Chapter Three: The Abandoned Fall Back Into Formation

Su Cheng still could not hear. Zhou Yan’s injury was worsening. Tang Ye did not fully trust him. Xu Duo carried a crime that could destroy the club. This was not a championship favorite. This was a group the prediction engine had already sentenced to death. Outside, tens of thousands of spectators began entering the arena. Vast displays rolled through the official probabilities: Throne, seventy-one percent. Emberstar, twenty-nine. The underground odds were far crueler. A distant roar swept through Lin Mo’s ears. It came three seconds early, yet it seemed too immense to belong to only three seconds—a sound traveling through the arena, through defeats and victories that had not happened.