Chapter 526: The Haze of Cleveland
Author: Smart Phillips Min
In May 2012, at the turn of the spring and summer, the National Basketball League, a professional sporting event known as the National Basketball League, was held in two qualifying rounds before the finals, with four teams competing in the West Coast Angel City, California, a young team in Miami on the South Coast, and a team called the Cavaliers in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Central Region.
The two California teams competed in the same city from 1980 to a newly built stadium in 1999, and their historic first meeting in the knockout rounds the year before was the talk of the gossip of Angel City, a topic that continued to reach new heights this year.
The Lakeside Man, who is significantly more famous than the other team, Clipper, began in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the last century, and was so fond of the poetic name Rachels that it relocated to Angel City on the warm, sunny California coast because of their disgust with the cold snow and long nights of the north.
Over the course of several decades, they have won a large number of victories and numerous accolades, and have the widest and most ardent fan following. Just two years ago, they were at the pinnacle of glory, killing the Celtic, a demon hidden in Boston Bay, the former league ruler from Massachusetts, in a fateful duel, and then after a brief year of depravity, they dug up the cunning dwarven elf who grew up in the hurricane-ravaged swamps of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the legion commander codenamed CP3 to assist their second king in yellow, K24.
Their seizure of resources was met with many protests, but the protests had no effect, just as they had robbed the tall Bear King in Memphis in a similar way five years earlier. They continued to wreak havoc on the western lands, with only four victories left from the final battle in June from January to May. The yellow terror has been on and off on the West Coast for sixty years, and in the last decade it has permeated the vast plains east of the Rocky Mountains. The last obstacle standing in their way now is the low-notoriety, "fast sailer" Krepers, who has not achieved much in decades.
I had the privilege of being at the helm of operations and management of Krepers three years ago, on June 25, 2009, and I had the special task of diving into the depths of this degenerate, corrupt team, hoping to change the situation by means and methods to achieve a satisfactory outcome for everyone. I had hoped to keep this secret in my heart forever to prevent it from affecting and hurting people's beliefs, but it turned out so much that on June 25, 2012, the third anniversary of my assumption of office, things collapsed so dramatically that I could no longer face it calmly and had to write everything down before I went berserk. Fear and hesitation gripped me for a month of near-madness, an indescribable nightmare permeated in every detail of my life, and I was half-asleep through the valley of death woven with thorns and flowers, and finally lost in the rotten, foul-smelling haze of Cleveland.
On May 27, 2012, I was hit in the waist by Stephen "The Baby" during the first round duel between Man of the Lake and Swift Sail, and I had to stay home and watch the battle unfold for the next few days. My personal secretary, Ada, has always taken care of me and provided me with the care of my life, and I occasionally talk to her about my thoughts on the event, but I don't dare to say too much, for fear that revealing my unusual position will lead to unwarranted suspicion that will stain me. I've been careful to hide my complex purpose and position for the past three years, which has caused me a lot of trouble. Thankfully, Ida trusted me a lot, and her meticulous care soothed my tired body and spirit, allowing me to cope with the nerves of war.
As the helmsman of Krepers, I have very mixed feelings about them, and I hope that they will stop them from entering new realms that they have never reached before, so that the next step of my plan can unfold, and I hope that they will stop there sooner, and I am worried that they will progress more than I expected and control, and that if they get out of control, the ship will rush towards the middle of the bottomless ocean, and it will be difficult for me to pull them back into the right track.
Of course, I was still relaxed and confident at the time, because I decided that even if Klepers killed Reckels to take center stage like never before, there would still be a tough king waiting for them in Cleveland to stop them from sabotaging my plans. Therefore, I was also very concerned about the war that was raging in the central and eastern regions, and I even called the king who had never ascended the throne directly to remind him that he had to win, and my heart was so eager and even a little unreasonably crazy that an inexplicable sense of crisis always enveloped me and made it difficult for me to feel at ease.
On June 2, 2012, I received two messages in a row, one bad and one good. In the fourth round of the showdown between Krepers and Reckles the day before, the old Reckles was unable to cope with the frenzied attack of Upper Krepers in the final stages, and I was particularly suffocated by the terrifying power of the young monster duo of Demon Baby and Blackbeard, who had been easily provoked by ignoring their terrifying power, and now it was difficult to get rid of it, and I could only watch the "Clipper" drift away from the deep sea under their tug.
The good news is that the Clevelands, guided by me, have unleashed horrific killings on the South Coast, including 17 long-range precision shoots that made Miami's beaches scarlet on June 2. I don't know if this attack and killing between them had something to do with the secret but ultimately ruined promise of 2010, when the king was ready to bring his talent to the South Coast, but I dissuaded him. First, I had some personal vendetta with Riley, the father of sharks on the South Coast, and I didn't want him to be overly complacent, and second, I thought that keeping the King in Cleveland would be more helpful to my plans, and I privately gave him a lot of guidance and help in building the castle in Cleveland.
