League of Legends: League of Unknowns

Things were coming to a head!

Luocheng’s Ezreal slipped into the brush, breaking Vayne’s line-of-sight to him. While the brush remained in total darkness to her, Ezreal was already firing up his ulti!

Launching his ultimate skill from the concealment of the brush was one of the techniques to playing Ezreal. Firstly, it prevented the enemy from attacking him during the extravagant one-second spellcasting animation. Secondly, it lent the attack an element of surprise, giving the enemy little chance to dodge aside!

There was no way for Vayne to see that Ezreal was unleashing his ultimate skill right at that very moment. The instant he’d stepped into the bush, Luocheng had initiated the firing sequence for Ezreal’s ‘Trueshot Barrage’, and meanwhile Shallow Dream was still charging blindly towards him!

The skill was fully charged now. Ezreal held an enormous mass of energy with both hands, and drew it into a long golden crescent!

Once Vayne had eaten this ulti, she wouldn’t have enough health left to survive the next skill combo from Ezreal, with or without her Barrier. She wouldn’t be able to get away from him with Flash, either!

Luocheng was going to get this kill—of this, he was certain!

Fully formed, the Trueshot Barrage burst from the tall grass with a whistling howl. Suddenly, Luocheng’s eyes widened.

Shunk! A ward popped up, at the edge of the brush. Seeing through the vision it now granted her, a hint of fright flashed through Vayne’s eyes!

Fwoosh! The blazing golden blade hurtled towards Vayne, almost from point-blank range!

Vayne recovered instantly from her shock, regaining her nerve in the split-second that it took for the Trueshot Barrage to fly 600 units towards her!

Bamf! Flash!

In the instant just before the Trueshot Barrage hit her, Vayne vanished from the spot.

And then Shallow Dream’s Vayne was standing right in front of Luocheng’s Ezreal!

“She Flashed through it!” Xiao Bei gasped.

The chatbox scrolled wildly with the deranged ravings of the dead.

If the dead could speak, their fallen comrades would be screaming their heads off right then.

My word, she Flashed right through it!

Vayne had actually dodged the Trueshot Barrage by Flashing through it!

And as a result, she was now in the perfect position to deliver her counter-attack against him!

To ‘Flash through’ an attack meant to use the teleportation property of the Flash spell to pass unharmed through an incoming skillshot projectile ! ¹

That was what Shallow Dream had just done: In that instant right before the Trueshot Barrage hit her, she’d used Flash to get behind it!

Often, Flash was used to get a champion across a wall—but what if that wall was a high-speed energy wave, traveling at thousands of units per second?

You can imagine how difficult this maneuver must be, especially when you consider how close Shallow Dream was when the ultimate was launched. With a bit of time to see the attack coming, it’s not actually that big a deal for an expert player to pull off this sort of move—but Shallow Dream had only an instant after placing that ward to see Luocheng using his ulti, and then react to it.

This level of dexterity and reflexes was simply mind-boggling!

Now that she’d dodged what should have been a lethal ulti, was the fight over? Shallow Dream could just as well have dodged to the side—why had she gambled on being able to Flash through it instead?

There was only one reason: Because now she was in the ideal position to attack!

She opened fire!

Vayne’s crossbow bolts punched into Ezreal point-blank!

No sooner had the first shot hit him than a mighty bolt of Condemnation followed immediately after, slamming into his chest!

Bam! Ezreal was thrown back, through the brush, and up against the solid stone wall behind him!

Wham! He hit the stones hard, and the crossbow bolt impaled him there against the wall!

Rooted and Stunned, Luocheng’s Ezreal was unable to make a single move, and could only watch as Vayne fired bolt after bolt into him!

Perforated by crossbow quarrels, even with his Barrier up, Ezreal’s health was rapidly falling away to nothing.

1.5 seconds later, his health was critically low, but the light had yet to leave his eyes!

Arcane Shift! Mystic Shot!

His brow deeply furrowed, Luocheng pushed for one final exchange with Shallow Dream!

Vayne remained right where she was standing, as though she’d already precisely calculated Ezreal’s death by the end of the next chain of Silver Bolts!

The last bolt, coated with the holy water of final judgment, flew unerringly towards Ezreal’s heart!

It struck him with a resounding note, piercing through his breast and causing blood to gush out profusely.

Just a little bit more… If only he could break through Vayne’s Barrier somehow, he’d be able to finish off that last little bit of health she had remaining.

But his life was slipping away, and he gradually sagged to the ground, as his legs gave out beneath him.

“Shutdown!” The announcement rang through Summoner’s Rift, declaring the final outcome of their duel!

“Ace!” Ezreal’s defeat meant that everyone on the red team had been wiped out, leaving the entirety of Summoner’s Rift uncontested. For the time being, the creep camps in the jungles, the minions in the lanes, even the towers themselves were all ripe for the picking!

***

The chatbox was all abuzz!

Ezreal had performed an incredible maneuver through the Dragon pit in order to gain the advantage in health difference. When he used his ulti from the brush against Vayne, by every right it should have been his victory.

Then Shallow Dream had shocked everyone by Flashing through it, at the same time putting herself in position to nail Luocheng’s champion to the wall.

Both ADCs had managed to last through the chaotic team fight, and then they’d engaged each other in a duel to the death.

In the end, Shallow Dream’s Vayne had slain Luocheng’s Ezreal!

