Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

So, on the night before the final match that determined the results of the provincial competition, everyone else was nervous all night while Tyron was idle and planning something big.

He wasn't properly attending to his job, and his fans were basically just like him.

For fans, they would have the capital to brag as long as their idol was able to play in the National Championships. The entire Chaoyang Alliance consisted of billions of people, and in this era, over half of them played games. Anyone who had the strength to enter the National Championships was already a person with a terrifying level of strength, and it was enough to prove that they were one out of tens of millions of people.

This was especially true for the netizens of the Earth District. It was out of their expectations that a player from their own district had been able to fight all the way into the provincial competition finals and obtain the qualifications to enter the National Championships. Now, Lord Four's points ranked him temporarily in first place for the provincials, and it was very likely that he would win the championship. For them, this was almost as exciting as winning a five million credit lottery ticket.

On the eve of the finals, the virtual network was fully lit up, and everyone was collectively excited.

Odin and Forgetting Worries were at basically 1:1 for winning odds. Although Odin's points were currently higher, the professional characteristics of the two's professions had an innate restraint. Usually, paladins had a higher winning rate, and another thing was that some people had a preconceived notion that players from the Earth District weren't good enough.

The people of the Earth District were enraged by this, and they all came up to refute these comments one after another, "Our Lord Four has operation, strategy, and beauty! You guys can only discriminate based on district!"

"Are you kidding? The War God's strength isn't only limited to the Earth District! Some people still can't understand reality--the reality is that Lord Four is abnormally strong! Tomorrow, if he can't beat Forgetting Worries to death, I'll livestream frying JJ with fresh milk and show you!"

"Lord Four is the god of assassins, okay? In today's e-sports circle, other than Vantico, is there anyone else who dares to get into a blade fight with Lord Four? Ha-ha, even Vantico is from our Earth District."

Although they were all there to support Lord Four, they didn't dare to make trouble on Lord Four's personal forum and were very worried about disturbing him.

On the forums, most of the fans were rational ones. Some were actually quite worried about the restraint from professions.

Someone had especially started up a post and analyzed the concerns, "This paladin is a very stable type of player, but he's also very good at grasping opportunities. Others are fighting a battle, but Forgetting Worries seems to be playing Taiji. He usually takes his time and protects himself, and it's hard to knock him out. If his opponent makes any small mistake, Forgetting Worries will seize the opportunity to launch a sudden attack…"

The replies were: "That's very similar to our War God. They're both players where you absolutely can't make a single mistake in front of them."

Another person spoke from a hardware (skills and equipment) perspective and made another analysis: "The restraint from professions is quite serious. Forgetting Worries's development is very balanced. His defense, attack, movement, endurance, and so on are all very balanced. With his level of personal operations, there are basically no short boards… at least, nobody has found his weakness yet."

"From the perspective of previous competitions, Forgetting Worries's core ability is to passively 'acquire faith'. This person is very good at taking the time to accumulate his faith, allowing him to recharge and strengthen multiple imba skills such as health regeneration--he once recovered 80% of his health volume in one go."

The crowd all replied, “Holy shit!”

"80%!!! Did he bring 10,000 milk cows with him?"

“You’re talking about the match between Forgetting Worries and Little De, right? The tentacle monster had managed to catch him and beat him down to 50% health in one go. Yet as a result, he healed himself and flipped the tables directly!”

“How scary. Trembling.jpg.”

Others said, "We can also see Forgetting Worries's style of play from his points. From the start until now, his points have been 3, 6, 9. He hasn't obtained any health or time advantage points, but he's won all of them solidly. Basically, by the end of each game, he still has around half of his health left."

"Don't you think our big beauty, Lord Four, is also of the same style? He's never worried about extra points, and you don't see him being in a hurry to fight. He's always been very stable, and the points he got were: 3, 7, 11…"

"Aiya! The great demon king is indeed very steady--finishing the game in 20 seconds and steadily beating his opponents out of the sky…"

Odin's forums were very lively, but Forgetting Worries's forum wasn't much worse.

Forgetting Worries's fans were also concerned. They were so concerned that they were all tied up in knots and finally set up a hot topic, "We're finally going to fight the great demon king. Can anyone analyze it?"

"Contestant Odin isn't a good player to deal with. His fighting style is extremely strange and changeable, and it's really hard to generalize. It's fine to say that he's steady, but he's able to deal with a sniper hiding in the distance within ten seconds after they shoot. Isn't that terrible? It's also fine to say that he fights quickly, after all, he's never played in a game that lasted over a minute or even half a minute. But again! This is a steady state for Contestant Odin. He's so stable that he even let other assassins attack him twice! And then, he beat them back without harming himself in the process twice!"

