Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After an excruciating scream, Luocheng’s screen turned gray again.
Vi cast a Flash and continued on with her Vault Breaker. This enabled her to move about 2,000 yards from the bushes into the towers. It didn’t matter if you were good in controls or had great reflexes, it was all over when Zed pressed in with a killing blow. It was all over!
Luocheng was dead. The only compensation for now was that Zhou Yan had been able to block Vi’s escape route right after that. There was no way he could stop Zed from leaving though. All he had to do was use his Death Mark’s Shadow to switch sides with his shadow and in just a blink, he was walking out scot-free.
“Do you need more support?” Zhou Yan turned to Luocheng and asked timidly.
Luocheng did not have the mood to talk anymore.
His Kassadin! Kassadin, the Void Walker! The assassin who could pluck the opponents’ champions from within floods after floods of their creeps and then leave without kicking up any dust! Now, he needed more support just to stay alive!?
“This match… there’s no way to continue on with this match. Team Beijing has been focusing on attacking Fighting Hawk too much. They kept rushing into the towers with a hurricane of skills just to kill him, there’s no way they could fight back at all. Not an iota. Not only that, the Kassadin that they had slain earlier still hadn’t used his skills as well. If it were someone else’s AP carry…”
***
“This is horrible.” Xiao Duo Duo mumbled weakly.
Everyone in the lobby nodded in silent agreement. There was no way they could have countered the opponents’ attacks at all. If they had had Lee Sin on their team, things could have been better as he would be able camp under the tower and counter-attack any enemy that came his way. Yet, they did not have a Lee Sin. They only had an Olaf, a champion that could not offer his teammate any kind of protection at all.
Zhou Yan was already fighting creeps around Luocheng, protecting him, and yet, all he could do was just stand there and watch as his captain got killed…
If Kassadin couldn’t grow stronger, there was not much that they could do as a team. It looked as though the great Captain Luocheng was going to lose.
Of course, this was not due to him lacking any skills. If one got targeted like this, there was no way that he would be able to avoid visiting the fountain all the time, and Luocheng had been walking out of his camp to score creeps like the brave man that he was.
On the other hand, Noxus Cafe’s Number One had started to smile confidently.
Want to face him in the middle lane? It did not matter who was on the other side, the opponent would always be defeated.
His Zed’s score was now 2/0/1. He had a 200 creep score, a Blade of the Ruined King, a Brutalizer and a Last Whisper. Whoever dared to cross his path would all be raped to death.
Now, let’s take a look at Kassadin’s score. It was 0/2/1. His level was even two levels lower than Zed’s, there was no way he could catch up. In fact, Zed could just go AFK now and still win this.
If this situation persisted, Kassadin would not only be unable to stack up his Tear of the Goddess, but even if his Zhonya’s Hourglass was successfully acquired, his DPS was not going to be of any help at all.
***
“Let’s just team up. Their assassination capabilities are too great.” Da Luo said.
“Yeah, we are about to destroy their tower on the bottom lane anyway.” Lin Dong said.
“I’ll change lanes.” Luocheng said.
Under normal circumstances, upon reaching Level 6, Kassadin could actually be a great Support.
Yet, in professional matches, there was no point in you moving about to support your teammates. The moment the opponents realized that you had vanished from the map, they would start signalling one another and begin to support each other.
Choosing to move away from his position at this time was not a good call as doing so would endanger any lane that he was going to support. Thus, the only way to deal with this was to switch his lane. He needed to head to the bottom lane, Lin Dong and Wu Sen could have the middle lane.
The bottom lane had a longer distance, allowing the wards to better do their jobs. This could help him detect Vi and Zed from at least 1,000 yards away, making it very difficult for them to slay him.
In the middle lane, due to his need for the towers’ protection, this resulted in him being chained under the towers which did not help in protecting him in any way either seeing as the two opponents did not seem to be bothered by the towers at all.
Sticking close to the towers was actually increasing his chances of dying.
***
At first, everyone in Demacia Cafe had been praising Luocheng’s calm demeanour, and now, they were praising his good sportsmanship.
Well, what could he do other than being a good sport? They had been preying on him from the start, going as far as to chase him through the towers. Just what kind of grudge did Team Beijing have against Luocheng!?
If I couldn’t face you, well… I could avoid facing you.
And so, Luocheng had now made his way to the bottom lane.
He was willing to play against two opponents who wanted a fair fight, not against two butchers who only knew to target him like pathetic morons.
Upon reaching the bottom lane, there were two waves of minions coming his way.
Usually when the odds were against them, players would tend to quickly kill all of the enemy minions that came their way. In a way, it was to psychologically soothe themselves, the faster they could get the gold, the better, seeing as the tables could be turned faster that way.
Luocheng quickly kited these minions close to the tower while keeping them at the edge of the tower. Then, he slowly finished them off using his Null Spheres. This could stack up his Tear of the Goddess and ensure his own safety. Many players often forgot this crucial point when playing League of Legends. The enemy’s minions would not show up any quicker even if you finished them off at lightning speed, the important thing here was to make sure that he had control over the rhythm and kite the enemy’s minions effectively.
Zhou Yan had good equipment and could now not only slay champions, but also kill the creeps in the jungles. He now owned not only a significant amount of health, but also, a great deal of DPS.
