Editor: Decembery
(double update! 1/2)
Qiu Yu’s return left no doubt as to the outcome of the third round of the finals.
Vie had been rearing to go before the competition, already anticipating the glory of being the first Alpha competitor to break Cupid’s streak of invincibility. Only after he entered the game did he discover that he couldn’t even survive, let alone retaliate, when facing Qiu Yu.
Even if he called along two others to help surround and take down Qiu Yu, he would still be the first one to die if Qiu Yu had a mind to kill him.
“This guy is literally a bug!” Vie raged in their voice channel after reviving, “How could an Omega be this strong, is the Star Alliance Cup certain he isn’t using some sort of plug-in?!”
“Shut up.” MIG’s captain Forest replied, “Since he’s also targeting you, you work together with Jim to try to kill him as many times as possible this round. If you can’t kill him, at least get him injured.”
This was a conclusion all teams in the Star Alliance Cup had come to—if you want to target Cupid, all you can do is injure him as much as possible in the earlier rounds, which would exacerbate the pressure the game cabin placed on his body. Then, place all your hopes on the final game.
After the third round, the Eagle Riders reached match-point.
MIG’s pace suddenly got faster starting from the fourth round in an attempt to prevent the Eagle Riders from buying more time for Qiu Yu’s return.
The map drawn for this round was a point-capture one, which made the confrontations even more spectacular. Mu Feibai was targeted by three players and Zhou Shu had to assist him. At the same time, Du Chen was locked onto by Vie, which left Lin Jinxi and Lu Cun. However, their individual capabilities weren’t sufficient to capture all the key points.
A team with only one main carry was too easily targeted. No matter how much the Eastern First Star District netizens disliked MIG, they must still admit that MIG was one of the top teams in the Star Alliance.
Du Chen, Lin Jinxi, and Lu Cun didn’t make any serious mistakes in the fourth round of the game. However, while neither team had a definite edge over the other, the scales of victory still slowly but surely tilted towards MIG.
Once their advantage snowballed, it could no longer be stopped in the absence of a greater external force.
As the game progressed into the thirty-second minute, MIG exchanged three players for five, taking out the entire Eagle Rider lineup. They took all the key points the Eagle Riders previously occupied and obtained victory.
Seems like the final victor of the Century’s Finale’s Star Alliance Cup would be decided by the final game.
In the break room, Lin Jinxi sat in a chair, face a little pale and slightly dotted with drops of sweat.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
He massaged his right forearm, his wrist trembling uncontrollably,
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Mu Feibai’s expression instantly turned serious. “Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere else?”
Lin Jinxi didn’t hide it. “Right knee, left ankle. My right knee was because I had previously been injured there. It’s usually fine, but it’s always been a little sensitive even after healing completely, I hadn’t expected it to react this intensely after only four games. Right ankle because Rex broke it twice. He always injures me severely before killing me.”
This kind of behaviour was termed “torture-killing” in Century’s Finale. Although the competition rules didn’t explicitly forbid this, it was very much frowned upon among all players, not just competitors. This was as the game stimulated pain experienced in-game. Even if pain levels were lowered, people might still experience mental problems after being torture-killed.
Thankfully, players who liked team battles usually only had victory in their sights. Torture-killing would leave gaps for the opponents to take advantage of and reverse the situation, so very few people would choose to do this. It was even rarer of an occurrence in the professional league.
It was only when a stronger player like Rex faced a newbie like Lu Cun would he have a chance to use these tactics.
“Tsk, MIG’s playstyle is so dirty.” Zhou Shu hummed in anger.
“When has the Third Star District not played dirty?” Mu Feibai scoffed, “If their conscience would allow them to broadcast tearing at an Omega’s collar in real life, it wouldn’t be out of character for them to do anything in the game.”
Qiu Yu returned to the break room and saw Lin Jinxi’s condition. “Can you still play in the next round?”
He understood nerve pain the best. If one reentered the game cabin without having returned to their peak state, these pains would be carried into the game as well. Perhaps it wasn’t too difficult to endure in daily life, however, it could become a critical weakness for the enemy to target on the ever-changing battlefield.
Lin Jinxi couldn’t make the final decision and looked towards Coach He, anticipating the worst.
After some thought, He Jingxing decided, “Qiu Yu and Lu Cun will play next round. Have a rest, xiao-Lin.”
This was the Eagle Riders’ first time using a line-up like this in a big game, they had only practiced this in training competitions. Although both Lu Cun and Lin Jinxi were new to the professional world and were of similar levels in skills, their strengths lay in different areas and they also had different habits. This meant that the commander had to consider many minute details.
As they were about to enter the field, Qiu Yu turned to ask Lin Jinxi, “It was Rex?”
Lin Jinxi was confused at first and stared blankly for a moment. After a thought occurred to him, he quickly said, “En.”
Qiu Yu nodded and turned to leave the break room along with their teammates, leaving behind a brisk response, “Got it.”
At the beginning of the deciding round, Qiu Yu broke his habits and, for the first time, selected a sniper rifle equipped with an EM pulse bayonet. He then sprinted towards the jungle area and swept it clean of all mutant beasts and special-type beasts. Then, he headed towards the front line—sighting Rex, he cooly took aim and fired, the bullet accurately hit Rex’s right wrist.
