Chapter 3 Tulip Defeats Koy, Advancing to the Semifinals

Most of the strong teams kept their trump cards hidden in the group stage, but Koy's trump card was revealed early due to the battle between Mad Blade and Solomon's Key. Although the [Howling Gate] was strong, the time between the group stage and the finals was enough for other teams to think of countermeasures. Tulip was both strong and stable, also possessing a killer move, which they only used in the quarter-finals. Just as Solomon's Key had predicted, they were caught off guard. If Solomon's Key hadn't performed exceptionally in the third match, the result would have been a three-to-zero crushing defeat.

Koy's team stopped at the quarter-finals. This result was far from their goal of winning the championship, which made Solomon's Key extremely angry.

On the other side, the Black Star Mercenary Group arrived at the planet where the supplies were located, ready for escort duties.

...

A fan-shaped, flat, light-golden spaceport floated in the outer space of a Godora colony planet, endlessly orbiting along its path. The alloy hull emitted a misty, magical glow. Ships of various models docked here. The seller was waiting for Han Xiao to come to his door. His name was Teriel, a well-known merchant in the Garvin Star System, who ran a commercial department store group with long-term cooperation with the Longtan Logistics Department. Han Xiao had performed many material escort missions and was familiar with Teriel.

The group arrived at the spaceport dock, and a shout came from the distance.

"Haha, Black Star of Longtan, we meet again."

Teriel was a Godoran, round and stout, with an enthusiastic smile. He strode forward and gave Han Xiao a greasy bear hug, laughing, "I'm troubling you again this time. All the supplies needed by Longtan have been packed. The list is prepared. Do you need to check it?"

He led Han Xiao and the others to the side, where metal boxes were stacked into small mountains. These were all the supplies purchased by Hela.

"We've cooperated so many times. I don't doubt your credibility, but Jenny requested it, so let my people count it." Han Xiao handed the list to Maple Moon and casually threw out a task to check the goods.

"I understand, I understand." Teriel rubbed his hands and laughed heartily.

Material escort was a routine mission, rewarding 150 points of Longtan faction favorability. Han Xiao knew Teriel, and because of his Longtan status, Teriel gave him some discounts, so he often bought things from Teriel privately, trusting the other party's reputation. However, since he was working for Longtan this time, it was better to be careful.

In the interstellar virtual network, logistics was a problem when purchasing supplies. Except for those advanced civilizations that popularized long-distance transmission equipment for civilian use, logistics in the interstellar generally contracted by specialized courier groups, or sellers cooperate with travel groups to airdrop express deliveries along the way. There were many scavengers in the Shattered Star Ring, and some low-level space pirates specialize in robbing logistics ships, so commercial teams usually hire mercenaries as guards... which was similar to escorting goods.

Maple Moon quickly counted everything, and the quantity was correct. Han Xiao nodded and said, "There's no problem. Let's set off now."

"I've already contacted a travel spaceship, docked at Port 5468." Teriel turned to the attendant behind him and said, "Deck, take people to load the supplies into the cargo hold, and then follow Black Star to Longtan to hand over the goods."

The man called Deck nodded and summoned workers to transport the boxes to the port. He was an ordinary supervisor of the Teriel Group, with a very ordinary appearance and was very inconspicuous.

The group stepped onto the gangway of the travel spaceship. Teriel stood on the dock and shouted, "Say hello to Jenny for me."

Han Xiao waved his hand and walked into the spaceship. After the hatch closed, he wrote a security task and handed it to some players, asking Melos to take them to the cargo hold to protect the supplies in shifts. He then took the others to the spaceship's passenger cabin.

A jolt came, and the spaceship rumbled into flight. This was a small travel spaceship with no other passengers, chartered by Teriel. This trip was specially for transporting supplies to Longtan.

There were not many people on board. In addition to more than a dozen crew logistics personnel and mercenary group members, there were also more than a dozen workers from the Teriel Group. Deck was their boss. Han Xiao had seen him a few times before, but they hadn't communicated much. However, he found that Deck had brought a girl on board this time.

"Are you Black Star?"

In the passenger cabin hall, just as everyone sat down, the girl beside Deck spoke, tilting her head and looking at Han Xiao curiously.

