League of Legends: League of Unknowns

Yu Luocheng’s heart was thumping madly. Watching this game as a spectator was even more suspenseful than actually playing it himself!

When he saw Zhou Yan’s Elise beginning to Recall, Luocheng’s face fell.

Da Luo had started to Recall, too.

They’d lost. Returning to base would seal their doom. Luocheng averted his eyes, fearing to witness the defeat that was to come.

***

“Team Skycrown has chosen to return to base,” Qi Qiao the commentator announced.

“Idiots,” remarked Zhao Tinghua, the Blood Eagle.

What a thoughtless move! Lin Dong, Da Luo, and Zhou Yan… had their brains rotted during their time away from professional e-sports? To think that they’d turn back now, at a moment like this.

Retreat meant defeat. If they pushed forward, they could still hope for victory!

***

Sure enough, after returning to the Fountain to heal up, Ezreal came charging back out again.

There was no way he’d allow Team Skycrown to get away just like that. He already had three Super Minions pummeling their Nexus. If he delayed them a while longer, those Super Minions could very well win this game for them!

Racing into battle, he found the Skycrown champions Recalling right next to the Inhibitor, and his face split with a wide grin.

If they’d split up, they could still expect to get two or three champions home. But Recalling on the spot like that…

“Ha!” Suddenly, a glob of spider silk came flying straight at Ezreal’s face.

Lin Siyong had just been in the middle of deploying his Q-skill ‘Mystic Shot’, and ended up being just a little too late with using his E-skill ‘Arcane Shift’ to dodge aside!

At the precise moment that Ezreal came rushing in to halt their retreat, all five of the Team Skycrown champions canceled their Recall in perfect unison!

Thresh’s hook and Anivia’s Q came hurtling towards him, catching Ezreal just as he’d struggled free of the sticky webbing, so that he never even had the chance to Flash away!

A flurry of skills, and he was dead!

“Magnificent! Another surprise attack, and Lin Siyong’s Ezreal had no hope of escape, getting slain instantly!” Qi Qiao’s voice promptly rang out across the arena.

Hearing this, Luocheng raised his head once more, and saw that all five of the players on Team Skycrown had cancelled their Recall, and followed up Ezreal’s death with a daring advance upon the enemy’s Nexus Towers!

These five players might have missed their calling as actors. They’d managed to fool everyone. Even Luocheng himself had believed that they were about to retreat, never realizing that it was just a ruse to lure Ezreal to his death!

With Ezreal’s harassment removed from consideration, the five champions of Team Skycrown attacked with frightening ferocity!

“Good heavens… Team Skycrown’s Nexus is already halfway to zero, thanks to the enemy’s Super Minions,” Qi Qiao observed. “It’s too late to Recall now. Now, it’s a race against time!”

Zhou Yan’s Elise tanked the Nexus Towers first, the champion’s health rapidly plummeting away. As he came down to his last shred of health, Zhou Yan hurriedly switched Elise over to Spider Form and yanked her up into the sky, avoiding the attacks from both towers.

Tristana still had plenty of health, but everyone else on Team Skycrown had taken a turn at tanking the towers throughout this extended siege, and it was hard to say whether they’d actually be able to finish the job or not!

“Oh no, Team Skycrown has run out of people who can tank the towers. They’re about to get killed off from the damage!” Qi Qiao’s voice quavered with anxiety.

Four of their champions were now at critical health, and if they didn’t pull out of the towers’ attack range, they would soon fall before the towers!

That would leave Tristana, who had no hope of withstanding the towers on her own!¹

Were they actually about to get Aced by the Nexus Towers?

If that happened, it would be an unimaginable tragedy, because anyone could see that Team Skycrown was mere inches away from snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat!

Impassioned, Lin Dong hollered, “I’ll tank it! No retreat, keep attacking! There’s no turning back anymore!”

Right now, the five players of Team Skycrown were balancing upon a very fine wire indeed. There was no looking back, and definitely no looking down. There was nothing for it but to keep going, uncertain of the future, with no guarantees except that this was truly their last chance!

In that moment when Lin Dong had begun to Recall, he’d realized that this path would surely lead to defeat. Immediately, he’d directed the entire team to join him in a feint, with the objective of catching Ezreal and killing him off first.

It was evident now that Lin Dong had made the right call, there. The way things were going now, if they’d made this attempt on the Nexus while Ezreal was still around, it would probably end with them giving him a Penta Kill.

Even so, despite Ezreal having been taken off the board, the damage from both towers was proving more than they’d anticipated.

However, for their own sakes, they had to win!

Lin Dong pushed Anivia forward, her frozen body shattering beneath the towers’ armor-piercing attacks. In this way, Anivia surrendered her final sliver of health, and shrank into an icy egg upon the ground.

“That’s ‘Rebirth’! Anivia still had her innate skill!” Qi Qiao clamored, her nerves strung tight.

The arena was caught in the hush of thousands of people holding their breath.

