A strange voice came just after the impact.
"Try that again, I dare you!"
As soon as an ally's shield was struck, the Silvermane Lieutenant triggered a counterattack. He charged the enemy Aether Spirit, unleashing a flurry of piercing strikes, then fell back into a defensive stance—ready for the next wave. At the end of his counterattack, the Lieutenant even regenerated a bit of energy.
That's right: the Silvermane Lieutenant's counterattacks restored energy.
Then, following the Lieutenant's lead, the Silvermane Cannoneer—thanks to his Covering Support—also launched a follow-up AOE blast toward the enemy.
And just like that, after a single round, Pei Guang had revealed the brutal strength of the Silvermane Guard:
The Counter Guard Strategy.
That's what Pei Guang called this setup. By lowering the Ultimate cost for the Silvermane Lieutenant and using the Cannoneer's action-advance to fire off an early Ultimate, he'd created a team that turned defense into relentless offense.
The Lieutenant's shields may have been thin—but his energy-recovering counterattacks more than made up for that weakness. Even if enemies focused down just one unit, it would still trigger at least one counter. One counter was enough to give the Lieutenant another Ultimate, and another shield. And the cycle repeated.
Meanwhile, the Cannoneer, through constant follow-up fire, kept the pressure high. His damage wasn't huge on its own, but repeated procs from counters turned it into a barrage.
One hit wasn't much. But two? Three? It started to add up fast.
At this point, the miner was completely lost. He remembered clearly that all the guides said Silvermane Guard–type Aether Spirits were trash. So why did Pei Guang's team act like it was possessed—stabbing his Spirits nonstop?
And that Cannoneer? Why was he shooting like he had a trigger-happy condition?
Worse yet, his own Aether Spirits seemed out of control. He told them to target the Warp Trotter, but they kept hitting the Silvermane Lieutenant instead. And with the Lieutenant's shield-boosting chip, every hit was just another excuse for him to launch a counterattack.
At first, the miner wasn't too worried—the damage was minor. But slowly he noticed: his health was dropping faster than his opponent's. And that wasn't even the worst of it.
The opponent had a Warp Trotter. And Warp Trotter could heal.
So after all his effort to land a decent hit and nearly down an enemy Spirit, the Warp Trotter just used a healing skill and topped them back up.
That's when despair truly set in.
His lineup—painstakingly assembled and ranked in the event's Top 5—was being dismantled by what the entire player base had dismissed as the weakest Aether Spirits in the game. His mind was spinning.
Watching the Silvermane Lieutenant go wild with counterattacks, March 7th covered her mouth in shock.
"How is this even possible? Why are the Lieutenant and Cannoneer attacking so often?! This is terrifying! Hey, hey—Stelle, look! That guy's health bar is gone! And another one's gone too—we won!"
"But wait… the stuff the Lieutenant says when counterattacking… why does it sound so familiar?"
March 7th noticed that every time the Silvermane Lieutenant counterattacked, he would shout things like "You can't run!" and "Try that again!" She felt like those phrases were really familiar, but for the moment, she couldn't recall where she'd heard them before.
Stelle, listening to March 7th's grumbling from the side, had a hesitant look on her face. She really wanted to say those were March 7th's own catchphrases when she chased enemies down in battle.
But after glancing at the Aether Spirit that was aggressively counterattacking like crazy, and then at March 7th's happy expression, she decided to keep those thoughts to herself.
Compared to Pei Guang's team, the miner on the other side was feeling completely numb. He thought the voice lines Pei Guang had written for the Silvermane Lieutenant were way too brainwashing.
From start to finish, all he heard was "Try that again," "You can't run," "You're annoying."
It wasn't too bad at first, but as time went on, he gradually found himself getting mentally worn down by the repetition. By the time all his Aether Spirits were defeated, he felt utterly dazed, his mind filled only with the Silvermane Lieutenant's maddening voice lines.
That's right: Pei Guang hadn't just crushed him in tactics. He'd also disrupted his opponent's concentration with those ridiculous, catchy voice lines.
At the moment Pei Guang won, March 7th was absolutely thrilled, especially seeing their team win with more than half HP left despite the elemental disadvantage.
"Ah Guang! That's just like you! That was one of the top five ranked lineups—it's famously hard to beat—and you won like that? That's amazing!"
Pei Guang replied, "It's nothing, really. Just give me more Aether Spirits and I can come up with even more playstyles. Using four of the same Aether Spirit? I wouldn't even pull that back in middle school. And that kind of team can make it into the top five? I really have to question the skill level of the other players."
Pei Guang was humble-bragging in a low voice, just loud enough for March 7th and Stelle to hear.
By now, Pei Guang was already looking forward to unlocking new Aether Spirits. At the same time, he'd also gotten a feel for the playerbase's overall skill level in this world.
Sure, it was an interstellar civilization, but when it came to gaming skills… Pei Guang didn't want to be harsh, but he was confident that if Aetherium Wars existed on Earth, players there would already have come up with all kinds of bizarre strategies.
Even single-character clears wouldn't be out of the question.
He didn't really get why everyone's playstyle here was so… plain, but he didn't mind. He was more than happy to introduce the players of this world to some foreign-style tactics—let them have a little taste of an outsider's flavor.