It rewires how you watch a fight scene, because you stop tracking who is winning and start tracking who saw it three moves earlier. Season 2 keeps Ye Xiu exactly where he belongs, chain-smoking through a keyboard at Chen Guo's internet cafe, running the Myriad Manifestation Umbrella on Lord Grim and turning a roster of misfits like Tang Rou's Soft Mist and Steamed Bun Invasion into an actual threat. The character work is the real payoff here, the small shifts in how these people talk to each other between matches. The soundtrack carries more weight than it has any right to, especially when a run finally lands. Be honest with yourself first: the animation takes a visible step down from Season 1 and the early episodes crawl. Push through, because the payoff is watching a retired legend build a team from scratch and refuse to explain himself to anyone.

On the 10th server of the online game Glory, the Unspecialized character Lord Grim has become notorious, and his fame pulls a stream of curious players into his new guild, Happy. Rival guilds watch their own members defect while rumors spread that Lord Grim is secretly a retired pro known as the Glory Textbook. Unsure what to believe, the major guilds move to contain him, each for its own reasons. Lord Grim still aims for the Heavenly Domain, the cross-server zone where characters grow stronger, and hopes to complete a squad of rookies for the Challenger League as a first step toward the Glory Championship. This 12-episode ONA is an action drama.