How desperate did a game have to be, for Anivia to have to expend her Rebirth on tanking towers?

Lin Dong watched the cryo-phoenix egg withering away beneath the staggering damage. Mages were of little use when it came to demolishing towers!

“Your turn, Wu Sen.”

“Ahh…” An ethereal moan rose into the air as the egg was soon smashed apart by the towers. Lin Dong watched his screen fade into gray.

“I’ve got it!” Thresh moved up to the fore.

This whole game, Wu Sen’s Thresh had contributed nothing besides Wards. He’d landed no hooks, and had done nothing to break the lockdown forced upon them by the enemy’s poke composition.

But right now, these last few HP he held meant everything to the team!

Shielding himself with his ghostly green lantern, he waited quietly at the foot of both towers…

Klung! That was the sound of the tower’s merciless judgment. The color washed out of his screen as Thresh fell.

“Here I go.” As Thresh crumbled apart across the floor, Zhou Yan brought Elise back in to face the peril, moving her in front of Tristana and Kennen.

She didn’t have enough health to take more than one attack.

And now Zhou Yan’s screen was all black and white. Elise had died.

Kennen had already stepped forward, silently moving to protect Tristana.

There was a flash of searing light, and then Da Luo’s Kennen tumbled to the ground beside Zhou Yan’s Elise.

That made four deaths in a row, each life sacrificed to buy another precious moment.

As thousands bore witness to the scene of Team Skycrown’s champions falling one by one to the Nexus Towers, all so that their ADC could have more time to take the objectives, a pall of silence fell over the entire arena.

This was not a team to be summarized with a handful of words, but the four lifeless bodies on the ground said everything: For Team Skycrown, no price was too great if it brought them victory!

For a moment, Tristana was the only champion still standing upon the battlefield. Alone, she faced down the soaring towers, surrounded by fallen comrades who’d laid down their lives for her without a word.

Xiao Bei could feel a lump in his throat. This match had proven far more difficult than he’d imagined. It had demanded tremendous sacrifices from everyone. The last thing he’d expected was to find himself the sole survivor, holding the fate of the game in his hands.

Without turning his head, he could feel the gazes of all his teammates.

“It’s up to you now, Xiao Bei.” A million thoughts were riding upon those short few words. Xiao Bei heard them all.

They had nothing else in this life. They couldn’t lose any more.

For some reason, hearing these words from his teammates caused tears to well up in Xiao Bei’s eyes, not that he had ever been particularly strong to begin with.

It was clouding his vision. He couldn’t see. As the towers finally collapsed into ruin, Xiao Bei reached up with one skinny hand, and wiped it roughly across his eyes.

Whatever else he did, he couldn’t lose this game!

Right hand lightning-quick upon the mouse, left hand ramming the A key, he kept his ring finger poised over W.¹

Lee Sin had appeared! With one kick, he could put an end to all their dreams right now.

Move, attack, move, attack. Tristana circled around the Nexus, staying as far away from Lee Sin as possible!

Lee Sin had actually sold some equipment to get himself the Homeguard enhancement, and now he was like the Grim Reaper himself, bearing down upon Tristana with frightening speed, scythe raised to strike!

“Just a little more!” Tristana continued to kite him, using her Rocket Jump an instant before he got within reach of her, repositioning to one side.

“Huh!” Lee Sin fired a Sonic Wave at Tristana’s landing point.

As she came to ground, Tristana stepped to the side, dodging Lee Sin’s Q-skill even as she continued to fire away.

“Nice dodge! Four more shots!” When Tristana evaded what would have been a fatal hit from Lee Sin, the crowd went wild.

Four more shots. Just four more!

Luocheng sucked in a long breath through gritted teeth.

Even the commentator, Qi Qiao, was unable to speak.

With furrowed brow, Zhao Tinghua watched the screen intently.

Yang Ying and the others watched with eyes as wide as dinner plates, not daring to blink for fear of missing a single moment of the action!

Four more shots to go.

But the way Lee Sin was running, Tristana was unlikely to get off more than two!

Blam! Once.

Xiao Bei vehemently hit Q for Rapid Fire. Fully maxed out, this skill could raise her attack speed by up to 90%¹!

Blam! Twice.

Blam! Thrice.

Tristana’s cannon was firing at high speed!

Here came the last shot!

Xiao Bei pressed A one last time!

Blam!

Time seemed to pause. Everyone present in the arena was frozen in place.

Cra-cra-crack!

After that last cannonball slammed against the Nexus, a great surge of energy exploded outwards, blowing apart the Nexus crystal!

His hands were numb and feverish. His fingers were trembling violently.

Xiao Bei was still blindly ramming on the A key, the sound of his keyboard ringing through the silence. His eyes were tearing up again.

Never in his life, in all his years, never once had he felt a sensation like this: Like his heart was going to stop beating, but also like it wanted to burst out from his chest!

Bam! Bam! Bam! Da Luo, Lin Dong, and Wu Sen leapt from their seats, bounding towards Xiao Bei!

Victory!