Chapter 11 - 11 - The Player's Defeat 2

[This is what happens when you build a lopsided team!] [Hot damn! Officially sanctioned by the devs!] Some viewers were gloating, but another group was going absolutely feral. [Wende! Wende! How am I supposed to live without you! What will I do without your heals, Wende! Take me with you!!!] [My Wende! My beloved! The pain! It's too painful! More painful than Kakaya's first defeat!] And then there were those offering suggestions. [Let's crank up the difficulty for Kakaya! The streamer next door cleared it with this exact team, no extra levels, and passed with ease!] [C'mon! Lil' Ya! Put on a show for everyone!] "...A big thank you to all of you." Kakaya was rendered speechless by the diverse and colorful bullet comments flooding his stream. As a streamer on AC Station, he immediately recognized this as a great opportunity for content. Seeing the viewer count steadily climb, Kakaya smirked and pulled out his phone. [Huh? Why did Kakaya exit the battle?] [He's not thinking of putting Wende on the team, is he? It won't work, the devs locked the party!] [Speaking of which, why are there so many weird tricks after the public launch? This stuff didn't happen during the beta.] [Because my husband is here now~] [What do you mean your husband! That's my wife!] [Holy shit! Gays!] [Wait, everyone stop arguing for a sec, why did this Kakaya guy open the shop? Is he gonna whale on pulls?] [Look! A certain famous streamer breaks his promise to not pull until after the space station's main quest is done!] "Don't worry, everyone, I'm not going to pull!" Kakaya said to the stream with a cheerful grin. They watched as he swiftly topped up his account with a 648 RMB bundle, and then, under everyone's stunned gazes... He bought the Support Pack from the cash shop... [Holy shit! This dog!] [Goddammit, rich people and their tricks!] [That's our boy, with a thought process so bizarre. No wonder he's a numbers guy!] Kakaya chuckled as he uniformly leveled his party members to the highest possible level for the early game and restarted his crusade against the Doomsday Beast. [Wende: Are you kidding me?! Are you KIDDING me?!] [F*ck your mom! Refund!] [New here. Is this the sucker who spent real money on character EXP materials?] [No, you've got the wrong place. This is a KFC.] Relying on his "superb" technique, Kakaya smoothly passed the Doomsday Beast's first phase. Just as he was excitedly preparing to face the second phase, a sudden cutscene CG left him dumbfounded. "Huh? Why is there a CG animation here?!" Kakaya was completely baffled. In the cutscene, the Trailblaze party was shown working with clear coordination. They drew the Doomsday Beast's aggro while covering each other, displaying perfect teamwork. "Not good! March! Wende! Brace for impact!!" Himeko shouted to March 7th and Wende as the Doomsday Beast in the CG began to gather power. With a flick of her hand, March 7th enveloped the team in a shield, immediately followed by Wende's healing lightning needles. When the cutscene ended, Kakaya was stunned. He found that every character in his party now had two buffs: March 7th's shield and Wende's healing-over-time. "Is... is this even fair? miHoYo! You son of a bitch!!" Staring at a scene completely different from the beta test, Kakaya howled at the heavens. If he had known about these two buffs, why would he have bought the upgrade pack?! At this moment, the bullet comments exploded with laughter. [Hahahahaha! Thanks to everyone for not spoiling the second phase! I acknowledge your purity!] [Kakaya: Oh no, the clown was me all along!] [miHoYo! You've done well! (Appreciative)] [Ahh! My husband had to come save the day! I want him to stick me with his needles~] [March 7th: ? Do I not exist?] [No going feral!] The viewers, all real-life followers of the Path of Elation, had successfully orchestrated Kakaya's humiliation. In truth, a few people had tried to warn him at the beginning, but their comments were swiftly buried by the coordinated effort of the masses. The channel moderator even thoughtfully rewarded the spoiler with a big, fat mute as a prize. That's right! The mod was also a follower of Elation! Kakaya felt as if he had put on a clown nose, but it was too late to salvage his image! Knowing the composition of his audience, he figured a highlight clip of his blunder was probably already edited and ready to go. He could already predict what would be trending on AC Station tomorrow. Kakaya wanted to cry but had no tears. ...... Meanwhile, on another front. The news of Honkai: Star Rail's significant changes to the game's plot had already shot to the top of AC Station's trending list. Players were discussing it heatedly. Some believed that forcibly inserting a new character without any prior buildup felt far too clumsy. The other group believed... Wende was just too damn hot, and they suggested miHoYo double down! The paid "water army" trolls, who were still racking their brains for ways to slander Honkai: Star Rail, were completely washed away by the tide of feral fans before they could even make a move. Not a single ripple was made! It couldn't help but remind them of the advice from their predecessors: never go head-to-head with a newly released character. They could never win against a character who had the looks, the stats, and was also given away for free! In another streamer's room on AC Station. The streamer, who was on camera, was complaining about miHoYo's low drop rates. He casually did a ten-pull. Seeing the purple light behind Pom-Pom, the streamer looked very disappointed. "Sigh, another pity it is!" Mianhuatang shook his head helplessly, already preparing to whale for another bundle. He clicked the mouse to skip. Four streaks of purple light flashed across the screen. Before Mianhuatang could even react, the stream chat exploded as if a bomb had gone off, countless "WTF"s completely obscuring the screen! There, four Wendes were beaming, silently looking at Mianhuatang. "WTF!" Mianhuatang grabbed his head in disbelief, a string of curses escaping his lips! [Holy shit? The guy next door whaled almost 20k RMB in the standard banner and only saw two Wendes, and you got four in one go!?] [Family, who gets it?! A single Wende is harder to pull than a 5-star! That rich lady next door spent 40k to max out her Wende!] [The 6-star God of War! His reputation is well-deserved!] [I hereby declare Mianhuatang the Wende Jinchuriki!] [He's already E4, you're not gonna max him out?] Mianhuatang, who had been dejected from hitting pity every time, was now overjoyed. It wasn't a 5-star, but this was Wende! The character universally acknowledged as the hardest 4-star to pull from the standard banner! "Max him out! I have to max him out! I'm going all in today! If I max him out within two more bundles, I'll give away ten 648-RMB packs in the stream!" Mianhuatang waved his hand grandly, acting with great generosity. The bullet comments were instantly filled with messages like "Boss is generous! May the boss have a noble son soon..."