The King's Avatar

September 27th, Glory Pro Alliance Season 10 Round 4 began, with Happy playing their home game against Tyranny.

The influence of a powerhouse team was incomparable. Although Happy now had a certain amount of popularity themselves, the crowd they could attract wasn’t enough to fill the entirety of Xiaoshan Stadium. Compared to Excellent Era’s glory days, when they’d sell out seats and even one ticket was hard to come by, Happy was still lacking.

But this time Tyranny had come, which drew many spectators. Plus, Tyranny itself had its fans organized everywhere. Many of Xiaoshan Stadium’s seats were filled up.

For a weak team, this was an annoyance of something fortunate. When a powerhouse came, they could generate a lot of ticket revenue. But at the same time, when a powerhouse came, that meant defeat was likely.

For Happy, this was only their second home game, they didn’t have any expectations regarding ticket sales. Even with so many spectators, Chen Guo wasn’t particularly excited. Her focus was all on the upcoming match.

There were many highlights to watch for in this match. There was the confrontation between longtime rivals Ye Xiu and Han Wenqing, there was the former duo Fang Rui and Lin Jingyan, there was Tang Rou’s promise of a 1v3 within five rounds. Unfortunately, although there were so many highlights, this match wasn’t the most beautiful in this round. At the same time, City S’s Samsara was playing their home game against Blue Rain.

A showdown between powerhouses, the television broadcast stations wouldn’t miss any of it. For those who wanted to watch the livestream of Happy against Tyranny, they would have to stream it online.

Xiaoshan Stadium, the away team Tyranny came onstage first. During an official match, the team members all wore their team uniforms. Tyranny, as a powerhouse team, had unusual influence. Throughout the country, their fans had formed their own fanclubs. Whenever Tyranny had a match, the diehard fans that travelled with the team to watch all their matches would contact the fans in whatever city they travelled to, and they would all come to the match together to cheer Tyranny on. Right now, on the west side of the stadium were gathered many Tyranny fans all wearing Tyranny’s uniform, and when their team came onstage, they began wildly cheering and yelling, waving various banners and slogans. Compared to Hundred Blossoms who had come in the second round, their spirit was much stronger.

Although Happy now had quite a few fans, they didn’t have these sort of organized fanclubs. Everyone came to cheer the team individually. In the face of the other team’s powerful momentum with their organization, Happy’s fans suddenly seemed very fragmented. Happy’s home field was about to be conquered by Tyranny.

Tyranny’s players waved to acknowledge the support of their fans, igniting more waves of excitement from them. It wasn’t until the home team came out that Happy’s fans started cheering, temporarily suppressing Tyranny’s spirit. But it was only temporary. The unorganized and scattered cheers were no long-term match for the Tyranny fanclubs, and Happy’s fans had to admit defeat first.

It seemed… they needed to create their own team fanclub.

Seeing all of this, Chen Guo thought back to when she was still an Excellent Era fan and her experiences with Excellent Era’s fanclub. These fanclubs, although initially formed from spontaneous friendships, after obtaining a certain amount of unity and influence, the official club would give them a certain amount of support. Happy could also follow this pattern, but for now, since Happy had only just started, they didn’t have any powerful clubs. During the Challenger League, Tian Qi and the other guild brothers had grouped together quite fiercely, but now unfortunately they weren’t in City H. Building a home team fanclub would progress more smoothly starting from the fans in the city.

The noise of the fans reached a peak when the players of the two teams greeted each other. At this time, the fans would become the powerful backing of their respective teams, giving them momentum from behind. The Tyranny fans, with experience and training, was able to give their team an aggressively powerful momentum at this time.

After the teams shook hands and exchanged greetings, they returned to their player areas. The match was about to begin, and the players for the first battle of the individual round were announced.

Team Tyranny. Player: Lin Jingyan. Character: Dark Thunder, Brawler.

Team Happy. Player: Su Mucheng. Character: Dancing Rain, Launcher.

A faceoff between top-level players at the very start! The crowd went wild. The two players stood from their respective areas, and after a casual greeting, they headed toward the stage.

The experienced players entered the match, and the first battle swiftly began.

A one-on-one map, a village at dusk. It seemed less like a battlefield and more like a scenic view at twilight, slowly revealed by the holographic projection. This was a map with which Su Mucheng was very familiar. She liked the scenery of this map, and because she liked it, she became familiar with it, and once she was familiar, she could use it in a competitive match.

What about Lin Jingyan?

With his former partner Fang Rui, Happy knew all of his secrets. When they were choosing maps, they considered opinions from all sides. Following Fang Rui’s reports, all of the maps they had chosen for today’s match were ones that Lin Jingyan hadn’t studied. Of course, on the other hand, any maps that Lin Jingyan hadn’t studied, Fang Rui wouldn’t have any deep understanding, either. He had grown up under the same training as Lin Jingyan, the only change being that one year when Lin Jingyan had left first.

That year, Wind Howl had made some adjustments to welcome the new core Tang Hao, so they had practiced a few new maps.

