The King's Avatar

Round 38 of the Alliance was rapidly approaching. Given that it was the final round, it was inevitable that there would be a of publicity surrounding it. After this round, voting for the awards of the current season would begin. The awards would be based on the performances of the regular season, with the playoffs having their own set of awards afterwards.

Amongst the various awards, the one that caught the most attention was naturally the MVP award. There were many players who had been raised as possible MVPs, to the point that even Bai Shu, who had only joined 301 in the winter transfer window, was also part of the list.

Other than that, there were Samsara’s Zhou Zekai, Blue Rain’s Huang Shaotian, Tiny Herb’s Wang Jiexi, Tyranny’s Zhang Xinjie and other All-Star players were frequently raised as possible candidates. Apart from these players, there the was the player with the strongest return to the Alliance: Happy’s Ye Xiu.

Team Happy’s performance may not have been as outstanding as Samsara or the other powerhouse teams, but as a new team, achieving such results was already entirely unprecedented, and within the team, the role that Ye Xiu played was something that anyone with eyes could see. If the Alliance were to take into account Happy’s difficulty in achieving such results, Ye Xiu’s inclusion in the list of MVP candidates was indisputable. If there was anything that was disadvantageous to Ye Xiu, it was his continued “ceasefire” for the last 4 rounds. Missing out such crucial competitions would have a negative impact on his assessment for the MVP award.

The MVP award was something that had various different considerations and factors. In comparison, some of the other awards that only looked at results or numbers were more easily decided upon.

The King of Dueling title was based on the results of the individual competition. The award would definitely go to Ye Xiu without much suspense, given his 36 consecutive victories in the individual competition. Looking at the statistics, One Hit One Kill, the award based on the number of killing blows accomplished within the team competitions, was already in Zhou Zekai’s hands one round early.

Then there was the Arena Star, the award based on how much damage a player had dealt throughout the course of the group arena competitions. Similarly, the holder of this title had been convincingly decided one round early: Team Samsara’s Sun Xiang.

Other than that, awards like Best Partners, Best Rookie or Best Sixth Player were also like the MVP award, and wouldn’t be decided purely by numbers or statistics, instead needing careful consideration of the various player’s performances after the end of the 38th round.

Everything was waiting for this final round.

On the evening of the 5th of June, the 20 teams in the Alliance gathered in 10 different team’s stadiums, marking the beginning of the 38th round of competition.

In the end, the broadcasters decided to show the match between Samsara and Hundred Blossoms. Hundred Blossoms was temporarily in 9th place, and if they wanted to enter the top 8, they could either win 1 more point than Wind Howl or 3 more points than 301 in this round. In the previous round, after falling behind by 3 points against Tyranny, they had valiantly snatched back 7 points, lighting the expectations for them to produce a breathtaking performance in their away-game against Samsara. The Glory community hadn’t forgotten that Team Samsara’s crazy streak of wins in the first half of the season had ultimately been put to a stop by Team Hundred Blossoms. This final match would be Team Hundred Blossom’s most important match of the whole season.

In this final round, every stadium was packed to the brim, including the stadium for Seaside and Bright Green, the two teams in the relegation zone. Next season, they wouldn’t be able to compete in this stadium anymore, so the heartbroken fans had come to accompany their teams in battle till the very last moment, even though it was already too late to change anything.

At 8.30 in the evening, the final round of the competition punctually began in all ten stadiums.

In Happy’s stadium, Ye Xiu appeared in the individual competition for the 37th time, taking another shot at breaking his own record. This time, the player attempting to snipe his streak was someone who had garnered a lot of attention in the second half of the season: Team 301 Degrees’ Knight player Bai Shu, hailing from Europe.

The competition quickly began. Until the very last round, Ye Xiu had persisted in choosing the same style of maps: clean and minimalistic maps meant for a head-on battle. The two characters loaded in, appearing at two opposite ends of the map.

