The final game was an intense forty-minute duel. Both teams had moments where victory seemed within their grasp, only to be swiftly countered.


    "Ahhh!" Hattie clutched her head, feeling like her heart was about to leap out of her throat. "This is too intense! I can''t watch!"


    The teams were in a deadlock, both sides convinced they were on the verge of winning.


    "Neverfall Navigators still has it," one of the male studentsmented. “Especially in thisst game. They''re ying at the same level they did when Demon was here."


    "They adjusted their rhythm and strategy so quickly after the second game,” another student added. "If I hadn''t known better, I''d suspect Demon himself showed up and coached them."


    Their performance now was a world away from how they''d started.


    Sitting beside them, Juniper simply took a calm sip of her lemonade.


    "Here ites!" a fan nearby shouted excitedly. "It''s the deciding moment! Neverfall Navigators is really heating up."


    Juniper put down her cup and looked up at the big screen. All five members of Neverfall Navigators were clustered together, locked in a chaotic brawl with the enemy team. Skills and items shed across the screen—a blinding disy of effects that made it almost impossible to tell who was who in the ten-yer pile-up. All you could see were health bars rapidly depleting and replenishing. Everything hinged on this single fight.


    A few secondster, a member of Shadow Titans was the first to fall. Neverfall Navigators'' yer Three also ran out of health. The rest continued the brutal team fight.


    Every nerve in the arena was stretched taut as all eyes remained glued to the screen. They couldn''t lose. Neverfall Navigators could not lose!


    Finally, as if answering the collective prayer of the entire arena, the members of Shadow Titans fell one by one. Victorious, Neverfall Navigators swaggered into the enemy base and effortlessly demolished their Nexus.


    The game was over. With a final score of 3-2, Neverfall Navigators had defeated Shadow Titans, securing their ticket to the finals.


    The crowd erupted in a massive roar of cheers, some fans even shouting Demon''s


    name.


    "The match is over. I''m heading out. You guys can do whatever," Juniper said, standing up. "If you want toe to the finals, you can."


    "The finals?” The students'' eyes went wide, staring at Juniper in disbelief, as if they''d misheard.


    Getting tickets to the finals was exponentially harder than for the quarterfinals. And the price was astronomical.


    “Juniper, won''t that be too expensive for you?" one of the male students asked tentatively.


    The finals! Of course they wanted to go. Watching it live was an incredible rush.


    "It won''t cost you anything, so don''t worry about it," Juniper replied after a moment''s thought, not wanting to exin further. She couldn''t very well tell them that the organizer of the whole tournament was her gent was her boyfriend, could she?


    And what belonged to her boyfriend, belonged to her. So, by extension... yes. She was the owner of this WKL eSports event.


    "Everyone, be safe on your way out," she said with a brief word of caution before leaving her seat.


    Just then, MystiCat had finished his post-game interview with the host and instinctively nced towards the VIP section. He frowned when he didn''t see the young girl. Where did she go?


    ...


    After the event, the members of Neverfall Navigators immediately found a staff member to ask about Juniper''s identity. Anyone sitting in the front-row VIP seats had to be Someone important.


    "Oh, her?" The staff member had just seen the little VIP off and had


    In


    copsed into a chair, wiping sweat from his forehead as if he''d just survived a catastrophe. He answered wearily, She''s this year top-ranked freshman at Era


    University."