Vanguard of the Eternal Night

Chapter Ch90 - Provincial Competition – Ice Mage 1

translator: xiin

editor: kara

Old Friend was a newly confirmed War God from the Tianyi District, but his path to becoming a god hadn’t been the same as everyone else’s.

He wasn’t a traditional e-sports contestant, the type who came up one step at a time. Instead, he had directly come up and challenged famous experts. He started with the assassins, rangers, and warriors on the Tianyi District rankings and soon gained some fame before starting to challenge similar professions on the rankings of the Second Star Province.

Generally speaking, mages were very weak when facing assassins, but he was very good at dealing with assassins for some reason and could take them down accurately with very few failures so far. On the other hand, when faced with other casting professions, Old Friend’s movements no longer seemed as smooth.

After his latest victory over the nation’s leading assassin, Jiong En, his fans in the Tianyi District jokingly called him the ‘Thief Lord’s unbeatable rival’. After that, he simply took advantage of the situation to really participate in the e-sports competitions and very smoothly entered the provincial competition.

The audience may not understand why he, as a mage, was able to suppress the agile melee professions;

But Tyron knew why:

He had a partner called Vantico, hey.

Perhaps it was because this small couple played games together every day, or perhaps Vantico used him as a training partner. In short, Vantico, as an assassin whose rankings were pretty good, was always there as a companion, so Old Friend would definitely have a lot of experience in dealing with assassins.

After watching two match replays, not only had the master assassin learned Old Friend’s playing style, but he had also accidentally figured out Vantico’s fighting style.

Vantico was good at explosive combos, which wasn’t surprising for an assassin; Vantico was also good at lurking around the periphery of a fight, then catching others off guard by unexpectedly showing up right in their faces. Additionally, he would often land a series of combos around the opponent from multiple directions.

His last special feature was a move that was similar to Shadow Dance. Tyron opened up Vantico’s official site to check––sure enough, the technique was called Shadow Dance.

It was a little interesting.

.

The venue for the semi-finals the next day was the big platform set up between the six islands.

There were only a few thousand real audience members there, and those who could sit there were all rich and wealthy. The rest of the audience were all in virtual auditoriums that were projected in a series of twelve-row-high, translucent seating which rotated very slowly around the center of the venue.

Most of the space was left for live broadcasting equipment, from the large 360-degree camera on-site to the twelve flying aircrafts in the sky and the satellite-based data analyzer, all so that they could be put to good use on the hovering platform, providing all viewers with flawless images, sounds, and even odors.

A few days ago, countless stars and celebrities had already shown their faces at the opening ceremony for the semi-finals. The 24 contestants who had made it into the semi-finals had their figures magnified and projected in 3D at the center of the venue, and each of them had received a lengthy introduction.

Now, it was finally time for the official competition to begin. The first round had already started, and the matchup was: Odin vs Old Friend.

Following the host’s introduction, the two players shook hands.

Old Friend seemed to be very friendly. Tyron looked at his expression and realized that Vantico hadn’t told him about what had happened before.

Therefore, Old Friend didn’t have any impression of Odin and had instead been simply relieved to learn that he’d been matched against an assassin.

.

Old Friend seemed to be a little older than Vantico and had a gentle and elegant temperament. He had the sense of a noble aristocrat in his bones––in Tyron’s opinion, this was called the ‘mage disease’.

He was a master of creation energy who focused on ice and frost (this school of magic was also referred to as ‘ice system’). It was a very typical caster profession, but anyone who could use a standard profession and make it to the provincial competition was definitely not an easy target.

The female commentator introduced Old Friend, “He is a very rarely seen mage who is good at fighting against assassins. His fighting style is relatively stable with few mistakes and limited risk. He’s good at slowly grinding away an opponent’s health bit by bit, which can also be called ‘not anxious and not slow’. The most incredible thing about him is that he’s often able to interrupt an assassin’s combo. He can maintain his own health as he slowly grinds down his opponent’s health and then disappear... The pace of his fights are very steady, but it makes people anxious to death when watching it.”

The male commentator added, “Indeed. Generally speaking, a battle between two squishy professions should collapse like an avalanche if anyone involved makes a careless move. However, Old Friend’s matches are so steady that it’s like watching two tanks beating at each other. He can even hold back a top assassin’s rhythm, dragging opponents who can usually finish each other off with a series of combos to the end without having been able to burst out even one combo.”

The female commentator laughed and said, “Our contestant Odin is precisely one of those peak assassin players, who likes to take away his opponent’s life with a series of combos. He’s very good at using a set of burst attacks to bully his opponent so swiftly that they can’t even hide their heads in the sand and deceive themselves! Papapapapa! The opponent’s done for just like that!”