Bai Shu’s Knight character, Tide, was clad from head to toe in Silver equipment. In this small map where sunlight was shining brilliantly, the reflections off Tide’s metal armor was dazzling, and his shield, Silver of Life had practically become a mirror.

“Ah, this map choice is a little unfortunate!” Fang Rui said, sitting on Happy’s player bench.

“Wait, why?” Chen Guo asked frantically.

“It’s too bright, it dazzles the eyes,” Fang Rui said.

“Are you talking about the reflections from Tide’s equipment?” Chen Guo asked.

“That’s right. In the context of Glory, things like this will all become disturbances to the opposing player,” Fang Rui replied.

Chen Guo immediately felt a sense of apprehension. Losing 1 point was nothing to fear, but she really didn’t want to see Ye Xiu’s streak of consecutive victories come to an end. In fact, she was still brooding over the fact that Ye Xiu didn’t play in the first round! That meant that he could at most have 37 wins in a row, not a complete sweep of all 38 rounds. The tiny bit of imperfection was extremely regrettable.

As they spoke, the two characters on stage had already started to charge towards the center of the map.

Boom boom boom!

Ye Xiu used Lord Grim’s long-ranged superiority to open fire first, sending three Anti-Tank Missiles flying out.

Charge!

Bai Shu surprisingly didn’t dodge, instead choosing to have Tide press the assault. His shield was raised in front of him, and all three Anti-Tank Missiles exploded on it in succession. In a moment, Tide had left the cloud of smoke and the sound of explosions behind him, the gap between the two shortening in the blink of an eye. Tide’s shield, Silver of Life, was shining brightly. On the large screen in the stadium, everyone could see from Ye Xiu’s player perspective, and all they saw was a field of dazzling radiance, similar to the effect from a Spitfire’s Flash Bullet.

“Look!” Fang Rui had long been watching Ye Xiu’s player perspective, and at this moment, he immediately pointed at the screen for everyone to see.

Heroic Leap!

Tide leapt into the air, but the only thing that Ye Xiu could see in his vision was a flash of brilliant light, and then nothing.

Shining Cut!

Ye Xiu used the skill to dash out.

This was an instinctual reaction that he made based on his experience. When the opponent disappeared, no matter where he went, eventually he would want to continue his assault. At this time, the best thing to do was to keep moving, and figure out where the opponent was afterwards.

Tide descended from the air, and Lord Grim fled from his original position. The two of them had more or less completed a swap of positions. After Shining Cut, Lord Grim immediately twisted his body in mid-air, and the moment he saw Tide in his field of view, the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella changed back into Gun Form, and Lord Grim opened fire!

Bang!

A single bullet flew out.

But this time, Bai Shu didn’t have Tide use his shield to block the attack.

This single bullet was the Spitfire’s Burning Bullet, which would create a fiery blaze as it fell to the ground, something that the shield couldn’t prevent.

Tide jumped out of the way, dodging the Burning Bullet. As a sea of fire immediately began to spread on the ground, he had already stepped out of the range of the attack.

Gatling Gun!

Lord Grim used yet another skill, sending a torrent of bullets towards Tide. This time, Tide raised his shield, forcefully advancing under the rain of bullets. Tide’s Silver of Life wasn’t as large as the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella’s Shield Form, so it couldn’t possibly shield his whole body. As such, Ye Xiu adjusted the angle of the Gatling Gun, attempting to send the bullets to the gaps that weren’t being protected by the shield. Despite that, all the bullets were blocked by Tide, as Silver of Life’s position was adjusted non-stop, unexpectedly blocking the Gatling Gun bullets that were coming from continually shifting angles.

“This guy!” Fang Rui exclaimed in surprise. Team Wind Howl’s original lineup also had a Knight, so he had a fairly impressive understanding of the class. Being able to use his shield in such a way to completely block Ye Xiu’s gunfire meant that his fundamentals were far more solid than normal.

Atr this moment, in Ye Xiu’s field of vision, Silver of Life became dazzling once more. Evidently, they had once again entered an angle in which the shield could reflect sunlight.

