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

“Can you get out?” Kai asked.

“Does it look like I can? You’ll have to help me... Oh, right. 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 coming 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 counter-offense was indeed solid, but she won’t let them get away with this nonsense. She'll counter their counter!

Besides, there was nothing to worry about. Even though Vincent 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, Vincent will be fine. Kai had more than enough time to turn this around-

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

“Eh...?” Kai blinked. Did that guy seriously land them? She had firsthand experience with how rough it was to land 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. Vincent had to be exaggerating, right? With that said, Vincent’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, c'mon, 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 next?”

“We kill him,” Yuel ordered to continue the offense. It was checkmate. The three headshots came after Combat Roll, so a combo of three headshots in a row stunned Vincent for a short time.

On top of that, each shot stacked a cripple effect on Vincent that’ll last even after his stun. While crippled, all movement abilities were sealed, even blinking. In other words, they sealed Vincent’s escape route of teleporting back to his axe. Their prey was captured.

“They got me good,” Vincent 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 completely turned the tables on him. It was epic.

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

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

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

Each individual viking minion was separately customizable, so Vincent put quite the effort into giving each of them a different color scheme. He even spent some of his allowance on these premium customization options. But, it was totally worth it. All for the sake of creating the Viking Rangers!

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

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

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

The warriors began charging toward Yuel and Lars, but the two of them ignored that noise and focused on their prey. They had to finish Vincent 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 confirm with a bunch angry vikings charging right at him.

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

Got him! Kai arrived on the scene right before Vincent dropped dead. She unleashed Blaze of Inferno right around the Gunslinger. The damage will be heavy enough to flip this entire situation on its head. Kai and Vincent could reverse the entire situation!

Kai drew the target area for Blaze of Inferno compactly around the Gunslinger. Therefore, almost all the ticks of damage will come 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 practice, nobody had the reaction time to do anything with that warning. Maybe some pros could dodge fast enough, especially the crazy Korean pros. But, some middle schooler? No chance.

Therefore, all this heavy damage was guaranteed! That Gunslinger was a goner.

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

Lars rolled before he even finished processing the entire thing. Forget killing Vincent, he had to evacuate right away!

“Yeah! Nailed it!” 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 nonexistent, window of time during which he could see the red lines? No, that’s...

Kai’s concentrated attack backfired. By drawing all the lines in a spiral around the Gunslinger, it made the flames 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 opponents who rolled out of such an attack and even that usually looked like sheer luck.

But, in this case, Kai clearly saw the dodge. Lars was desperately chasing Vincent in order to land the finishing blow, but he stopped in the middle and performed a dodge roll right before the flames came down crashing. Such a quick shift of priorities had to be the result of godlike reaction 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 another target because why not.

Bam! Two bullets erupted from his revolver and flew at the designated targets. 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 Vincent fell, his gang of vikings also vanished into thin air.

“The mighty rangers are defeated!” Vincent 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 upcoming regionals!

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

“I think you should retreat,” Vincent 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 power gap between herself and the Golden Duo. So, she scrammed.

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

She’s fast to retreat. Yuel nodded to himself. So far, he couldn’t find any glaring flaws in Kai’s performance. It was both impressive and concerning.

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

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

“You can’t hit from this distance on tablet?” Yuel asked.

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

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

“What the heck, yo. I totally should’ve landed that,” 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 missing left and right.

“Are you trying 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 interesting.

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

Nevertheless, Kai was apparently doing something to that effect right now. Somehow, Kai was reading Lars’s moves and juking his shots while escaping.

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

A bullet hit Kai just as Vincent made his grandiose announcement.

“Can you keep it down?” Kai grumped.

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

Here it is! Beat’s special ability: Rhythm Reader! Vincent continued the commentary in his head. He had nothing better to do anyway while he was dead, so he hyped up the ability for an imaginary crowd.

Rhythm Reader is a high-level technique which discerns the opponent’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 each and every single one of them! It appears as if even Gunz’s Gungnir Sniper can’t defeat Beat’s Rhythm Reader!

Though exaggerated, Kai was doing pretty much what Vincent described. She was mostly running in a straight line but, when she thought a shot was coming, 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 place, most people didn’t have the necessary reaction time to dodge a shot after hearing it. Instead, Kai downloaded Gunz’ shooting pattern and played around it! She was reading his rhythm!

“Beautiful!” Vincent exclaimed.

“Ahem,” Kai cleared her throat.

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

Judging by the data so far, Rhythm Reader completely nullified the effect of Gungnir Sniper. No matter how accurate Gunz was, said accuracy meant nothing when the opponent could predict the timing of the shots and dodge them in the last split-second. It wasn’t like Gunz was “missing”, his aim was actually spot-on. But, it’s his opponent 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 landed a few inaccurate shots by accident. Kai's last-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. Can he land any of the remaining shots!? He had about four more chances 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 landed, Yuel pondered. This 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 blame 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 explanation was that Kai was somehow dodging all his shots. Was that even possible? She was in the middle of fleeing and her back was turned to her opponent. 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 turned to 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 interesting phenomenon. It’s almost as if Kai had eyes on her back and could see when Lars was about to shoot.

Once Lars pulled the trigger, there was no going back. Nobody could alter the bullet's trajectory and it was guaranteed to land on the target 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 react in such a timely fashion? Did she have a superhuman reaction 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 in the last nanosecond. The way she has been running in a straight line the whole time and only moving aside in the last moment was incredibly risky. Yet, it worked for her. It’s like she knew the 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, who struggled to land such fast shots in succession without adjusting his aim in-between, Lars’s godlike accuracy allowed him to fire nonstop at top speed.

As a result, the interval between Lars’s shots remained consistent 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. “Delay your shot by half a second.”

“Wut? Ah,” Lars paused to listen and that made him delay 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 land this, yo!

I can do it. Kai nodded to herself. The rhythm of the enemy's shots was echoing in her head: wait, wait, shoot. Lars has been repeating this exact pattern every single time with amazing accuracy. So, all Kai had to do was: wait, wait, dodge.

It’s a beautiful rhythm. Kai admitted. It brimmed with boundless confidence. The shooter was 100% confident in his ability to land every single shot. Maybe it was even 200% confidence.

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 synchronize 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 one time 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 chance to shoot her; maybe two if he really pushes it.

The next shot was coming. 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 place.

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 explanation was that the enemy delayed 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 reaching 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 exclaimed as he continued chasing. “I actually hit her!”

As I thought. Yuel nodded to himself. Kai adjusted to the pattern of Lars’s shots and relied on the timing to dodge everything. It was an impressive show, but her over-reliance on that technique 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 continued chasing Kai even though she already retreated into her Golem's area. This goof had to be stopped, or else he'd dive under tower and will get countered.

“That's enou-”

“Geh, she got away,” Lars stopped one step 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 once in a blue moon. It was simply amazing. Yuel had no better words to describe this otherworldly phenomenon.

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

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

“Yeah, she's pretty slick.”

“I don't see her committing any big mistakes even if we pressure her in a 2v1. And, from mid-range, Pyro can 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 animation right there on the spot, right in front of the enemy.

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

“Oh, right, haha,” Lars laughed 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 upcoming fights. However, this was just the calm before the storm...