Chapter 1 The Calm Before the Storm

In late September, the preliminaries for Pinnacle Confrontation S2 were in full swing, with live broadcasts and recordings officially underway.

Although "Gathering of Heroes" would last until October 25th, most teams would decide their final scores within the first thirty-six days. So… if we were to compare these preliminaries to a long-distance run, it would be entering its final stretch now.

Looking back at the first half-month of matches, the word "uneventful" basically summed it up. Aside from the brief clash between Corpse Blade First Team and Order First Team, there hadn’t been any other encounters between the top teams. Overall, most of the professional teams were advancing smoothly, winning with irresistible force.

It was at this stage that the vast number of casual players at the lower levels of the game seemed to finally realize… that the points system was even crueler than the elimination system or S1’s win-based selection. Under this system, the teams that could enter the playoffs were definitely strong teams with real skills; those teams that desperately leveled up before the competition to barely meet the entry standards had no chance at all.

As a result, starting in mid-September, dissenting voices gradually emerged on the forums. Posts filled with strong resentment, such as "Dream Inc.'s system doesn't give casual players any chance to advance," "Is it impossible to compete if you're not a professional team?", and "Going against the vast majority is shaking the foundations of the game," popped up one after another.

Dream Inc.’s official response to these voices was confident and justified.

The customer service department even circulated a response that read: "Dear friend, let me use basketball as an example. If… you and three or five of your friends who like basketball can achieve better results in a basketball game than five professional basketball players, then there's something wrong with the system."

Yes, that was Dream Inc.'s attitude, and it had always been their attitude…

…………

By the early hours of October 10th, more than 70% of the participating teams had joined the queue and played their thirty-sixth preliminary match. And almost all the professional teams had announced their final preliminary results before dawn that day.

Order First Team, Second Team, Fourth Team; Deities First Team, Second Team, Third Team; Blade, Heaven and Earth, Jianghu, Star Cluster… These well-known strong teams all showed off their perfect win records on this day.

However… because various studios would update the records of their teams on their official websites in real time every day, there didn’t seem to be many surprises when the final dust settled.

But, as the saying goes, the moon shines on all lands, bringing joy to some and sorrow to others.

If some teams had perfect wins, then naturally some teams didn’t… Among them, the most depressed team should be Corpse Blade First Team.

Logically speaking, their strength was definitely not inferior to those teams with perfect wins. Unfortunately… they happened to encounter Order First Team once, which directly caused them to enter the second tier. Although getting 105 points also gave them a good chance of entering the playoffs, that one "loss" was ultimately an indelible disgrace.

…………

Let’s talk about our Hell Frontline team. Their results were consistent with what Feng Bujue had predicted—perfect wins; and they achieved this even with Brother Jue spending a long time on the bench.

Of course, because the official had not yet announced the list of qualifiers and the scores of each team (it would be announced one week after the end of all the preliminaries), Hell Frontline was still an unknown team.

It is worth mentioning that, starting from October 8th, Dream Inc. canceled the privacy protection option in the matches, which meant that each team… would have at least three recorded matches from the preliminaries preserved.

Faced with this situation, Brother Jue also responded very cunningly… Under his instructions, the last three rounds of the Hell Frontline preliminaries were all fought with Blood Corpse God as the main force, while Xiao Tan and the others tried to hide their strength as much as possible.

In this way, even if it came to the playoffs, the information about the members of Hell Frontline would still be a mystery. Even if their opponents studied their match recordings, the only conclusion they could draw would be—this team has a ridiculously powerful summoned creature, and that’s all.

…………

October passed quickly.

In the blink of an eye, it was deep autumn.

On October 25th, "Gathering of Heroes" came to an end, but Dream Inc. did not immediately announce the results of the preliminaries. Instead, they used "statistical data" as an excuse to hold back the preliminary results for a full week.

During these seven days, Dream Inc. held a product launch conference and launched an "economic game pod"; they also took the opportunity to announce that "Crazy Thinking 1.0 Official Version" had been developed and would be officially launched after S2 ended; and they also held a Halloween-themed offline event… In short, they just didn't mention anything about S2.

