The Titans’ team uniform and logo had complimentary colours, a muted black interwoven with an eye-catching red; whereas Cobra’s team logo was white on light-green.
Well before the competition even began, people were jokingly saying that, out of every other team’s logos, Titans and Cobra’s logos were the least compatible ones.
Ten minutes before the start of the match, Yao Sen sat in the players lounge, loosening his wrists and fingers. He did so while silently staring at the floor, as if he was deep in thought. After a while, he even started squeezing his fingers into a fist and cracked his knuckles a few times.
Wang Yuxi, who was sitting to one side, wore a complicated expression. “Lao-ge, are you going out there to play a game or lead a gang fight?”
Yao Sen: “Is there a difference?”
“…since you put it that way, there really doesn’t seem to be.”
Coach Gou walked in and briefed everyone on what to pay attention to for one last time, then encouraged them, “Look alive, guys! Stay vigilant! Kick ass!”
When it came time for the players to enter the arena, the four Titans members proceeded through the player hallway. Yao Sen slowed down and walked to Zhou Ziyu’s side, patted his somewhat tense shoulders, and said, “Ziyu, do you still remember the friendly we played against Cobra last year?”
Zhou Ziyu hurriedly nodded.
“Good. The feeling of playing against the same team won’t be much different.” Yao Sen smiled and said, “Do your best.”
The first session of the first stage officially commenced; sixteen teams were divided into eight match-ups and would be competing on the same arena at the same time. Today’s match schedule was incredibly tight, and by the time the third-round of the first stage concluded tonight, every team would know who their probable opponents for the following knockout stage would be.
The audience was filled with people who’d come to watch the Titans vs Cobra match, with the vast majority of them being Chinese fans, but many teams who would be playing in the second session were also seated amongst the audience.
The fans of the two teams held banners and flags with each club’s motto high in the air, cheering the side they supported with thundering yells.
The International Alarm Dawn Professional League has always been very formal; before the match, both teams have to line up according to their numbers and shake their opponents’ hands to emphasise the notion of friendship.
The one Zhou Ziyu shook hands with was Shen You. Facing a senior of the esports world, although they were only shaking hands, Zhou Ziyu was incomparably honoured, and he used both hands to sincerely grasp Shen You’s hand.
The giant LED screen was displaying the random map selection for this round of matches. The complexity of each map influenced different teams in different ways. In the end, they drew the relatively simple Map C.
After taking their seats, Yao Sen put on his headphones and, as usual, acquainted his fingers with his mouse and keyboard. They were currently in the one-minute prep period before the match countdown, so he simply instructed, “We’ll be starting with formation D in early game, No. 3 will be our first priority, followed by No. 1. Once we’ve identified No. 3, switch to formation C.”
Throughout the match, different formations responded to different maps and enemy circumstances, and they had drilled these formations countless times in training. Formation D was a defensive formation, whereas formation C was a combination of offence and defence.
Everyone had long developed a tacit understanding with one another, and upon hearing Yao Sen’s plan, they knew that they were going the steady route. Before Bai Yue returned to the team and they could play at full strength, going slow and steady was indeed the wisest course of action.
The match started with a “Round One” ringing out at the end of the countdown. The floor around the arena was lit up with spectacular lights, and the large curved screens facing the audience focused on the eight players.
Unlike the Titans’s strategy, Cobra was almost entirely on the offensive. After all, the Titans were currently at their weakest—any rational team would take advantage of the opportunity to attack.
Cobra’s strength truly couldn’t be taken lightly. In the first round, Cobra launched an intense, indiscriminate attack, and despite the Titans’s decision to raise their guard, they were still at a disadvantage.
Furthermore, Cobra appeared to have purposefully switched up their customary sitting arrangements to keep the Titans guessing who was who—even Yao Sen couldn’t figure out which number belonged to which team member.
Zhou Ziyu was the first to go down, and after Wang Yuxi killed an enemy team member, he himself fell to an ambush while withdrawing. Cobra had seemingly determined Yao Sen’s number, and the remaining three Cobras concentrated their gunfire squarely on him.
The Titans weren’t too lucky this round, as they didn’t acquire many useful items from the airdrops. Yao Sen’s head armour was inadequate, and even with Song Mingzhe covering him, he didn’t have much of a chance to counterattack the firepower of a three-person siege. Even so, Yao Sen managed to kill two people before his blood bar was emptied, with Shen You being the last Cobra player standing.
Shen You and Song Mingzhe’s strengths were on par with each other. However, in the end, Song Mingzhe’s remaining health wasn’t enough to withstand Shen You’s ambush and he regrettably suffered a defeat.
The round came to an end with Cobra’s victory. Half a minute before the second round began, Wang Yuxi said, “Seems like Cobra is hellbent on fighting us head on. Yao Sen, should we change tactics?”
Yao Sen: “No. They probably want to outflank me. Create a few more chances for me to go head to head with them.”
In the second round, Yao Sen grabbed the best weapons and equipment in the team. Zhou Ziyu had a better grasp of the game than he did in the first round, and their teamwork improved significantly. In no time, the Titans slaughtered Cobra’s offensive ring, successfully converted their defence to offence, and emerged with a second-round victory.
Titans and Cobra’s scores were now tied. In the decisive third-round encounter, Cobra turned from offence to defence and steadily waged guerilla warfare and had a snipe-off against the Titans, a style of play that was exceedingly taxing on a player’s concentration. After both teams had lost three players, there were only two players left in the game: Yao Sen and Shen You.
Shen You had preserved himself well in the early game; his blood bar was approximately more than half the amount Yao Sen had, but he was fully aware that he had no chance in a direct combat with Yao Sen, so he decisively sought out an ambush spot.
