Chapter Fifteen: Flush Ming Shen for Me

The Zerg player whose base had just exploded slunk away from his position and silently stood behind the Terran player.

A 2v6 match, wiped out in just eight minutes by a full frontal push from the opponents—and to top it off, it was carried by a rookie girl who had just started playing StarCraft. It was utterly embarrassing to admit.

He already felt himself destined for the pillar of shame.

But really, it wasn’t his fault; he was just born in a terrible spot.

No matter who spawned next to Su Xiaoqiang, they would be Lu Mingfei’s primary target to eliminate first.

After all, to protect Su Xiaoqiang’s play, Lu Mingfei had to break through the enemies adjacent to Su Xiaoqiang first.

After one teammate’s base exploded, the remaining players grew noticeably cautious, frantically increasing their population to prevent another sneak attack like Lu Mingfei’s.

Two of them even tried to form an alliance to scout Lu Mingfei’s base location.

But Lu Mingfei had clearly anticipated this move and had already stationed two armies at the choke points, repelling the scouts and main forces sent to probe him.

“Don’t rush,” the Terran player commanded. “Stick to the original plan and develop steadily. Even if there are only five of us left, if we drag this into the late game, victory is still assured.”

But there was no way Lu Mingfei would give them the time to develop peacefully.

Just as the Terran was producing a drake army, an alarm sounded through his headset, signaling that a unit was under attack.

He immediately recognized it as the warning for peasants being attacked.

“So old-fashioned a tactic,” he muttered inwardly, expecting Lu Mingfei to unveil another dazzling new strategy like before.

He didn’t pay much attention to the alert.

Harassing the opponent’s mining peasants was one of the most common tactics in StarCraft—simple but effective. Good micro-management could significantly delay the opponent’s development.

But the problem was, there were five of them. Even if Lu Mingfei sent troops to steal a peasant or two, what difference would it make?

This map had two gas mines and eight crystal mines. No matter how skilled Lu Mingfei’s micro was, he couldn’t possibly spare enough troops to attack every mining peasant at all these spots.

Besides, the population cap in this game was only 200. Although Lu Mingfei was ahead in development, the total number of troops was still limited.

If Lu Mingfei sent too many troops to steal peasants, his own defenses would inevitably weaken, and they could simply ignore the mines and launch a push straight to his base.

The Terran switched his screen to the mining areas, curious to see how many troops Lu Mingfei had dispatched to harass the peasants.

But as soon as he glanced over, he was dumbfounded.

Lu Mingfei wasn’t sending troops to steal peasants at all; instead, he was building a cluster of structures blocking the chokepoints.

Chokepoint blocking is a tactic that, as the name suggests, uses buildings and unit shapes, sizes, and terrain effects to obstruct enemy movement routes, wiping them out at the narrow passageways.

It had already been mentioned that the map “Big Game Hunters” had eight crystal mining points, located at 12, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 11 o’clock positions.

Each of the access routes to these mines could be completely sealed off with buildings!

Since Terran buildings have a flying ability, among the three races, Terran is by far the easiest to execute this chokepoint blocking strategy.

This was another reason why Lu Mingfei chose Terran.

The view on the Terran’s screen flicked across every mining location. Each choke point leading to a mine was sealed with Lu Mingfei’s clusters of buildings.

Houses and barracks blocked the road’s center, with Goliaths and tanks patrolling between bunkers, keenly watching every peasant that dared pass through.

“Boss… it looks like he’s treating us like bots,” the eliminated player whispered weakly behind the Terran.

“...”

The Terran was silent at first, then suddenly laughed, the hand clutching the mouse trembling for some reason.

He felt that Lu Mingfei’s move was a direct insult to them.

Chokepoint blocking was a classic tactic on “Big Game Hunters”... but the problem was, this tactic was designed for StarCraft: Brood War’s AI—the computer opponents.

At its core, this strategy simply used buildings and units to block roads so the AI’s peasants couldn’t reach the mines.

Back then, the AI was not very smart; as long as the peasants weren’t attacked, the computer wouldn’t send troops out to break the blockade for a long time.

But humans are different. If you block a chokepoint with buildings, players can send large armies to destroy those buildings directly.

Thus, no one ever used this tactic against human opponents.

Lu Mingfei was the first person the Terran had ever seen do it.

“Damn it, he dares to look down on me like that. Forget developing—brothers, let’s just push his base head-on.”

The Terran shouted fiercely into his headset.

“I don’t believe it! We five clans with seven or eight hundred population combined can’t roll over you. No matter what kind of god or demon you are, you can’t just magically pull out hundreds more units.”

His rallying cry was answered immediately. Soon, five players from three races gathered over five hundred units in one massive force.

It was a rare and awe-inspiring sight: highly mechanized infantry and psionically charged templars assembled together; Terran Valkyries, Zerg Drakes, and Protoss Carriers side by side; zerglings darting excitedly through the crowd.

Three factions that were mortal enemies in the StarCraft lore had united, if only temporarily.

In that moment, the Terran felt a surge of heroic grandeur. It was as if he had traveled back to the late Eastern Han dynasty, holding the tiger tally and commanding a million troops as the warlord Yuan Shao.

All the brothers gathered here, united to overthrow a common enemy... the treacherous warlord Lu Mingfei!

At the Terran’s command, the three-race allied army set out in full force, surging through mountains and valleys, heading straight for Lu Mingfei’s base at the 9 o’clock position.

Though Lu Mingfei had anticipated that they might launch a direct push and had prepared defenses at several chokepoints,

even his exquisite micro-management couldn’t hold back the overwhelming enemy forces. He had to abandon guerrilla tactics and pull all his units back to defend the base.

Lu Mingfei had known from the start that the Terran and his allies would eventually send a massive army to threaten him, so his initial setup was entirely defensive.

He had laid numerous spider mines at the base’s choke points.

Behind the spider mines, classic bunker-and-marine formations stood ready.

Turrets were positioned in the middle of the bunkers to fend off air units and Protoss cloaked units.

Tanks and Goliaths held the high ground behind the bunkers, watching the approaching tide of enemy soldiers with detached, cold eyes, as if observing the petty conflicts of mortals.