Vanguard of the Eternal Night

Chapter Ch114 - Entertainment Match – Demon King

translator: xiin

editor: kara

The ‘demon king mode’ wasn’t an official A-League team competition game mode. It was a modified version of one of the ten official team competition modes. It normally wouldn’t appear in competitions and would only appear for fun in casual games. It was a custom team competition mode for casual players.

The demon king mode was also known as the ‘1vN mode’, which basically summarized its main characteristic: One person against the remaining N number of people.

That one person was labelled as the ‘demon king’, and the rest were the ‘brave warriors’.

The demon king could pick a main profession, a sub profession, and race, and they could also adjust their skills and equipment. Of course, it would ultimately still be balanced out and adjusted by the system for fairness. Generally speaking, based on the demon king’s choices, the demon king’s attributes would be upgraded to anywhere between 5 and 15 times that of the brave warriors’.

And, the N brave warriors would be in a team together. They would deal half the amount of damage if they attacked each other, and their mission was to take down the demon king.

However, there would also be a traitor amongst them, known as the ‘black knight’. Their task was to protect the demon king. Like the demon king, he could inflict full damage onto the other brave warriors.

It was precisely this kind of mode that had been developed by the players over several years. It had gained much momentum over the years, but it had quite a few restrictions. The most obvious question was: Who could become the demon king and actually take down ten with one?!

Even if their attributes allowed them to easily crush a single brave warrior, the hardware conditions of both sides were basically equal. Also, there was only one demon king while the brave warriors could implement a strategy based on their team––once they teamed up, one plus one may not merely equal two. If they cooperated properly, the brave warriors could play out an extraordinary level of strength while simultaneously making up for all the weaknesses and shortcomings of each individual as a team.

Of course, it could also be said that the attributes of the demon king were also more than one plus one equals two. However, there was a problem with this logic. Very few demon kings could play out such a big attribute boost to the max. Most players who were familiar with the balanced stats in the game weren’t qualified enough to be a good demon king.

This was also the biggest reason why the black knight came into being. It was mainly done with the balance between the two teams in mind. Sometimes, when the demon king wasn’t strong enough, they may arrange two or even three black knights.

This time, it was obvious that the netizens had been inspired by the name, ‘Odin the Great Demon King’. Right from the start of the voting process, they had desperately demanded that the demon king mode be chosen. They howled and flailed, and there was almost no tactic they hadn’t tried.

And, who did they want as the demon king?

There was no need to even think about it. It was locked in. Odin the Great Demon King.

In any case, the officials hadn’t planned to intervene at the start and only went off happily to inform Odin of the results.

“......”

The only ones who ended up with a constant string of ellipses over their heads were Odin himself and Victor.

Victor laughed so hard that he wanted to roll around, “They’re bullying you again, hahahaha...”

Tyron: “......”

Victor then asked, “What are neutral NPCs? Will the map be filled with NPCs?”

If there was only one map and terrain at a time, the probability of a rainy day map appearing at random was very small; however, if it was a large map where N terrains came out at random all at once, there would definitely be a terrain that met the conditions for a wet body on the map!

Victor felt like he could hear the laughter from those in the rainy day cult!

They were simply a group of evil cult believers who wrecked the country and brought ruin to its people!

Victor didn’t care about all that. He tidied Tyron’s collar and said, “Pay attention this time. Stay away from the rain! Winning or losing doesn’t matter, but you definitely can’t give away benefits... We’ll scatter some dog food when you come back.”

Tyron: “...Mm.”

In fact, the master assassin also thought this way.

The best strategy to stop the ‘lick, lick, licking’ was not to give them a chance to lick right from the start...

The netizens were really thinking about ‘make trouble, make trouble, make trouble’. After the votes came out for ‘Odin the Great Demon King’, they were determined not to forget the people who’d made the great demon king famous: Geng Chen, the elemental dancer, and Old Friend, the ice mage.

Netizens: Heeheehee, look at these people who’ve been beaten up by the great demon king gathering together to fight against the great demon king again... There are enough of them to row a boat!

As for Mr. Duke, that grim reaper? Who was he? Had he competed before? Goodbye, we won’t be seeing you out.

In addition to these three, the rest were obviously based on popularity.

Among the remaining members of the top six: the next highest in popularity was the paladin, Forgetting Worries. He had an advantage in both image and strength, and so, he was selected to join the ranks of the brave warriors. The hacker, Universal Day, had also become popular due to the trending topic: ‘shivering banana’, and he was also enthusiastically sent to the top of the list and short-listed. The tentacle monster... oh, that wasn’t right, the ability user, Little De, and the druid, Meowmeowmeow, were a few votes short and had to say goodbye to the entertainment match.

Therefore, six of the 12 players in the entertainment match came from the individual competition, and the remaining four were from the team competition. Three of the four players were from the championship team. There were two places left, and one was given to a popular anchor and the other to a male commentator.

Indeed.

Male. Commentator.

The organizers: “???”

Contestants: ???”

The male commentator himself: “......”

‘Thunderstruck’ wasn’t even close to enough to describe the male commentator’s mood after he learned about this. There were almost 10,000 herds of grass mud horses galloping over his heart as he roared: Motherf*cker! You guys are just making trouble! I dedicate myself to give you commentary yet you guys actually––you guys actually went insane! You didn’t even let off a little weak chicken like me!

