Chapter 16 Demon Schedule

Although Samsara's performance remained strong, after this round, their ranking on the leaderboard actually dropped two places. Originally, Team Tiny Herb, only 1 point behind Samsara, defeated the new team, Magical Miracles, 9-1 in this round, surpassing Samsara by 1 point. Team Howling, 2 points behind Samsara, even swept Misty Wind 10-0, also surpassing Samsara by 1 point. Due to alphabetical advantage, they now occupy the top spot on the leaderboard. Team Tiny Herb has the same 36 points, ranking second. Third place is Team Samsara with 35 points.

Blue Rain lost 3-7 to Samsara away, widening the gap with the top three, currently sitting in fourth place with 30 points. Team Misty Rain also has 30 points, but due to alphabetical disadvantage, they are in fifth place.

Team Tyranny, ranked sixth, is already quite far from the top of the leaderboard, with a full 10-point difference. Their 7-3 victory over Happy in this round wasn't too bad, but the fact that they lost all three individual matches was still seized upon by reporters looking for a story.

There are two other teams with 26 points along with Tyranny: Thunderclap and Void. Thunderclap challenged Team 301 away in this round, and the two teams ultimately tied 5-5.

This is clearly a situation where one side won all the individual matches, and the other side took 5 points in the team competition. This result is relatively rare. The individual competition is divided into three individual matches and a three-on-three stage battle, with 5 relatively scattered points. Usually, you can get at least 1 or 2 points after playing all the matches. After all, the individual competition doesn't have teammates helping each other like the team competition. Here, the strength of the teams is scattered, and if the match-ups are unfortunate, leading to a Tian Ji horse racing situation (matching strong against weak), or if there is a major mistake, it could determine the final result of the match. Therefore, even when a powerhouse faces a weak team, they can't guarantee taking all 10 points. A mistake here, an accident there, and 1 or 2 points could be won by the other side. So, taking all 5 points in the individual competition can be said to be more difficult than taking 5 points in the team competition, as the team competition is a single match to determine the outcome.

And in this match between the two teams, 301 took all five points in the individual competition. Next, as long as they won the team competition, it would be a complete 10-0 victory. As a result, holding home court advantage in the team competition, they were still defeated by Thunderclap...

Not getting a single point in the individual competition, the players' mental state is inevitably affected when entering the team competition in this situation. This victory for Thunderclap, however, was unusually decisive. Since the first three rounds of matches, there has been discussion about Thunderclap's changes. Some people felt that they had indeed changed, while others felt that it was just the old Thunderclap returning. But after this team competition, the famous commentator Cha Xiaxia wrote an article stating that Thunderclap had indeed changed, even compared to the Thunderclap that once had Xiao Shiqin in charge.

The current Thunderclap has become more confident and more determined.

This change was brought back by Xiao Shiqin. After a very unsuccessful year at Excellent Era, Xiao Shiqin found what he truly needed. He brought this back and changed the overall look of Team Thunderclap. This season, I'm optimistic about Thunderclap.

Cha Xiaxia wrote in his post-round commentary, and as a self-proclaimed Happy fanboy, he would of course not miss commenting on the match between Happy and Tyranny.

Regarding Tang Rou's one-versus-three vow, the brainless fan Cha Xiaxia has a firm stance. He hopes that Tang Rou can win, but still has some concerns about the one-versus-three. He's worried about Tang Rou not being able to do it, but on the other hand, he's also worried that Happy will disrupt the rhythm of the team's lineup in order to facilitate Tang Rou's one-versus-three. Happy's lineup in this round's individual competition is indeed quite different from the previous one.

In comparison, Ruan Cheng, the Esports Times reporter who targeted Tang Rou the most, only commented with a faint "as expected" after this round where Tang Rou aimed for one-versus-three but was defeated by her first opponent. It seems that Ruan Cheng didn't become radiant with a little bit of sunshine, and even had a bit of an attitude of not being very interested in the matter. However, those who really understand Ruan Cheng know that this is just because the timing is not fully ripe. Five rounds to complete a one-versus-three, and only one round has just passed.

"If it's not completed in four rounds, and Ruan Cheng doesn't appear at the post-match press conference between Tiny Herb and Happy in the eighth round, then there are only two possibilities. One, Tang Rou completed a one-versus-three in this match; two, Ruan Cheng encountered an irresistible natural or man-made disaster." Someone familiar with Ruan Cheng commented on this matter privately. It's as if this is not a Glory match, but a confrontation between a player and a reporter.

Taking 7 points in the match against Happy, Team Tyranny, now with 26 points, didn't perform too badly. However, Team Void, also with 26 points after this round, but ranked behind Tyranny due to alphabetical order, didn't perform too well in this round. Although they were playing away, their opponent, Team Zenith, was not a strong team. The final score of 6-4 couldn't satisfy Void's supporters.

The same is true for Team Hundred Blossoms. After being crushed by Happy at home, they sat at home in the third round, but were defeated by Team 301 with a score of 7-3. Team Hundred Blossoms seemed to have been stunned. In this round, they challenged Team Seaside away, and the final result was only 6-4. It should be known that Team Seaside can be described as the worst performer in the first three rounds. Except for getting 2 points from Team Misty Rain in the first round, they were swept in the second and third rounds. With extremely low morale, they encountered Team Hundred Blossoms, who were also in poor condition, in the fourth round, and they were evenly matched, getting 4 points. Clearly Hundred Blossoms won and Seaside lost, but because of their respective levels and positioning, the result was that Hundred Blossoms was dissatisfied, while Seaside seemed to have found a glimmer of dawn.

