Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

After they went home, everything was as usual. Victor ran to the government of the Third Star Province and obtained a form.

In the evening, while Tyron was reading, Victor handed it to him to sign.

Tyron's eyes swept over it for ten seconds, and then, he signed his name.

Victor no longer concerned himself with the paper anymore. He picked it up extremely naturally and leaned in to kiss Tyron, then spoke with a smile, "Are you taking advantage of how there's still time before the National Championships to be lazy?"

Tyron turned the page of his book and asked, "Do you want to go somewhere to play?"

Victor pondered this for a long time, then said, "How about going on vacation on the back of a space ray?"

Tyron said, "'The vagrant who goes wherever he wants'?"

He was repeating the name of a famous holiday project.

A space ray was a type of supersized cosmic creature that always floated in space either alone or with a family. Its wingspan could reach the size of a stellar system, and it mainly lived by devouring planets. It was one of the largest creatures in the world, and because of its very large size, a vast number of small creatures could live on its back. Some people liked to take vacations on their backs as there was a sense of mystery about drifting along without knowing where they were going.

Additionally, this particular space ray called 'Green Dumpling' actually had a high IQ and a very good personality. Some people said that this was because he was born in the Phoenix Empire. However, due to his large size, and the way the speed of information transmission in the space ray's body was only at 99% of the speed of light, its neural responses and thinking were super, super, super slow.

For example, last month, two couples had taken a vacation on the space ray and told him a joke. He took 10 full days to process the joke, then laugh from the front of his body to the back over the course of the next ten days (his size was too big, and the people up on the surface were unable to feel the turbulence), then take another ten days to reply:

"I… wish… you… guys… a… hundred… years… of… happiness… together…"

Everyone expressed: One word every two days made the listeners anxious enough to die.

The next day, the two of them were planning to leave in a spaceship, but they had to first hand in the form before they left.

Because of this extra errand and the fact that they were in a rush, they had to get up very early that day, basically in the early hours of the morning. Victor felt that he'd only just fallen asleep with much difficulty when the alarm clock started to ring.

His entire body was in a daze, and he had almost put his clothes on backwards that morning.

The government agency building that they had to submit the application at was very tall and had dozens of steps at the entrance.

Tyron couldn’t help but piggyback Victor and walk inside slowly. Victor laid on his back, half-asleep and half-awake. The two of them were totally different from the others who were nervous as they walked in.

After a while, Tyron handed in the form alone, and he heard the staff say, "I'm sorry, but we need to take photos. Can you please wake your husband up?"

Tyron spoke the words, "Open your eyes", into Victor's ear, and the latter struggled to open up his pair of blue eyes, most of his body leaning against Tyron. The two of them were caught on camera just like that, and it became the official photo on their certificate.

Tyron picked up the two pieces of paper, then left slowly with Victor on his back again.

Victor slept comfortably against his strong, broad back and barely kept from leaving saliva on his collar. He woke up a long time later and asked, "Where are we going now?"

Tyron said, "Little muddle-head, I'm thinking about whether to sell you off to dig coal or move bricks…"

He hadn't finished speaking when Victor bit gently on his earlobe, nibbling before falling back into a daze, speaking vaguely, "Don't go dig coal, turning black from the digging is no good. Moving bricks is better, the industry standard is 20 credits for one thousand bricks. One year of moving bricks is enough to reach the target. 60 credits for three thousand bricks a day, and 50 credits can be used for dinner. Making potato pies for you is cheap, taking care of you is easy…"

He'd really calculated it. Tyron found it amusing as he listened and asked, "How will we eat when the target isn't met?"

"Not up to standard…" Victor was confused for a while. He slept for a few seconds, then woke up again. He had actually still remembered this matter and thought about it before saying, "If it's only ten or so credits, then we can't get up early in the morning. We'll be hungry without breakfast, but you can buy a rice box and two big steamed buns for lunch, leaving the steamed buns for evening…"

This little fool had been born with a golden spoon in his mouth. When would he have thought about moving bricks?

Tyron thought about it, then remembered that Victor had spent a long time studying the history of the Earth District. It was likely that he'd done more than a few rounds through the city markets.

This child, Victor, was a typical case of one who hadn't yet lived for one hundred years, yet often worried about one thousand years. It seemed that nothing was irrelevant to him in this world. He had stood up for an e-sports competitor when they had suffered injustice, stepping up to fight a lawsuit. He saw a freelancer suffer from piracy, so he'd stood up and built up a new platform and system. He saw several unfair status quos in the industry, so he'd gone to understand, put himself on the ground, and then think about how to change the situation.

The two of them went back by car. Tyron was like a child-trafficking old bandit as he picked up Victor and boarded the spaceship, departing as soon as the destination was set.

Victor slowly woke up bit by bit but was still reluctant to walk, sitting on the ship's scooter to creep into the kitchen and bake biscuits to eat.

