Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editors: bear & celtic

The angrier Victor became, the calmer he appeared.

Every person there was young and had aspirations similar to his. Sometimes, questioning them would only prick their pride and make communication more difficult.

Victor put down the proposal, turned on the display screen, and zoomed in on the company's logo. "Who remembers what we created this for?" he asked. "Could it be that our initial purpose wasn't to protect the basic rights and interests of creators? We need to grow bigger and require more money in order to achieve this goal, right? Are we now going to ignore the bigger picture, cut corners, and start selling out our ultimate goal for the sake of money?"

Several people bowed their heads, while a few others were still deep in thought.

Someone said, "Victor, I understand that you want to both grow big and be reputable, and that you want our products to be good and attract large audiences. However, now we need to make a trade-off between the two…"

Victor retorted, "I chose to grow by word-of-mouth. Are you saying that this was the wrong decision?"

By this time, his presence had already overwhelmed everyone else at the table.

Most of them came to the realization that he was the largest shareholder in the company, as well as the most powerful director and president amongst the founders. They chose to stop debating.

Faced with the few who were still deliberating, Victor softened his tone and said, "Of course, I'm not blaming you for wanting to follow a strategy of obtaining more resources. Only, this is contrary to the direction of the company's development. I respect your ideas and won't reject White Thousand Degrees' cooperation proposal immediately, but you will need to come up with an in-depth analysis in order to convince me."

.

When Victor headed out of the meeting room, someone offered to open the door for him.

This was the first time that Victor had exerted pressure during a meeting, using his words to express his firm stance. It made quite a few people realize that Victor was no longer the straight 'A' student who focused on school work and had to twist himself into knots to pull people together into groups. Further, they could no longer be that same group of unregulated, undisciplined, hot-blooded entrepreneurs that relied on brazenness and youth. They had to build rules and have class, and those rules and stratum would only become more solid and difficult to ignore as time went on.

This was a matter of course, an unalterable principle of life.

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When Victor returned to his office, he rang the bell to call for his secretary, then wrote down two names for her. "Check their finances for this month, and make sure to look into any contact they may have had with White Thousand Degrees' team."

The secretary asked, "Should this be done through the company's channels, or through a private investigator?"

Victor replied, "I think that you're very intelligent, so you can decide that on your own."

As soon as the secretary thought of Victor's usual open and upright style, she knew that this was a test of both her ability and character. At the same time, she felt very motivated by his praise, and carefully put away the paper as she left the office.

.

After that, Victor planned to turn on White Thousand Degrees' video and watch it from beginning to end for himself, but it wasn't suitable to do in the office. Instead, he went to the lounge.

And it just so happened that the partner who had been the most set against him in the meeting was having a smoke there.

Victor sat next to him and the two chatted for a while.

That person said, “Ah, I was too impulsive just now. I’m very sorry, Victor.”

Victor: “I can understand.”

In this case, his &#k2018;can understand’ basically meant: I get it for this time, but you better not do it again next time.

The man took a deep drag of his cigarette (in the virtual world, there was no toxic effect). He had known Victor from school for a long time, but this was the first time he had felt pressure from this kind, honest, and gentle student. It made him a little nervous.

Seeing his anxiety, Victor asked, "Do you have another cigarette?"

The other party pulled one out and Victor accepted it, holding it between two fingers as he took a very light puff off the cigarette.

The scene at that moment subverted his past image as an immature student completely, and the image of a new Victor was reassembled. It engraved itself into outsiders' impression of him.

Victor took only one puff before he put the cigarette down. He smiled lightly, then left without another word.

.

Ten minutes later.

Victor rinsed out his mouth twice. In fact, he really hated the taste of cigarette smoke.

He finished watching White Thousand Degrees' video had even logged onto his anonymous alternate account to send out several comments that criticized it for plagiarism.

But he was still extremely angry! Even if the company didn't support him, White Thousand Degrees would still hire a water army to continue the hype and speculation!

Victor's expression was dark, and his heart was also blackening as he thought to himself: This White Thousand Degrees actually dared to disrupt the harmonious environment within our company. In order to prevent something similarly unpleasant from happening, he, as the president, had the responsibility of getting rid of this disharmonious factor! Haha, should he buy a water army to blacken him to death, or should he go through legal channels and sue him, or maybe both?

As he thought, he opened up his mail.

He thought about it for a moment but ultimately decided not to tell Tyron about this matter. Firstly, Tyron had basically no interest in this kind of thing, and secondly, Tyron should be preparing for his next match at this time… Victor shouldn't disturb him just because of a jumping clown.

Victor put away the mail and picked up his coffee. His expression was both desolate and tranquil as he looked out the window. He thought to himself: The weather was cold now. He would make White Thousand Degrees go bankrupt to the point where he couldn't even afford to wear underwear!!!

……

Tyron would soon be playing in the second round of the competition.

In fact, he never did much preparation before the matches. Rather, he thought about matters relating to Victor for a while.

