Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

After finishing dinner that evening, Victor's eyebrows still held traces of anger as he picked up the cat and sent it back to his roommate.

This part of the artificial planet had entered the late night phase, and there were a lot of party lights and alcohol everywhere.

In order to send away this cat, Victor was really putting in a lot of effort. He didn't stop until he found his roommate in a club.

This roommate of his, who had lived with him for two years, was confused by his actions. He spoke as he accepted the cat, "You… you went through so much trouble and came into a private club just for this?"

Victor: "This is for the sake of harmony in the family. You don't get it."

Roommate: "……" Is it such a big deal that you've married your male god?! My wife is pregnant! If you have the ability, you should go and get pregnant too!

This private club was mainly focused on gambling for the National Championships. Although it wasn't illegal, it wasn't a fully legal activity either. It was a business that really tread the fine line and therefore didn't dare to open up to the public. Instead, it allowed some young men who were in the circle to come in for entertainment.

Victor wasn't interested in these things, but when he looked up, he saw the words: 'Odin vs Vantico'. He stopped and looked at it a little more.

His roommate spoke up, "Darling! You have such sharp eyes! I had never thought that you would've picked out the great demon king back then when he was still reading in the library! How come I don't have that kind of luck!?"

Victor asked and finally discovered that his roommate had lost a lot of money in the past two days. It was mainly because he'd also placed some bets on Odin that he'd managed to remain afloat. Although the amount that he'd lost wasn't considered a lot for a second generation, the key was that it had been too humiliating.

Victor wasn't interested in participating though and asked casually, "Are you guys holding bets for the top eight?"

His roommate pulled him over to the betting window to take a look: They really were taking bets for the next game.

.

Victor took a look and saw that beneath the entry for 'Odin vs Vantico', the odds were almost 50-50 while Odin's return was slightly lower by around 0.1. He asked curiously, "How is this predicted? Does this mean that more than 50% of the betters are placing bets on Odin?"

His roommate replied, “Yes, yes. Rumor has it that in the previous National Championships, Vantico’s odds were very high, but nobody here is stupid. It’s obvious that your male god’s momentum is more frightening this time. Both of them are from the Earth District, and people have been placing bets on them since a long time ago. This time, they’ve finally made it into the top eight, and it’s basically the betting stakes that everyone is paying the most attention to.”

The second most popular betting zone was for the championship round. The champion of the previous National Championships, 'Crimson', and the runner-up, 'Jiuzhou', had steadily entered the top eight once again, and they would definitely have another decisive battle.

Although the club was based around gambling, it was still mainly for fun. The second-generation rich would spend time here, so there was plenty of available news, and e-sports analysts had also been employed to oversee the betting.

Victor casually read a few more reports and noticed that the win rate for 'Odin vs Vantico' was fluctuated at around 55% with the highest one only giving 80%.

Victor wasn't willing to accept this, "Why is it so low? I feel that it should be at least 98%."

His roommate laughed, "Hey, it's just for fun. If you really followed the analysis, we would've made bets based on last year's ranking a long time ago. These analysts only know how to look at the data…"

Victor was gracious, "Eh, sooner or later they'll be slapping their own faces."

His roommate could actually hear a sense of having experienced the world from this sentence. Had Victor often seen people slapping their own faces?

Victor: "When the game is over, give them a few more bonuses. These analysts' eyes… it's probably hard for them to support themselves."

Roommate: "……"

On the way back, Victor pulled up the official website for the A-League National Championships. As expected, the images for the top eight were displayed on the home page.

The great demon king was the one who drew the most attention. Half of the scrolling comments on the front page were about him. After all, he was a newcomer to the scene like a War God who'd lived in seclusion on a mountain who had suddenly jumped out. Over half of the remaining comments were debating about the previous championship winner and runner-up's upcoming match.

If one continued to look down, the matchups for the top eight had already been released. It was really 'Assassin, Odin, Earth District VS Assassin, Vantico, Earth District'.

The comments were all saying, "Death match! This year's Earth District's two assassins are having a civil war!"

Fights between two players of the same profession were called 'civil war'. It was quite rare, especially in the top eight of the National Championships. What's more the assassin profession itself wasn't a strong occupation in the PVP arena. The advantage of stealth and sneak attacks decreased as one went higher up in the rankings.

Other than these two assassins, there was also an oriental swordsman, a priest, a mage, an ability user, a dragon knight, and a ranger left. Their professions could be divided into 2 fighter types, 3 agility types, and 3 mage types. It could be said that it was quite evenly distributed, and there were no unexpected surprises.

In fact, the professional PVP trends were very obvious. Fighters and assassins swept through the low-end arena, but there were more and more mage types in the middle ranks. Sometimes, at the provincial competition level, half of the players would be mages. However, when it came to the National Championships, there were much fewer mages around.