But it turned out that my efforts might have been in vain.
On June 5th, my lower back injury was almost recovered, and the current situation has gradually become clear. Both Kreppers and the Cavaliers won the tiebreaker with a 3-2 advantage, and the public opinion situation in the entire California region has fundamentally reversed. The drummers and fanatics who had been accustomed to preaching the King of the Yellow Coats had temporarily put away their voices, and they could only silently pray in their hearts that miracles would grow like bamboo shoots after rain in this land. In fact, my inner thoughts are similar to theirs, otherwise all my previous efforts to achieve this would not have been in vain.
It is a pity that fate is often not transferred by the will of the individual, or even by the will of the majority. Nor could the many fanatics of the King in Yellow reverse the defeat of Rachels at their Staples Palace on June 7. I, the helmsman of Krepers, were present to witness the battle that would later be known as the change of dynasty and the change of scepter, and I have no words to describe the complex emotions of this strange man, except that many people rushed towards me and threw me into the sky, and I had to pretend to laugh and cater to the emotions of the monsters. After all, the skinny one of them was half a head taller than me, weighed dozens of pounds, and was two fists wide, and I could only compromise, watching them lift the silver cup of the Western Victors, and thinking to myself, it looks like I have to go to Cleveland.
I had rarely been to Cleveland before, and I never imagined that one day I would be in this industrial town on the shores of Lake Erie in the sunny summer months. Once hailed as the ruins of professional sports, a cursed land of honour and barrenness, an unbearable haze of decay erodes all qualities associated with victory, glory and greatness, leaving only absurd and comical rumors to laugh at. It was only here that a god-like figure descended, who called himself "The King", though it was generally a recognized title or a conferral from a higher one and few people appointed themselves, but the cursed land had been hungry for honor for too long and accepted him and his title so easily.
"The King" is powerful, counting this year, it is the third time that he has pulled the knight to the center stage for the second time in a row, and launched a challenge for the ultimate honor. What a lot of people don't know is that I have a lot of help, and it's an important part of my plan. But because of my status and my present position, I could no longer have any close contact with him during my time in Cleveland, nor could I provide him with sufficient assistance, and I wondered if something unspeakably bad had happened to the king and his knights in the absence of my attention and guidance, and that the situation would have collapsed as it had been.
On June 12th, I arrived at the airport in Cleveland with all 12 people in Creppers, and that night I tried to call everyone to a famous local nightclub in Cleveland to learn about the local people, but I became unconvincing and no one responded, and they seemed to see through my little plan, and they were reluctant to go out with me on the pretext that my back injury had not fully healed. So I had to stay with them in the rather old Cleveland Hotel, waiting for tomorrow's training and night's battle.
At night, the fluorescent light of the TV illuminated my room, and I carefully watched the predictions of the war on several major TV stations to gather relevant information, and most of the experts and scholars were emotionally and intellectually biased towards the knights of the "king", and they all believed that this cursed land needed a golden trophy to wash away the toxins in the soil and the rancid stench in the air, and that the truly crowned king would have an indescribable improvement for the entire national basketball league, and that it would enter a new era, an era that belonged to the king.
I emotionally agree with these arguments, but intellectually believe that there is no effective support, and this contradiction has torn me through my three years at the helm, and I have been able to cope and deal with it well for most of the time, but the gloomy decadence of Cleveland magnified my anxiety, and I couldn't sleep well this night, I always dreamed that the king fell to his knees and Cleveland was in ruins.
Luckily, dreams are dreams, and at least on June 13th and June 15th, I felt the sunshine and fragrance in Cleveland. I have to be proud of my strategic and tactical vision, and the Cavaliers are not so much an army built by Cleveland's administrators, but rather a royal guard that was put together by the king's hand under my guiding ideology. This lineup and system maximizes the King's abilities, as evidenced by a series of lengthy battles that have preceded it.
Driven to victory, the King and his guards unleashed their full energy in the first two duels, and the young men of Krepers were overwhelmed by their stunning defensive abilities and the King's sledgehammer. They were obviously under a lot of pressure when they first came to this stage, and I rarely oppressed them from the sidelines, and incurred Archon Adam's rebuke by pretending to be angry at the enforcers during the battle on the 15th, which I didn't really mind.
Krepers' back-to-back losses both kept me from losing and kept everything moving in the direction of my plan, and I felt that everything was bright. As I left Cleveland, I even felt the gloom on my head lighten a lot, and the rancid clouds that drifted away would disappear into history and become a part of history to be remembered, rather than remaining on the shores of Lake Erie, corroding the people and spirit here. The clamoring scholars are building momentum for the soon-to-be-enthroned king, and King Deadpool, who is comparable in power and number to the fanatics of the King in Yellow, has prepared ritual sacrifices to bloom scarlet blood for the momentous moment to come.