"Also, his acting is a problem as well. In any case, I've been looking through game videos over and over, and I can't tell if he's acting or not. For better or worse, Geng Chen is also someone who is in the top 30 of the national rankings but ended up being tricked by him until she was going in circles and lost trust in her own judgement. Not to mention, there's also Little De who got tricked… It really makes one frantic!"

After going back and forth, Forgetting Worries's fans gave up on their strategic analysis and switched to say, "What about hardware? What's the great demon king's short board when it comes to hardware?"

"Don't mention it. He's a demon king level assassin. What do you think? He can break historical records and cause spellcasters to have nosebleeds from his overwhelming power. There's also that Flash with a score of 9.6 for displacement, and his Shadow Dance… I don't even want to count it anymore. As an assassin, Odin is really omnipotent."

"The only thing the great demon king can't do is give himself heals…"

"I used to treat this sentence as a joke, but I really never thought about that! This would actually become my last comfort!"

The more the fans analyzed, the more they worried.

Originally, there would be more than one expert amongst the general players. From time to time, they would come up with new ideas that gave the professional players a surprise, but it also depended on who they were analyzing.

Some players' advantages and disadvantages were very obvious while others were as elusive as fog or very unpredictable.

At this moment, Forgetting Worries was facing a system-controlled assassin opponent inside his own virtual practice arena.

This opponent had directly taken on Lord Four's avatar and looked on at the entire process expressionlessly. He'd been customized to imitate Odin's combat skills and techniques.

After finishing another practice match, Forgetting Worries took a small rest and looked over the notes he'd put up.

This was something that his personal coach had started to prepare for him as early as a month ago. As a result, it continued to change all the way until the finals. Now, it said:

"……"

After looking at the last note again, Forgetting Worries breathed deeply, full of anxiety, and said to himself, "If it could be cured, I wouldn't still be here fighting with a simulation!"

He looked back at the avatar that was controlled by the system--this Lord Four had his face exposed! It had been pulled directly from the simulation A-League game. Doing so was illegal, but the coach had secretly gotten it done for him.

Forgetting Worries sat down cross-legged and looked expressionlessly at the model, falling into a hollow and confused state, "My Lord Four is so beautiful… It would be an illness to not be a face-con."

He thought about what the coach had once told him, "I know Coach Qian Sen from the Earth District. He used to lead Odin in fights during the Team Competition there. Fight seriously, and fight well. Win against Odin and I'll look for Qian Sen to get you a meeting with Odin. That should be acceptable, right? If you think about it, winning this game will bring you both fame and wealth, and Odin will also look at you differently. Perhaps you two will become friends, and you can look at what you want to see, not the simulation, but the real person…"

The coach's voice faded away.

Forgetting Worries: Suddenly excited.jpg!

The next day, the final day of the competition.

All the players had arrived ahead of time and were seated in their specific seats. The large screen gave many shots of them, and it could be seen that the contestants here were all experienced with various kinds of battles and knew how to adjust their body and mind. They were full of spirit and managed to maintain their own state of mind despite the extremely tense competition process.

It was worth noting that this was the first time that Odin had been willing to sit in the contestant seating, but these seats weren't very close together, and it wasn't easy to hold a conversation.

The hacker Odin fought sat to the left side of him, acting so well-behaved that he seemed like a banana, one that only dared to sneak glances over and didn't dare to come forward to chat with him. To Odin's right was Geng Chen, who looked like an aggrieved and helpless little white rabbit. She was even more silent. The furthest from him was his opponent in the last round, Forgetting Worries. He was a little excited as he snuck glances at Odin around the people between them.

Odin sat there, expressionless.jpg, and paid attention to nobody.

His family seating area was empty again, which became a topic for his fans to discuss. There was even a group of CP fans who would cry when they looked at the empty spot.

There was a large-scale performance at the start of the last day. It was a show put on by the top singers from all over and became the catwalk for well-known luxury brands, followed by large-scale special effects that had been purchased by sponsors. The visual effects were extremely striking.

After the official start for the final competition, advertising was strictly prohibited, and there were only the special effects and personal logos left. This was for the sake of the audience. After all, with the wealth of the A-League, they didn't need to sacrifice audience ratings and experience for the sake of a little money.

The first game was between the ability user, Little De, and the elemental dancer, Geng Chen. Their points stopped at 5 and 8 points respectively.

The second game was between the hacker, Universal Day, and the druid, Meowmeowmeow. Their points stopped at 7 and 1.

It wasn't until the third match that it was finally Tyron's turn.

"Paladin, Forgetting Worries vs assassin, Odin!"

When the names of the two players came up on the large screen, the words 'Peak Duel' followed after.

The championship battle for the Second Star Province had finally kicked off.