Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

Odin had defeated Vantico! With a 50% health advantage!

Vantico's three major techniques had been broken through, and he hadn't had the upper hand any time they'd fought!

As one of the matches that had been the most anticipated in the top eight semi-finals of the National Championships, while everyone had guessed that the win rate was 50/50, Odin had actually achieved an indisputable victory.

As soon as the results had come out, the news that the 'third runner-up of the National Championships had been defeated' had spread rapidly, and the percentage of people who felt that Odin would win the championship rose up!

Within a day, the process of the entire competition was dissected and analyzed by various experts and clubs, and all kinds of assassin strategies were changed accordingly.

Odin and Vantico's game had basically been Vantico attacking first with his techniques to launch a close-combat assault. After the match had ended, the 'close-combat assault' assassin combat style had been beaten down so much that it was black and blue. They could only choose to keep a low profile temporarily.

The style that had fared even worse afterwards was the 'stealth' style. The two top assassins had barely used stealth skills at all during the entire competition, and there was practically no opportunity to sneak around and ambush. As soon as the game had ended, and the news had spread… countless assassins had cried and wailed as they left the 'stealth' style and joined up with other styles.

Moreover, Odin and Vantico's characters had both been set up in a very extreme manner. They hadn't focused on skills at all and had pushed all their attributes to the limit. The fighting styles and schools that relied more on core skills and stealth were suddenly much less popular.

The only style that had won a great victory was the 'blade-fighting' style. Due to the indisputable fact that Lord Four had awed the entire league with his fighting ability, assassins and even other close-combat professions had all begun to adopt the motto of 'winning with no skills is a skill'.

This also made Oriental professions, who shared similar traits, very tense. Many fans of Oriental-styled swordsmen shouted, "If you have the ability, then write your own motto. Don't copy our 'winning with no skills is a skill' or our 'no sword in my hand but a sword in my heart', and to the independent nine fox blade series, hey, we're warning you!"

The positioning of the Oriental system professions was quite vague. They considered themselves to be of the 'ancient martial arts' school. Currently, the 'sect leader' of this school was an Oriental swordsman, who had entered the top 8 for the second time and was a 'quasi' top 4 finalist.

The reason why he was a 'quasi' top 4 finalist was because, according to the system's algorithm, after each player had lost for the first time, they might be matched up with another player within three positions above or below them in the next scheduled competition. So, the current fourth place could end up being beaten out of their fourth place position, and Vantico, who'd been dropped to the 5-8th place bracket, could also make his way back into the top three.

The competition for the rankings in the National Championships was still fierce, but there were some things that were beyond a doubt:

Odin was the top assassin of the year.

Additionally, when one looked at his momentum, Vantico, who’d won this title in the previous season, had been beaten to pieces&#k2013;&#k2013;it was almost a given that Odin’s chances of defending the title were very high for the next season.

Lord Four’s fans were so delighted that they wanted to spread the news all over the world. They had even managed to stir up a big fuss on the forums and opened up a forum topic. They had crowdfunded for half a month and saved up tens of millions in funds, saying that they wanted to buy a unique gift for Lord Four. When the crowdfunding had begun, the National Championships had only just begun as well, so they had said that it was &#k2018;a gift for Lord Four’s first time entering the National Championships’. A few days later, the great demon king had directly entered the top eight, so they’d quickly changed their words and claimed it to be a &#k2018;luxury gift for entering the top 8 of the National Championships’; a few days after that, Odin had trampled over Vantico and directly stepped onto the throne of the League’s number one assassin. In this situation, everyone had been stunned silly and had to think hard about what to say next. They not only had to reflect the current rankings and his position as the top assassin, but also encourage and continue his momentum of marching straight onto the Championship throne.

It was very difficult. After having thought about it for a long time, they decided to temporarily call the crowdfunding project, 'The diamond crowdfunding gift for the number one beauty in e-sports'.

The common fans were good at gags. Sometimes, they would call it 'selling tickets to join the number one beauty club' or 'the e-sports circle's number one dog food wholesale contract'.

Tyron: "……"

Victor laughed every time he looked at the forum.

Tyron had stood at the arena and 'educated' all the CP cults. Over the past two days, they'd been as well behaved as quails, and they did as they had been told and stopped coming up with new updates. They had felt so wronged that they'd retreated into a corner to draw circles in the ground and sprout mushrooms.

It was impossible to eliminate them completely, but this was already the best possible outcome.

Victor was so excited about this that he ate two big oranges. Later, when they went out for a walk in the evening, he bought his husband a luxury gift.

big orange - meme. basically sex in a riding posture.

Tyron opened up the box and saw a key-shaped ornament inside.

He looked at it for a moment and guessed, "What is it? A car? A spaceship?"

Victor replied shyly, "I bought you an outside world."

Tyron: "……"

The old antique stared at the key for a while and felt that he was embarking on the road of no return towards a life of being a kept man.

"Only the evaluation team has gone in." Victor smiled and said, "They said that this wormhole is quite large. There are intelligent creatures in the world on the other side, and the similarity rate of the physical laws is 40%, so the evaluation of this outside world is A2. Seeing that such a good project had almost gone unsold, I had entrusted someone to buy it at a discount."

This 'outside world' was actually a small wormhole that the Alliance had discovered led to a different plane.