“Eh? This time…” This time, Fang Rui was bewildered.

“What is it?” Chen Guo frantically asked again.

“His timing of the sunlight was a bit sub-par,” Fang Rui expressed.

On stage, Ye Xiu slightly adjusted Lord Grim’s position, easily avoiding the reflection of the sunlight this time around, before continuing to assault Tide from a distance.

“He isn’t doing it on purpose.” At this time, Wei Chen spoke up.

“Who are you referring to?” Chen Guo asked.

“Bai Shu. He didn’t think of using his equipment to reflect the sunlight, it was actually all accidental,” Wei Chen replied.

“Really?” Chen Guo looked at Fang Rui, but he was deep in contemplation, so he didn’t respond.

“This player from abroad seems to disdain these kinds of dirty tricks!” Wei Chen said.

“Do you think he’s like all of you?” Chen Guo snorted at Wei Chen, and then shifted her gaze to Fang Rui. These two played in an especially wretched way, with an innumerable number of dirty tricks up their sleeves.

“I’m looking down on him, can’t you tell from my tone?” Wei Chen replied.

“…”

“In order to win, I would be as unscrupulous as I need to be. These kinds of players who pretend to be upright and not use the tricks they have access to are the kind I hate the most,” Wei Chen said.

Chen Guo didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. This wasn’t about pretending to be upright, couldn’t a person just prefer not using these kinds of methods to fight?

“Lose, he’s definitely going to lose!” Wei Chen cursed.

“That I can agree with,” Chen Guo nodded.

At this moment, Tide had already drawn closer to Lord Grim by quite a bit, raising his hand and gesturing towards him: Provoke.

Lord Grim promptly charged towards Tide without hesitation, and sent out a Collapsing Mountain! Ye Xiu straightforwardly used this skill, and Lord Grim jumped up, sending his blade chopping downwards.

Clang!

An ear-piercing noise rang out. Surprisingly, Bai Shu had let Tide raise his shield to block the powerful Berserker skill, Collapsing Mountain, before using his other hand to brandish his sword for a counterattack.

“I have no words left,” Wei Chen said.

“What is it now?” Chen Guo asked.

“Couldn’t he just have avoided this attack?” Wei Chen said.

“Is using the shield to block not good enough?” Chen Guo asked.

“Using the shield to block still costs HP. If he’s able to avoid losing HP altogether, does he still need to be so unyielding?” Wei Chen replied.

“He can… counterattack a bit faster?” Chen Guo’s answer sounded quite professional, her standard was improving!

“If he can’t take the initiative from the counterattack, what’s the point of counterattacking at all?” Wei Chen continued to look down on him.

After blocking Collapsing Mountain, Tide’s counterattack indeed wasn’t able to help seize the initiative, and the two of them continued to trade hits, countering each other’s every move.

“That Taunt usage was also baffling, this is a 1v1, and the opponent doesn’t want to run away, what’s the point of taunting him? Taunting him only results in close-range combat, but that’s what Lord Grim’s good at,” Wei Chen continued.

Chen Guo was puzzled. According to Wei Chen’s analysis, this Bai Shu was really full of problems! But looking at the match, he didn’t show any signs of faltering when fighting against Ye Xiu! In this match, she couldn’t see any sign of who was going to win or lose.

“You’d best ignore him.” Su Mucheng saw Chen Guo’s bewilderment and laughed, “They have completely different styles, so of course they can’t stand the sight of each other.”

“Is he playing too honestly?” Chen Guo consulted Su Mucheng, and ended up being viciously stared at by Wei Chen, causing her to momentarily not dare to say anything more.

“In this confrontation, it’s exactly this kind of upright and frank play that’s needed to determine victory or defeat!” Su Mucheng replied.

“It’s boring as hell,” Wei Chen and Fang Rui said in unison.

“I believe that Ye Xiu won’t give him that kind of opportunity,” Wei Chen said sincerely, “That guy has no limit to his shamelessness!”