# Chapter 93
The BO5 match officially began.
During the latter half of Saint's regular season, every match had been spectacular and brilliant. Their fans were full of confidence, and the pre-match cheering from Saint fans practically crushed NSN's. The casters were also very optimistic about Saint. The moment the match started, they praised the four Saint players from start to finish. The broadcast director even cut to an in-game poll showing player predictions—Seventy percent had voted for Saint to win.
Most people favored Saint, but if one looked closely at the players' expressions on stage, the Saint players' faces were grave, while the NSN members seemed more relaxed.
Early in the season, Vava had studied under Yu Sui, becoming obsessed with assassin healer builds. During the regular season, his performance had been erratic, mostly copying Yu Sui's strategies. But since he'd come to this playstyle halfway through, both his individual skill and team coordination fell short. NSN had suffered losses because of this. When the two teams met during the regular season, Saint had specifically targeted Vava, borrowing some tactics they'd used against Yu Sui's team. They stopped having their sniper camp in the back, sending all four players forward instead. Every encounter they'd kill the healer first without hesitation, even sacrificing their front-line assault down to half health. Then they'd rely on Angel Sword's healing ability, using their blood-bank support to pick off NSN's front-line assault. Several exchanges left Vava dead before he even saw his attacker. In the latter half of single rounds, Vava became jumpy—every time he encountered an enemy he'd instinctively try to hide, leading to more and more mistakes late-game. Saint completely controlled the match rhythm.
Before the match started, the casters had discussed it, thinking Vava's position might once again become NSN's weak point. But the moment the match began, defying everyone's expectations, Vava completely changed his regular season erratic state. He shed the assassin healer playstyle he'd been practicing for over half a season, staying tightly behind Gu Qian as an invisible healer. Not only did he not contest the front line—he didn't even show his face. Saint's assaults tried to hunt Vava several times, but no matter their positioning, they couldn't even graze him.
Not only did Vava's playstyle change, but NSN also abandoned their usual strategy of Vava going front-line with Gu Qian while their other assault, Xiran, cleared poisons along the map edges. NSN's two assaults and healer stayed grouped together the entire time, no longer rushing to clear poisons, only counterattacking, refusing to give Saint any chance to kill the healer.
Below the stage, Shi Luo whispered, "They really shouldn't have exposed this much during the regular season..."
"Look at Old A." Yu Sui murmured quietly. "Watch his positioning."
A team with two assaults rarely had players like Shi Luo and Chen Huo—basically equal in individual skill, able to push together in sync throughout. Most teams had one stronger assault. Like Gu Qian in NSN, like Old A in Saint.
In the game, every clash between the two teams in the fog happened in a flash—peak operations lasting under ten seconds. In the first few seconds of engagement, even one second couldn't be wasted. Whoever could break through the enemy's shield first to deal true damage was crucial. Assaults demanded extreme reaction speed and mechanical skill, which is why the stronger individual player would take the main damage-dealing position in every engagement, and the healer would prioritize keeping them alive. Normally when Saint fought, Old A would grab the maximum damage output angle, and the other assault would automatically adjust positioning to cover Old A's blind spots. But today they'd switched positions.
Old A was now in the supplementary fire position.
But even in the support role, Old A's mechanics were slightly off. During the first engagement, Xiran was left with just a sliver of health, but Old A failed to land the final shot. Xiran circled behind Vava, using Vava as a bullet shield, then quickly retreated to cover, saving his life.
Shi Luo murmured, "His reactions are fine—he keeps up every time and knows what he should do as support. But his accuracy can't keep up. Just now he fired eight consecutive shots and only hit one. One more shot and Xiran would've been down."
Assault bullets fired in bursts. During continuous fire, even without moving, one had to constantly adjust angle and pressure while tracking the target. Every micro-adjustment was precise to decimal points—any tiny deviation was unacceptable. Old A's operation precision fell short in several waves of advances.
"His mechanics can't match his instincts." Yu Sui watched the in-game footage. "Most likely it's..."
Yu Sui didn't continue, but Shi Luo understood anyway—it was injury.
If players were precision machines, the assault role would certainly have the highest wear rate.
In every match, a sniper might fire thirty shots at most, while an assault firing five or six hundred rounds was commonplace.
When Shi Luo first played assault, he thought it was so cool—every shot required large mouse sweeps, entire right arm pulling and moving through a full magazine. Both maximum damage output positions required one magazine of bullets, with peak mechanics during the shortest burst window to achieve higher hit rates. Higher accuracy than your opponent means your team wipes them; their higher accuracy means you're wiped.
It felt amazing, but assault position was also the most exhausting.
Old A playing assault until twenty-five was already a record-breaker itself.