”However, these maps were to welcome Tang Hao, who had grown up in Hundred Blossoms. I think that even if they don’t fit Tyranny, Zhang Jiale would probably be familiar with them anyway.” This was Fang Rui’s analysis. It was evident that the effects of a player transfer were complex and far-reaching. Those who thought that Glory was just about hitting and killing had a far too shallow understanding of this game.

So, for the first battle of the individual round, the player Su Mucheng selected a map she liked, Rainfall Village.

When talking about how big a 1v1 map could be, they would talk about this village. It was really an entire corner of a village.

The two characters loaded on the map and the battle began. After circling around a small hut in front of the spawn point, Su Mucheng already saw Dark Thunder ducking around and borrowing the scenery as cover, looking like he wanted to do some strategic maneuvering.

But at this point Lin Jingyan clearly saw Dancing Rain over here, so Dark Thunder stopped ducking around, and boldly walked forward.

”This map really doesn’t have good cover!” Lin Jingyan said in the chat.

Su Mucheng replied with a smiley face.. Of course that was the case. A long-ranged attacker needed the target to exist in their line of sight; it wasn’t good for a Launcher if there was a lot of cover. Su Mucheng chose a map she liked, but of course she would first consider how advantageous the map was to her in a battle.

”Here’s not bad!” Lin Jingyan suddenly sent this message. Dark Thunder, in the afterglow of the setting sun, circled behind a tile-roofed house.

Su Mucheng smiled. Dancing Rain continued to move, and then she lifted her cannon. Power accumulated at the opening, a charged Quantum Bomb.

Dark Thunder, behind the house, was currently looking around. Lin Jingyan was truly rather unfamiliar with this map, and he was currently investigating to see if he could find something he could use to his advantage. He was trying to develop a strategy, he wasn’t in a hurry to directly fight Su Mucheng. As an old veteran, it wasn’t suitable if he always wanted to fight head-on to determine victory. A veteran should use the experience and tactics he had accumulated through the years. Leave the direct confrontations and the hand speed competitions to the youngsters!

As Lin Jingyan studied, he suddenly heard a ”biu” sound, short and sharp.

Quantum Bomb!

The sounds of the Launcher’s skills were quite loud, and they all sounded different. Just from the sound, you could distinguish the skill. Not only could Lin Jingyan hear that this was a Quantum Bomb, he could also tell that this shot was charged.

The power of a charged Quantum Bomb simply couldn’t be compared to a direct instant shot. Lin Jingyan hadn’t even figured out where Dancing Rain had appeared and he had no idea which way he should dodge. But ducking and rolling would at least reduce the area of his body that was exposed, and it was certainly better than just standing around and waiting to be attacked.

But Dark Thunder had barely started to roll before the powerful shockwave hit. The wall of that tile-roofed house was blasted into pieces, bricks flying everywhere, a few hitting Dark Thunder. The power of the Quantum Bomb could directly break through walls, and the rolling Dark Thunder was sent tumbling.

”Damn, that’s dizzying!” Lin Jingyan controlled Dark Thunder to stand up, and saw that the Quantum Bomb had directly blown a hole in that wall. Through this hole, he could see the large open doors on the other side of this building. Dancing Rain? Lin Jingyan had no time to see those shadows clearly, for a beam of light shined at that door, as though to swallow it, but in the end it only passed through the doors, and then the hole, directly toward Dark Thunder.

Laser Rifle!

Across the house, Su Mucheng’s attacks were still continuous. Lin Jingyan, who had just been knocked down by that Quantum Bomb, was clearly a bit slow to react to this. He was unable to dodge this Laser Rifle either, and was hit square on, directly pushed back into a pile of hay behind him.

The hay scattered around him, swirling in the wind like snowflakes. Dark Thunder waved his claw and burrowed out of the pile, only to see that Dancing Rain had already gotten a lot closer. She lifted her hand and a brilliant lighter flew toward him in an arc.

Is this still scientific? The throw was this far and this strong, yet the flames of that lighter were as stable as ever.

Lin Jingyan cursed silently, but he also knew, the lighter wasn’t the point here, the fearsome thing was the subsequent Heat-Seeking Missile.

Once he accurately studied the path of that lighter, Dark Thunder retreated back, quickly returning to that haystack.

But the path of that lighter wasn’t what Lin Jingyan had predicted. It seemed to fly a bit farther.

It was affected by the wind speed?

At this time, there was no time to ponder scientific principles. Dark Thunder retreated further.

Boom!

Dark Thunder was instantly surrounded by roaring flames. When that lighter landed, the Heat-Seeking Missile hadn’t even arrived yet. The hay was ignited first.

Suddenly surrounded by fire, Lin Jingyan was clearly stunned for a moment, his controls a bit slow. Dark Thunder was just a few beats slow in escaping from the field of fire, and he was hit by the Heat-Seeking Missile.

The mushroom cloud rose into the sky, and the thick smoke again enveloped Dark Thunder.