Chapter 9

Besides the five complete victories of 10 to 0, the remaining match scores in the ninth round were also remarkably uniform, consisting of three sets of 2 to 8 and two sets of 7 to 3.

The three sets of 2 to 8 saw the home teams Yizhan, He Wu, and Zhaohua lose to Misty Rain, Void, and Hundred Blossoms, while the two 7 to 3 results were achieved by 301 and Royal Wind, who capitalized on their home advantage to defeat Howling Heights and Thunderclap.

The weaker teams ultimately failed to produce any upsets in the ninth round. However, 301 and Royal Wind, two mid-tier teams that hovered outside the playoffs last season, surprised many by defeating Howling Heights and Thunderclap on their home turf.

Thunderclap, which ranked second on the leaderboard after the eighth round, didn't have a significant lead over the teams behind it. After this round's defeat, they immediately slipped to fourth place. Blue Rain and Tiny Herb, with 69 and 66 points respectively, seized second and third place. Samsara's stability and dominance once again placed them in a league of their own. Their score of 77 after nine rounds had already put them eight points ahead of the second-place team. Following Thunderclap was Misty Rain with 59 points, and Tyranny with 57 points in sixth place. Howling Heights also had 57 points, ranking seventh, followed by Hundred Blossoms. After being overwhelmingly defeated by Excellent Era with a score of 9 to 1, they had been somewhat demoralized, but they quickly recovered after two rounds, actively standing up again and swiftly returning to the playoff zone.

Behind Hundred Blossoms, Void, 301, and Royal Wind lingered outside the playoff zone. Excellent Era, after scoring 10 points in this round, moved up one spot, from 14th to 13th place, with 41 points, 14 points behind Hundred Blossoms, who were in eighth place in the playoff zone. The two teams in the relegation zone were Coastal and Mighty Wind. Since the seventh round, these two teams had been locked in the bottom two spots and were widening the gap between them and the teams ahead, seemingly intending to kill any suspense about relegation this season.

Reports after the ninth round didn't focus on any particular team or person but instead analyzed the bizarrely uniform scores of this round. A bunch of 10 to 0 scores made major media outlets want to do a feature on the dominance of the powerhouse teams, but the problem was that Excellent Era was stuck in the middle of those five 10 to 0 scores, which was quite an eyesore. Excellent Era was undoubtedly unrelated to this theme, but they insisted on keeping up with this rhythm at this time, making it a headache for the media to deal with Excellent Era's position. In the end, it had to be said that Electronic Sports Home was skilled. The four 10 to 0 scores of Samsara, Tiny Herb, Blue Rain, and Tyranny were used to illustrate the unshakeable advantage of the powerhouse teams. As for Excellent Era, they were singled out and listed as the representative team with erratic and unpredictable performance.

They could win 9 to 1 against Hundred Blossoms, but they could also lose 3 to 7 to Zhaohua and He Wu, and then win 10 to 0 against Yizhan and Miracle. Was it reliable to reflect the team's level through their results? It became extremely unreliable with Excellent Era.

In the statistics of the first nine rounds, Samsara had the most 10 to 0 scores, which best reflected the team's strength, with a total of 3 times. After that, there were two teams with two such records, one was Tiny Herb, and the other was Excellent Era. Then Excellent Era also had a share in the team that was miserably defeated with 0 to 10. They really had to participate in everything, and this team was indispensable in everything.

Electronic Sports Home solemnly reminded all teams in the league in the end: Beware of Excellent Era.

However, this attention quickly caused displeasure to some people, such as Ruan Cheng of Electronic Sports Times. Electronic Sports Times was published bi-monthly, and he couldn't immediately use his own magazine to write articles, so he could only publish comments on his personal blog.

Of course, he didn't intend to easily give up on Tang Rou's broken promise, but repeatedly harping on one thing would also cause the audience to develop aesthetic fatigue and generate rebellious psychology. Ruan Cheng was a master of this, and he had a subtle grasp of the rhythm. He wouldn't mention it often, but he would never forget to appropriately and casually bring this matter up in front of people at the right time, lest people forget it. Because of Tang Rou, Ruan Cheng had now become a complete Excellent Era hater. But after all, he was a famous writer, and he had to cherish his reputation, so he had to hate with logic, pretend to be rational, and hide his personal preferences.

So, in Ruan Cheng's writing, Excellent Era suddenly became a dog in the manger who harmed others without benefiting themselves, and he spoke with eloquence.

Why did it sound so reasonable? Because what Ruan Cheng wrote was actually a harsh version of Electronic Sports Home's view of Excellent Era, merely a word game with two sides of the same coin. However, with the influence of his pen and the help of many other reporters and commentators who were equally unhappy with Tang Rou and Excellent Era, Excellent Era had a more ugly image in the eyes of more people.

Two 10 to 0?

One was Yizhan, and the other was Miracle, both of which had a certain connection with Excellent Era. Excellent Era was considered ruthless in taking 10 points from them.

Some nonsensical comments even used adjectives like "ruthless," as if forgetting that this was originally the logic of any team in the competition, trying to score as many points as possible.

However, in the midst of so many negative comments, Excellent Era's pace became more and more firm.

In the tenth round, they played against Royal Wind at home and won a resounding victory of 9 to 1.

In the eleventh round, they challenged Coastal on the road. Hai Wu Liang returned to the place where he had served for many years for the first time. Then the Coastal fans who were familiar with Hai Wu Liang watched their team's former symbol take an irreversible path in the hands of Fang Rui of Excellent Era. In the unanimous boos of the whole audience, Excellent Era unceremoniously gave Coastal a 10 to 0.