The two of them spent a few days on the private spaceship. They passed their days in a very lazy manner, spending over ten hours a day in bed.

Even Tyron, this old monster, didn't fully watch his weight. When they had arrived on the back of the space ray, they had only just started their official holiday when he discovered that he'd gained two pounds, though his muscle and fat content was still perfect.

"You've led me astray," the old monster said to Victor.

Victor pondered it for a while and complained even more bitterly, "It's you who has led me astray. I haven't done any math problems for over a week. I don't have any interest in research and have no thoughts on any new subjects. My brain is full of yellowspicy chicken every day…"

Tyron asked, "Do you want to eat spicy chicken today?"

Victor said, "Yes, yes."

After a while, both of them thought about what they'd just talked about to no avail. Victor, whose IQ had also dropped by two percent, turned on the TV and said, "Oh, doesn't matter. Today, there's a very good show on."

Tyron came back to join him, but in order to show that he was paying attention to the weight problem, he did push-ups while watching the show.

The show was a program about aces in the e-sports arena. It was called 'E-sports Focus' and was a highly professional yet approachable entertainment program. While the standard was high, the release frequency was low, and each episode required over three months to make.

This episode was the first one to come out after the provincial competition. It was divided into three segments, and within each segment were a research team and a group of expert consultants along with a professional host.

The first segment was about the results they'd come up with. It was a list of '2017's A-League contestants' awareness level ranking', in which 'Odin from the Earth District in the Second Star Province' had been ranked 1st, his name twice as big as the players that came after him.

The host came out and began to analyze in detail what strategic awareness was in e-sports. The first example and demonstration was Odin.

An expert, who specialized in this field, appeared on the screen and analyzed a classic game of his choice in detail--Odin vs Geng Chen. He chattered on about what the difference in Odin and Geng Chen's tactics had been, why they'd made the choices they had, how they had achieved their strategic goals, and why Odin had won so easily…

At the end, he concluded that Odin's strategic awareness was at least at the provincial level, and the entire process had been a one-sided crushing of his opponent.

"The contestant, Odin, was born for this profession." Another expert pushed up his glasses and pushed out a very professional chart, "This data shows that in every game, Odin will accumulate a strategic advantage of at least five percent in the first ten seconds. Some matches end very fast, so this point is not obvious in the eyes of laymen, but in summary, it must be intentional. Suppose in a situation where the competition time exceeds a certain period of time, then these accumulated strategic advantages would snowball…"

And, so on.

In the middle of the show, Victor became very energetic. He poked Tyron, who was doing push-ups beside him and said, "Look, they all think that you're a great demon king."

The master made a sound of acknowledgement, and he thought proudly inside that if, as a half-demon who'd lived for so many years, he had been unable to play out a strategy to beat this group of human cubs, he might as well have smashed himself to death headfirst on Victor's body.

Towards the end of the program, they released the Easter eggs of the episode--a lot of interesting summary reports. One of the most striking was an 'A-League contestant questionnaire', in which there was a question: 'Which player do you want to meet the least in a game?' 89% of the answers contained the word, 'Odin'.

And, there was another question, 'What do you think is the most challenging thing in e-sports today?' amongst which there was an anonymous professional player who said, 'As you know, the Star League's difficulty levels are arranged in this way:

Paradise < Simple < Normal < Difficult < Nightmare < Hell < [Tyron Odin]'.

Moverover, according to these incomplete statistics, the number of online, registered assassins in the Second Star Province had increased by an astonishing 10% when compared to the same period last year. Don't underestimate the number as this meant that almost all new entrants into e-sports this year had chosen the assassin profession. Or, it could mean that tens of millions of people had run off to change their professions to assassin.

After watching the final report, Victor sent out the same question as other fans, "Why is there no ranking for appearance!? Unhappy! The great demon king clearly has another number one spot! It's another crushing win!"

These unhappy fans stirred up a fuss on the forums. They held a vote: Who will be the number one assassin in this year's e-sports world (and gain the title 'King of Assassins')? Odin or Vantico--

They would pull out everyone who named Vantico and kill them!

As an equally unhappy fan, Victor could at least play with the real great demon king.

He crawled over to sit on Tyron, pinching his muscles everywhere.

Tyron continued to do his push-ups with this child on his back, his face expressionless as he moved up and down.

The great demon king decided to do more exercise today. For example, he could ** his fans and help his little fan, Victor, exercise together.

……

This kind of depraved life continued until the notice came out that the time for the National Championships had been confirmed. At this time, the husband-and-husband pair had already flown 18,000 miles on the back of this wandering space ray and had almost broken through the sky line of the Third Star Province. When Victor finally turned his mobile phone back on, the first message he received was, 'Welcome to the Fifth Star Province'.