These actions… puzzled all the players and even many outside media outlets. It also made many teams who were looking forward to the results of the preliminaries anxious and restless.

As the saying goes, strike while the iron is hot, but Dream Inc. went the opposite way, taking a full week of "halftime" between the S2 preliminaries and playoffs. This was undoubtedly… another one of Woody's tricks.

Sometimes… in order to maintain the heat of something, appropriate cooling is also necessary. This is called balance.

Sure enough, on November 1st, when Dream Inc.'s official website updated its announcement, it immediately set off another wave of S2 mania in all circles.

On the same day, the rules for the second stage of Pinnacle Confrontation S2—【Fierce Battle in Four Realms】—were released.

But before that, the focus of people's attention was obviously still the list of qualifiers and the score rankings from the preliminaries.

According to the data given by the system, the lowest-scoring team among the 256 teams that successfully passed the preliminaries actually had 104 points. In other words… achieving thirty-four wins and two draws in thirty-six matches was just barely enough to squeeze into the playoffs. Teams that had lost one match could only qualify if they won all the remaining matches; and teams that had lost two matches, or had one loss and one draw, could say goodbye directly.

What was more unexpected was that among the two hundred-plus qualifying teams, there were also seventy-odd teams of non-professional players… and eight of these teams were even in the top one hundred. This data also silenced those guys who had previously complained about the system. You are also non-professional players, but others can get perfect wins, or only lose one match or only draw one match, while you have a win rate of around 50% and clamor about the unfairness of the system. Aren’t you ashamed?

Of course, the number of professional teams still held an absolute advantage in the top 100 teams.

These one hundred teams all finished with a perfect record of 108 points, and the system's method of ranking them was the one mentioned earlier… calculating the various numerical losses, the time used, the skill value obtained, and so on in each match.

In the end, the team that ranked first… was Deities First Team.

This time, they really breathed a sigh of relief and overwhelmed their old rivals, Order, taking the top spot on a highly credible list.

And those five monsters from Order First Team were clearly ranked in second place… This result undoubtedly made the higher-ups of Order Studio very dissatisfied. The dream combination of "Thriller Paradise First Person" plus the "Four Great Masters of Zuisheng Mengsi" was actually surpassed by their arch-rivals in such a crucial ranking. Someone has to take the blame for this, right?

So, the captain, 【Wu Si Can Xuan】, took the initiative to stand up and made a profound self-criticism to the leaders of the company.

"It's my poor performance and leadership. In such a big competition, we only got second place in the preliminaries. I, as the captain, should bear the main responsibility." Such laughable dialogue was the main content of his self-criticism.

Putting aside the competition between those two veteran powerhouses, this list was quite interesting from third place onwards.

First of all, the team ranked third was called 【Useless Alliance】. This team name, with its self-deprecating tendencies, obviously didn't belong to any professional studio. And they only had three match recordings, which meant that they used the anonymous function throughout the preliminaries and didn't join the queue again after playing thirty-six matches.

Such a mysterious dark horse would naturally attract a lot of attention. However… after looking at the members of this team, that sense of mystery disappeared. Because four of the five members of this team were experts who had made it into the top fifty of the individual tournament in S1.

They were: Useless Uncle, Honghu, Zhao Ying Wang, and Juan Meng Huan. The first three were already well-known individual professional players, so there was no need to say more. And Juan Meng Huan's identity had long been gossiped about—the former ace of Corpse Blade, now also joining the ranks of individual professional players.

Looking at the next few names on the leaderboard… Jianghu, Blade, Red Sakura First Team, Hell Frontline, and then… Hyotei. And then… Corpse Blade Second Team, Order Second Team, Deities Second Team, Heaven and Earth…

That's right, Hyotei, the Hyotei led by Atobe-sama, achieved perfect wins in the Pinnacle Confrontation S2 preliminaries… and judging from the overall data of the thirty-six matches, they were even ranked ahead of Corpse Blade and Order Second Team, only second to Hell Frontline… Even Feng Bujue was a little shocked when he saw this list…

However, in the eyes of outsiders, Hyotei was at least a team from a game studio, and the "Naming Difficulty Trio" had already made a name for themselves, so this team couldn't be called a dark horse.

