The King's Avatar

The post-match interviews from Happy led to a heated debate. There were people who believed it, but there were many who didn’t. The reporters asked for the logic behind their reasoning, wanting to earnestly understand what they meant by experience and intuition of the terrain.

But Happy pushed all of their questions away, even those from Esport Home’s Chang Xian, who had a very close relationship with them. Happy stated: A great battle is imminent. As Happy’s secret weapon, Luo Ji does not have the leisure to play around. He needs to use his time to continue tempering his “experience and intuition of the terrain”.

“He wasn’t able to display his true strength last round. It was our home game after all. Next round will be the true test.” Ye Xiu told Chang Xian, who had come to him directly to talk.

“Are you serious?” Although Chang Xian had a good relationship with Happy and supported the team, he didn’t believe it personally.

It wasn’t just him. Anyone with a certain understanding of Glory would have their doubts. The ones who immediately gasped in surprise were noobs who didn’t have the skill to see it.

Chang Xian was a professional reporter who followed the Glory scene closely. His own individual skill at Glory might not be anything noteworthy, but his perception of the game could not compare to a normal player. After hearing Ye Xiu’s words, he looked left and right, confirming that there was no one else around. He lowered his voice and asked: “Is this psychological warfare?”

“Haha, yes, it’s psychological warfare,” Ye Xiu nodded his head and laughed.

Chang Xian wanted to cry. Ye Xiu told him yes, but he had said it half-heartedly. Was he supposed to believe it or not?

Sure enough, his miniscule skills were far from enough in front of this God!

“Then, I’ll just have to wait and see,” Chang Xian could only helplessly say some nonsense and leave with a laugh.

“Bye.” Ye Xiu said his goodbyes to Chang Xian before returning to Happy’s practice room. Everyone was there in front of their computers. The atmosphere in the room was quite casual.

The time between games in the playoffs was even more tight than the regular season. The teams had to rush back and forth between venues, which used up a good amount of their time on travel. As a result, a stable practice schedule between games such as in the regular season couldn’t be done in the playoffs. Most of their practice was to maintain their conditions.

If the regular season required consistency, then the playoffs required explosiveness. An explosiveness that used everything you had. The ones who could persist until the end would be the winners. The ones who relaxed would likely be the ones to fall in the playoffs.

Happy had won the first match of the second round. It was something to be happy about, but it was far too early to celebrate. It looked like everyone understood this point. Everyone was using their own methods to reflect on the outcome of the match in preparation for the next match.

“Did he leave?” Chen Guo asked Ye Xiu. She didn’t lower her voice, afraid of bothering the others. The current atmosphere was their usual daily one. If there was something someone wanted to say, then they could just say it. It wasn’t a practice session, where they needed to focus intensely on their playing.

“He left.”

“How did you say it?” Chen Guo asked.

“Luo Ji is a secret weapon, how can we let them interview him so easily.” Ye Xiu patted Luo Ji’s shoulders as he seaid.

Luo Ji’s body went soft. He turned his head with difficulty: “Isn’t that… not good?”

“Relax, it has nothing to do with you.” Ye Xiu laughed.

Luo Ji wanted to cry. What do you mean it has nothing to do with me? Right now, everyone in Glory was talking about him. Making one’s name after a single battle described this situation exactly. That night, his Four Beast Summon Style was no longer called that. People gave it another name “Building Demolition Style”. It looked like there were countless people who thought he was a demolition specialist who could instantly see through the terrain and destroy it.

Luo Ji obviously understood why Ye Xiu insisted on saying it like that. However, as a rookie, he was completely unprepared for this psychological warfare, which completely distorted the truth. Luo Ji discovered that the world was far scarier than he had imagined.

“It really has nothing to do with you,” Ye Xiu continued, “What comes next is something Tyranny has to worry about.”

“Is that so? Then, next match…”

“Of course you’ll be playing next match. Even if we don’t use the atomic bomb, just having it there is very intimidating.” Ye Xiu said.

Atomic bomb…

Luo Ji felt his body go soft again.

“Do you really think that it’ll scare Tyranny?” Chen Guo spoke up. After a match, she would scour the forums. From what she read, the more persuasive posters were saying that Ye Xiu was just making stuff up. Glory had an enormous playerbase, so there would naturally be many experts in the game. Many people were already pointing out what needed to be done. Chen Guo knew the truth, and felt like Ye Xiu’s psychological warfare was rather naive this time.

“Of course it won’t scare them.” Ye Xiu said,” Nothing can scare Tyranny, but it’ll leave a thorn in their hearts. Even if it’s just a teeny tiny advantage, we still have to take it.”

