!!!!!! I loved this. I loved this so much. The first 40 or so chapters were out to kill me from how horribly they squeezed my heart but it was worth it for how satisfactory the whole story felt. This one is less about the actual gaming and deals a lot more with the behind-the-scenes parts of professional e-sports and how some people can really get screwed over by it. Yu Sui broke my heart but I can't deny that I enjoyed how that meant there was pretty much nothing that could shake him afterward (although, my God, he was so young to be put through all that, my baby T__T). I loved Shi Luo and his cold bravado and also all of those hints that wasn't as coldly mature as he tried to pretend to be. I felt like the author really understood and wasn't afraid to lean into how boys like to show off and make themselves look cool

I'm very specifically thinking about the scene with the lion earring here, where he was so convinced it made him look like a badass and everyone else was kind of like 'yes, of course, you are the biggest, meanest of them all'

  but he would also crack me up so much

the kitchen knife scene! The kitchen knife scene! I was dying, I was laughing so hard

.
 Also, all of the side characters were incredibly well developed! I've read a handful of these gaming novels and most of the time, it seems like everyone else who plays the game is either there for face slapping or filling out numbers. In this case, the other players on his team had very vivid personalities and their interactions with the MC and ML weren't just for the sake of supporting the relationship. I loved Puppy and his verbal sneak attacks, and the way Chen Huo and Shi Luo would bicker like cats and dogs but truly had each other's backs. I loved the manager, fretting over his precious players and wanting to support them however he could. I got so choked up over that scene with Angel Sword's team--you know what scene I mean if you've already read it--and I thought it was wonderfully sweet how team Free would talk a lot of crap about Wawa but whenever he came around looking for a striker to support his attempts to be an assassin-healer, Shi Luo or Chen Huo would step up, even at cost to themselves.
The villains were the most two-dimensional part of the whole story and I never really quite grasped their motivations in the whole thing, besides being monumental a-holes, but it was very satisfying to see them get their comeuppance. They definitely deserved it. The ending was both a bit abrupt but also made sense in the grand scheme of things. I think it mostly came down to me wanting about about fifty more chapters of everyone playing around and having a good time and sniping at each other. I just... I have so many feels about this novel, guys. 10/10, will definitely read again.