Chapter 37 The Dust Settles

The Challenger League finals ended on Friday night. The following Saturday night was the 37th round of the Glory Professional Alliance's ninth season, the second-to-last round of the regular season. The results for some teams were already set at this point, with no possibility of change. However, there were also individual teams still fighting tooth and nail for a playoff spot or to remain in the Alliance.

As a result, on this crucial match day, discussions and reports about the final results of the Challenger League dominated the news.

Team Happy had truly created a miracle.

The entire Glory circle was enthusiastically discussing this.

Then, on Sunday, Ye Xiu's pitiful situation after his retirement was exposed by the media, triggering a wave of attention and discussion. People in every corner of the Glory world were gossiping about it. The media this time unanimously sided with Ye Xiu, righteously attacking Excellent Era and demanding an explanation. Among the vast player base, Excellent Era was even more despised.

The professional circle itself also paid close attention to this matter. Many media outlets interviewed several professional players via phone, QQ, and other means, asking them to share their views on the matter.

"This is a disgrace," said Han Wenqing, captain of Tyranny, who had already secured first place in the regular season with one round to go, angrily.

"Given Ye Xiu's status in the Glory circle, it's disheartening for all professional players to see him fall to such a state at Excellent Era," said Yu Wenzhou, captain of Blue Rain.

"Undoubtedly, Ye Xiu has been treated unfairly," said Wang Jiexi, captain of Tiny Herb.

"Shouldn't be," said Zhou Zekai of Samsara.

The professional players who were interviewed from various teams seemed to have agreed beforehand, unanimously and severely condemning Excellent Era.

Excellent Era was facing an unprecedented crisis of trust!

As the most authoritative source in the industry, Esports Home spared no space in its Monday edition of the Esports Weekly to report this as major news. On the other hand, the important matches of the recently concluded 37th round of the professional league were just casually announced in the corner of the front page. The detailed content of the matches could only be found several pages later. Occupying prominent space were all the reports related to the Challenger League, Ye Xiu, and Excellent Era.

Esports Home's report was by no means alarmist. Excellent Era, which had hastily announced a news blackout and hid, was now seen as a guilty turtle in the eyes of the public. From the media to the players, all sides were constantly putting pressure on them. But this time, Excellent Era was unusually stubborn, making no effort at crisis management. The gates of the Excellent Era club remained tightly closed. Players gathered outside the club couldn't catch any Excellent Era personnel, and no one knew what Excellent Era was planning.

Excellent Era's passivity made many people sense something unusual.

The commotion continued for two more days. On Wednesday night, a message spread on the internet claiming that someone had seen the high-level executives of Excellent Era and Samsara meeting in S City.

What was Excellent Era up to?

This unverified message quickly sparked people's imaginations. At this moment, contact between Excellent Era and other teams seemed very delicate. Was Excellent Era preparing to give up on itself and have a fire sale?

The news spread quickly, and reporters immediately sought confirmation from the Samsara club. Samsara was surprisingly candid, readily admitting that they had indeed been in contact with Excellent Era, but they didn't reveal any substantive content.

Until the Friday edition of Esports Weekly was published on June 6th, Excellent Era still hadn't lifted its news blackout and completely ignored the various calls and demands from fans.

June 7th was the last day of the regular season. As it turned out, on this very day, Excellent Era lifted its news blackout and released its first message, a bombshell: the Excellent Era club was up for sale.

Excellent Era's owner, Tao Xuan, declared through his spokesperson that after running Excellent Era through thick and thin for so many years, he felt physically and mentally exhausted and thought it was time for a change of lifestyle. Therefore, he decided to sell the Excellent Era club, hoping that the successor could lead Excellent Era to new heights, while he himself would forever be Excellent Era's number one fan.

The words sounded high-sounding, but anyone with discerning eyes knew what was going on. Excellent Era couldn't survive this crisis and didn't plan to. The owner, Tao Xuan, was preparing to abandon Excellent Era and run away on his own.

But was Excellent Era so easy to sell now?

Excellent Era, which hadn't conducted any crisis public relations, was being dug up more and more. Nowadays, Excellent Era's reputation had been swept into the dirt, and the glory of the past dynasty couldn't save them. They were labeled as despicable and didn't even have the qualifications for the professional league. But apart from these things, in terms of hardware facilities alone, Excellent Era was still top-notch in the Glory circle, which made the sale of Excellent Era even more complicated.

To put it simply, Excellent Era's hardware was still gorgeous, but the software was already a mess.

And the software was what truly represented the value of the name "Excellent Era." Now that the software had been damaged, no one would have any demand for it. And the hardware settings could be acquired by those who needed them. The confirmed contact between Excellent Era and Samsara precisely illustrated this point. No matter what, the Samsara team couldn't buy an Excellent Era back. What were they interested in about Excellent Era? Players? Characters?

Realizing this possibility, Excellent Era's fans felt uneasy.

This wasn't a sale. This was clearly a fire sale after the team disbanded! After such treatment, could the name Excellent Era ultimately survive?

This was something that Excellent Era fans could not accept no matter what. Whether Excellent Era was good or bad, it carried countless of their hopes, and that would never change. The occurrence of such a thing made them feel uneasy, after all, no one wanted the team they supported to be like this. Some people left because of this, but some people stayed, hoping to see the team stand up again, they could always be by their side.

But now, Excellent Era was facing disbandment, and the name Excellent Era might disappear. Was the team they had poured years of effort into supporting, the team they cheered for, going to cease to exist like this?

No!!

Not long after the news was released, a large crowd gathered outside the Excellent Era club, and they were even more fanatical than those fans who were demanding an explanation from the club. Time was tight, and they didn't have time to prepare too much. They could only use shouts to express their feelings at this moment.

They didn't want the club to be sold, no matter what, they hoped to be able to walk together with the team.