Chapter 127 The First Shot

The players from both teams had already stepped onto the stage.

The team competition was the main event, and the outcome of this match would completely determine the fate of both teams. Life was heaven, death was a year of hell. And for Team Excellent Era, it would be a deeper hell. To wallow in the Challenger League for two consecutive years? Even Excellent Era themselves would be embarrassed to call themselves a powerhouse. Sun Xiang, Xiao Shiqin, these All-Star level top players, sacrificed a year of their time, betting on Excellent Era's future. But when the future was yet another year in the Challenger League, it was hard to say if they would have another year of patience.

They had to win!

They didn't need Tao Xuan to remind them of this belief, they surely already had it. The future was what they believed in, but it was also something they needed to grasp and create with their own hands.

And what about Team Happy? Having been fully established for only a year, for outsiders, every step they took seemed like their limit, and now, they had reached the final step of the Challenger League, which was already very surprising. Defeating Excellent Era? This was inconceivable in many people's eyes, even for those who hoped it would happen, they couldn't help but think so.

The disparity in strength was quite large.

Many people were clear about this, even Happy.

But the reason why the competition was interesting was because until the end of the match, no one dared to say for sure who would win and who would lose. If paper strength could determine the outcome, then what was the point of playing?

Victory was always earned with real swords and guns, not by comparison.

The twelve players from both teams had already entered their respective competition booths. The team competition map was gradually being projected onto the stage, and the electronic screen displayed the loading progress of the twelve characters, scrolling through each character's information.

Wu Chen had never played in the offline competition, so his character's exposure was naturally extremely low. Now, suddenly appearing in the starting lineup, the audience was filled with curiosity about his character. They eagerly waited to see Wu Chen's character, Xiaoqiang, but everyone was greatly disappointed.

Xiaoqiang was originally a very important character in Team Unrivaled, but after Team Unrivaled disbanded and had a fire sale, the more valuable equipment on his body had already been sold off. And in the process of strengthening their characters' equipment, Happy hadn't reinforced the Launcher class with any silver equipment, only some Level 75 orange equipment for him to choose from.

In the end, Wu Chen managed to gather a full set of Level 75 orange equipment for Xiaoqiang, which would seem incredibly powerful in the online game, but in the professional arena, especially in front of a powerhouse team like Excellent Era, a character with a full set of orange equipment, whose stats were obvious, was simply not enough. Judging by this character alone, Wu Chen didn't seem like Happy's secret weapon to deal with Team Excellent Era.

As all the characters from both teams finished loading, the final starting lineups were displayed on the stage.

Team Excellent Era, with Wang Ze as the sixth player, and the other five starting.

Team Happy, with Baozi as the sixth player, and the other five starting.

It was actually the starting lineup?

The audience discussed animatedly again. After seeing Wu Chen's character, everyone was more willing to believe that his appearance was just Happy's desperate move, so when they saw that he was actually in the starting lineup, it was another small surprise.

At this moment, as the system's countdown ended, the team competition officially began.

The map was Maple Forest Path.

As the designated map for the most important match of the Challenger League offline competition, Maple Forest Path was still a very comprehensive map, but this time the battlefield was finally moved from the town to the wilderness. The long ancient path crossed the two corners of the map, and both sides of the ancient path were full of maple trees, the bright red maple leaves rustling in the wind, which was naturally the origin of the map's name. But a map couldn't just be composed of an ancient path. Behind the maple trees on both sides of the ancient path, there were hillsides, rivers, mud pits, and rocky areas. Whether it was appropriate to include all these different geographical features in one area was not something that was considered in competition maps. Competition maps emphasized making the battlefield more diverse, especially designated maps like this, which must not favor any particular style, as this would make the team that happened to be adapted to this style feel like they had a home-field advantage.

The match began.

The characters on both sides were refreshed at the two ends of the ancient path. These refresh points were the default sixth player replacement areas. In addition, there were four more replacement areas on this map, evenly distributed on both sides of the ancient path.

Team Excellent Era, the five characters began to advance as soon as they entered the map, skillfully forming a formation and moving, showing that they were well-trained in this map.

Qiu Fei's Battle Mage, Combat Form, led the way, with Xiao Shiqin's Mechanic, Life Extinguisher, wandering around him, the distance not fixed. Zhang Jiaxing's Cleric, Weaving Shadow, followed behind under the cover of these two characters. Weaving Shadow was also a well-known Cleric character in the Alliance. The powerhouse Excellent Era would not have any weak players.

Shen Jian, who had performed poorly in the individual competition, didn't dare to make any more mistakes at this time. His Striker character followed closely to Weaving Shadow's left, seemingly protecting him.

