Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

The first match ended quickly, but this was also standard routine for Odin.

The steps that the fans took to watch the game went like this: Look forward to it for a week, prepare for a day, wait for half an hour, keep their eyelids open wide and remain motionless for 20 seconds, scream/think deeply/praise/fill up the screen with comments for 5 minutes, keep their eyelids open wide and remain motionless for 20 seconds, take half an hour to return, download the game video and replay it slowly n times, chat happily on Odin's forum for a day, count the days off on their fingers and wait for the next game.

This kind of feeling was like sailing on the sea. It would take several days to find treasure on the island, and although it only took a little over ten seconds to open up the treasure every time, it still felt like they'd been rewarded for all the waiting they'd done!

The fans who followed other players who might not be able to obtain the treasure if they weren't careful, or have their boats hit the rocks--watching their beloved idol lose in the competition, then have to go back home crestfallen and start from scratch.

However, the fans who followed Odin had always been able to obtain treasure--this was because he never lost!

Sometimes, this treasure was even huge enough to make people cry!

"Mama, I saw God!"

"I used to be as straight as a laser sword until I came across Odin. Now, I'm as crooked as motherf*cking mosquito repellant incense!"

"Ah, I'm going to die, my heart and lungs are clenching, I really want to strip away that clothing… I'm offering a reward of one million, is there any brave warrior willing to show up?"

"My tongue is already gone from licking, I can't stop at all."

.

On the public screen, the comments swept through like a waterfall and updated continuously for over ten minutes.

Finally, someone felt that this length of time wasn't quite right, "Is it halftime break? Why is it so long?"

"Could it be that something happened again?"

Just as they started to question the situation, sure enough, a host came up onto the stage.

She didn't read out the standard lines but said instead, "Dear friends in the audience, I'm very sorry to say that our contestant Duke has encountered some problems with his physical condition and has been disconnected from our League system. The staff are anxiously attempting to contact contestant Duke's emergency contact person."

She'd just finished saying this when new instructions came again. The host then said, "Alright, we've just received news that contestant Duke's disease has flared up again and he has now been sent to the hospital. His coach has given up the game on his behalf…"

She then announced that contestant Odin had won directly and advanced to the top six, formally obtaining the qualification to enter the National Championships.

At this time, the public screen began to become rowdy.

Some people congratulated Odin on his progress to the top six. Others were dazedly asking about Duke's situation. Others did both at the same time and didn't know what they should say at all.

The ending formalities for this match were completed amid all this confusion and noise.

.

Duke’s fans seemed to wake up from a dream and only reacted after they’d left the game, rushing to Duke’s official home page to keep up with the latest developments for his situation.

Duke posted a micro blog, presumably to reassure his fans and simultaneously report the current situation of his illness, "Perhaps I won't be able to play many more games [bitter smile], the doctor said that the last game was too intense, and told me not to force myself to carry out high-frequency response behaviors."

This &#k2018;high-frequency response behavior’ referred to blade fights and counterattacking in close combat.

There were two instances in the game where Duke hadn’t been able to react in time and his scythe had been kicked a few meters away&#k2013;&#k2013;this was a humiliating event for any melee player.

But, Duke now had a reasonable explanation that was unique to him--he was seriously ill, so there was really no other way.

The fans were instantly so distressed that when they recovered, they started to follow the process that they were very proficient in on the forums: Starting a thread to pray for Duke's well-being, then asking big V accounts to forward this prayer for Duke, explaining Duke's failure to everyone through these prayers, and finally switching to a fighting posture and teaching their opponent a lesson.

.

This time, though, they'd tried to teach the wrong person a lesson.

Tyron never went to see these words of war that were posted on the internet, and the connection he had with the trends of the interstellar people depended on Victor as the link.

As for Victor…

Victor leaned in and whispered a few words into Tyron's ear.

"As you like." Tyron thought for a moment, then reached out to flick his forehead, "You've really learned to be bad."

Victor narrowed his eyes and laughed slyly.

Victor was no longer the young man who could only whine and prepare a lawsuit when he was wronged.

He was now the vice-chairman of an important association in the Third Star Province and had only just stopped having his name mentioned on the official newspaper of the Alliance two days ago. He had a reputation amongst people of all ages in the Alliance, which was equivalent to sticking two tiger skin flags behind his back and evolving from 'Little Vic' to 'Vice-chairman Li'.

At least, for the past year, every thing Victor had done had brought with it its own halo effect.

The company he'd created was now listed as a key training project in the Second Star Province. Many related companies had sprung up like mushrooms, and every single one of them had eagerly sent him messages, hoping that he could help give them advice--Victor only needed to nod his head to have his name listed as those companies' advisors and could earn tens of thousands of dollars a month without doing a thing.

So, Victor nodded his head at this time and had two meals with other people.

The winds of public opinion slowly changed.

.

First, the official leader for the A-League provincial competitions accidentally mentioned the issue of 'disabled/seriously ill player competitions' during an interview for a program and followed it up by saying seriously: These players were not recommended to force themselves to participate in the competition for normal players at any time. The A-League had always been 'fair, impartial, and open' with regards to the competition. 'Fairness' didn't only refer to balancing out the level of difficulty within the game itself, but also applied to the balance between players, etc.