Old A's mechanics had degraded compared to the regular season—not a small degradation. Saint obviously knew this better than anyone else. Being an experienced team, once they realized they couldn't out-fight NSN head-on, they quickly adjusted strategy, beginning to play defensively. They made feints to secretly clear poisons along both map edges, stopped targeting Vava, and automatically avoided direct engagement with NSN.
But NSN refused to follow Saint's rhythm. When Saint stopped pushing forward, Gu Qian and Vava began advancing head-on. Clearing poisons along the edges was taking the long way around—it couldn't be faster than clearing straight through the center. Saint could only passively harass Gu Qian while secretly clearing the edges. The situation gradually turned against them. Just as both teams had carved out a bit of path, NSN had already cleared half the center distance.
Saint's sniper stopped providing rear suppression—no point trying when it wouldn't work. Dragging things out would only mean being slowly swallowed. Saint sent both assaults to the map edges, with sniper and healer pushing the center together, sacrificing players one after another to buy time, slightly slowing NSN's momentum. But the early disadvantage was too great. By then, whether sneaking side routes or buying time to drain NSN's economy, nothing worked. After勉强 holding on for less than ten minutes, they couldn't withstand NSN's frontal fire any longer and lost the first match.
Before the match, everyone had favored Saint. When they dropped the first game, the casters were also stunned. After the surprise, they began reviewing. During the break, the director gave Yu Sui and Shi Luo a shot—the camera showed Shi Luo lower his head to examine Yu Sui's right hand. When the shot cut to them, Shi Luo instinctively tried to pull his hand back, but Yu Sui openly held Shi Luo's wrist, pulling his long-sleeve jacket's cuff back into place for him.
The break ended quickly. The director cut the feed back to the game interface.
The second match began.
Saint adjusted their strategy again, returning to their regular playstyle early game. Sniper held the rear, three front players carefully engaged NSN head-on, no longer sneaking to clear the side maps. But their frontal fights were much more cautious than last game—Old A remained in the back position.
They skirmished head-on twice, with no casualties on either side both times. Saint's Old A broke one shield, NSN's Xiran lost a third of his health—back and forth.
The casters didn't have professional players' sensitivity and didn't notice Old A's condition issue. One directly said, "God A seems to be playing... a bit conservatively today."
The other caster hesitated. "Yeah, him suddenly switching to support position was something we didn't anticipate before the match. Even less did we expect that when playing support, he'd be the first one to lose his shield. A moment ago, if he'd dodged more promptly, Saint actually had the advantage. They were the ones who broke Xiran's shield first—they could've continued. But God A's condition is off, so Saint immediately stopped advancing. Originally Saint had held their position, but their retreat let Gu Qian place the purification dish first."
Shi Luo frowned slightly. "These casters... don't look. The forums are already flaming Old A."
"This game isn't over yet." Yu Sui said slowly. "Watch Angel Sword."
Shi Luo's gaze shifted to Angel Sword. Old A's photon shield was broken—he should've already restored it for Old A long ago, but he hadn't. Looking at Saint's rear sniper, the sniper was clean—no initial shield at all.
Shi Luo's eyes flickered. He murmured quietly, "They're copying us..."
"Desperation tactics, trading resources. Trying to drain NSN dry without consuming any of their own assets." Yu Sui said softly. "With Angel Sword, they're actually better at this strategy than we were."
With Angel Sword as a blood bank, dragging out direct engagements would necessarily take longer. The longer they dragged things out, the more resources NSN would have to expend to fight them.
Before Yu Sui finished speaking, Saint predictably charged NSN's front again, feinted an attack, then immediately retreated.
NSN's first reaction was that Saint was abandoning frontal combat again like last game, going to clear poisons on both map edges. Their rear sniper ROD repositioned to scope and check both sides of their map. Saint had apparently anticipated this, pressing hard precisely when NSN had no sniper watching the frontal map, picking off Xiran while Old A was simultaneously taken by Gu Qian.
"Ah, this is a huge advantage. If God A could've dodged this exchange, it would've been perfect. And he had no shield—he shouldn't have pushed that far forward." The caster regretted. "Did Saint not have time to restore his shield just now? That shouldn't be the case."
Shi Luo took a breath. "I want to go up there and commentate."
The casters couldn't hear player comms, and weren't professional players, so sometimes couldn't understand the real intentions behind team operations. Yu Sui was used to it. "As long as they keep stalling, this game isn't over. Gu Qian's fine, but Xiran gets emotional too easily—he can't handle this attrition."
Xiran was young and excellent at playing advantage situations, easily baited into constantly attacking, naturally consuming more resources. Saint also exploited this. In the next clash, Old A rushed Xiran's face again, handing Xiran another kill.
The caster naturally couldn't help but say, "Old A this exchange... shouldn't have charged! His teammate didn't follow up, and he rushed forward to place the purification dish, then got killed again."