The battle had been decided, and not even Luocheng himself had foreseen this turn of events.

Some Vayne players had a habit of always carrying a ward with them, and Shallow Dream was one of those.

To have planted that ward and spotted out his ulti, and then to have immediately responded by Flashing straight through it… even Luocheng was left speechless. There couldn’t be more than a handful of players in the whole world who wielded such a level of precision and reflex, and that was considering the astronomical number of gamers in the world today!

Watching his screen fade into monochrome, Vayne standing over his fallen form, Luocheng could only wear a bitter grimace.

So, in the end, he’d met with the same fate as all those other elite players who’d been defeated by Shallow Dream: Just as victory seemed to be within his grasp, she’d pulled an ace out from her sleeve in a breathtaking play that left his delusions in pieces on the floor.

Small wonder that the entire pro-gaming world had been completely at her mercy. She truly lived up to her reputation!

“How could this have happened…” a voice whispered behind him. Qianqian beheld the devastation of the red team, aghast.

From Luocheng’s behavior, as well as all that Lin Dong and Xiao Bei had said, Qianqian realized that Shallow Dream represented some sort of unresolved regret for Luocheng, an adversary he’d always been longing to face in combat . ¹

At times, you can gauge the depth of a person’s desires just by watching their eyes.

From the moment this game began, Luocheng’s dark eyes had been blazing wildly without reservation. Qianqian had fervently wished for his victory, because she could sense that he really, really wanted to win this.

How had this happened again… he’d clearly done his very best, but he’d still met with failure in the end. She could feel hot tears welling up in her eyes.

Luocheng had to be feeling terrible right now. Forgetting everyone else around them, she reached out and laid a hand over his.

His hands remained in place over the mouse and keyboard, but there was nothing for him to do—his champion was dead.

Luocheng turned his head to find Qianqian watching him with heartfelt concern. Her eyes were red, as though she shared his pain in defeat.

Indeed, who wouldn’t be devastated by such a loss, especially after pouring all your heart and soul into it.

But looking upon Qianqian brought warmth to Luocheng’s heart, and the frustration eased from his features, replaced by a smile.

“Luocheng.” “Boss.” Xiao Bei and Lin Dong were similarly crestfallen. It had been an unexpected blow to them as well.

Luocheng was a former champion of the solo demonstration competition, during an international tournament. Widely regarded to be the greatest solo player in the world, it was difficult to imagine the existence of a better player than him, whether in DOTA or LOL.

At last, their unfinished duel had been brought to a conclusion. After all these years, it was hard to say whether anyone else still cared.

He’d finally been able to resolve this matter.

That was what Luocheng told himself.

***

Squeezing Qianqian’s hand gently, Luocheng kept up his smile. “Don’t feel bad, this game isn’t over yet.”

Of course, they all knew that. But with both sides so evenly matched, now that the red team had suffered a total wipe-out, did they still have any real hope of making a comeback?

There were good players on both sides, good enough that it was unlikely any of them would make any overt mistakes, good enough that even the slightest advantage would be enough for them to take control of the rest of the game.

As a result of them losing this team fight, the enemy team had free run of the lane minions, they had more champion kills in total, and they managed to bring down one tower. Despite being at critical health, Vayne effortlessly brought down the Dragon all by herself. The gold difference between the two teams had suddenly grown to two thousand . ¹

Their financial disadvantage wasn’t even their biggest problem—in terms of morale, Luocheng’s team was now down in the dumps.

“There’s no call for all this doom and gloom.” Luocheng addressed the collective ennui with soothing words. “The full measure of a player must be considered from all angles. True, this Vayne is a beast in solo combat…” At this, a fresh smile lifted up one corner of his lips.

League of Legends is a team game, always fraught with twists and turns. Certainly, winning a team fight would skew the odds in your favor, but one lost fight over Baron Nashor, and all that you’ve gained could be undone… it could even cost you the game.

If she couldn’t win a solo duel, playing as Vayne against Ezreal during the late game, Shallow Dream would hardly have any claim to being the one who’d brought the entire pro-gaming world to its knees.

It was merely a difference of one champion, but that team fight had ended with five deaths in exchange for four kills, after all—not quite enough to decide this game, one way or the other!

For the sake of a twenty-sixth straight win, Luocheng’s priority was to take the game. So what if he got killed once? Even if he died a dozen more times, as long as they got the enemy Nexus in the end, the ultimate victory would still be his!

Luocheng had never held himself to be the most skilled player in existence. In fact, he was aware of several players superior to him, who hadn’t been present at that invitational event.

His greatest strength, what he was truly admired for, was his talent at leading a team to triumph!

Good, good. As Ezreal often said: “Time for a true display of skill!”

The awe-inspiring skill that Shallow Dream was displaying had truly awakened Luocheng’s long-dormant abilities—and it was about time, too!

“Trust in me. We can win this!” Luocheng patted Qianqian’s hand as he said this with calm assurance.

Qianqian was taken aback at seeing such a positive response from Luocheng. She didn’t know why, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world to put all her faith in him.

Slowly, she took her hand away from his. The last few seconds counted down on the respawn timer.

It was time for Luocheng to return to the battlefield!

***

They could win. They would win. Xiao Bei and Lin Dong had no trouble believing this, either…

… Because they could see that the true F-Hawk was about to take flight!