League of Legends: League of Unknowns

“Li Sheng, what are you doing? You were already near death, and yet you went after him? You gave him a free kill!” The ‘Aviator’ team captain, Liu Qi, was spitting with fury.

All it would have taken was one more shot… but against all odds, Twisted Fate had gotten away from him.

And he’d done more than just get away—he’d even gotten two kills, as well. Now, they were suddenly the ones who needed to catch up.

“I thought I could get him…” Li Sheng whispered meekly, barely daring to speak.

Five versus four, and they’d somehow lost that team fight. Team Aviator was in the pits.

“Luck. It’s just a lucky fluke.”

“Cut the crap. Everyone wake up!” Liu Qi snapped. “Wu Kai, you’d better stick hard to Twisted Fate. The rest of you stay away from him!”

“I’ll make sure he’s the first to die!” Wu Kai swore.

“Oh, hell… Twisted Fate has Lich Bane and a Rabadon’s!” Holding down Tab to bring up the scoreboard, Liu Qi looked as though he was going to be sick!

At nineteen minutes, Twisted Fate had a CS of 203 and seven champion kills. It hadn’t even been twenty minutes yet, and he’d already completed both ‘Lich Bane’ and ‘Rabadon’s Deathcap’. That was in addition to a pair of ‘Sorcerer’s Shoes’ and a ‘Doran’s Ring’… Twisted Fate now promised to deal truly monumental amounts of damage with his skills!

“Wu Kai, come with me. I’m going to farm Bot,” Liu Qi declared, his expression like ice.

“Why?” Wu Kai didn’t understand why Ashe needed him around when she went farming. Didn’t he need to run around setting wards?

“Are you stupid? Can’t you see what items Twisted Fate has bought? One combo from him and I’m dead!” Liu Qi snarled in reply.

Wu Kai resented being on the receiving end of such abuse, but he dared not talk back now. He followed Ashe down to the Bottom lane to farm some minions, and push ¹ the wave towards the enemy’s side.

***

At around the nineteen-minute mark, a sort of ceasefire took place between both sides. Team Aviator scrambled to farm minions and jungle creeps, hesitant to get into another scrap with Team Scarlet.

Team Scarlet did the same, with Evelynn handling map vision, including invasive wards deep within the enemy’s side of the jungle. Most of Huang Yu’s efforts were at Yu Luocheng’s behest—Evelynn was serving Twisted Fate as his eyes!

As the game passed the twentieth minute, Huang Yu journeyed to the Baron pit. Usually, you’d want wards here from twenty minutes onwards, but that wasn’t what he was here for.

He’d already reached his maximum allotment of active wards setting up vision of several key areas in the enemy’s jungles, allowing them to monitor the enemy champions’ movements. If they tried to take the Baron on the sly, the wards would spot them all moving to gather over here.

Evelynn had an ‘ Oracle’s Elixir ¹ ‘ active as she walked one round through the whole area, but found no enemy wards . ²

***

Team Aviator’ captain, Liu Qi, was farming industriously. Noticing that the Baron pit was all in darkness for them, he barked at Wu Kai, “Go place a ward at the Baron pit. We don’t want Baron being stolen!”

Wu Kai nodded, heading down from their Lizard Elder camp. He inspected the enemy’s positions, and saw that Jarvan was farming in the Bottom lane at the moment. This made it deeply unlikely that they were attempting a Baron steal right now.

On the other hand, it could be that Jarvan was in the Bottom lane on purpose… and while Kai’s team had no vision of the Baron pit, Renekton could be tanking the Baron while Twisted Fate and Kayle brought it down—a three-man Baron steal.

Yes, having a ward there was prudent.

Wu Kai moved with utmost caution, dropping a ward around every blind corner.

When he saw that their Olaf and the enemy Jarvan had come to blows outside the Dragon pit, he relaxed his guard a little. The enemy team probably didn’t have an ambush set up around here.

Strolling casually the rest of the way, Wu Kai placed a Vision Ward with True Sight in the Baron pit, found no hidden enemy wards, and turned to leave.

Just then, from within that tiny clump of brush he hadn’t poked through, emerged the lithe figure of an enemy champion—it was Evelynn, the Widowmaker!

This gave Kai a nasty little start, but then an even nastier leer spread across his face. It was Huang Yu controlling Evelynn, right? The man with one hand?

Wu Kai had nothing to fear: He’d picked up a bunch of Magic Resist, so poor, pitiful Evelynn wouldn’t even be able to scratch him!

And Evelynn was only Level 7! She had hardly any health to speak of!

Instead of fleeing, Wu Kai moved directly towards Evelynn, his heart alight with wicked delight.

As they drew within reach of each other, Wu Kai hit Enter and swiftly typed out ‘ /t ¹ ‘!

“Let’s see what’s going on over here… while planting wards for their team, Evelynn and Leona have bumped into each other near the Baron pit. I don’t expect a fight to break out, here—neither one is very capable at solo combat… Oh, what’s this I see? Is Leona performing a Taunt?

“In ‘League of Legends’, typing ‘/t’ in the chat box will execute your champion’s Taunt animation. Look at the utter disregard Team Aviator’s Wu Kai is displaying towards Evelynn—he’s just full of himself!”

