and the Australian players should be on the other side of the curtain.

  Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu exchanged information on the team channel and rushed to the big stage.

  ***

  Li Cangyu looked at the map and spoke doubtfully, “If the opera house’s curtain separates the front and rear while the seats are the obstacles, isn’t this too simple?”

  A Miracle barrier map was harder than this. In addition, the obstacles on the Sydney Opera House map were the seats. The biggest feature of seating was its neatness and regularity! Such neat obstacles didn’t exist in the eyes of professional players. Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu quickly walked around them.

  Ling Xuefeng stared thoughtfully at the map and said, “Perhaps the main event is on the big stage.”

  \r \r \r

  Cheng Wei interjected, “Is there a mechanism on the big stage? For example, a hole that the feet would fall into?”

  Li Cangyu helplessly patted him on the head. “You are thinking too much.”

  A mechanical traps map would be stated in advance and there would be signs in the places where there was a mechanism. It was impossible to step on flat ground and suddenly fall into a pit. This was too unfair to the other team. Cheng Wei looked over at Li Cangyu and asked curiously, “What else can there be on the big stage? Are there other curtains?”

  He just finished speaking when Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu came to the centre of the big stage. The two of them separated and started to quickly lay traps on the ground. The traps had only been halfway placed when the swordsman suddenly used a big move from behind the curtain—Spirit Lock! Light and Shadow Rotation!

  This sudden attack caused Zhuo Hang to be set in place and he was hit by the big move. In the blink of an eye, he lost 30% blood.

  Even so, he wasn’t anxious. As soon as the control was over, he moved back into the curtain using Flying Feather Steps. This made the audience feel dumbfounded.

  Behind the curtain was another curtain.

  The layered curtains turned this into a colourful maze made of curtains!

  Tan Shitian saw this and couldn’t help smiling. “It seems that the Australian designers have put a lot of thought into this. The Sydney Opera House actually have two curtains. One of them is composed of reds, yellows and pinks and is called the sun. The other is composed of blues, greens and browns and is called the moon curtain. The used the sun and moon curtains as inspiration to make a big curtain maze.”

  Cheng Wei was attracted by his comments and listened carefully. Then he couldn’t help praising Tan Shitian. “You know a lot!”

  Tan Shitian told him, “I have been to the Sydney Opera House to watch a show.’

  He really liked literary and artistic things and was said to have written lyrics while reading books. Cheng Wei scratched his head and thought that Tan Shitian was really knowledgeable, as well as talented. However, this person always tried to make him angry. Cheng Wei admired him quite a bit but never wanted to praise him.

  Li Cangyu heard Tan Shitian’s explanation and agreed. “The creativity of the curtain maze is really good. It will be difficult for Xiao Zhuo if he wants to find the opponents in this colourful maze.”

  Ling Xuefeng added, “It doesn’t matter. They just needed to be as familiar with the map as possible. There are other teammates after them who can find ways to move back the disadvantage.”

  This was the reason why the World Competition dared to let countries do their own maps.

  A commander should have the ability to analyze the terrain. For a really strong team, even if the first batch of players was killed by the opponents on a strange map, the second batch of players could grasp the key points of the map and fight back.

  On the strange map, Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu played the testing role. Thus, Zhuo Hang didn’t worry about his lost blood. He moved behind the curtain and quickly adjusted his view to find the swordsman.

  At this time, Jiang Xu suddenly typed a ‘2’ on the team channel. This meant that there were two people on his side and he was suffering from an encirclement!

  The Australian team was obviously familiar with the map and they circumvented the big stage to find Jiang Xu’s position. They released a series of attacks, wanting to kill Jiang Xu in seconds.

  Still, how could the captain of the Cheetah team be killed so easily?

  The two men took advantage of the time when he was stunned to beat him to half blood. The moment the stun was over, Jiang Xu moved behind a curtain with Flying Feather Steps. As he retreated, he also placed a row of Stop Traps!

  Then Zhuo Hang also came over to support and arranged the traps at a very fast speed.

  The two chasing opponents stepped into Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu’s traps!

  There was successive explosion sounds as the hunter’s chain traps blew the two opponents to half blood!

  ***

  Yu Bing spoke with relief, “The reaction rate of Jiang Xu and Zhuo Hang is very fast. The curtains of the Sydney Opera House are very special. The different colours will make the opponents dazzled and chaotic. In fact, this maze isn’t that complicated.”

  Kou Hongyi was puzzled. “Sister Bing, how can you say this? I’m dizzy just looking at the map.”

  Yu Bing used to be an e-sports player and had a lot of experience with labyrinth maps. “There is a limit to labyrinth maps in the game. There should be no more than four forks at each road. This is to prevent the two sides from taking too long to find each other. It isn’t difficult to find the right path as long as the player’s memory is good enough.”

  “It was like this!” Kou Hongyi nodded. “In other words, Zhuo Hang remembered the path he just walked and ruled out most of the dead ends. That’s how he came to Jiang Xu’s position to support his teammate in time?”

  “Yes, on top of them, Zhuo Hang purposefully went around the big stage. This is to give his teammates behind the scenes a chance to see the map layout from a god’s perspective.”

  The audience realized after hearing Yu Bing’s explanation.

  It was no wonder why Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu split up in the maze. In addition to avoiding having both of them controlled by the other side at the same time, they also showed this unknown map to the greatest extent possible. This would increase the advantages of the teammates who came out next.

  Li Cangyu also praised this action. “Xiao Zhuo is growing up!”

  Su Guangmo and Tan Shitian glanced at each other with relief and thought, ‘At least my family’s child isn’t shameful.’

  At this time, Zhuo Hang had already gone through the majority of the map with Flying Feather Steps. He successfully came to support Jiang Xu in time and the two of them teamed up to set traps, hitting the fragile assassin down to 10% blood.

  The assassin was forced to enter stealth to survive.

  The opposite side’s swordsman played fiercely. He rushed over and stabbed Jiang Xu. The originally residual blood Jiang Xu was directly killed.

  On the screen, Jiang Xu was killed. The hunter netizens who liked him were somewhat depressed and complained in the comments: [This strange map is too pitted! Captain Jiang was besieged by two people. The start is too inferior!] [He could escape from the two people and fight back. He played very well!] [Xiao Zhuo should show some strength. He should at least kill one person on the other side!]

  Zhuo Hang lived up to their expectations. The assassin had escaped into the maze and Zhuo Hang was too lazy to chase. He chased targets and set down three Stop Traps and one Death Trap around the swordsman.

  The audience saw the young hunter flying around the swordsman like a gust of wind, followed by four traps simultaneously exploding. There was a loud bang and the other side’s swordsman immediately fell to the ground!

  Just then, the invisible assassin emerged from the curtain behind Zhuo Hang and used Pain Blade to set Zhuo Hang in place. Then he took Zhuo Hang’s life in a single breath!

  At the end of the first stage, the Chinese members were killed while the Australian team had a 10% blood assassin left.

  On the surface, it seemed that the Chinese team was losing. In fact, Li Cangyu was very satisfied with the result. After all, they were playing on a strange map but could quickly familiarize themselves with the map and kill the other person. Zhuo Hang and Jiang Xu had successfully completed their task.

  Li Cangyu looked at the two teenagers next to him and asked, “Did you clearly see the map?”

  Xiao Han nodded seriously. “It is almost completely clear.”

  Li Cangyu smiled and patted him on the head. “Then I will give it to you. Go and move back the situation!”

  Qin Mo and Xiao Han glanced at each other. The two teenagers lightly bumped fists and opened the soundproof glass door, walking side by side to the players’ seats.