Chapter 2124: Players and Spectators Making Merry
The Star Wars players who were piloting the fighter planes from Earth had also been on shift.
There were three shifts, and players 'landed' every 30 minutes and rested for an hour before getting back online.
Professional medical staff was on hand at all times to handle any players who exhibited physiological symptoms from being 'too engrossed' in the game.
In the VR gaming halls, the players gesticulated and hit the special punching pad under the control wheel every now and then — in the past, many players who lost would directly smash the control equipment out of anger.
Even though everybody knew that a VR control device was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that they would have to pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars if they broke something, they really couldn't help it.
But if they lost too quickly and didn't have anything to vent on, it would only make the players even more anxious. Thus, two especially smooth punch pads appeared on both sides below the control wheel.
The pads made very satisfying thumps when they were punched hard a few times, and they were very sturdy. It felt much better than smashing the keyboard and mouse in a game.
This was especially the case in today's battle.
The quarterly and mid-year competitions before this weren't as difficult as today's enemies.
Many players who were forced offline cursed the game company for being a black-hearted profiteer which increased the game difficulty like crazy to reduce the total credit points earned by players, thereby reducing the amount of cash that could be exchanged for credit points.
In response, staff members on the side explained gently, "Given how difficult the annual competition is, the company has increased the credit you can earn accordingly. In a situation where an individual carries out orders accurately, you can earn 1.2 times the amount of credit at the very least, and 2 at most."
Most of these staff members were beautiful big sisters who had undergone professional training, and their gentle words and sweet smiles immediately calmed most of these gaming nerds down.
Hmph, it definitely wasn't because the sharp decline in revenue which they had expected had suddenly increased again, and could be even more. That was what the nerds told themselves. In any case, they calmed down.
Completely shut away in the gaming halls, they had no idea that the world had been invaded by aliens.
Thanks to Luke, there were people livestreaming all over the world.
Some of them were professional media broadcasters, some were semi-professionals, like online celebrities, and most were amateurs of various levels.
Wakanda had caused quite a stir in the last few years. Many people had tried to sneak into this mysterious African country to do a live broadcast.
No one had been successful, but there were still plenty of viewers who would watch live broadcasts outside the country's borders, which kept this trend going.
This time, these livestreamers around Wakanda finally caught big news.
Of course, an alien invasion wasn't big news. Thor, this alien prince, had become a superhero on Earth, so it wasn't unusual at all.
Also, a lot of aliens had shown up during the Battle of New York and the battle at Greenwich.
What was different this time was that Earth had also deployed thousands of fighter planes.
Tens of thousands of fighter planes on both sides engaged above these livestreaming enthusiasts. Energy cannons fired everywhere and explosions constantly rang out.
This was a real intergalactic battle, and not just an alien army slaughtering Earthlings, with superheroes just barely being able to save the day.
If Earth was strong enough, how many people would be willing to watch those superheroes fight on their own every time?
The best was if they could take Earth's army with them to torture those alien dogs!
Thus, countless spectators around the world watched the real battle from a distance.
Thankfully, because the livestreamers only covered a small range and lacked general knowledge about intergalactic battles, these ordinary people didn't see how much of a disadvantage Earth's fighter planes were at.
At most, they felt that the fighter planes of Earth's allied forces... were exploding too often?
At that moment, all the players on Earth went online at the same time.
Frank threw two-thirds of the players who had just gotten a good rest into attacking Thanos's fleet in space.
The onlookers suddenly realized that the battle above Wakanda was rapidly becoming less intense.
Thanos's fighter planes were increasingly less in the mood to deal with the neverending flow of unmanned fighter planes. They began to fly out of Earth's atmosphere to protect Thanos.
Earth's unmanned planes were indeed trash, but when they cooperated with the battleships, hundreds of them could destroy the weapons systems of the large battleships.
Without a weapons system, a large battleship was nothing more than a large ship; apart from being more resistant and able to escape, it didn't have any advantages.
For a moment, the Wakandan battlefield, where the fighting had been the most intense, only had small ships which continued to cooperate with Thanos's ground forces.
Including the four generals, the remaining 100 members of the elite alien team took off on fighter planes to protect Lord Thanos.
The Avengers and the Justice League had no intention of letting them go.
Taking advantage of the fact that these aliens were in a hurry to retreat, they pursued them like crazy.
Steve, Bucky and Sam attacked the most brainless of the four generals, Cull Oblivion, together.
As he did his best to fend off Bucky and Sam's fierce attacks, Steve sent his head flying with a shield from behind.
Ebony Maw actually had a chance to save Cull Oblivion, but Tony and Rhodes were chasing him, and when he thought of how Thanos's warship was under attack, he decisively abandoned his companions.
The alien team was in a much worse state.
The ten or so superpowered aliens were turned into mince and roasted by the Big Dipper clone.
The other ordinary team members also fared poorly.
The Big Dipper clone killed dozens of them in passing, and the Avengers and reserve members killed more than 100.
As the rest retreated, they continued to be pursued out of Earth's atmosphere.
In the end, only 50 individuals managed to escape, but they were basically crippled.
Rather than saying that they were going back to support Thanos, it was more like they were using this as an excuse to draw closer to Thanos's warship to avoid being besieged again.
Even if Thanos looked for someone to blame after the battle, he couldn't blame these loyal subordinates.
After all, from the looks of it, Thanos's fleet had taken a beating.
The fighter planes once again clashed with Earth's unmanned planes and couldn't provide much cover fire.
On his throne, Thanos relaxed. "It seems this is your true strength."
Putting everything else aside, the five Wakandan battleships that had appeared were clearly different from Ursa Minor's battleships, and they didn't work quite in formation with each other, which was enough to tell him that they were from different groups.
This also meant that Earth had basically run out of battleships.
As long as there were 50, no, 30 more of these fearless Earth battleships, his fleet would basically be done for.
In a situation where the other side's main fleet had come out in one go, there was no need to leave a large number of battleships on standby.
Seeing Earth's trump card, the uneasiness in Thanos's heart finally faded. He casually gave the order for the combat soldiers on the warship to start fighting with all their might.
After issuing the order, he picked up his helmet and fiddled with it as he murmured, "After this, you'll probably come looking for me, right?"