Chapter 1 The Rain in H City

After nearly a week of fighting in Q City, Happy finally returned to their home stadium in H City, where they were greeted by a torrential downpour.

Samsara and Happy.

One was the champion team of the past two leagues, while the other was a new team that had just entered the alliance. These two teams, which seemed vastly different, ultimately met in the finals.

No one dared to underestimate Happy anymore, and no one would casually regard them as a grassroots team.

Ranking sixth in the regular season and defeating Blue Rain and Tyranny, two powerhouse teams, in the playoffs, Happy was attracting attention with an unstoppable momentum.

At this point, what people wanted to see was not just the birth of a new dynasty, but also a miracle: a new team that had just entered the alliance winning the championship with relentless strides.

At midnight, the voting channels for the first round of the finals, and even the entire series, were opened. By eight o'clock in the morning, eight hours later, the support rate for the two teams was surprisingly similar.

Before, whether facing Blue Rain or Tyranny, Happy's support rate had been overwhelmingly behind. Even though their team was not short of all-stars, even though they had the best rookie, even though they had brought people too many surprises this season, Glory players were still not optimistic about them in the playoffs.

Until today, until now.

Defeating Blue Rain, defeating Tyranny.

Happy had gained enough trust that in the pre-match support vote, they were standing against Samsara as equals.

Samsara: 51.6%.

Happy: 48.4%.

Samsara was slightly ahead, but everyone was no longer interested in this small gap. Happy's ability to share the limelight with Samsara was enough to show their extraordinary quality. Perhaps whether it was Blue Rain or Tyranny entering the finals, the voting at this stage could not have formed such an evenly matched situation with Samsara. But it was Happy, who had unexpectedly reached this point, that made more people interested in them, and people began to look forward to another surprise.

Three days later, H City, Xiao Shan Stadium, would it be the place where the miracle begins?

The rain washed over Xiao Shan Stadium. Because of the storm, the streets were unusually deserted. No matter how excited and enthusiastic Happy's fans were, they couldn't cheer for Happy in the open air in this kind of weather. However, Happy Internet Cafe's business was booming. The Internet cafe no longer looked like an Internet cafe. Even the aisles were full of people, using finding shelter from the rain as an excuse. Everyone crowded into the cafe and chatted about the upcoming finals. Even those who had secured a computer weren't actually using it, and everyone was discussing with the people around them.

They might know each other, or they might not.

It didn't matter. At this moment, they were gathered here with a common hope and expectation: Happy would win the championship!

The second floor of Happy Internet Cafe could be considered Happy's base. Even for a team that had reached the finals, the rudimentary state of the team's infrastructure couldn't be changed overnight.

At this moment, all of Happy's players were gathered in their training room, which was definitely the most basic in the entire alliance.

Yesterday, they had rushed back to H City overnight. The terrible weather had not affected their flight. Then, early this morning, everyone appeared in the training room on time, unaffected by the weather.

This kind of discipline was Happy's requirement during the regular season. After the playoffs, Ye Xiu advocated more self-regulation. The team didn't arrange too many training plans, and mostly left it to the players to arrange their own time.

But now, with the finals only one step away from the championship, everyone in Happy was voluntarily following the discipline of the regular season and gathering together.

"What's going on? Didn't I say there were no arrangements this morning, so everyone should rest well?" Ye Xiu said after seeing the room full of people.

Everyone looked down on him. When you speak, can you please first look at your own position? You said that there were no arrangements in the morning and everyone should rest well, but didn't you also appear here? And when you say these things, can you please not be so matter-of-fact?

"Alright! Since everyone's here, let's enjoy Samsara's wonderful performance in the playoffs together!" Ye Xiu said, already lowering the projection screen and playing the Samsara data that he didn't know when he had prepared.

Samsara's strength was beyond doubt, and Happy hadn't just started paying attention to Samsara's strength now. In the first round of the regular season, they were swept by Samsara, and in the second half of the season, when the two teams changed home stadiums and fought again, Happy didn't win three points.

However, the regular season record didn't have much impact on Happy.

Blue Rain, Tyranny.

Didn't these two teams also defeat Happy twice in the regular season? But Happy was the one laughing last in the playoffs.

Taking historical wins and losses as a reference was something the media liked to do. Their job was to find topics, and referring to the past encounters between the two teams was undoubtedly a very accurate way of thinking.

But for professional players and professional teams, past failures were just a lesson to be learned. They wouldn't underestimate themselves because of it, nor would they feel that it was difficult to defeat their opponents. Every game was a new beginning; every victory needed to be created again with their own hands.

Samsara not winning in the regular season had nothing to do with the present.

On this point, Happy's belief was extremely strong. They were not hindered by past failures. Under Ye Xiu's leadership, they calmly and rationally analyzed Samsara, whom they were about to meet in the playoffs.