Yao Sen had long been prepared. He had no intention of letting Shen You follow through with his ambush and planned to force him to his death. Ultimately, Shen You was forced out by several grenades Yao Sen had prepared in advance, met with Yao Sen’s gun, and died, still no match for Yao Sen’s firepower.
As the final victor, the Titans’s logo was lit up on the LED screen after all three rounds were over, and Titans’s score became 1-0.
After the players shook hands and stepped off the arena, Yao Sen took the initiative to approach Shen You, smiling as he said, “See you in the finals.”
Although Cobra had lost in the first round, Yao Sen wished them luck in advancing to the finals. As someone who had a way with words, as long as he wanted to, he could win over anyone.
Shen You smiled with ease. The result of this match fell within his expectations, and he really did have to admit that he wasn’t as strong as others—not only in the match, he had to admit defeat in other areas as well.
Shen You: “See you in the finals.”
After the Titans vs. Cobra match ended, the other matchups were almost over too.
The scores of each team were regularly updated on the main arena’s primary screen. The first session of the first round included several popular teams such as Titans, Cobra, Noah’s Ark, and even Lincoln and Odin. Many second-session teams were gathered beneath the screen at this time, discussing the first session’s matches.
By the end of the first session, the scores of sixteen teams had been officially announced. Needless to say, Odin and Lincoln’s scores were naturally 1-0; Yao Sen even accidentally overheard a passing spectator say that Odin had only spent nineteen minutes on one of their matches.
For the record, the Titans’s fastest match record was twenty-five minutes, and even that was due to their opponents’ late-stage surrender.
Seeing that Noah’s Ark score was also 1-0, Yao Sen immediately heaved a sigh of relief. Right now, all he wanted to do was to find his family’s handsome and talented Xiao Zuo in the arena and give him a thorough kiss.
Yao Sen waited in the player’s hallway until Noah’s Ark appeared, then took a step forward, gently enveloped Shao Han into a hug, and congratulated him. From the looks on Yao Sen’s face, Shao Han was sure that he had also won in the first round, so he smiled faintly and said, “You too.”
The second session began twenty minutes later. Each matchup was separated into their own small arenas, so they could only watch one match at a time. Yao Sen thus asked Shao Han which teams he wanted to see.
Shao Han: “Why don’t you watch whatever you want? I’m fine with anything.”
Shao Han initially assumed that Yao Sen would be watching Titans’s opponents in the qualifiers, the German and South Korean teams, yet unexpectedly, Yao Sen said, “What about NL then?”
Shao Han was a little surprised, but he went along with Yao Sen. Since they still had to pay attention to the German and South Korean teams though, the Titans decided to split up and watch different teams, then regroup and summarise their observations.
NL’s opponent was a team from Brazil, one of the top 20 teams in the previous year’s competition. The Nl players were relatively young among the main teams of professional clubs, so they were probably one of the youngest teams who made it to this year’s second stage.
However, the NL players didn’t appear the least bit nervous.
The first round wasn’t a fast-paced game. The Brazilian team had a stable playing style, while NL’s performance was also standard; it wasn’t too surprising that they lost in the first round.
In the second round, NL’s offence intensified. The Brazilian players made a few mistakes, and NL won a point back.
Neither games were that exciting, but Yao Sen watched with the utmost focus. According to logical analysis, NL winning the second round was largely due to the mistakes made by the Brazilian players, so the probability of them losing in the third round was high.
If no team took the first two rounds straight, the teams would be given a two-minute timeframe to strategise before the third round commenced. Yao Sen was sitting in an area that was specially reserved for competition participants; it was very close to the stage, and he could clearly make out the look on every player’s faces.
Cheng Rui sat in the No. 1 seat. After he and his teammates finished discussing their strategy, he quietly sat there and waited for the third match to start. When he randomly looked up to cast a passing glance at the audience, he incidentally met Yao Sen’s eyes.
A trace of shock flitted past Cheng Rui’s eyes for a second; it appeared that he hadn’t expected Yao Sen to personally watch his match. But that shock vanished shortly afterwards, his gaze regaining it’s calm.
He looked at Yao Sen in silence. The latter gave him a faint smile.
The third round soon began, however, NL’s performance was so far beyond anyone’s expectations that even the match’s commentators couldn’t help but raise their voices in a surprised and excited manner.
NL’s assault was fast and furious, their offence tight and oppressive—especially their team captain, Cheng Rui, who almost single-handedly slaughtered the other team in a siege. The entire opposing team was defeated within half an hour, with two of their own players still standing.
The instant the match ended, NL’s score became 1-0. The audience was silent for several seconds before they erupted in thunderous applause. Yao Sen’s eyes were fixed on the score on the big screen, his brow slightly knitted.
Cheng Rui took off his headphones and unexpectedly gave Yao Sen another look. This time, there was a hint of a smile in his eyes, and he even gave Yao Sen a small, polite nod.
☆ ☆ ☆
For those suspicious of Cheng Rui, the author says that he doesn’t have any ‘other’ intentions towards Sen ge. There are a few special reasons for his behaviour which will be shown later on! (he seems like a good boy to me though hehe)
Also! For those of you who have been following my updates so far: I’d like to apologise because I got the terminologies for the competition completely wrong (I misunderstood the format). Here’s a simple-ish breakdown: qualifiers → 32 teams into the ‘finals’ (the Chinese word used) or actual Swiss-system competition, which is divided into 2 stages: first stage (2 sessions, 16 teams to a session) – no elimination stage, divided into rounds 1-2-3-and so on with each round consisting of a BO3 game → then the second stage – single-elimination/knockout stage.
Thank you to Somebody and VM for the kofis!
Chapter 56 | TOC | Chapter 58
Gooseberry TL 