The male commentator: “This match will depend on whether or not Odin can play to his rhythm. If he’s slowed down by Old Friend, it’ll be a very difficult match to fight.”

The randomized map results soon came out, and this time, the map was the White Gate Ancient City.

This ancient city wasn’t Oriental. Instead, it was a Western-style fortress with relatively open streets and squares, and there were many residential buildings in the surroundings. The most peculiar thing about this map was that it had NPCs. These NPCs were all neutral human beings and would walk around or sell things.

The NPCs would react to the presences of the two competitors. When players fought on this map, they would occasionally be blocked by the NPCs in awkward ways: They might be unable to find their opponent when the NPCs gathered together in the square, and a very tragic situation would happen––slaughtering the city!!

However, this kind of slaughter had never appeared in a formal competition and would generally only take place in anonymous matches and other casual competitions, because no matter what, having players slaughtering a city and killing non-combative NPCs at will in the game was very controversial behavior that would have a great impact on their reputation. It was typically also looked down upon by the general population, and they would carry this stigma with them into the e-sports competition circle.

.

After the countdown began, the two contestants stood at opposing corners of the square.

There were many NPCs walking in the middle, and for some reason, this scene made Old Friend feel a little uneasy.

The countdown soon ended. Old Friend opened up his mage shield right away, then quickly left his original position. He’d originally wanted to hide himself in the crowd to avoid being exposed as a target, but he hadn’t expected that the NPCs around him would dodge away in fear!

The NPC: “Aaaahhh Lord Mage, please spare me! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you!”

Old Friend: “......”

The crowd drew back and therefore exposed him. Old Friend’s expression was dark as he looked for a new place to hide and finally dodged into a lane.

He quickly set a small trap at each end. This narrow lane would make it easier for him to quickly find an invisible assassin.

.

However, against his expectations, Tyron hadn’t entered stealth at the beginning of the match. Instead, he removed his hood and walked into the crowd with his mask still on his face.

There were countless question marks hovering over the female commentator’s head. “Why? Why would they be so fearful of Old Friend while Odin was able to integrate into the crowd unobstructed???”

The male commentator tried to explain it, “Perhaps it’s because of... profession? Clothing? Temperament?”

The female commentator stared at Tyron’s figure and said, “But, Lord Four’s temperament makes him stand out like a firefly in the night! These NPCs have to be blind to miss it!!!”

They weren’t able to find an explanation for this strange phenomenon, but Odin was like a drop of water landing in the sea as he hid himself directly in the crowd. Even the video cameras had needed two seconds to find his location.

Moreover, while Odin clearly didn’t make any moves while walking through the crowd, he didn’t have to worry about being blocked at all either. He went through the crowd as easily as a fish in water, and the people in front of him would naturally make way.

After that, Odin casually picked up a tomato from a market stall!

The stall owner was oblivious.

The two commentators looked at each other with confused expressions.

The male commentator tried to guess, “Per, perhaps it’s some kind of prop?”

The audience expressed: “Hahahahahaha too cute! My cool, crazy, tyrannical War God Lord Four actually likes tomatoes? Tomatoes? Tomatoes!!!”

“There must be something going on behind the scenes. I’ve really never seen anyone stealing tomatoes to eat in a match before.”

.

While Tyron walked among the crowd, the whispers of the hundreds of people in the square flowed into his ears in a steady trickle. He heard someone talking about “That Lord Mage over there...”.

––Old Friend had probably never thought that the NPCs would expose his position.

The corners of his mouth beneath the mask raised up slightly. Tyron moved amidst the crowd and locked onto the lane the mage had entered.

He didn’t even need to look to know that there would be some traps set up on both sides of the lane, so he simply went around to the other side of the wall, one hand stroking the wall gently as he walked quickly.

He stopped at a certain position, his eyes narrowing slightly––he could feel the presence of his enemy.

At this moment, Tyron and Old Friend were separated by a fragile stone wall, less than two meters away from each other.

Both commentators began to prepare themselves for the impending battle.

.

The master assassin didn’t make them wait, either. In the next second, he suddenly flipped up and stopped on top of the wall––

At that moment, Old Friend heard the rustle of the wind over his head. His tensed-up fighting reflexes immediately reacted as he reached out for support and instantly activated his mage shield!

White frost instantly formed a hemisphere around him in protection. This skill would freeze any enemy who came to attack him for 0.5 seconds. If it was able to block an enemy’s attack, it would also act as a counterattack!

However, in the next moment, only a ‘poof’ sound could be heard!

The activated mage shield was actually covered in a bloody red color, which covered up Old Friend’s field of vision.

“...???!”

At that moment, Old Friend was a little confused.

Tyron was still standing there on the wall and had just tossed out a tomato that splattered onto the mage shield. After that, he jumped down from the wall and avoided the mage shield that had been coated in red––

Flash!

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