Chapter 10 What’s the Matter?

"What's going on? Are you planning to lose to Happy with a score of 0 to 10?" From the Void team's player seating area, looking at the glaring 3 to 0 score for Happy on the scoreboard, Void's team captain, Li Xuan, known as the Number One Phantom Demon, finally couldn't sit still any longer.

Born in the Golden Generation, he revealed his potential in his debut season and garnered attention. In his second season, he had an excellent partner and helper. But in six years, what had they achieved?

Even a mere individual award like the Best Combination was something he couldn't compete for against Su Mucheng, who was also from the Golden Generation. He had to wait until Ye Xiu retired and left before he could pick up the award like a lucky find.

The teamwork between the Double Demons was truly not inferior to the teamwork between Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng. However, the value of the Best Combination was not limited to the combination itself, but depended on how much the combination could bring to the team's operation.

Void was a regular in the playoffs. What about the former Excellent Era? After losing to Tyranny in the Season 4 finals, they never made it to the finals again. In a way, Excellent Era and Void didn't seem to have a big gap in team performance. However, during the years Ye Xiu and Su Mucheng were in Excellent Era, the Best Combination award was almost undoubtedly given to them. The Double Demons, who were known as the greatest competitors, had never actually created a threat to each other in the competition.

The reason was simple: in the direct confrontation with Excellent Era's spear and cannon, the Double Demons formation of Void was at an absolute disadvantage.

Which combination was better seemed particularly clear.

He had never won a championship, never even made it to the finals, and had been suppressed for so long even for an individual award like the Best Combination. It was impossible for Li Xuan not to have fire in his heart. What Number One Phantom Demon? It sounded cool, but what did Li Xuan think? It wasn't even one of the 24 classes. One of the 24 classes was called Ghost Swordsman, and he was just the number one in the Phantom Demon branch of Ghost Swordsman.

There were only over 200 professional players in the Alliance. Roughly averaging it out, there were only 10 players per class. The Ghost Swordsman class had three branches: Phantom Demon, Slash Demon, and a hybrid of both. Averaging it out again, there were only 3 Phantom Demons. Thus, Li Xuan was the number one of those 3.

The number one of 3 people? Was that impressive?

Li Xuan could only shake his head and smile wryly. Of course, the title of Number One Phantom Demon could be applied to the entire Glory circle, dominating among the millions of Phantom Demon players. However, Li Xuan had no interest in comparing himself with people outside the professional circle to find a sense of superiority.

Number One was Number One.

Back then, no one ever said that Ye Qiu was the Number One Battle Mage.

Li Xuan also wanted to be a pure Number One, but after so many years, he was still the Number One Phantom Demon, and hadn't even taken the title of Number One Ghost Swordsman. And the one suppressing him for this title was his own teammate, Wu Yuce, who had been his best friend and best partner since Season 5.

What was all this?

Li Xuan sometimes mocked himself like this.

However, even as the best friends and best partners, Li Xuan and Wu Yuce inevitably thought about who was the most superior Ghost Swordsman player.

To be honest, he couldn't give a clear answer. The external dispute over this issue had lasted for so many years, and everyone still had their own reasons. Within Void, everyone was very careful to avoid this issue. If reporters poked at them and asked, both of them would praise each other as being more outstanding, but wouldn't overly suppress themselves in their words. Thus, everyone could hear that these were just polite comments. The two of them had never given an accurate answer as to who was stronger.

However, judging from the team's position and the rankings in the All-Star voting, Li Xuan was still ahead. But some people thought that this was only because Li Xuan had become a professional player a year earlier than Wu Yuce, so he had taken the lead.

Who was stronger? Who was the Number One Ghost Swordsman?

Li Xuan used to be sensitive to this issue. He didn't say it out loud, but he was secretly pleased with his lead.

But now, after so many years, he had gotten used to it, become numb, and lost interest in the issue.

What he wanted was the real Number One, the Number One in the professional Alliance, not some Number One Phantom Demon or Number One Ghost Swordsman.

However, this wish seemed much more difficult than those other Number Ones.

In the blink of an eye, it was already the tenth season of the professional Alliance.

Last season, a new player, Gai Caijie, had risen in the team. People said that there was finally a reliable helper between the Double Demons, and they would have great prospects in the future.

Li Xuan also had such expectations as he welcomed the tenth season.

However, so far, he hadn't seen any signs of the team's strong rise. Void was still fighting desperately with several second-tier strong teams for a playoff spot, and now, Happy, this new team, had become their direct competitor and was leading them 3 to 0 in a face-to-face contest...

"What exactly is our goal?" Li Xuan asked his teammates.