“Okay…” Chen Guo nodded her head and didn’t say anything more. To do everything they could meant taking those 1%, 0.1%, 0.01% chances. That was what Ye Xiu was saying. Ever since he started in the tenth server, he had always done this.

Team Tyranny.

After the match, they took a flight back to City Q and began preparations for their home game.

Similar to Happy, Tyranny wouldn’t do any strenuous training between playoff games. However, their vice-captain Zhang Xinjie didn’t seem to have a relaxed attitude right now. When Lin Jingyan went over to see what he was doing in the practice room, he saw that Zhang Xinjie was studying the Full Moon Forest map that Happy had chosen last round. His character was looking at the floor that Happy had completely collapsed, leading to Tyranny’s demise.

“Do you really believe him!” Lin Jingyan grabbed a chair and sat besides Zhang Xinjie. He watched him study the area as he asked.

“Not really.” Zhang Xinjie said.

Not really meant that there was some leeway. With Zhang Xinjie’s personality, he wanted to erase that final bit of leeway.

Lin Jingyan knew that he couldn’t stop him. It was just the way Zhang Xinjie was. It had its advantages, but it had its disadvantages. Ye Xiu was poking at this weak spot. His words might not be able to cheat others, but it would work on Zhang Xinjie. It wouldn’t trick Zhang Xinjie, but it would divert his attention away.

There were only three days away until the next match. Would Zhang Xinjie be able to clear away his doubts by then? It wasn’t that Lin Jingyan didn’t trust his teammate, but he really didn’t look favorably on Zhang Xinjie towards this issue. He had seen of the comments related to this topic and agreed with the commentary. Happy collapsing that entire area had nothing to do with experience or skill at Glory, but science…

Science… those words felt so distant to Lin Jingyan. He had worked hard in the pro scene for nine years and understood the scene well. Let alone science, most players of the game weren’t on the high-end of the spectrum in terms of knowledge. The number of competitive players with high educational backgrounds were rather limited. After all, the competitive scene emphasized youth. University graduates would be considered elderly when thrown with new players.

Zhang Xinjie… Zhang Xinjie may be called a Master Tactician with an intelligent mind, but in terms of academics, he was probably at a high school level, no? Last night, he had looked at some very detailed analysis. The poster had included higher-level math like differential equations. Just looking at it gave Lin Jingyan a nightmare.

“This, wouldn’t it be better to give it to the R&D department to look at?” Lin Jingyan advised.

“The R&D department is already looking into it,” Zhang Xinjie was Zhang Xinjie. He had already done what Lin Jingyan had thought of.

“Oh…” Lin Jingyan nodded his head, then… there was no then. The R&D department was already analyzing it, but Zhang Xinjie was still analyzing it himself too. That was it.

Lin Jingyan didn’t say anything more. He turned on the computer nearby.

The two playoffs team that had finished their matches were preparing for the next round. That night, it was the match between Tiny Herb and Samsara, which would be taking place in City B in Tiny Herb’s home stadium.

In the end, Samsara won their away game, beating Tiny Herb 11 to 7. Tiny Herb had lost their home game. It was a rather bad outlook for them. But it wasn’t outside of people’s expectations. The pre-match analysis had Samsara with a higher chance of winning, even if they were against the two-time champions, Tiny Herb. Before the match, the topic of “who would become the next Excellent Era and be the second team to win three championships?” After this round, the answer seemed to have already come.

It was as if this best of three was already over. Then, what about the other best of three?

Happy versus Tyranny. The second match came as scheduled. But looking at the online polls, Happy’s home game win didn’t increase Happy’s winning chances this round. In fact, it actually went down.

Because this match would be Tyranny’s home game. Even if you didn’t like Tyranny, no one thought that Tyranny would stumble because of their loss in the first game. Even if such an unprecedented reversal had happened last round, Tyranny’s heroes wouldn’t fall so easily.

City Q, Tyranny’s home stadium. The two teams lined up under the spotlight.

“How are things going? Have you found a way to win?” Ye Xiu provoked Tyranny.

“What do you think?” Han Wenqing wasn’t as wordy as Ye Xiu, but he never lost out in vigor.

“Little Zhang, good luck!” Ye Xiu called Zhang Xinjie, Little Zhang. There were only a few players in the Glory Alliance that had the qualifications to say that.

Zhang Xinjie chuckled. This sort of psychological attack would do nothing to him.

“You’re really boring.” Zhang Jiale talked back to Ye Xiu soon after.

“Not coming to Happy is actually the biggest mistake you’ve made in your career,” Ye Xiu said to Zhang Jiale.

“Fuck off,” Zhang Jiale cursed. Mistake was ear-piercing enough. There was even an “actually” in front. What did that mean?