Han Xiao glanced at her. This was a cosmic human girl, not very old, probably about fifteen or sixteen years old. She was only up to Han Xiao's chest in height, with short dark brown hair, fair skin, a high nose, and a delicate appearance. Her lively eyes were full of youthful energy.

"Uncle Deck often tells me stories, about your deeds." The girl's gaze wandered over Han Xiao, with a scrutinizing look.

Deck coughed dryly, "This is a friend's daughter. Her family... ahem, asked me to take care of her temporarily. She pestered me to run the ship with me, so I brought her along. Black Star, is this a problem?"

"It's okay." Han Xiao shook his head, looked at the girl, and chuckled, "What's your name?"

"Sylvia."

"A nice name. Which planet is your hometown?"

Sylvia curled her lips, "Are you checking my household registration, old man?"

"Old man…" Han Xiao was speechless. He was clearly young and handsome, was she talking nonsense?

Sylvia glanced at Han Xiao, changed the subject, and snorted, "I heard that you mercenaries have no principles. Whoever pays the most, you fight for them. I really want to know, aren't you ashamed to hold the money you earned by selling your souls?"

Han Xiao raised an eyebrow. Before he could speak, Deck anxiously pulled Sylvia, scolded her, and then quickly apologized to Han Xiao, "She doesn't know any better. Don't take it to heart."

"It's okay, she's just a kid, I understand." Han Xiao waved his hand. Words had basically zero impact on him, so he naturally didn't care, and laughed, "This little girl has quite the guts. Since she knows we're a bunch of thugs, she still dares to scold us to our faces. She has some courage."

"I'm not a little girl!" Sylvia's face was flushed with anger, and she puffed out her chest.

"Hmm... not small indeed, but still needs to be developed." Meatbun looked down, revealing a hehehe smile, then suddenly found Han Xiao turning his head to stare at him without saying a word. He quickly put away his smile, lowered his eyes and sat up straight.

The group fastened their seat belts. The spaceship quickly entered warp mode, and then they could move around freely. Sylvia was lively and active, curiously running around the spaceship, inspecting the structure of the spaceship, exclaiming in surprise. Sometimes she would lie on the porthole and watch the warp streamers outside with amazement.

Deck said with a wry smile, "This is her first time on a spaceship. She's causing you trouble."

"As long as it doesn't affect the mission." Han Xiao looked at the girl's lively back and narrowed his eyes.

Sylvia... this name, seems a bit familiar.

Not wanting to overlook any suspicion, he returned to his room, pondered for more than ten minutes, and finally found an image in his memory that corresponded to this name.

"[Mechanical Valkyrie] Sylvia?"

Han Xiao was stunned. He didn't expect the girl he met by accident to be a famous figure, and Sylvia was quite popular in his previous life, especially among players.

Sylvia was still an undeveloped girl now. Han Xiao recalled what she looked like after she "grew up" in his previous life: long flowing hair, heroic and graceful, wearing slender and light mechanical armor, with a cloak trailing behind her, like a knight.

What was the most important indicator for identifying the charm of a female character? Hentai!

Sylvia had a lot of hentai, and beauty was just one factor—after all, there were too many beautiful female creatures in the Star Sea. The bigger reason was her background, identity, personality, and plot.

Beauty had never been the focus of Han Xiao's attention. He secretly recalled Sylvia's character background. It had been a long time, and he could only remember the general situation for the time being:

"Sylvia's father was hunted down by a mercenary group and died a violent death. She was very young at the time, so she embarked on the road of revenge. She went to some forces, learned a lot of mechanical knowledge, became a space pirate, and hunted down that mercenary group.

In that version of the timeline, due to the Red Empire's re-expansion, various star fields were in danger. The large mercenary organizations in various star clusters in the Shattered Star Ring imitated the mercenaries in the 'Bright Silver Arm' star field and took the lead in establishing the 'Shattered Star Ring Allied Forces', becoming a super-large mercenary joint group with hundreds of thousands or even millions of members and tens of thousands of space warships of various models, enough to participate in large-scale cosmic battles. And Sylvia at that time was the mortal enemy of the Mercenary Allied Forces.