In the top tier of e-sports, none of the players relied on their professions. In reverse, the professions were more dependent on how the players used them. For example, the runner-up from last year, Jiuzhou, was a priest. In low-ranked fights, priests accounted for less than 1% of all professions. As long as there was another option, nobody would choose to use the priest profession. However, Jiuzhou could use this profession and make it all the way to second place and fight with the champion, Crimson, to a point where the winner and loser wasn't clearly divided.

Due to Jiuzhou's understanding and interpretation of the priest profession, many priest schools have continuously redefined themselves. Last year, Jiuzhou had preferred using shields that reduced damage and other such spells, and this year, there was a school of thought called 'Anti-shield' that had become popular.

In the same way, a great demon king assassin came into being this year. This year's assassin profession was suddenly greatly improved. There was a 'blade fighting style' that practiced blade fighting to death every day--they firmly believed that all skills were virtual, and only the power of real fighting was unshakable. When an assassin could wield their sword at a rate of nine times per second, they would be invincible across the whole world!

Odin, who was regarded as the founder of this style, was currently eating snacks and watching videos. He wasn't nervous about the upcoming game at all.

Victor came back from his trip outside and slapped a stack of paper onto the table. He said, "You're fighting Vantico the day after tomorrow! Didn't you go watch Vantico's videos?"

"I watched." Tyron said, "They're not interesting."

Victor opened up the stack of paper himself and said, "I've gotten a lot of top secret information. They call him the 'mysterious hand', and they say that he has many techniques. Here's a summary of the nine techniques that he's shown--"

Tyron didn't look at them. He just said, "They're all learned by rote and haven't been integrated. It's useless even if he has more techniques. Right now, he should be the one who is nervous. He hasn't come to provoke me recently. It's likely because he's been busy with special training."

Victor smiled and said, "Is he that nervous? Did he go back to find his teacher for more instruction? Speaking of which, I still don't know where he found such an amazing teacher, who could teach him so many techniques."

Tyron pointed out, "Have you seen his attack techniques?"

"Mm."

"This kind of technique can't be summed up in a virtual arena. It's not in an embryonic form but rather a routine that was polished by many people. It's like a group of assassins summed up their decades of experience, then discussed, polished, and further improved it in order to create such a perfect technique."

Victor pondered this for a moment, "Such a thorough assassin club doesn't exist in the e-sports circle. All the players are quite humble and self-taught. Besides, nobody has ever used Vantico's techniques before. So, Vantico is…"

"He's probably learning from the people in your 'game world'." The master assassin was very casual about it, "He's being cultivated by some organization. It's quite a rare opportunity."

Vantico was indeed in special training. And, all this training was affecting his mental state a little bit.

In order to go further during this year's National Championships and at the very least not fall from the top three, he was under great pressure. This was particularly true after he had encountered an unlucky thing that had a relatively low probability--he was going up against Odin in the top eight.

Odin was a great demon king, who excelled at blade fighting!

In this world, how could there be two assassins who encountered each other in a civil war without engaging in a blade fight?!

What made it worse was that Vantico couldn't find a suitable partner to train his moves with--an opponent at Odin's level wasn't comparable to the Ice Sword Array or a simulation AI provided by the system. It was even less possible to find an NPC or boss in the game world… Ah, those bosses were all the types that required an entire PVE team and weren't something that a single person could go and PVP against with ease.

By the time the match day had approached, Vantico was so anxious that he had begun to lose his hair, and he couldn't find half of his usual arrogant aggressiveness.

He'd changed his character stats over and over again until finally following Old Friend's advice and using a template that tended towards sword-wielding and sharp edges--

It was the same template as Odin's: It only focused on weaponry and not on skills, with attributes maxed out.

He had to focus on his strengths and make up for his weaknesses. His basic attributes couldn't be inferior to Odin's--If that happened, he wouldn't even have to go up and would simply be killed in a blade fight.

Vantico: Come! Let's fight with technique! This young master has nothing but techniques!

When they arrived at the competition arena, the two commentators were also very surprised. "Our two god-level assassins have finally encountered each other in the top eight. We never thought that their stats and skills would be exactly the same! Odin is using a short sword, darts, darts, and steel wire while Vantico is using two daggers, a crossbow, and a hook claw…"

"What's shocking is that neither of them took any skills! That means that other than Shadow Jump and Stealth that are both unconditional, instant-cast skills, they're both relying on basic attacks and techniques to fight this round!"

"The game hasn't even started yet, but I'm already a little scared and shocked." One of the commentators joked, "This is really the peak battle of the century between assassins. It would be fun if we could randomly draw maps like the Night of the Full Moon or the top of the Forbidden City."