A smirk twisted Wu Kai’s lips. No one could stop him!

Tournament rules stated that players were prohibited from producing any disrespectful words or gestures—but the champions themselves were another matter. So he was Taunting Huang Yu to his heart’s content.

With his hand in that condition, Huang Yu had the gall to challenge him?

Huang Yu winced when he saw Wu Kai’s Leona performing the Taunt. It was as though the rascal’s weaselly face had appeared on his screen, grinning mockingly right at him.

It was all because of Wu Kai that his hand was disabled now. Huang Yu had been angry already, but this latest affront from Wu Kai had stoked the raging fires in his belly so that sparks seemed to be flying from his mouth!

Using his mouse to click on one of Evelynn’s skills, he started with the ultimate, right off the bat!

Leona was Slowed. Huang Yu unleashed a flurry of skills upon the smugly smiling Kai.

“Truly an easily provoked mad dog.” Wu Kai grinned from ear to ear. Despite all that, he’d hardly lost any health at all. His high Magic Resist allowed him to shrug off Evelynn’s attacks. Wu Kai considered just staying there to duke it out with him.

“Come on, come get me! See how I’ll crush you!” Wu Kai glanced towards Xin Zhao, who was just nearby, and his smile widened.

Evelynn had already been killed by Xin Zhao twice, as a result of unfortunate run-ins in the jungle. She should still be worth over two hundred gold. Noticing the fight that was taking place, Xin Zhao hurried towards them.

Foom!

A multitude of blood-red eyes opened with torturous slowness, one hovering over each champion’s head. Whenever these sinister eyes gazed down upon the battlefield, it was a harbinger of imminent disaster.

It was the mark of Twisted Fate!

Cards fanned out to form a disc, right between Evelynn and Leona.

Immediately, a golden card struck Leona in the face, like a sharp slap across the cheek!

Twisted Fate followed this up with a skill combo. Even without using ‘Ignite’, he’d reduced Leona to one-fifth of her original health!

If he threw in an Ignite and a couple of auto-attacks ¹ now, Leona would basically have fallen to a single skill combo from Twisted Fate!

“It’s Twisted Fate—look at that damage! It’s horrifying! This is even with all that Magic Resist Leona picked up… there’s no way out for her now, and Xin Zhao is still too far away to be of any help.

“Eh, Twisted Fated stopped attacking? Leona is almost dead already, and with a Blue Buff on, Twisted Fate should have W and Q ready to fire again by now… so why is he stopping?”

***

Yu Luocheng turned to look at Huang Yu, seated beside him. “Take the kill.”

“Me?” Huang Yu stammered.

Twisted Fate was the AP Mid, and this whole game hinged upon him. If possible, everyone on Team Scarlet should allow him to finish every champion kill, maximizing his personal resources.

Not to mention all the damage Leona had taken in this gank was entirely due to Twisted Fate. His Evelynn could barely scratch her. Yet here now was Yu Luocheng, leaving Leona with that last little shred of health, and telling him to take the kill.

“She’s got no Flash. I’ll hold off Xin Zhao. Hurry up and finish her ¹ ,” Yu Luocheng said.

Saying so, Twisted Fate walked past the mortally wounded Leona, moving to intercept Xin Zhao as he came dashing in.

Flabbergasted, Huang Yu watched Twisted Fate walking away.

He must have seen Wu Kai’s demeaning Taunt against him, and how it made him feel.

This was an eye for an eye—vengeance at last!

***

This whole time, Huang Yu had been blaming himself.

As the captain of Team Scarlet, not only had he failed to lead his team to victory, he’d caused them to suffer such a staggering blow.

If Team Scarlet dropped out of the running here, he’d never be able to forgive himself, and would probably withdraw from the team.

In fact, he’d already decided that after they lost this game, he’d take all his previous earnings from pro-gaming and distribute them to his teammates, then pack his things and leave.

He’d never thought that the newest addition to the team, Yu Luocheng, would become their savior. Even now, with all the pressure riding on him, he was thinking about Huang Yu’s pride.

Honestly, Twisted Fate’s ultimate skill was not to be wasted on frivolous pursuits. Even if their Support got into trouble, it wouldn’t be worth it for Twisted Fate to expend his ulti to rescue him—what more his Level-7 Evelynn, not even a real Support.

Twisted Fate had used his ulti to teleport over while in the middle of farming. He’d used a skill combo to beat Leona within an inch of death. All so Huang Yu could have this kill.

Huang Yu really didn’t know what he ought to say.

It was Team Scarlet’s darkest hour, staring defeat in the face, and Yu Luocheng had brought them hope by cutting down the enemy, one after another!

And then, in this desperate moment, when Huang Yu needed to settle a personal grudge, he’d handed the kill over to him, a gesture of honor. Who could understand, in that moment when Wu Kai performed his Taunt, how much Huang Yu had yearned to take his wretched life!

The kill itself would only be worth three hundred gold.

Huang Yu took a deep breath. It tasted sour, and hot. He felt a gratitude he could never express in words.

His eyes narrowed, and he clicked on a skill:

Hate Spike!

The Widowmaker threw out a line of thorns, tipped with a poison distilled from Huang Yu’s pure hatred!