Chapter 1114 The Most Anticipated Matchup

November 14th, 8:00 AM.

The most anticipated matchup list in the history of Thriller Paradise was finally released.

In the nearly thirty hours before the list appeared, the intelligence analysis departments of the major studios had already calculated all possible matchups over and over again. Except for the [Hell Front] and [Garbage Alliance] teams, the backroom teams of the remaining six teams had already prepared all seven sets of battle strategies, just waiting for the announcement of the news to take out a copy and hand it over to the team members.

And the final match-up situation is as follows...

[Order] vs [Deities], [Warring States] vs [Mountains and Rivers], [Garbage Alliance] vs [Jianghu], [Hell Front] vs [Red Cherry].

Presumably, all the readers who are reading this chapter are quite surprised to see such pairings, and after the surprise, you may have guessed something...

That's right, it's a fix.

As the author, I forcibly put the [Order] and [Deities] teams, which everyone thought would enter the finals together, into one group, creating a "what the hell?"-like reading experience. This... is the power of God.

Okay, this chapter is not a monthly preview after all, please treat the text with a serious attitude...

Putting aside the competition format of the semi-finals, one thing needs to be explained first, that is... Dream Inc. changed the time of the semi-finals.

The official website's statement is: [In order for the majority of viewers to be able to see the live broadcast of each semi-final in the first time, the times of the four games in this round will be staggered].

In other words... the four games will be one after another, and the next game will not start until the previous one is over.

Of course, Dream Inc. has also prepared corresponding measures for the "player online time limit" problem. They will communicate with the heads (usually the captains) of the eight teams within twelve hours to determine and coordinate the players' online time. Then, at zero o'clock on the fifteenth, Dream Inc. will lift the "game time limit" for all members of these eight teams until the player's game ends.

This matter... is actually quite difficult to implement, and the main problem lies in the "negotiation" aspect.

If Shidao had a team entering the top eight, they would definitely make a fuss about it and try to exchange it for some benefits. Unfortunately, their two teams... even the company's CEO... were all dealt with by Brother Jue.

And the six professional teams that successfully entered the top eight, although they didn't completely engage in petty tricks, they didn't do it to the extent of Shidao. Therefore, the communication work went quite smoothly. Basically, before noon on the fourteenth, these six studios had already negotiated with the game company.

The rest were the [Garbage Alliance] and [Hell Front] teams.

Garbage Uncle... seemed to be a very easy-going person. After receiving the online communication from Dream Inc. and listening to the other party's description, he replied almost without thinking: "Whatever you want~ Anything is fine~ Do you want me to give you a good review after the call, dear~"

This self-abandoning attitude made the customer service almost shed tears... uh... or maybe tears of sympathy...

In short, the negotiation work on the [Garbage Alliance] side was the smoothest; but the reaction from [Hell Front] was somewhat unexpected.

Dream Inc. originally thought that Brother Jue would put on that arrogant posture and reply with something like "This master is invincible in the face of any rules." But unexpectedly... after listening to the other party's arrangements, Feng Bujue actually made a request.

His request was... to put the [Hell Front]'s game in the first match.

The customer service manager responsible for communicating with Feng Bujue (they didn't dare to let the grassroots employees communicate with Brother Jue, for fear of being scammed) reacted at first hearing this request – could this also be some kind of competition strategy?

But he was wrong...

Feng Bujue then gave a very legitimate reason: "Our team members are not professional players, and some of them are quite busy with work during the day. If we are arranged in the last two matches, and the previous matches take a particularly long time, it may delay their work. This kind of pressure from real-world time will undoubtedly affect their performance during the competition."

Indeed, [Hell Front] is the only team composed entirely of non-professional players. From a practical point of view, this request is also reasonable.

So, Dream Inc. quickly conveyed Feng Bujue's request and reason to the heads of the other six teams. After they all nodded, they contacted [Red Cherry], which was directly related to the matter; then... a dramatic thing happened: Captain Xu Huaishang actually agreed to the matter without seeking the opinions of the upper management of the studio at all.

Although this move did not have any impact at the time, it... foreshadowed "something" that happened later.

…………

November 15th, zero o'clock.

Peak Hegemony S2 semi-finals, the last round of War of Four Realms, begins!

The first game of the night was [Hell Front], against—[Red Cherry].

[Madness Doesn't Awaken, Level 50]

[Vain Lament, Level 50]

[Rain Fluttering, Level 50]

[Sad Spirit Laughing Bones, Level 50]

[Flower Between Rocks, Level 50]

[Please select the game mode you wish to join.]

[You have selected Peak Hegemony S2 - War of Four Realms, please confirm.]

[Confirmed, please select the observers for this battle.]

[Confirmed, your team has entered the queue and is waiting for your opponent to be ready.]

[Match complete, coordinating neural connections, script generating...]

[Loading begins, please wait.]

"The smoke of war has just settled, and the blood is still thick, the melee starts again without waiting. The stars gather in the four realms, and the heroic feelings soar beyond the nine heavens."

[Loading is complete, welcome to Peak Hegemony S2 - War of Four Realms.]

[This mode provides a script introduction and has a chance to trigger side hidden quests and special worldviews.]

[Script victory reward: Advance to the finals.]

[The script introduction will be played soon, and the game will start immediately after the playback is complete.]

This time, the observer chosen by Feng Bujue was... Gu Xiaoling.

Yes, you read that right. He actually benched the only shooting-type player in the team in the semi-finals.

When the audience saw the lineup of [Hell Front]... they were all stunned. Looking back on Brother Jue's journey to advancement, Gu Xiaoling was the only member who had never been substituted, a truly indispensable main force.

But... it was such a member who became a spectator in this game that determined whether they could advance to the finals...