Void hadn't announced it to the outside world, but within the team, they felt that with a complete lineup and the powerful newcomer Gai Caijie, who was mature beyond his years, they should try to challenge for the championship this season. But playing like this, losing to Samsara, losing to Howling Heights, losing to Thunderclap, and even losing to Misty Fantasy, what kind of championship rhythm was this?

Even losing to Misty Fantasy? And at home!

The seventh round of the competition had given Void a resounding slap in the face.

So what about now?

"Are you planning to lose 0 to 10 to Happy?" Li Xuan repeated the question again.

"No..." The teammates, of course, could only answer like this.

"If not, then perk up!" Li Xuan said.

"Yes..." Everyone responded.

"Zhao Lan, you go!" Li Xuan nodded towards a certain player.

"Okay." Ge Zhao Lan nodded and took his orders to go on stage.

Void's Launcher, character name All Transparent, sounded like it had some connection with Yang Hao Xuan's Spitfire, Semi Transparent. Indeed, these two characters were brought into the team by the seniors when Void was first established, and had remained until now. However, both characters were now supporting characters in the team, largely because Void hadn't produced any talented or gifted players in these two classes.

Back then, when Zhang Jiale of Hundred Blossoms retired, Hundred Blossoms was at a loss and couldn't find a replacement, so they could only hastily promote from within the team. In a sense, this was a negation of the current Launcher players. It wasn't that they were bad, but that they weren't advantageous enough.

Ge Zhao Lan was unfortunately one of the Launcher players who was denied at the time. Fortunately, he was a person without much ambition and had a clear understanding of his position. This matter didn't affect him in the slightest, and he continued to serve Void wholeheartedly. And now, Void was at a time when they needed him to contribute.

Losing 0 to 3 in the individual competition, Ge Zhao Lan and his Launcher All Transparent would take the lead for Void in the team competition.

What about Happy? Happy's first player to appear in the team competition was Fang Rui, and his Qi Master Boundless Sea.

Happy's formation was now basically understood by their opponents. In the individual matches, Ye Xiu, Su Mucheng, Fang Rui, and Tang Rou were the only ones who had played in every match so far.

There was no dispute about the three All-Star players playing. Even if Fang Rui's strength had been affected by the class change, it was precisely because it was a class change that he needed a lot of matches to speed up the progress. As for Tang Rou, although her reputation was terrible, her combat power on the field was objectively something no one dared to underestimate. It was just that the promise incident had created an intangible, perverted, high requirement for her. As long as she didn't defeat three opponents by herself, she was a weak chicken in people's eyes. Defeating one and a half, or two, which was normally a very good performance, would only elicit laughter when it happened to Tang Rou: Look, that one who claimed to defeat three, couldn't even defeat two and a half. How weak...

In this round's individual matches, Ye Xiu, Steamed Bun, and Wei Chen played, so it seemed obvious who would be in this round's team competition. Now, Fang Rui was the first to appear.

The map chosen for the team competition was relatively open, which seemed to cater to Su Mucheng's need for an open field of vision and Tang Rou's favorite simple and direct brute force style. But this map didn't seem to express the complex terrain needed for Fang Rui to perform his despicable style very well.

This was also the difficulty of selecting a map for the team competition, and it was also a place where the deployment of troops needed to be considered.

As the "sacrificed" for Happy's map selection, Fang Rui operated Boundless Sea to kill towards the center of the map after entering the match. It seemed that he didn't plan to force a despicable style on this relatively simple map.

The two characters quickly met in the center of the map. For a Launcher, there weren't many demanding requirements for the map. Ge Zhao Lan, this "denied" player, didn't have a particularly distinct style, either. Everything was ordinary. Seeing the map like this, he simply operated his character to kill towards the center. Seeing Fang Rui's Boundless Sea, he calculated the distance. When he reached the distance where the Launcher could attack, All Transparent raised his gun without hesitation.

The gun fired. Boundless Sea squatted down and scurried up, rolling and crawling. This kind of movement method that thieves most often used appeared once again on Boundless Sea, the Qi Master.

The audience immediately applauded. This Qi Master playstyle that Fang Rui had created had attracted attention and was somewhat popular in the online game circle.

For ordinary players, there weren't many high-end qualities. Anyway, it was just a similar imitation. But in the professional circle, seeing Fang Rui's current playstyle, the Qi Master players shook their heads repeatedly. It wasn't that they had already denied Fang Rui's playstyle, but this playstyle was different from their usual habits. Only Fang Rui was skilled at this kind of rolling and crawling movement and combat. If they were to do it, they would all feel unfamiliar.

Moreover, this playstyle wasn't just about pulling open this kind of stance. After some so-called experts analyzed it in depth, they believed that this playstyle was also related to the qualities that Fang Rui himself possessed.