Yu Sui said, "Good. Xiran has a kill to upgrade attachments, and he's burning through resources faster."
Saint played very craftily. After feeding several waves, they started mixing real and fake attempts to clear poisons on both map edges. Old A and the other assault split up, one on each side. The moment any action happened on the map, NSN's rear sniper ROD would spot it, and Gu Qian would immediately move to defend, delaying them again.
Saint, like an exhausted donkey, tried the middle, tried both sides, took hits the entire time, delaying for a full twenty minutes.
When NSN's resources were half-depleted, they also realized the problem. They stopped being drawn out, focusing on clearing the map center. Saint also stopped acting—officially dropping the pretense. NSN pressed hard, Saint fought desperately, stretching the game to thirty-five minutes.
There was still a large area of poison not cleared near Saint's respawn stone. NSN's resources were nearly depleted. The second match, with little suspense, went to Saint, tying the score again.
Shi Luo frowned tightly. "This strategy... against a team like NSN, this kind of play can only work once."
Yu Sui was more analytical: "It was本来就是出其不意的办法, a surprise tactic. Getting one game out of it was already decent."
The third match began. NSN was clearly prepared. This time, no matter how Saint fed, they wouldn't take the bait—playing steadily and solidly, attacking head-on. By now NSN had also noticed Old A's condition was off. Like Saint had clung to Vava before, they clung to Old A, targeting him the entire game. With their consistently stable performance, they won the match, taking match point.
Old A's mechanics weren't actually that bad, but under constant targeting, even without panicking or feeding, he still looked like he'd die at a touch—no mechanics, no performance.
As the third match neared its end, the casters were already directly pointing at Old A as Saint's weak point.
The people at Free's base were awake, probably watching the match. They kept complaining in Free's group chat, cursing the casters for being laypeople who couldn't see, flaming forum trolls for being idiots, and cursing Saint's management for not protecting their players—revealing Old A's true condition in advance.
Chen Huo was so furious he kept spitting: "No brains at all, zero awareness of protecting veteran players. I could tell in the first game that Old A was definitely playing through injury. Are their eyes broken?"
Zhou Huo, who'd been listening to Chen Huo and Old Qiao's commentary the whole time, also posted in the group: "With this complete lack of media management ability, Saint's management can just resign."
Chen Huo roared in the group: "Shi Luo! You're not at the scene? Go! Go up there and commentate! Blow those idiot casters off the desk for me!"
Shi Luo glanced at the group chat, saying nothing.
Yu Sui said calmly, "If it were me, I wouldn't say anything either."
Shi Luo had already figured it out. After a long silence, he said, "Saint didn't dare say anything. First, they weren't sure Old A could really push through today—but they didn't expect things to actually go this far. Second... with Angel Sword and the others' personalities, they probably didn't want to reveal too much before the match, to avoid emotionally pressuring NSN."
Yu Sui slowly said, "Whether you can keep playing is your own business. You don't need others' pity. Losing fairly, there's nothing shameful about that."
The fourth match began. The previous game had really dragged on too long, draining Old A badly. In the fourth match, Old A's mechanics were so off it was almost painful to watch. Less than ten minutes into the game, NSN had completely overwhelmed them.
Fifteen minutes into the game, when Saint's comeback hope was virtually gone, Angel Sword, who had maintained peak performance throughout, suddenly also went missing.
The caster said in disbelief, "What is Angel Sword doing? Instead of protecting others, he's protecting Old A? The game is already hopeless and he's playing like this? This... if they lose this game, it's really over! Angel Sword! Wake up!!!"
Angel Sword's mechanics were maxed out, but his eyes seemed to have no one else in them—he only watched Old A. When he had no shield himself, he'd still patch Old A's. When hit, he stood in front of Old A. When Old A could operate, he charged the front line to be Old A's cover, getting turned into a sieve by Gu Qian in an instant—sacrificing himself so Old A could secure his first kill of the match.
When Old A got his first kill, the director cut to Old A. In the shot, Old A froze for a moment, then smiled.
At the same time, Angel Sword's fingers flew across the keyboard. The moment he respawned, he rushed out of the respawn stone, throwing the last shield onto Old A.
"Dammit." Shi Luo's eyes reddened. Gritting his teeth, he said, "Are you healers all like this at your core?"
Yu Sui smiled faintly.
Three minutes later, Saint, at the end of their rope, had their respawn stone destroyed by NSN.
At the same moment, the four Saint players removed their headsets. Except for Old A, who wore a gentle smile, the other three were all in tears. The youngest team member was choking up so badly he could barely stand.
Shi Luo's pre-match prediction hadn't been wrong. Across four games, whether Angel Sword or the other two Saint players, they'd played with their lives on the line, trying their hardest to help Old A go a little further.