After these, was Excellent Era's truly trump card character, One Autumn Leaf. Seeming like a great general suppressing the formation at the end of the team.

Seemingly a disorganized formation, but everyone was clearly distributed, advancing along the ancient path, Excellent Era maintained this formation, with Xiao Shiqin's character appearing to be the more flexible and free one.

On the other hand, Happy didn't show the same complete and tacit discipline as Excellent Era after the match started. However, their actions were still unified. All the characters turned left and walked, obviously not intending to have a direct collision with Excellent Era.

"What kind of performance will both sides have?" Commentator Pan Lin couldn't wait any longer and said this sentence for the fourth time, from before the match to when the match officially started.

"Happy has adopted a tactical maneuver, which shouldn't be surprising. There is a clear difference in strength between the two sides, they must use tactics flexibly in order to have a chance to win this match," said Li Yibo.

"However, there is also a tactical master in Excellent Era's formation, and he seems to be in excellent condition today. Will Happy's tactics be effective?" asked Pan Lin.

"Let's look at Happy's arrangements first!" said Li Yibo.

Team Happy's five characters bypassed the left side of the ancient path, with a very clear sense of direction, obviously a tactical move made after studying the map. However, Team Excellent Era's footsteps stopped at this time. Those who had studied the map were very clear about where they would appear in the field of vision if they didn't adopt a tactical maneuver and directly collided. At this time, Excellent Era's position had no targets in sight, so it was very clear that Happy wouldn't fight them head-on.

This was not surprising to Excellent Era. The team immediately changed direction and drilled into the side of the ancient path. Commentator Pan Lin was immediately very excited because Excellent Era chose the same direction as Happy, and the two sides would have the opportunity to meet in the northwestern area of the map.

The director also quickly switched to the terrain of this area, giving various specifics, the battle hadn't started yet, so everyone could familiarize themselves with the terrain first.

The audience was even more nervous at this time. On the zoomed-out holographic projection, the characters on both sides were tiny little people, each running towards their own target. Team Excellent Era's five characters still maintained their formation, while Happy's five people still looked so scattered. As the distance between the two sides decreased, the zoom of the holographic projection became larger and larger, and the scene and characters became more and more real and clear.

Soon!

Just as everyone thought so in their hearts, they heard a loud bang. On Happy's side, Wu Chen, the most unexpected player to appear, fired the first shot of the match.

Xiaoqiang fired a shot, but it looked aimless. The randomly fired cannonball exploded on the ground. This shot looked like a misfire due to a mistake in operation.

But Team Excellent Era made obvious adjustments. The distance between the two sides had reached the point where they could hear the sound of the cannon.

"The direction is very clear!" Pan Lin shouted, watching Team Excellent Era's adjustments. Just by hearing the sound, Team Excellent Era made clear movements towards where Team Happy was.

"Is Happy preparing to ambush?" Li Yibo looked at Happy's actions, but didn't dare to come to a conclusion lightly. The power of an ambush in a five-on-five match wasn't as great as imagined. Its main role was to seize the initiative with a surprise attack. But in a duel where the strength was very different, just the initiative in one attack wasn't enough for them to win the match. Excellent Era was fully capable of taking a reactive approach and seizing back the initiative.

"It doesn't seem to be..." said Pan Lin.

Happy's characters didn't scatter to choose hidden positions, but immediately retreated. In the end, Excellent Era pounced on empty air, but from the sound they could tell that Happy had appeared here before. When they approached this area, they began to guard against Happy's ambush. The cautious movements looked a bit ridiculous in the eyes of the audience. Excellent Era's fans only hated that they couldn't remind their own players that the opponent had already moved.

Excellent Era quickly made the judgment that their opponents had moved. The team's formation also changed at this time, becoming more spread out, undoubtedly to increase the observation and search area. As a result, another cannon shot rang out, and Wu Chen's Xiaoqiang fired another inexplicable shot.

Excellent Era came again after hearing the sound, but Happy's second transfer caused them to pounce on empty air. Excellent Era shrunk their formation again, and their cautious appearance made the audience look at each other in dismay.

If they were just hoping to repeatedly wear down Excellent Era's spirit, then Happy's so-called tactics were too naive. Such harassment, as long as they ignored it, what damage could it do?

As a result, Wu Chen's Xiaoqiang stubbornly fired a third shot, and Team Excellent Era seemed to still have patience and chased after them again. And Team Happy finally had a bit of change this time. The team split into two, and Wu Chen's Xiaoqiang actually broke away from the team and began to fly solo.