NOVEL NEXT Chapter 242: What it means
---<VICTORY>---
[Echelon: 6 points]
[Phoenix Rising: 0 point]
[Club Echelon are winners of the 12th Warstar RPG Champions League!]
The final blow had landed. The final health bar had hit zero.
And in the silence that followed the system's final VICTORY screen light up, the world erupted.
Wembley Stadium shook. Quite literally.
An earthquake of cheers, drumbeats, flares, and voices fused into a wave of roaring sound, rising from every seat.
Flags with the Echelon insignia, a silver falcon over obsidian black, were held high, whipped by the wind and unrelenting euphoria.
Commentators screamed.
Fans wept.
Some stood, mouths wide open in disbelief.
Some dropped to their knees, arms outstretched to the heavens.
The kings had been dethroned.
A new era had begun.
Noah stood at the center of the arena with Aetherforge slung across his back, his digital Avatar, Lord Doom glowing gold from the Champion's Aura buff.
But beyond the pixels, beyond the celebration of code and game…
He just sat there, unmoving behind his monitor, silently overwhelmed.
His friends; Aria, Caleb, Benjamin, and Genevieve, the ones who went through a decade of Warstar with him in Cyber Squad before their dramatic fall rushed to his side. Aria grabbed him by the collar and laughed in his face.
"You gonna cry or what, Godfather?!"
"Hahaha," Benjamin cackled. "Don't worry, if you cry, I'll photoshop it onto a T-shirt".
Caleb just placed a hand on Noah's shoulder, nodding. Quiet. Steady. Like always.
Genevieve hugged him from the side, tears welling in her eyes as she whispered. "We did it, Noah. All of us. You brought us here".
She could still vividly remember that night in front of the internet café, when she asked Noah what he would do after being kicked out of Cyber Squad.
Then, the look in Noah's eyes hurt her more than anything. She felt frustrated; she was too powerless to do anything.
But here she was, having took on Noah's message from Nightingale to assemble the team. From just assembling the team in the game, forming a team of misfits, here they were, as Warstar RPG Champions League winners once again.
'Wishes do come to pass'. She thought.
Noah? He didn't say anything yet.
He was still watching the confetti fall.
In the VIP box, Nightingale stood up slowly. He didn't cheer, didn't fist pump, neither did he shout.
He just smiled.
A deep, relieved, exhausted smile.
The boardroom meetings, the closed doors, the rejections, the scorn, the criticism, the 'washed-up and has-been' taunts, they all evaporated in that moment. This wasn't just a title.
This was validation.
It was the greatest comeback in Warstar history.
Nightingale turned to his assistant, then to the silent executives sitting across from him, men who once doubted, now speechless.
"I told you," he said, his voice low and smug. "You back the right players… and they turn into legends, all over again".
Across England, and far beyond, Echelon fans lost their minds.
Online viewership spiked past any previous record. Watch parties in pubs, colleges, and gaming cafes turned into parties of hysteria.
Even Cyber Squad fans celebrated. They celebrated their legends.
A boy in Lagos screamed at the TV, tossing popcorn into the air.
A girl in Seoul collapsed onto her gaming keyboard, sobbing with joy.
Warstar was a global video game, and prominent Warstar leagues like the English Pro Alliance? They had viewership and a fanbase that went beyond England's borders.
And of all the Warstar league games among all league games around the world, English Warstar's Champions League final was the most watched among Warstar fans around the world.
While fans screamed in Lagos, others collapsing onto their gaming keyboard in Seoul, in London, club Echelon headquarters became a pilgrimage site, with fans singing, chanting, and waving light banners through the night.
"Echelon!" "Echelon!"
"DOOM!" "DOOM!" "DOOM!"
And then, the trophy moment.
Wembley dimmed.
Then, a single spotlight.
The Champions' Trophy, a majestic silver helix wrapped around an obsidian orb rose from the stage.
Noah and his team gathered, hands trembling as they lifted it together.
And in that moment, as the pyrotechnics exploded and the arena went mad, Noah finally said something.
