The clamor about Excellent Era continued, but Excellent Era was such a large plate that it wasn't as easy to take over as Team Wu Ji. Putting aside everything else, the God-level character One Autumn Leaf, known as the Battle God, was probably already worth more than Team Wu Ji's entire roster. What’s more, Excellent Era had been rooted in the Alliance for many years, establishing its own training base and competition venue during the Alliance's years of rapid development. Excellent Era was already a behemoth, not something that could be swallowed in one gulp. The public's appeals and the fans' attitudes had reawakened its potential value, which could ignite some possible interest, but it also increased the difficulty of the acquisition. If these potential values were evaluated together, Excellent Era's value would only be higher.

However, what was currently very favorable for the acquirer was that Excellent Era's boss, Tao Xuan, had been forced into a position where he had to sell Excellent Era. Excellent Era, in anyone's hands, had the potential to continue to operate and develop into a profitable project, but in his hands alone, it would become a money-losing venture because of the loss of a large number of fans.

The direction was clear. How the transaction of Excellent Era would proceed next would require the buyer and seller to discuss and grasp the nuances themselves. Current public opinion generally believed that Excellent Era could not be completely transferred, after all, the plate was too large. Such a huge upfront investment would take many years to recover, and that was considering that Excellent Era could quickly return to the Alliance and regain its status as a championship contender.

But in fact, competition was always risky. Once Excellent Era really had a bad run of luck and was unable to return to the Alliance for years, it would truly be cause for tears. Therefore, current public opinion generally believed that Excellent Era would likely first be split up and sell its basic hardware to reduce the cost of the entire plate, thereby reducing the risk factor, so that someone could successfully take over.

The extent of the transaction's progress was temporarily unknown. And the playoffs of the Professional League's ninth season were finally approaching step by step.

After the actual testing of the Challenger League, the Alliance finally decided that the Professional League playoffs would adopt the head point system used in the elimination stage of the Challenger League offline matches. Moreover, in accordance with multiple opinions, the final scoring method would be changed to awarding one head point for each opponent killed, and then comparing the final scores of both sides to determine the winner.

In addition to this, there was a major change in the competition system. The new playoffs would not determine the winner by adding up the results of two rounds of matches to calculate the small score. Instead, the winner would be determined based on the outcome of a single match, best of three games. That is to say, it would change from having to play only two games in the past to potentially playing three.

There was no doubt that this was a win-win change from both a competitive and commercial perspective, and the adoption of this approach was due to the adoption of the new competition system.

The old competition system was divided into three parts: individual, stage, and team. With the team match accounting for a large score, the outcome of the entire match could be determined by two parts, and the stage match in the second part would lose its meaning. However, reducing the score of the team match could lead to a situation where one side had already won after the individual and stage matches, eliminating the need for the team match.

These situations were obviously not what the Alliance wanted to see. The new system avoided the above situations very well. As for the situation where the head points were tied after two parts, the winner could be determined by overtime, which was not a problem. In this way, the best-of-three system could be implemented.

Subsequently, with the Alliance's vigorous promotion, the playoffs were approaching step by step, and the event finally became the main theme of the Glory circle again. The eight teams in the post-season all appeared on stage to promote their teams. Having reached this point, any team had enough reason to look forward to the supreme championship trophy.

It was just that when faced with interviews, all eight teams would be asked many questions about Happy, even if some had already been asked before, the media still enjoyed it. If someone who was too unaware of the situation watched these interview reports on each team, they would definitely think that Happy was a hidden boss lurking in the playoffs. Otherwise, why would this team's name be mentioned in every team's interview?

"What do you think of Ye Xiu's return?" During Team Tyranny's interview, the reporters were willing to ask Han Wenqing this question.

"I look forward to facing him on the field." As an old opponent for many years, Han Wenqing's welcome to Ye Xiu would still only be his fist.

"As a player who has also retired and returned, do you have anything to say to Ye Xiu?" Zhang Jiale also received special attention in the interview.

"He did something I thought was impossible, and I sincerely admire him for that," Zhang Jiale said.

"What do you think of Ye Xiu's return?" The same question shone again in Team Blue Rain's interview.

"The overall technical and tactical level of the entire Alliance will be raised by a notch because of this," said Blue Rain's captain, Yu Wenzhou.

"But don't you think that the lack of Excellent Era is also a loss?" a reporter asked.

"Oh, you're overthinking it. Doesn't Excellent Era's level also depend on their players? But with the current state of Excellent Era, would their players still stay? I think their players will definitely seek transfers, and we will definitely see them again in the Alliance. Why don't we predict where they'll go, for example, Sun Xiang, I think..."

"Next question." The press officer attending the interview for Blue Rain interrupted Huang Shaotian with a blank expression. He had done this too many times and was completely numb to it. Take care of Huang Shaotian's feelings? What was that? Never heard of it.