With two consecutive victories, Excellent Era frantically grabbed 19 points and continuously improved their ranking by two places on the leaderboard. They were now ranked 11th, and the gap between them and the playoff zone had shrunk to 10 points. At this time, Void was ranked eighth on the leaderboard. Misty Rain, who was ranked 5th at the end of the ninth round, didn't perform well in the tenth and eleventh rounds and quickly fell out of the playoff zone. With 64 points, they were ranked 10th, even being overtaken by 301.

Hundred Blossoms continued to perform steadily, and in the eleventh round, they even defeated Blue Rain 7 to 3 at home. Since leaving Blue Rain, Yu Feng had also received a lot of controversy. Many fans thought he was too greedy. His status as the third player of Blue Rain was just right for his strength, and asking for a higher position was wanting more than he deserved.

So this time, Yu Feng proved that he was qualified to ask for a higher position through a direct dialogue with Blue Rain. Although his Berserker was defeated by Huang Shaotian's Swordsman in the final battle of the individual competition, after all, Hundred Blossoms had a bad start in the individual competition, and Yu Feng was already 30% behind in health when facing Huang Shaotian. In the subsequent team competition, Yu Feng became the brightest one, and his strong performance broke through Blue Rain's tactical network, and finally led Hundred Blossoms to victory in the team competition. With 7 points, they now had 71 points and rushed to 6th place on the leaderboard, leading Tyranny by 1 point.

In the eleventh round, Blue Rain wasn't the only powerhouse team to fail. Tyranny lost to Thunderclap 3 to 7 on the road in this round. They now had 70 points and were ranked seventh. Thunderclap was ranked third, continuing their glorious journey this season. In addition, Tiny Herb lost to Void 2 to 8 on the road in this round. Void took this opportunity to enter the playoff zone, and Tiny Herb was surpassed by Thunderclap and now ranked fourth.

Howling Heights, ranked 5th, defeated Misty Rain 8 to 2 on the road in this round, completely sending Misty Rain out of the playoff zone.

As for the bottom half, Mighty Wind and Coastal were firmly holding on to their relegation spots, while Light Cavalry, Miracle, and Beyond Cloud had clearly become targets for strong teams to score points.

If the weaker teams couldn't play a sniping role, then the rise and fall of the leaderboard would depend on the direct dialogues between the strong teams. Samsara was currently ranked first with 94 points, leading Blue Rain by as many as 13 points. Their dominant position this season was almost unshakable. Thunderclap was the biggest surprise of this season. After eleven rounds, they were still holding on to the second tier besides Samsara, keeping pace with the powerhouses such as Blue Rain and Tiny Herb.

Howling Heights had made a startling impression this season, but looking at the performance of the eleventh round, they were a bit of a flash in the pan. Although they weren't swept away by others or sweeping others like Excellent Era, it was also a fact that their state wasn't very stable. After the first four rounds, Hundred Blossoms became more and more stable. In this round, they defeated Blue Rain, and Yu Feng personally proved himself. Hundred Blossoms also showed the strength to compete with the top teams.

As for Tyranny after that, no one expected them to be as domineering as they were last season. Tyranny, who had resolutely started the rotation, rarely had a situation where the Four Heavenly Kings played at the same time. Their results were also floating up and down. They weren't weak when they met the weak, but they weren't very strong when they met the strong. Many people were somewhat disappointed in them and sighed helplessly about the topic of time flies.

Void, with their good performance in these two rounds, had returned to the playoff zone. In particular, defeating Tiny Herb in this round greatly boosted their morale, and the demeanor of the post-match press conference was very different from before.

Within ten points of the playoff zone were the three teams of 301, Misty Rain, and Excellent Era. 301 was always like this, sticky and hovering in this area. When they exerted their strength at the end of the season, if they were lucky, they would enter, and if they were unlucky, they would be relegated. As for Misty Rain and Excellent Era, they were about to start a direct confrontation in the twelfth round. This round of battle will obviously determine who can get closer to the playoff zone.

Looking at the trend before the game, Misty Rain had performed poorly in the past two rounds, losing to 301 and Howling Heights. What about Excellent Era? Since losing to Tiny Herb in the eighth round and Tang Rou breaking her promise not to quit, they had started a crazy point-grabbing spree. In the ninth, tenth, and eleventh rounds, they had grabbed 29 points. Looking at these three rounds alone, they had even crushed Samsara. Samsara only got 27 points in these three consecutive wins.

If you want to say that Excellent Era didn't meet strong enemies, Miracle and Coastal can't be considered strong teams, but Royal Wind is still a backbone team with All-Star players and All-Star characters. Thunderclap, which was the most amazing this season, was once defeated by them 7 to 3. As a result, when facing Excellent Era, they were swept away 9 to 1.

Excellent Era is coming!

Some media outlets, represented by Electronic Sports Home, emphasized Excellent Era's recent strong performance. And the Excellent Era haters, led by Ruan Cheng, were really not in a good position to make any noise at this time. Excellent Era's consecutive victories were slaps in the face to them. They were waiting, waiting for the moment when Excellent Era would capsize, so that they could gloat over their misfortune.

The opportunity right now was especially good. In the 12th round, Excellent Era was against Misty Rain, a team with playoff strength. If Excellent Era couldn't pass this hurdle, they would not only lose points in front of a direct competitor. Ruan Cheng and his followers could also use the fact that Excellent Era was just a paper tiger team that only pinched soft persimmons to attack them.