One day, two days…

The rain stopped and the sky cleared.

It was Happy's home stadium, and the streets that were once dominated by the former Excellent Era party and the current Happy party gradually began to see flags and slogans cheering for Samsara. Everyone knew that Samsara had arrived. The two-time champion team, which was launching a charge for their three consecutive championships, had arrived in H City.

As the saying goes, even a strong dragon can't suppress a local snake.

But the change in the atmosphere of Happy's home stadium after Samsara's arrival had a bit of the momentum of a fierce dragon crossing the river.

The surrounding area began to strengthen security precautions to prevent conflicts between the two teams' fans. Fortunately, these fans were all Glory players. If they really had conflicts, 80% of the time they would find a place to pull out their computers and have a Glory PK. Direct street fights were not in line with the temperament of Glory fans.

Therefore, as an e-sport, Glory inevitably had fan conflicts, but situations that escalated to endangering personal safety were rare, precisely because they had a different way of resolving them. More of them were happy to release their minds and violence in Glory.

As the day of the match approached, the number of fans from both teams gradually increased. But looking at the streets, the atmosphere was still harmonious, but privately, countless fierce Glory PKs had already taken place in front of the computers in the surrounding Internet cafes. One day, Happy's Wu Chen even gathered a group of people from the Internet cafe with a dark face and left in a mighty manner, not knowing where they were going. However, he still came back with that dark face, so it was estimated that he didn't get much advantage.

Even though Happy had Wu Chen sitting there, Samsara had come to fight in the finals. Their guild leader, Sandaoliujie, as a leading figure among the players, had naturally been stationed in H City at this time, and had brought a group of Samsara guild members, turning Hongtai Internet Cafe into their command center. The two teams hadn't officially started fighting yet, but the battle between the two sides' fans had already been escalating. However, under the best efforts of the two guild leaders, at least it hadn't escalated into a wilderness PK in the game. Everyone was mostly resolving their problems in the arena.

Obviously, under this background, the two guild leaders had not lost their composure. Wilderness PK, no matter who had the advantage, who suffered a loss, or if it was a lose-lose situation, it would be letting other guilds pick up the leftovers. Neither guild leader had forgotten their true responsibilities at this time, and had not allowed the escalation of the conflict after the two teams' finals encounter to affect the balance of the situation in the game.

However, this was only temporary. After all, the match hadn't started yet, and if the players' emotions were stirred up by the match, it could explode at any moment. There were many instances of large-scale wilderness battles breaking out between the two guilds in the past playoffs, all because the guild leaders couldn't control it after a certain point.

The Excellent Dynasty guild, which supported Excellent Era's dynasty status, was originally a top-tier powerful guild in the game, but precisely because they entered the finals four times, and each time a world war broke out. This time they fought with this one, next time they fought with that one, and they fought for four consecutive years. They fought every year, but their opponents rotated. After four years of fighting, Excellent Era's dynasty was interrupted, and the Excellent Dynasty guild's vitality was greatly damaged, so that later, when the three major guilds in the Glory game were mentioned, Tyrannical Ambition, Blue Brook Guild, and Herb Garden, the once-powerful Excellent Dynasty failed to make it into the top four.

It was precisely because of Excellent Dynasty's past example that the guilds after that were particularly careful in this regard.

After Excellent Era, Tiny Herb entered the finals for three consecutive years, and there was one small fight and one big fight. The third time, they finally passed peacefully.

The small fight was in the fifth season, when they met Hundred Blossoms. At that time, Sun Zheping was seriously injured and out for the season in the middle of the Hundred Blossoms season. In the finals, they had a momentum to win the championship for Sun Zheping, but unfortunately they lost to Tiny Herb in the end. After the match, the fans of both sides immediately started fighting in the game, but then news broke that Sun Zheping had officially announced his retirement due to injury. Hundred Blossoms no longer had the mood for a world war, and this time it ended without a conclusion, becoming a small fight.

Then, in the sixth season, Tiny Herb was stopped by Blue Rain and lost their chance for consecutive championships. This time, the world war between the two sides after the match was shocking and could be called the most intense one in history. The two teams formed a mortal enemy because of this battle.

Then, in the seventh season, Tiny Herb met Hundred Blossoms again. Both teams had experience in the finals and knew the disadvantages of the war spreading to the guild, so this time, with the efforts of the two guild leaders, they finally controlled the situation in the game and there was no war. It was the only peaceful resolution so far.

After that, in the eighth and ninth seasons, there were guild wars, but under the guidance and control of the respective guild leaders, it was almost over after venting their anger, without causing any major damage.

And this time, Samsara and Happy, two guilds that couldn't be called top-tier in the game, were starting to lead the trend of what could be a world war this year.