After looking at the member list, the only true dark horse in people's eyes… was "Hell Frontline."

Except for "Feng Bujue" and "Wang Tanzhi," the other three members of the team were all unknown players with no information at all, including the Feng and Wang duo, who were also not professional players.

They were a team of all casual players who did not belong to any game studio, and… they were ranked in the top ten of the preliminary leaderboard.

In hindsight… Hell Frontline seemed to have become the main team in the hearts of most casual players, and had also become the focus of research for major studios…

…………

November 2nd, midnight.

Somewhere in the suburbs of S City.

"Hoo… in the blink of an eye, it's already deep autumn…" A middle-aged man wearing an old man's hat and black-rimmed glasses leisurely walked to a streetlight pole and took a breath towards the sky.

"I say… Deputy Section Chief Qi." Not far away, a young man happened to walk over. "Calling me to this remote wilderness in the middle of the night… you wouldn't be planning to kill me and silence me, would you?"

"Heh…" Qi Zhi raised the brim of his hat and looked at Brother Jue with a smile. "If I wanted to kill you and silence you, would I need to choose a location?"

"That's true." Feng Bujue also smiled. "According to my deduction… you've found me a 'SCP job'?"

"No." Qi Zhi immediately denied Brother Jue's deduction. "There is indeed a 'SCP job' here…" He raised his hands and made air quotes, "But it's not prepared for you… it's what I'm going to do."

"A deputy section chief personally coming out to run this field mission?" Feng Bujue's eyes changed slightly, and he immediately began to scan his surroundings vigilantly. "Could it be that the Baltan aliens have already invaded Earth?"

"Alright, alright~ It's just a general incident, don't make a fuss." Qi Zhi gave Brother Jue a look of disdain. "Wasn't it Halloween a few days ago? A lot of messes piled up outside, so the bureau is a bit short-handed these days, and I can only come out and run around more."

"Oh~" Feng Bujue said, "Then you're looking for me to… give you a hand?"

"No, I have something else to ask you." Qi Zhi replied, "It's just that I have a job here that I can't leave, so I can only let you take a trip."

"Then what exactly is it?" Feng Bujue asked again.

"The ten years of cultivation I gave you, it's about time to take it back." Qi Zhi continued.

"Huh?" Feng Bujue exclaimed. "So I have to return it?" Before he finished speaking, he instinctively took two steps back. "Wait… don't tell me there's interest too?"

"Do you think I'm a loan shark?" Qi Zhi shrugged and replied, then explained, "The reason for taking back the cultivation is because you don't need it anymore."

"What makes you say that?" Feng Bujue asked doubtfully.

"When I came to see you last month, I found that the power in your body has been diluted a lot." Qi Zhi replied, "But… that power didn't merge with my spiritual energy. Instead, after using my spiritual energy, it expelled it outside of its origin in order to ensure its own purity."

"Hoh~ My power is quite principled…" Feng Bujue probably understood what the other party meant, so he took the opportunity to make a joke.

"Whether it has principles or not is none of my business." Qi Zhi continued, "In short, I have to extract the spiritual energy from your body now, otherwise it will become a burden to you instead." As he said this, he looked Brother Jue up and down with a rather strange gaze. "Presumably… after the spiritual energy in your body is completely removed, the power you awakened yourself… will also reveal its true face."

"Oh… so that's why you called me to this kind of place…" Feng Bujue seemed to have sensed something from the other party's words and expression, and smiled evilly. "Hehe… if the true face of my power is some world-destroying demon king power, you'll just take care of me here in this deserted place, right?"

"Yes." At this moment, the smile on Qi Zhi's face disappeared completely, and his expression was icy cold. His answer… was also concise and powerful.