Da Luo’s Dr. Mundo was doing great too. He could do 170 CS in 20 minutes. As soon as he acquired his Sunfire Cape and Spirit Visage, his Dr. Mundo was going to be kicking arses in no time.
Lin Dong had also gained significant growth from the bottom lane earlier, managing to acquire most of his equipment as well.
Being an ADC, one needed to ensure that he maintained things at a steady pace and remained calm while continuing on with the creep-scoring. Why? Because it was unrealistic for him to want to slay any champion in the early phase of a match. Their gold income was mostly from killing minions and creeps. They must acquire their equipment in the first 28 minutes, otherwise, there was no way that their DPS could keep up with their opponents’.
In this match, Da Luo, Zhou Yan, and Lin Dong had now acquired great equipment, and so, they had decided to go on the defensive while leaving Luocheng to continue growing his Kassadin at the bottom lane alone.
All five of their opponents had planned to gang up and push the tower in the middle lane, however, despite how strong they were in ganking and slaying one champion, they were not strong enough to push a tower.
When he realized that they couldn’t even put a dent on the tower, Number One’s Zed completely forfeited the idea and went down to the bottom lane to disturb Luocheng’s Kassadin once again.
“For f*ck’s sake! You again.” When Luocheng saw Number One’s Zed at the bottom lane, he couldn’t help but let loose a curse.
It was quite unrealistic for Zed to kill Luocheng alone this time. Wu Sen had dropped numerous wards and sent several dragons to protect Luocheng.
Team Skycrown’s strategy right now was simply this – stalling!
Their opponents’ Zed was too good at assassination. If they pushed onward to the opponents’ towers, Team Skycrown risked losing any member to the enemies whenever Zed showed up. Meanwhile, Kassadin had not acquired enough items to allow him to leap into the enemy’s ranks to instant-kill any of their opponents.
Luocheng knew this, and without an Archangel’s Staff, Zhonya’s and Rabadon’s, there was no way that he could join forces with his teammates. Sure, joining his teammates could give them the impression that they now had 5 members on their side when pushing the towers, yet, the reality was that his Kassadin was basically an upgraded version of a minion.
“I’ve acquired my Zhonya’s and Archangel’s Staff. I’ll pretend that I’m still sticking with the bottom lane while you guys head to the middle lane and push on.” Luocheng told Wu Sen.
Lin Dong’s ADC was Sivir, The Battle Mistress. This champion had powerful offensive skills and also agile abilities to retreat fast. With the 60% movement speed buff, all four of them could quickly push on and suppress their opponents in one go.
Lin Dong nodded. He knew Luocheng was talking about kiting Zed away. In fact, Kassadin’s speed was actually much faster than Zed. If they got into a 4 vs 4 fight, it was possible for Kassadin to rush in in time to deal a killing blow at the last minute. Well, when that happened, whether Zed would come in to kill him or not, it all depended on their luck.
This wave of tower-pushing was important to Team Skycrown. Once Kassadin was able to slay a few champions, it would be much easier and faster for him to become strong enough to go back to the frontline. Nonetheless, if they wanted to break through this stalemate, it all depended on Luocheng’s Kassadin’s performance.
***
For the longest time, Team Skycrown was on the defense. Their line-up, Kassadin, Dr. Mundo and Olaf, was more about the end-game.
In the middle lane, Team Skycrown and Team Beijing were now finally clashing directly.
Seeing that the timing was right, Lin Dong gave Wu Sen a wink.
As soon as his Ultimate was launched, Wu Sen’s Taric wielded his gigantic hammer and stormed straight into the enemy line.
It did not matter who he was able to stun with his Dazzle, the important thing was to stop them from leaving!
Following suit, Olaf the Berserker quickly tossed in his Undertow just as Sivir threw out her Boomerang Blade. After this round of attacks, a third of Leona’s health was depleted.
Seeing that things were going awry, Leona quickly cast her skills in retaliation, and the others in Team Beijing also launched their attacks in synchronization with Leona in the nick of time.
In that instance, skills and spells were flashing everywhere on the screen. It was so chaotic that it was difficult to see who was hitting who anymore!
Then, suddenly! Luocheng was Riftwalking toward the middle lane like a bolt of lightning! It was as though his Kassadin had gone mad!
Enemies’ head! He must pawn the enemy champions’ heads!!!
He had been suppressed hard in this match. Sure, Luocheng did not think that he was unbeatable and it was common for anyone to be beaten like a pulp in a ranking match, yet, he could not afford to lose this match.
No, this was not about being that “Top 1 LOL Club in the country” bullsh*t title.
Then, was it about not wanting to disappoint his supporters? Well, it wasn’t just that.
It was all because Mr. Lei had quietly whispered this to him before the match.
“The total income of the donated flowers on the live streaming website will be given to each team by percentage as the winning prize!”
Holy Mother of God! Luocheng had indeed seen how much cash these filthy rich billionaires had thrown into this match earlier. Not only that, Noxus Cafe also had a lot of billionaires tossing cash into the pit as well! Just how much money was there to be made? 10,000 RMB? Wait, no. 30,000 RMB… 40,000 RMB… all of those “flowers” were real, actual cash!
Number One. I don’t care just how good you are at PvP. I don’t care if you’re the top 1 on the national ranking. Those empty titles that you yearn for so much? If you want it, just take it. Take it all!
However, the money that they could earn from this match… heh!
Don’t you know that I am poor as f*ck!?
