Entertainment to the death, make a tokusatsu film that will crush the entire internet.

Wednesday, sunny, 9:00 AM, Light Kingdom Theme Restaurant in City A.

When Zheng Tao pushed open the glass door, he almost thought he had gone to the wrong place.

The restaurant's dining area was packed, with at least two bottles of empty beverages on each table.

In the booths by the window, three young people wearing t-shirts were huddled together, nervously refreshing something on their laptops.

The trays of five or six Lawyer's Set Meals piled on the table hadn't been cleared away yet.

There was a queue in front of the ordering counter, and the guy at the front ordered four Herrscher set meals in one go.

"If I get the hidden Herrscher of the Void, can you record an unboxing video for me? I want to post it on my WeChat Moments."

"Isn't today a workday?"

Zheng Tao muttered something and took out his phone to open the Honkai Impact 3rd client.

The startup screen has been changed to a new image for version 3.0.

The silver-haired girl above the ruins stared straight at them through the screen, her golden pupils shining directly into their eyes.

He stared at the image for two seconds, then unconsciously swiped his finger towards the main dish again.

Player level Lv.80, required level Lv.70.

[The requirements have been met. Please confirm your entry.]

The background music playing in the restaurant was the theme song from "Honkai Impact 3rd," the air conditioning was set to a comfortable temperature, and everyone around was excitedly discussing the new version.

Some people are already using the restaurant's free WiFi to pre-load the update package.

A shop assistant wearing a Herrscher set apron pushed a cart from table to table serving iced water, humming Kiana's character song.

Everything was as usual, noisy and bustling.

He opened the chat software and clicked on the dialog box.

"Guangda, I've arrived at the main dish soup..."

He replied almost instantly.

"Yes, I've arrived."

Zheng Tao subconsciously looked up and glanced around.

There was none at the cashier, nor in the booth area, and the row by the window was full of players wearing anime t-shirts.

His gaze swept to that inconspicuous corner next to the ordering counter.

The person, wearing a mask, was leaning against a small square table in the corner, with a barely touched iced Americano in front of them, looking down at their phone.

Yang Qian was sitting less than five meters away from them, drinking an iced Americano, and not a single person recognized him.

Zheng Tao looked down at himself and thankfully realized that he wasn't wearing that Asuka-themed T-shirt today.

He took a deep breath and walked towards the corner of the wall, but stopped after taking two steps.

Oh no, I didn't bring paper and pen, or anything for Guangda to sign as a souvenir.

Yang Qian looked up and gestured to him: "You're here? Sit down, no need to reach into your pocket, today isn't a book signing."

The glass of iced Americano in front of me was covered with water droplets.

My phone keeps getting messages from the work group chat.

Zheng Tao sat silently opposite him, and also took out his phone and opened the game.

He noticed Yang Qian's gaze sweep over him, landing on the "Honkai Impact" game on his phone screen.

"You play Honkai Impact 3rd, huh?"

Yang Qian stirred her iced Americano with a straw. "You can officially experience the 3.0 storyline at 2 PM today."

Zheng Tao looked up: "Is it difficult?"

Yang Qian pulled the straw out of the cup.

"It's not difficult, it's just a bit long."

11:00 AM, Main Building of the Land of Light.

"Attention all groups, there are 3 hours until the update. Please check the pre-download package verification status."

Zhao Jiu carried the coffee from the break room back to her workstation. "This is the last time."

"normal."

"normal."

"normal."

"All backend nodes are green, elastic scaling is ready, and the guaranteed capacity is 2.5 times the peak on the first day of the previous major version."

"The global CDN distribution of on-demand resources has been completed, and the synchronized update package for overseas platforms has been pushed to nodes in various regions."

"The recharge system stress test passed, and the card-drawing system stress test passed."

Zhao Jiu nodded, sat back down at her workstation, and took a sip of her coffee.

Then he picked up his phone and sent a message to Yang Qian: "Director Yang, everything is ready."

Messages are replied to almost instantly.

"receive."

1 PM, Land of Light themed restaurant in City A.

More and more players gathered in the restaurant.

Some people, carrying their laptops, occupied a booth and wouldn't move an inch. Their phones were connected to power banks, and the power banks were connected to sockets, making it seem like they were going to wait there for a version update.

The staff had to add a sign at the entrance that read "Afternoon tea time limited to two hours".

But nobody actually kept track of it.

Even the store manager moved a small stool and sat at the kitchen entrance, watching the grand gathering of players on his phone.

Yang Qian was still sitting in that corner, her iced Americano already on its second refill.

The phone was connected to a portable heatsink, and the screen displayed real-time background data from the Land of Light.

Just then, the bullet screen monitoring system displayed a comment marked "extremely high attention," which came from the replay page of the official preview live stream of "Honkai Impact 3rd."

The number of likes for that comment was pushed to the top of the homepage in a very short time.

"I rewatched the preview replay, and when Hikaru said the mysterious gift Himeko sent was to celebrate Kiana's growth, pay attention to his expression in his eyes!"

Tsk, we've been discovered.

"Xiao Ran, suppress the popularity of this comment."

Yang Qian sent a message to Su Xiaoran.

He'd been preparing for this for so long; he couldn't let a single comment ruin it.

It's 1:50 PM, 10 minutes until the update.

The number of concurrent viewers on major live streaming platforms began to rise.

DouShark TV's "Honkai Impact 3rd" section homepage featured a special page titled "Version 3.0 First Livestream".

The contracted streamers in the gaming section started warming up the crowd from the morning.

The top ten most popular live streams all had the same title: "Version 3.0 preload complete, update now!"

The top-ranked streamer is a bald man known as "Old K".

He is the number one player in the Honkai Impact 3rd section.

Known for its ruthless spending on gacha pulls and its meticulous story analysis.

At this moment, more than two million people are watching the version countdown with him in his live stream.

In the center of the image is an enlarged countdown clock, with the background being a live wallpaper of the Herrscher of the Void.

Old K took a sip of his iced latte and addressed the audience in his signature hoarse voice.

"Brothers, a new character, the Herrscher of the Void, will be released today. She's an S-rank character, Kiana's Herrscher Armor. It was already shown in the preview livestream, so I don't need to say more about her strength. Just pull for her."

"I placed twenty orders yesterday. Tonight's goal is to max out Herrscher of the Void's Constellation and max out her signature weapon and spirit. Don't ask me if twenty orders are enough. If not, I'll add more."

"As everyone knows, I'm a Himeko fan, and I'm sure there's going to be a big surprise today!"