In this era, many game companies had started off by buying an outside world wormhole. With these wormholes, they would hire or offer rewards to groups of professional PVE teams to go out and explore, open up the unknown lands, and protect their initial base. After that, the company's logistics department would focus on building up the infrastructure of the base--including a special novice factory that manufactured character avatars. This was called a 'closed beta'.

When the unexplored areas were opened up, they would begin to colonize the outside world and open up the avatar creation in this outside world as a 'public beta', allowing players to register and begin customization. The places that had been developed by the professional PVE teams would be used as game maps, instances, and so on to provide a secondary development area. At this stage, the company's logistics department would constantly collect more information related to the outside world and strive to establish a complete world framework.

After the framework for the game was set up, the game could then be played directly. The 'customization fee' for a large number of players pouring in and creating customized avatars would bring in the first batch of income, and the 'point cards/monthly cards' money-charging models would maintain the outside world and provide long-term income. Additionally, there were income streams from advertising and other ventures. If a scientific research team happened to be interested in the physical rules, social culture, etc. of this outside world, then they would also obtain an additional subsidy from the government for scientific research.

Of course, if the company went bankrupt due to bad management, then the wormhole would be taken back for auction to pay off the debt.

Generally speaking, one wouldn't make too much of a loss developing a wormhole, because there were too many things that could be played with in this era. Even if the outside world was about to encounter an apocalypse, they could just make it into a doomsday survival game; if the difficulty level was too high, then it was even better as they could set up signboards for 'The Chaoyang Alliance's most difficult and heartbreaking game' and target it specifically at the high-end PVE players (they called themselves hardcore players); if there was no biological life, then it could be made into a scenery-watching game. In any case, it couldn't be any worse than the game, <Mountain>.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_(video_game)

Because they were still in the midst of the National Championships, the two people had only taken a look at the evaluation report for the outside world and didn't go in.

Primarily, this was because they were afraid of becoming addicted to it…

Victor laughed and said, "There's a new way to play now! There's a very popular program called 'Life in the Outside World'. After a program group had purchased an outside world, they specifically invited people to join and play a survival-mode game, deliberately controlled their memories, and then had people go in with a mobile phone that allowed them to broadcast live…"

This program was very famous, and even Tyron had taken a casual look at it.

Every visitor who had been forced to 'lose their memories' after entering the outside world woke up like they'd just been struck by lightning! Their expressions were so confused! Some would dance ecstatically, "My god! I've transmigrated! Hahahaha, I'm going to walk up to the peak of the world!"

Then, they would spend months or years in the outside world, holding onto a 'mobile phone that allowed them to communicate with the audience back home'. Some of them would go the farming route and lead a moderately well-off life; some would strive for hegemony, relying on the information they had obtained through the live broadcast room to climb up the science and technology tree.

Each person's personality was different, and what they had done after they had crossed over was also different. It was very interesting to watch.

This program had already entered its second season. Now, it was no longer popular to bring 'mobile phones'. Instead, bringing a 'space', which was basically a small, enclosed wormhole storage space, was more popular. Some of these portable spaces had been arranged in an idyllic manner; the seeds and plants available in the interstellar age and the grain production quality were enough to scare people to death; some of these spaces were also giant electronic libraries or computers, providing their owners with a large amount of knowledge reserves or computing power.

It was said that the planning for the third season intended to bring in a 'system'. At that time, the program group could use the 'system' to release tasks to the players so that the interaction between the players and the viewers would increase.

Victor added, "There's another way to play that hasn't become popular yet. It's mainly played by a group of idle rich second-generations. The common word used for a person who enters an outside world to explore is a 'transmigrator'. These players will trade the outside worlds they own and play nonstop, and it's called 'quick transmigration'."

A group of rich second-generations would take wormholes worth tens of millions each and not focus on developing them. Instead, they would monopolize or use them in exchange games amongst the other rich, upper class members in their own small circles. This kind of play was like buying an island on Earth that wasn't open to the public and specifically using it for their own holidays.

It had been a long time since the old antique had sighed emotionally and said "You interstellar people really know how to play." Now, he had discovered that he still hadn't fully integrated into this era with its chaotic society.

He put away the key to the wormhole and said, "After the National Championships are over, I'll take you to play there together."

Victor waved his hand and spoke a little shyly, "I don't even have the strength to truss a chicken. I might have to rely on you completely for protection."

Tyron also felt that this kind of feeling was quite new. When he had been a blazing angel, he'd fought all sorts of battles, but he'd seldom taken a little oil bottle with him… Cough, cough. At most, he'd taken a team with him to carry out a task that required multiple people.

He found this opportunity to be quite rare, "When the time comes, I'll be responsible for exploring, and you'll be responsible for farming at home."

Victor's eyes suddenly lit up, and he nodded like chicken pecking at rice, "Yes, yes! You, the general, will explore and open up the territory outside, and I'll stay at home and defend the lands!"

The two of them came to a spontaneous agreement.

What Tyron wanted to do was to battle in all directions, fighting until he was in the top position so that he could protect his family behind him, allowing Victor to have the freedom to research, watch scenery, play on live broadcast, and play with whatever he wanted in the outside world.

What Victor wanted to do was to study science and technology, make money, develop their territory, develop a strong army, and have a stable and sufficient logistics system and military strategy so that his old antique could sweep across the mainland unhindered, fighting whomever he wanted.