"Um..." At Team Samsara's interview, Zhou Zekai "ummed" when asked about Ye Xiu's return, and then fell into a long silence.

Until the atmosphere at the scene became a bit strange, he suddenly added two words: "Very difficult."

"Do you mean it's difficult to deal with Ye Xiu?"

"Yes." Zhou Zekai nodded.

Okay, this was Zhou Zekai. Getting such an answer was worth asking. If you want to know more opinions, ask their vice-captain, Jiang Botao...

The answers from the eight teams varied, and the media got what they wanted. But frankly speaking, at this time, none of the eight teams would put their minds on Ye Xiu, whom they would not see again until the next season. The battle for the ninth season's championship was about to begin, and the first match was the highly anticipated match between Tyranny and Hundred Blossoms. From the atmosphere at the venue, it was clear that to this day, many Hundred Blossoms players still could not accept the fact that Zhang Jiale chose Tyranny after his comeback.

When Zhang Jiale appeared, thunderous boos immediately rang out in the stadium.

Zhang Jiale was expressionless. This was not the first time he had received such treatment. During the regular season, he had suffered this treatment at this home stadium, the competition venue he had fought in for several years and was extremely familiar with.

This time it was the playoffs, and Zhang Jiale was facing the same situation as Ye Xiu, having to fight his former team to the death.

What kind of mood was he in? Zhang Jiale was asked such a question in a pre-match interview. He did not answer, because he did not know what kind of mood it was. He once thought that he could face it calmly, but when it came to the moment, he found that it was not as simple as he had imagined.

In the booing, Zhang Jiale silently walked towards the player preparation area.

"Go to hell!" Suddenly a roar came from the stands, and a group of radical Hundred Blossoms fans suddenly threw down a pile of full drink bottles. The elimination round, where it was a matter of life and death, further melted the fans' rationality.

Fortunately, the distance was far, and many people didn't have good aim. Zhang Jiale quickly dodged this wave of attacks. The security guards at the scene had already divided into two groups, one to stop these fans and the other to protect Zhang Jiale from further harm.

The fans who caused the trouble were all escorted out of the venue. In any case, this kind of behavior should be severely condemned.

Zhang Jiale silently watched these fans being taken away, and some of them kept turning back to curse at him. Zhang Jiale sighed, but then felt someone staring at him.

Zhang Jiale turned his head and was stunned, then squeezed out an unnatural smile: "Xiao Le..."

Xiao Le was a security guard for Hundred Blossoms and had been there since Zhang Jiale was there. At the same time, he was also a loyal fan of Team Hundred Blossoms, and the whole team was quite familiar with him.

"Welcome back," Xiao Le said as he walked closer, but there was no smile on his face.

Zhang Jiale was stunned, and just as he was about to say something, Xiao Le suddenly gave him a punch.

The scene was in chaos. No one expected that even a security guard would do such an irrational thing. Xiao Le was quickly subdued by his companions, and in the process, he did not resist at all. He just kept looking at Zhang Jiale like that, without a trace of a smile.

"Let him go..."

Zhang Jiale's stomach was still churning, but he forced himself to say this.

The security guards obviously knew the seriousness of Xiao Le's actions, but if Zhang Jiale was not going to pursue the matter, there would be a lot of room for maneuver. They were obviously all on Xiao Le's side, and when they heard Zhang Jiale say this, they quickly let go of Xiao Le, but they were still keeping a close watch on him to prevent him from taking any impulsive actions again.

"For the championship, I must win!" Zhang Jiale finally left these seven words and turned to leave. The Tyranny players did not see what happened here, but they saw the security guards suddenly grabbing someone again and guessed that something had happened. However, Zhang Jiale just shook his head and did not say much. Everyone knew that this match was extremely difficult for Zhang Jiale, so they did not ask any more questions.

"Don't worry, I'm fine." After sitting in his seat for a while, Zhang Jiale suddenly said. Although his teammates did not ask, he could feel their concern for him. The team was a whole, and he needed to use his attitude to dispel other people's concerns so that everyone could concentrate on the match.

"We must win." Zhang Jiale took a deep breath and stood up in the midst of the boos from the crowd.

The live broadcast had just announced the players who would be playing in the stage match, and the first to appear for Tyranny was Zhang Jiale.

A few minutes later, when he walked off the field, Team Tyranny had already scored two head points. Zhang Jiale had completed the feat of defeating two opponents in the stage match, and only lost when facing the third person.

For the championship, I must keep winning strongly!

With this feeling, Zhang Jiale walked back to the Tyranny player area with his head held high, amidst the huge boos.

On the first day of the playoffs, Team Tyranny defeated Team Hundred Blossoms 11-7 on the road.