The netizens who liked to make trouble: “Heeheehee! We want the wordy king to go up and fight! Come! Let’s have fun!”

.

Demon king mode + Neutral NPCs + Super large collage map.

This year’s entertainment match was simply going to be brilliant and colorful. Even before it had started, the number of live viewers soared and soon exceeded the average ratings for the official competition.

During the preparation stage, 11 brave warriors drew lots, and one of them became the traitor, the black knight.

As for Demon King Odin, he was currently customizing his profession, race, skills, and equipment. In general, the players in the competition were the default human race and only had one profession. As the demon king though, Odin could also choose a sub profession and race.

Tyron had originally not wanted to choose anything at all. He was a character who could remain unchanged while facing ten thousand changes, and in theory, having his two weapons with him would be enough.

But then, he thought about it: What if the randomized map had water everywhere? Or, if it was very unfavorable terrain? Although the probability of it being all water was very small, he should still be on guard against such extreme situations. Additionally, there were 10 brave warriors in total. Even if there was no terrain advantage, they were still likely to chase and intercept. Therefore, he needed to be able to move at will.

A few seconds later, Tyron pulled out the big guns––

He’d chosen the ‘blazing angel’ as his race.

For thousands of years, when the master assassin was at his most powerful state, he’d been a blazing angel, holding Deep Silence and Song of Triumph––the most familiar combination was always the strongest one.

As a pair of wings woven from light appeared behind his avatar, Tyron watched his stats on the stats panel plummet.

For the balance system, the flying ability in and of itself was a very unbalanced ability. It didn’t appear on the skill lists and would only show up in a race’s inherent talents. In other words, it couldn’t be selected in normal competitions. Similarly, as soon as it appeared, it meant that other stats must decline in order to maintain a level of balance.

However, stats were really a secondary thing for Tyron. He was too lazy to think about his second profession and chose the only thing he’d used before: Priest.

Yes, it was the priest that he’d been forced to use in the previous entertainment match... Even if it was just for a few minutes, for better or worse, he was still better at it than any other profession.

By the time Odin had finished setting up his character, the other 11 had already finished their draw.

At this moment, the brave warriors were looking at each other with sharp eyes and trying to determine who the hidden traitor was amongst them. However, it was a pity that even if the performance and acting abilities of the players couldn’t be called superb, they could at least manage an expressionless face and wouldn’t directly disclose such information to their opponents.

Standing among the contestants was one person who clearly stood out: the male commentator. Although he’d also participated in e-sports when he was younger, he’d been retired for so long that all his moves and operations had been turned into analysis and awareness for his commentary. As of right now, he stood there with a group of amazing professional players with his head ducked like a husky among wolves. It was particularly eye-catching.

Nobody had been able to discover who the black knight was yet the demon king had already appeared from behind the scenes.

Odin came out dressed in a big cloak that was exclusive to the demon king. The cloak that had magical patterns on it was extremely stylish, and the double-breasted tuxedo inside also gave him a bit of an aristocratic temperament. It was very similar to the vampires who’d lived in ancient castles in classic stories or demons dressed in a surface layer of gorgeous humanity.

Great demon king: Expressionless.jpg.

Brave warriors: Oh crap, we haven’t even started fighting yet, but the enemy has already launched a seduction attack on our side!

Audience: Awesome! Let’s all convert to the demon king’s camp now!

A few seconds later, the public screen comments underwent a complete reversal, going from calls of ‘Down with that great demon king’ to ‘Lord Demon King, please push down all these little peons!’

The brave warriors stared unblinkingly at the great demon king for half a beat, and then, Forgetting Worries stepped out from the crowd.

Everyone was waiting for him to say something, but they hadn’t expected that Forgetting Worries would have a mesmerized expression on his face as he asked directly, “Can, can, can I take a photo with you?”

Everyone: “......” We never thought that you were such a person! For better or worse, you were still the one who fought against Odin for the provincial championship! Can you have some backbone?!!

The great demon king looked disdainful.

After a while, the team of brave warriors finally sent out the team leader they’d elected––it was the team captain of the championship team. He was deeply trusted by his teammates and the other brave warriors, and he had a strong sense of awareness when it came to taking down bosses.

The captain reached out with his hand and directly pulled Forgetting Worries back into the team. After that, he faced the great demon king directly and said, “It’s a great honor to participate in the great undertaking of taking down the great demon king. I hope that we can give everyone a wonderful game.”

His expression was serious and solemn, and this made the old antique Odin ponder. Was ‘taking down’ a commonly used phrase in the competition arena? Well, it was only right to do what was expected.

In any case, a pre-war declaration was very common, and the stronger the scent of gunpowder was, the better.

Odin shook hands with him and said, “I will take you all down one by one. If you can’t wait, then you can come together.”

The captain of the brave warriors paused for a moment and looked at the demon king’s handsome face... He couldn’t come up with any fighting intent or anger and blushed instead.

The old antique: “???”

The public screen: “These words––ahhh––! What heavy tastes! What do you professional players get up to every day!!!?”