It's a pity that if they, I mean the young people of Krepers, the crew of the "Clipper", don't see that thing.
It was about an hour before the start of the third battle at 5 p.m. on June 18, when the "Aged Deep Diver" Derek suddenly wore a huge ring on his hand in the Gappers team break room at the Staples Center, which everyone recognized as the reward he had received for his life for the "Lakeside Man". It was strange and gorgeous, shining with a dreamlike light, and it was so dazzling in the light that it immediately attracted everyone's attention. In the center of it is a pattern of columns and spheres, a design that contains distant secrets and unimaginable desires. This is the most magical thing in the Alliance, how many people have worked hard for this ring for a lifetime but can't get it, and how many geniuses have spent their lives trying to get the favor of this thing.
And Derrick has a total of five such rings, and the "Missouri Sue" Taryn and the "Lebanese Gunman" Steve, who also sold their lives in the "Man by the Lake", both have such rings, and they both wear them on their hands tonight. I know it's a strong motivator, and I don't think it's going to have much effect, but the Missouri Sushi, which I've always underestimated, said to everyone before his debut: "There are two big days in life, one day is the day you were born, and the other day is the day you know why, and we were born for champions." I believe in each and every one of you. ”
I didn't hear this mind-bending spell with my own ears, I wasn't in the break room at the time, it was all told to me by Stephen, James, Zach and others later, as well as the good journalists, who always like to dig up stories to hurt people's hearts after the dust has settled, and I was obviously the one who was hurt. Because of the next three battles in Stamps, Kreppers won them all, and won each one more easily. Among them, the one on June 18th seems to me to be the closest to the success of my plan and the moment when I arrived on the other side of victory, and I have even seen the beautiful Gesang flowers on the other side. But the waves tossed everything up in the last three minutes. "Aging Deep Diver" delivered a fatal blow at a crucial moment, turning the tide of the war and the entire series of duels.
I used to think of Derek the "old diver" as my lifelong enemy, so it seems that my judgment is not wrong, but my actions are far from keeping up with what I realize. I was killed by him, I was killed by him! I should have gotten rid of him sooner, but unfortunately it's too late.
On June 25th, the third anniversary of my appointment at the helm of Clipper, it seemed to the monsters with whom I had spent all the time to humiliate me and frustrate my plans. In less than a week, everything has changed dramatically, and the King and his guards have not been able to walk away even a single victory in the City of Angels, repeating the horrors that Texas cowboys experienced on the South Coast six years ago, and the fear that Dr. Philadelphia, known as the "Traveling Circus," felt in faraway Portland in 1977, the despair of hope that was imminent but quickly dashed.
The despair turned into a haze that hung over Cleveland again, and I could smell the disgusting smell in the air and the rusty, aging feeling everywhere as I stepped off the plane, and the decay of the mottled streets and peeling buildings along the way. Hanging a huge canvas of the King hung from the towering walls of the Coliseum, he opened his arms to the sky as if to fly upward, leading his guards out of this abandoned and cursed place with Cleveland. But it seemed to me that his open hands were more like giving up and surrendering, and even though he was using all kinds of spells to try to save himself and the team, I could still smell his retreat.
"My elbow injury has recurred a bit and I feel very bad during the race..."
I'm a little disappointed, who isn't fighting with a wound, my back still hurts.
On the night before the battle on the 25th, I had another dream, dreaming that I was in a glorious, sprawling, empty sports palace, which should have been the Afang Palace I had built. It can accommodate more than 25,000 fanatical believers, and I am the only one on the central altar who looks around, and the light shines around me so that I can't open my eyes. I suddenly looked up and saw many magnificent red and blue flags hanging above the ceiling of the palace, and the silk cloth flowed with a strange shining sheen, like the cry of a soul imprisoned in it. I suddenly saw the flag hanging at the front with the word "2012" embroidered on it!
I woke up screaming, my heart pounding. That morning, the mirror in the bathroom told me that I already had the so-called "champion look" on my face.
At night, I entered Cleveland's magnificent sports palace with my little monsters in a frenzied mood, and I watched the calm and eerie expressions of my monsters amid the screams and angry screams of King Deadpool on the scene, and I knew that they were no longer afraid of this place, of Cleveland and the king here. They're going to destroy everything, to destroy most people's expectations, to let the curse continue to curse, to let the abandonment continue to be abandoned, and to bankrupt all my plans! Then, let me live forever with them in the great palace of twenty-five thousand men, looking at the red and blue banner that imprisons the soul, surrounded by miracles and glory, and immortalized on the greatest altar of celebrity!
(End of chapter)