The players participated in the Mercenary Allied Forces event at that time. In their eyes, Sylvia was a well-known opposing villainous Boss. Many players received tasks to hunt down Sylvia, but they all failed. Sylvia was very strong.

After being an enemy of the Mercenary Allied Forces for a period of time, Sylvia often appeared in the players' field of vision. Later, she seemed to have discovered by coincidence that her father was actually a bad guy. He didn't remember the specific details, but anyway, she learned that her father's death was his own fault. Then she disappeared for a period of time. When she reappeared, she changed her profession and was no longer a space pirate. She became a free righteous army in the Shattered Star Ring, helping people in distress, spontaneously fighting some villains, doing many famous deeds, and refusing any form of reward or employment. All her actions were spontaneous, like a superhero... well, commonly known as being whitewashed, turning over a new leaf.

Although Sylvia was not the protagonist of a certain event, she was a famous person like Hela. Many events in the Shattered Star Ring often had her intervention. Players wandering in the wild could occasionally run into her fighting villains and could step forward to help. She was loved by many people in the Shattered Star Ring... These were all things after 3.0."

Han Xiao shook his head. Sylvia's experience of turning over a new leaf and the transformation of her personality from cynical to knightly righteousness contained a lot of hentai entry points, such as... bah, why am I thinking about this.

"I didn't expect to meet a future celebrity..."

Han Xiao stroked his chin.

For some reason, he felt a strange feeling in his heart, as if he had missed some important information.

...

The Longtan Floating Island was currently located in the Ryan Star System of the Colton Star Cluster. There was a small star gate in the middle that could be jumped through, and the journey took about ten days.

Mechanic Han built machines every day and traded with players.

He didn't pay close attention to the league, but only looked at the results. The top four teams were out. Changkong met Demon Realm, ranked first, and lost one to three, stopping at the quarter-finals, which was a bit of a pity. Dynasty defeated Rose Knight three to two and secured a semi-final spot. Japan's Yamata and Australia's Kangaroo Boxing fought fiercely, and finally won three to one, entering the semi-finals. The teams that entered the top four were Tulip, Demon Realm, Dynasty, and Yamata.

The next grouping was crucial. Perhaps the prayers of countless Huaxia audiences worked, and Dynasty's opponent in the semi-finals was the Yamata team. Compared to the steady Tulip and the powerful Demon Realm, Yamata was undoubtedly an easy target, and the chances of defeating them were the greatest. The Huaxia section of the forum was almost a scene of universal celebration.

In terms of the individual competition, Wang Hou Jiang Xiang made it to the top eight, and Mad Blade stopped at the top sixteen, but he was already very satisfied. He was overjoyed to be able to enter the second round of the international league, and the results greatly exceeded his initial expectations. Compared with his ranking in his previous life, he had made too much progress. In his previous life, Mad Blade could only be famous in the regional league, and he wasn't even qualified to enter the international league, but now he had obtained a top sixteen spot in the first international league individual competition. Mad Blade gained the most, and his status among Huaxia players jumped from obscurity to a super rookie.

Ten days later, the spaceship exited warp state, and there was only half a day left to Longtan.

It was dinner time, and he walked out of the mechanical modification room and came to the food room. This was the place where people usually ate, and there were many people eating here, all of whom were eating space portable food. It couldn't be said to be delicious, but it could only be said to have a taste.

Melos waved at him at the bar, so Han Xiao walked over.

"Have a drink?" Melos had a bottle of wine in front of him, and the alcohol made his face red.

"I almost forgot you liked to drink."

Han Xiao sat down, and the bartender handed him a new wine glass. Melos smiled, picked up the wine bottle, and poured Han Xiao a glass.

Shaking his head, he picked up the wine glass, and just as he was about to take a sip, his movements suddenly stopped, and a burst of inexplicable alertness surged in his heart.

Han Xiao frowned slightly and looked at the item description on the panel.

[【Laced Liquor】: Unknown effect]

Bang!

The sound of the impact startled everyone, and they put down their food and looked over in surprise.

Han Xiao grabbed the bartender's collar, pressed the panicked bartender against the bar, expressionless, and said coldly:

"You poisoned me?!"