Du Chen, who was facing off against Rex, reacted quickly and borrowed this opportunity to kill Rex in one hit.
From then onwards, a strange situation that the commentators couldn’t make sense of occurred repeatedly:
“Cupid has arrived at the front line, is he preparing to assist Dust? He… uhh, he attempted to snipe Rex but… missed? He only hit Rex’s right hand.”
“Cupid has once more arrived at the front lines, let’s anticipate his… he has once again failed to snipe Rex, and only injured his right hand. He then killed Jim and waltzed away.”
“Cupid! Is he going to work alongside MU to face… uhh, he has once again only injured Rex’s right wrist, before returning to the jungle area.”
“Huh, it’s Cupid again, and he has once more only injured Rex’s right wrist! What is the grudge between him and Rex’s right hand? More crucially, since he’s already there, can’t he just kill Rex, even if just once? Just grant him the sweet release of death!”
“Ooh, Cupid. I know he’s here for Rex’s right hand again… ah yes, indeed.”
Seeing this situation, the netizens instantly erupted into discussion:
[What’s up with Cupid? Once or twice is fine, but isn’t it too much to be like this?]
[Abusing his strength to bully MIG’s members? Does he think Rex has no fans?]
[Doesn’t this count as torture-killing? I didn’t think he was someone of this calibre…]
[Heh, before you condemn our little angel, why don’t you have a look at what your Rex did! (video link)]
[It was obviously your Rex who started it, why else would Lin Jinxi be unable to go on-field? God Qiu is just taking revenge for a teammate—a tooth for a tooth!]
[I support little angel Cupid! Our First Star District people would never tolerate others harming our people!]
[Wait, is it only me who thinks Cupid’s marksmanship is out of this world?! Do you know how difficult it is to only hit Rex’s right wrist every time? The hand is one of the body parts moving most irregularly, hitting the hand every single time would be even harder than getting headshots every time!]
[Cupid has Rex in his sights, but he’s just toying with him. Ehe, Rex isn’t gonna get sniped! Qiu Yu’s timing is also on point because every time Rex gets injured, Qiu Yu’s teammates would definitely take a head!]
[Holy shit the hairs on my back stood straight up, that’s so scary QAQ @EWG_MU please allow me to call you “the brave”, you conquered such a scary and grudge-keeping Omega?! Please don’t let me see your name on some news headline the likes of “An Unnamed Professional Player was Dismemberd by Jealous Omega”??]
As the audience argued and cheered along, the final game of the Star Alliance Cup slowly drew to an end.
The Eagle RIder’s advantage snowballed. MIG could no longer find a breakthrough point when facing a formation with both Mu Feibai and Qiu Yu acting as the main carries, and could only watch regretfully as their base was bulldozed over by the Eagle Riders.
This was especially true for Vie and Rex. One was killed by Qiu Yu to the point of an existential crisis, while the other was traumatised after being shot in the wrist so many times. From then on, whenever he saw Qiu Yu’s figure, his heart would reflexive shudder and he would subconsciously place all his focus on Qiu Yu—and end up being reaped like wheat by Mu Feibai’s strike out of the blue.
“This is what they mean by karma always comes back around.” Mu Feibai commented with a smile.
“If you do lots of bad things, you’ll constantly be worried about ghosts.” Qiu Yu concluded.
In the thirty-seventh minute, MIG’s base was completely annihilated.
“Congratulations to EWG!” The commentator was so excited he almost jumped up in his seat, “They have once again seized the championships of the Star Alliance Cup! What’s more, they have broken the record by becoming the first-ever team in Century’s Finale to obtain three consecutive Star Alliance Cups!”
“They! Have! Created! History!!!”
The game cabins opened. Biting his lips with a frown as he endured the pain, Qiu Yu looked outside the cabin.
Coach He stood there with an excited smile, while Doctor Qi leaned in close to help him remove his helmet and disconnect the wires. He then reached out, wanting to lift him out of the game cabin.
“No need.” Qiu Yu said hoarsely, the corner of his lips curled upwards, “I want to go on stage this time.”
Just as he finished speaking, he saw Mu Feibai run over from his game cabin, an excited light shining in his eyes.
“How are you? Can you hold on for a little longer? Just a little longer!” He looked at Qiu Yu with fire in his eyes, “I’ll carry you onstage to receive the prize! We were only able to obtain this championship because of you, I want us to raise it up together for the world to see!”
Seeing Qiu Yu’s pale complexion and the beads of sweat on his forehead, Mu Feibai’s heart hurt.
However, he could tell from Qiu Yu’s eyes that he was more willing to share this moment of joy with all their teammates. If that were the case, he would of course give Qiu Yu what he really wanted.
Not to mention, this was also his greatest wish.
—He wanted to share this moment of glory with Qiu Yu rather than use the guise of “protection” to hide this person somewhere the stage lights couldn’t shine on, and take his much-deserved cheers and applause for himself.
Qiu Yu looked into Mu Feibai’s eyes and smilingly reached out with a hand.
Mu Feibai took a step into Qiu Yu’s game cabin and carefully placed the other on his back. Steadily, he strode towards the stage.
The Third Star District 🤡🤡 They’re all selectively blind!
But yippee for the Eagle Riders!! 🥳 A well deserved victory!
When they have won I instantly had a yuri on ice ‘ soundtrack playing in my head xd
Hahaha that’s hilariously fitting