"To everyone who doubted us, this is for you".
"To everyone who believed, this is because of you".
"Echelon has arrived. And we're not leaving".
Wembley Stadium exploded for the umpteenth time just that night.
What it meant was simple.
To Noah and his team, it was redemption. A second chance that ended in glory.
To Nightingale, it was a masterstroke. He gambled on fallen heroes that he met coincidentally in the game… and he ended up building immortality.
To the fans, a new pantheon of legends to love, to follow, to believe in.
And to club Echelon, their story was no longer about comeback.
It was about domination.
That is what it meant.
And while Echelon celebrated, basking in the moment, enjoying the joy and euphoria that comes with victory, on another side, it was gloom and disaster.
Phoenix Rising's players refused to leave their player booths.
The media didn't mercifully spare them the attention either as at some point, they focused the camera there, broadcasting the bloom and gloom in the player booth. A once mighty and spirited team turned into a hollow husk of its former self.
Gabriel could not take it. Having lost against Noah 4 consecutive times this season, including losing his monopoly on the Warstar RPG Champions League finally, he lost it, breaking down in tears right there in the booth.
None of his teammates tried to console him, they knew that they would only make it worse. They were not feeling too great either.
It was only after the trophy lifting that Gabriel recovered enough to stand up and lead his players out of their player booth.
They may have lost, and it was another flawless victory, maybe to bystanders it was humiliating, but to them it was not.
They gave their all this time, and that was all that mattered.
Somehow, Gabriel managed to recover the smile on his face as he walked towards the stage where God Noah and his teammates celebrated with their fans.
There, his smile widened as soon as he laid eyes on God Noah.
He walked forward, hesitated slightly, and then pulled Noah into a hug.
"Good game," he said with a smile.
"Thanks". Noah replied with a smile.
Gabriel hesitated slightly, but then he whispered. "I admit defeat," he chuckled mirthfully. "You're the G.O.A.T man, don't dare lose to Meng Wu Ya".
"Go out there and win us the f*cking World Cup trophy".
With that, Gabriel finally moved on, congratulating the other Echelon players on their win one at a time.
He never imagined himself saying those words to Noah, but somehow, it was only after saying them out that he finally felt at peace, and free.
Taking the lead for his teammates, they congratulated Echelon's players one after the other, and then they finally left the stadium.
Gabriel refused to talk to the media no matter how much they tried.
…
3 days after Echelon's win in Wembley, there was a Warstar Announcement Broadcast. It was not just any broadcast, it was an announcement broadcast from the World Cup planning committee!
After 2 years since the last Warstar World Cup in USA, it was finally time for a new World Cup.
"This is not just a tournament. It's war, it's pride, it's everything".
"Welcome… to the Warstar World Cup".
The screen faded into gold-lit footage of the past tournament, the very first one; the roaring fans, the underdog upsets, the game-winning ultimates, and most touchingly the heartbreak.
Then, boom, the logo appears.
A phoenix, a lion, and a dragon circling a digital globe. This was the logo of the Warstar RPG World Cup.
Broadcasters across the world dropped the bombshell.
"The 2nd Warstar World Cup will commence in 7 days".
"After a meet between the World Cup executives, despite talks of new World Cup formats in progress, they've decided to keep the format of the 2nd Warstar RPG World Cup the same as the first".
"Like 2 years ago, the competition format is scheduled to last across a period of only 4 days".
"The first round of the competition, also the quarterfinals has 4 games in total to be played between the 8 competing countries".
"Out of the 4 games, 2 will be played on the first day, while the last 2 games of the first round are scheduled to be played on the next day".
"After the first round, 4 countries would be eliminated, leaving 3 countries to compete in the second round, also the finals".
"The 2 semifinal games would be played on the third day were 2 more countries would be eliminated, leaving the 2 most powerful countries in the epic final that would decide history".
"3 games, 3 wins to write history".
"The World Cup is the greatest eSports competition in Warstar, and from the 3rd World Cup onwards, the competition format would be changed with a recently revised format…"