Hundred Blossoms won by a small margin of 6 points, and is now ranked 11th on the leaderboard with 18 points. In front of them, in tenth place, is Team 301, who tied with Thunderclap, with 19 points. Ninth place, however, is Team He Wu, who put on a beautiful 8-2 show in the fourth round against Team Zhao Hua, who were at the same level, and now has 20 points.

Team Wind Howl, ranked 12th, also suffered a big loss in this round, challenging away. They fell into the hands of Team义斩 (Yi Zhan), who beat them 7-3. Wind Howl thus slipped two places on the leaderboard, while 义斩 (Yi Zhan) used these 7 points to finally escape the relegation zone, reaching 16th place.

Following 12th place, in 13th place, is Happy with 15 points after four rounds. After the big win over Hundred Blossoms in the second round, they haven't won a game since. Not to mention the distance from the top of the leaderboard, but the distance from the last eighth place in the playoffs is also more than 11 points.

This status is really far from the slogan of winning the championship. Many people put this matter together with Tang Rou's one-versus-three within five rounds, and discussed whether Happy is such a self-inflated atmosphere?

After two consecutive defeats, the people of Team Happy inevitably felt a little down. Although they knew that the team still had such and such problems, the desire for victory would not be reduced by half because of these reasons. The day after the Saturday match, Sunday, is the day of rest stipulated by the league. However, when Chen Guo came to the internet cafe early this morning, she found that the door on the second floor had already been opened, and the people in the training room were so neat.

These guys...

Chen Guo couldn't help but sigh. In fact, she had had the same feeling many times. These people from Happy, even if their skills are still very immature, seem to never need to worry about their spirit. Losing badly, winning big, ups and downs, many people are probably going to have trouble sleeping at night. But the people of Happy can always adjust in time and sit actively in front of the computer and work hard.

In this way, they will definitely win, Chen Guo thought so. Happy also continued to work hard in training.

Fifth round...

Sixth round...

Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, September passed, and it was mid-October. Since the fifth round, the professional league has begun to continuously set off climaxes, with one blockbuster after another being staged.

In the fifth round, Samsara challenged Tiny Herb away. Samsara's overwhelming advantage seemed to be minimized again, but they still won, 6-4, in Tiny Herb's home court, Samsara took away a small victory. In the same round, another highly anticipated battle between powerhouses was Team Tyranny challenging Team Blue Rain away. The home team, Blue Rain, won, and the score was finally locked at 7-3.

In the following sixth round, there were two more important matches, Tiny Herb challenging Tyranny away, and Samsara hosting Howling at home.

In the end, Tyranny won a narrow 6-4 victory at home, taking down Tiny Herb, but the controversy about them didn't end. Compared with last season's dominance of leading the leaderboard from start to finish, Tyranny's performance this season has been erratic near the playoff zone, occasionally falling out, and no longer has the courage of last year.

On the other hand, Samsara, in this round at home, neatly won against Howling with an 8-2 victory. At the post-match press conference, Samsara's club manager suddenly launched an attack, complaining about the schedule Samsara had faced this season.

"From the third round, Tyranny, Blue Rain, Tiny Herb, Howling... I call this the strongest devil's schedule in history. I don't think anyone would mind, right? At the same time, I haven't forgotten that in the seventh and eighth rounds after this round, we will also face Misty Rain and Void. This is truly an unforgettable journey to the championship."

In fact, keen reporters had already discovered that Samsara's schedule was truly a devil's schedule, and they had asked Samsara about this. But Samsara avoided talking about it, or downplayed it. Until now, at the end of the sixth round, the four top powerhouses, whether at home or away, had all been defeated by Samsara one by one. No one asked, but Samsara had already taken the initiative to talk about this issue.

The reporters immediately understood why Samsara was unwilling to talk about this issue before, because they wanted to show the same style as their captain Zhou Zekai: don't talk, just do it!

So they won all the way, big wins, small wins, in short, they won over every powerhouse.

So now, they can talk about this schedule issue without any pressure. This will no longer be an excuse, because they have completely conquered this schedule.

Flashes flashed, and reporters asked the players at the table what their feelings were about conquering the devil's schedule.

"These victories are very important. While helping the team to get points, they can also suppress the main competitors. I'm very happy that we did all this," said Vice-Captain Jiang Botao.

"Not bad, but I think we can still do even better." Sun Xiang, who came from Excellent Era with One Autumn Leaf, quickly integrated into Samsara and became an important member, his arrogance has been reduced compared to before, but his confidence has become stronger.

"..." Samsara captain Zhou Zekai, after a long ten-second thought, finally nodded: "Okay."

"What is okay? Is it saying that winning these matches is just 'okay', or is it saying it's 'okay' to have won these matches?" A reporter asked.

"Uh..." A long consideration is inevitable, and everyone patiently waited.

"Both!" After a long consideration, Zhou Zekai answered again with two words.