Regardless of whether it was from the lessons he learned watching his parents' family, or the lonely life and career he'd had over so many years, they both made Tyron hesitant and cautious about feelings; he could never be as enthusiastic and warm as Victor.

But he also disliked his own indifference, just like how he hated the part of his character he had inherited from his father.

Tyron decided he was willing to try and accept a different way of life, so he was now going to give it a try.

However!

Yesterday, Victor hadn't done any of his regular fanboy activities. He hadn't sent texts, nor had he sent out any new blog posts. (He was clearly worrying himself over the matter regarding White Thousand Degrees.)

Was this the type of attitude he had left after confessing his feelings?

Victor, it would be very easy for you to lose your male god this way!

.

When Tyron was unhappy, the aura around him became colder.

When he stood there on the stage, the audience all felt: Had the War God's iceberg grown to the next level?! The flowers of that high, icy peak were simply impossible to reach…

This was the second round of matches between the top four. The assassin Odin was fighting against the sorcerer Maple Leaf.

Obviously, the assassin profession inherently restrained mage professions.

Faced with a Lord Four whose gaze was clearly colder than it had ever been, even Maple Leaf's opening statement lost a bit of its confidence.

The commentators also didn't shy away from the topic: "It will be difficult for Maple Leaf to win this round. Sorcerers are generally squishy, with low health. Their biggest advantage lies in the fact that their skills are very flexible. Crowd control, teleportation, and time manipulation make up the core of a sorcerer's repertoire."

"So, the biggest question now is: Can a sorcerer's agility beat an assassin's agility? Even if that's possible, can he be as agile as the War God Odin?"

"If he's unable to make use of his advantages, his weakness lies in the fact that he has less health points. How will Maple Leaf play this round?"

"Opportunities still exist. Maple Leaf's play style is relatively flexible. Whether he goes wild or collapses depends on his state of mind and mood, so let's look forward to his outburst."

The randomized map for the first match: Moon God Forest.

Coincidentally, this was a map that Tyron had once played in for the team competition.

It was a forest map. The trees were tall and dense, and it was very suitable for ambush warfare. There were several varieties of animals in the map. Amongst them, the poisonous snakes would attack on sight while the apes and monkeys were neutral monsters.

As soon as the results came up, quite a few fans recalled that Tyron had once hung upside down in order to kill an enemy here. The thrilling scenes from that time were still vivid in their minds.

The crowd was still buzzing with discussion as the two players entered the arena.

The commentator was currently clutching at his wrist in excitement, "Ah, these are very favorable conditions…"

"Maple Leaf will really be in trouble this time. Based on the skills he has used before, he probably only has one fog skill that can be used to target an assassin, yet this assassin just had to be Lord Four. Lord Four has already performed very unique killings on this map before--even amidst the fog."

.

Maple Leaf's expression was also very solemn. He was the type of sorcerer that relied on quick reactions and skill casting speed during fights. When he fought against assassins, what he needed was the ability to instantly seize the initiative, then cast a control skill before dealing damage; if he was unable to seize the initiative, he would teleport away with a spell…

The sorcerer was precisely this kind of annoying profession.

What made them even more annoying was that they had many spells, a vast array of them, and it was easy for them to target a specific player in every game.

Right now, Maple Leaf had a trump card in his hands, the only trump card carried the possibility of making Lord Four face a crisis.

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When the thirty second countdown ended, the male commentator suddenly yelled out, "Speed explosion? The War God started off with a burst of speed right off the bat!"

"Oh my, this speed! He reached the sorcerer's position within ten seconds! Does he have a bone to pick??"

Tyron clearly had no intention of opening with an ambush today and use the typical assassin's regular gameplay against his squishy mage opponent!

Instead, he rushed out right as the countdown ended.

Others still needed to more or less slow down a little when they rushed through the forest, but it wasn't necessary for him; his familiarity level with the forest was at the same level as the wood elves (the elf subspecies that was closest to nature) who travelled faster through the trees than they did over flat ground!

The camera director had sweat all over his forehead from switching the lens around in order to keep the view from being blocked by the trees, but Tyron's speed didn't decrease at all from start to finish. It almost seemed to become faster.

.

As he approached the sorcerer, it became evident that the sorcerer had already set down a formation nearby.

After all, everyone knew that assassins had the advantage of using stealth to ambush at the start, so they would prepare at least two life-saving skills. One would detect others who were in stealth mode, while the other provided a quick escape from close combat.

Therefore, the sorcerer Maple Leaf had constantly kept up his 'mystery eye', which was capable of detecting invisibility. Three eyeballs were constantly flying about in mid-air.

He was really fighting a war on thin ice. After all, he was facing a god-level assassin!

So, when Maple Leaf saw the hooded figure coming straight-on from in front of him without dodging or hiding at all, his brain instantly went blank! It was a state that was commonly referred to as petrified!

--Lord Four! War God! Why can't you follow the common routine!

did anyone else catch that our War God Lord Four actually had a moment of insecurity?!