Because of this official statement, a new proposal soon appeared for the rules the A-League revised every year: The official authorities considered granting provincial competition organizers the power to 'kindly dissuade' the 'unsuitable players' and have them withdraw from the competition.

Generally, the rules of the A-League would be formally revised after each provincial competition was held. This year, this proposal had pushed it towards version 1029.4.717.1, a very scary serial number.

Then, more related news came out surrounding the new proposal and started to hold sway amongst the upper echelons of society.

All of these actions were carried out from top to bottom, and it wasn't until the original proposal was published on the official league website on the third day that it was discovered by the netizens.

Suddenly, all the unofficial condemnations from the bottom towards the upper management became ineffective!

--How could they condemn? There was no way to do it! When it came to Duke's participation in the competition despite having a serious illness, it would simply remind the officials to 'kindly dissuade the contestant to withdraw'!

--The person in charge of the provincial competitions had practically said 'this seriously ill player of yours is acting unfairly'. There was no way for them to stand up and refute it without sufficient backing, and at most, they could only protest on the internet for a while. However, it wasn't very effective… a protest wouldn't force the authorities to change the rules.

This was really a move that cut the ground out from beneath their feet. It was just like when everyone rushed over to encircle their enemy--their enemy turned out to have wings! And there was even a holy circle of light supporting him from behind!

Suddenly, everyone was forced to drop their mouths open in shock and look up with unlimited amounts of melancholy.

.

Victor swept down from the sky and directly dismantled the enemy's core tactics using the most powerful means at his disposal. He then initiated his own vicious siege.

All of a sudden, the Odin fans who had low combat effectiveness were given a direction. They were strongly called upon to enact a terrible counterattack against the public opinion attacks from the other side--

"Real Lord Four's tactics!"

That's right. They'd named it 'Real Lord Four's tactics' in tribute to the Seven Kills team's 'Lord Four's tactics'.

The specific tactics were as follows:

Duke's fan's post: "Duke is seriously ill. Odin was overboard when they played."

Odin's fans didn't say a word. Instead, they sent over a killing image of Lord Four's magnificent beauty!

The image was accompanied by the words, "My Four is so beautiful, those who dare to make a move against him are too shameless!"

Duke's fans: "……"

Duke's fans: "Can't you have a little bit of compassion! Duke might not be able to play again next year."

Odin's fans didn't say a word. They lifted an image of Lord Four taking off his mask and held it up high so that it would flutter in the wind!

The accompanying words were, "Make way, I'm going to blind the world with my beauty."

Duke's fans: "……"

Duke's fans: "You guys are too shameless!"

Odin's fans didn't say a word. An image of Lord Four's 'wet body' was plastered on their faces!

The accompanying words were, "If you don't get hard, it means you can't get hard."

Duke's fans: "……" F*ck a dog, couldn't they fight this battle out properly?!

.

In just two short days, the Lord Four's tactics images suddenly became popular and were sent out at a rate of millions of times an hour, occupying places in almost all the hot lists of various media.

The big army of Odin fans went forth with great vigor and didn't say a word. They completely relied on this uniform method of using their own 'emoticons' to pave the way, and at a critical moment, they would hold up Lord Four's glorious beauty up high, like a primitive man with an anti-aircraft cannon--

They danced and ran around everywhere chaotically, lighting fires and blasting guns, and pushed the other side flat.

Extremely flat.

Duke's fans refused to accept this, but when they turned back, they discovered that their own camp was full of traitors.

"… Od, Odin is so beautiful. He looks like a good person."

"… Where's your logic? Has your logic been salted and eaten?!"

Therefore, many people who remained suddenly realized: My god, us interstellar people really have no moral integrity.

.

During this period, many people who originally hadn't been fans, but had learned about Contestant Odin for the first time due to these hot images, inexplicably started to join the face con team in waves, reinforcing and strengthening Odin's fan's power with each wave.

Duke's fans were surrounded and pushed back to the final bunker. Even Duke's own official forum had almost been taken over. Finally, they tried a soft approach and apologized officially. They trembled and issued a call to delete the previous statements that condemned Odin on various media channels.

When this wave of saliva battles was over, the psychosomatic mental disease topic became hot once again.

The cause was still Duke, but the backbone of the reason was an expert doctor who specialized in this disease.

The expert said, "This disease is very rare and affects people's mental strength. However, generally speaking, it doesn't affect one's thinking activities. We usually recommend patients with this disease to work in the virtual world as being in the real world puts a greater burden on their bodies. In addition, we strongly recommend once again for Mister @Duke come to our hospital for the consciousness projection operation. The success rate for this operation is now 99.999%. According to the data provided to us by the Alliance's Red Cross Foundation, Mr. Duke had already received enough donations from netizens to cover all the expenses for his operation three years ago."

After this microblog became popular, some people were so embarrassed that they wanted to first delete their accounts before committing suicide.

Everyone: "……"