The Great Thief

The next day, people from the Donghua Cup Committee came and asked Lu Li to commentate. Lu Li glanced at the options and immediately chose the youth training camp of Glory Capital. The battle just happened to be with the new team of the Gangnam Royals.

The Gangnam Royals were indeed an unlikely new team.

Several of their highly capable players had left the team. Some retired, and some transferred, and all of them no longer played with Heart of War.

As a matter of fact, Heart of War was truly an incredible person. Even Lu Li thought he would be fired by the executive committee, but every time, he survived the crisis unscathed. Now, the Gangnam Royals and a few mercenary groups had banded together, and were starting to make a name for themselves.

Lu Li and Water Fairy were partnered again as before. The only difference was that the other analyst was Nine Phoenix.

Nine Phoenix was a very famous beauty in the commentary circle. At the same time, she was a contracted competitor of Open Sky Guild. She was a Mage, and while her fighting abilities were not bad, they were not as highly reputed as her commentary.

“It’s a pleasure to be commentating with these two next to me. I remember it’s been more than a year since the last time I’ve commentated with Water Fairy. She said she liked me too back then. Who would’ve known she’d move on in the blink of an eye!” Nine Phoenix joked to lighten the mood. They could blame Dark Wind for joking too far before, which had resulted in this pair of lovers being constantly on guard.

“I…” Water Fairy was rather puzzled as to when she had ‘cheated’.

“I think Four Seas Dragon would like you better, so please don’t compete with me,” Lu Li said, helping to save his girlfriend from embarrassment.

“Awww look at this PDA. Come to think of it, I’ve slept with Water Fairy before. Have you, Lu Li?”

Women who were married were indeed full of vigour. To think that the once charming flower called Nine Phoenix would now dare to talk about explicit content in public!

“Ahem…” Water Fairy nearly buried her whole face into her chest, while Lu Li was also really embarrassed.

There was more banter that brought the atmosphere to a peak, which was when Nine Phoenix finally let the two of them off the hook.

“Let us turn our eyes to the arena. Both players have obviously been prepared. Those from Glory Capital are all fresh faces. It seems like they’ve been training a lot. Oh no, wait, Blood Dagger is leading the team.”

“Well, he’s not actually that old,” Lu Li said in defense of Blood Dagger.

“As someone nearly 30, he’s one step away from being middle-aged according to the latest trends. Another few years means he can step into senior life. He’s not like you and Water Fairy; you guys are at the peak of your youth! You guys can keep playing for another 8-10 years at the very least,” Nine Phoenix bluntly commentated, praising Lu Li along the way.

“If Blood Dagger is leading the team, the Gangnam Royal will be feeling much more pressure,” Water Fairy continued.

Drizzle Court and Gangnam Royal didn’t share any special bonds, and the same went with Glory Capital. As such, this match for her was just a dog-eat-dog fight – there was no need to take sides.

“According to previous matches, it’s still too hard to predict who will win and lose to this new team of the Gangnam Royals. They are one of the few teams who have been undefeated. One of their defeated opponents was Eternal Kingdom, who was led by Midnight Ghost.”

Lu Li had done some homework beforehand and very skilfully used Eternal Kingdom as a point of comparison.

Eternal Kingdom was also a declining club that had fallen out of the top ten.

Using them as a point of comparison with Glory Capital didn’t require fairness. As long as they were a team led by Midnight Ghost, they could be used as a reference. After all, Midnight Ghost was a master Thief on the same level as Blood Dagger. In their fight records, he had maintained a commendable success rate. At the same time, he was also Eternal Kingdom’s only celebrity competitor.

“The Gangnam Royals’ current quality of competitors is pretty good. I hope they can continue their brilliance,” Nine Phoenix continued.

Competitors of both sides entered the match channel as pictures showed each player lying in game capsules to enter the match. In this preliminary round, the Donghua Cup didn’t want to hassle people to fly here and there, but the general process was basically the same as other competitions.

“Let’s have a look at the what competitors we have in the arena,” Lu Li said.

“How shameless – Blood Dagger actually is the first to come on!”

Nine Phoenix didn’t have a good impression of Glory Capital. It appeared that their team from Open Sky was ousted by Glory Capital in the last professional league.

Women, especially pretty women were generally prideful.

“On the other side is also a Thief. Looks like it will be a mirror match-up between Thieves!” Water Fairy excitedly exclaimed.

“Looks like Blood Dagger is gonna win. He’s against an unknown player,” Nine Phoenix sighed.

Both sides entered into preparation mode. Then, Blood Dagger went ‘whoosh’, dashing forward and knocking his opponent right out.

This Thief of the Gangnam Royals felt a little muddled.

According to the general rules of combat, shouldn’t they have both gone into Stealth together, then circled each other a few times?

“Blood Dagger is very confident,” Lu Li said.

To just rush up to his opponent and refuse to obey the norms was, in other words, looking down on his opponent. Lu Li would be more afraid of players like Wood Fearing and Midnight Ghost, but he could easily control someone like Blood Dagger who rushed towards him. Blood Dagger would be a lot more cautious then.

“His assessment of his opponent seemed to be in no way inconsistent,” Water Fairy said in disappointment.

“This new competitor from the Gangnam Royals is by no means a new face. Three years ago, at the Donghua Cup, he represented Peacetime Dynasty and was an assassin. That game didn’t have Thief as a profession.”

Nine Phoenix wasn’t on the commentary booth for no reason; she had done her research of all the competitors.

“Then why did he stop playing?” Lu Li asked.

“Probably because of a hand injury. No one thought that he would be collected by the Gangnam Royals and reappear in the arena again,” Nine Phoenix answered.

This was probably a gaming circle secrets, so he naturally didn’t know and never paid attention.

In fact, this sounded like the template of a protagonist story.

He was playing a strategy of ‘Return of the King’. He could rise within a short amount of time and be picked out by Heart of War to stand on the stage, but no one knew how the story would end.

Protagonists and their stepping stones were crucial in the match’s outcome.

This ‘Return of the King’ Thief was not without any ability to fight back. Blood Dagger didn’t control him to death either.

“These two next to me are probably experts regarding Thief mirror matchups. Who do you guys think will win?” Nine Phoenix asked.

“I can’t beat him. I’d have a very low success rate, so I don’t have the authority to make any judgement,” Water Fairy answered cleverly.

“Sorry, I’ve given up on gambling,” Lu Li replied sulkily.