Chapter 405 - Locked-on

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“Captain Yu is so calm. He’s been denied over 20 CS, and yet, he doesn’t seem anxious at all. He’s still finding opportunities under the tower and CS-ing from time to time!” Mao exclaimed.

Luocheng ignored every kind of taunt and attack that Zed kept throwing at him. All he needed to do now was to just remain focused, and so, he kept on with his CS. If he couldn’t do it in time, there was no need to force himself to do it. It didn’t feel like he was in a match at all…

Not getting to watch the exciting match that they were expecting, many viewers had started to laugh and call him a coward.

“Come on now, lads. This is the kind of coolness a professional should have. It’s not easy for Kassadin in the early phase of a match!”

“Well, if it was me, I would just rush out and take on my foe. D*mn, he hasn’t even gone out of the tower at all.”

As people were gossiping, Luocheng kept looking at his EXP bar.

The people who thought that he was a “professional coward”, all Luocheng could do was respond with a smirk.

Every time Number One denied him his CS, especially the cannon minion, beneath Luocheng’s calm demeanour was an intense monologue, “F*ck! It’s just a darn cannon, man! Come on, it’s just 43 gold. 43 gold! Just let me have it!”

Nevertheless, this Number One was quite a player! He knew the importance of denying his enemies gold, starving them economically.

The first item that Luocheng acquired was a Tear of the Goddess. Even though it was quite common for mid laners to acquire a Seeker’s Armguard, Luocheng believed that it would be better for him to get himself a Tear of the Goddess. After all, Kassadin had a tendency to lack Mana in the end-game. Not only that, with a Tear of the Goddess, he could acquire an Archangel’s Staff which could grant him additional protection. This was quite important because Kassadin tended to also have moments when all of his skills were under cooldown.

In this new season, ganking the enemies would not be as easy as the previous season.

Both sides were extremely careful, and after 10 minutes, both Team Skycrown and Team Beijing had only slain 2 champions each.

All during that time, Number One had been continuously CS-ing. In fact, he had scored himself 110 CS in that 10 minutes which was quite terrifying. The bigger the difference in CS between the two players, the more difficult it would be for Luocheng to catch up. Luocheng’s Kassadin couldn’t kill the creeps any quicker while at the same time, Zed could now defeat a few wolves already.

Not only that, Zed had already gotten himself a Blade of the Ruined King and a Brutalizer. It was apparent that they intended to acquire the upcoming Blue Orbs.

Finally, the time came and Kassadin had reached Level 6. Luocheng was now finally fighting back, managing to score more creeps. He was now able to maintain the difference of CS in between 20 to 30 creeps.

Realizing that his opponent had now gained momentum, Number One started to shift his attention to the jungle. Yes, after Kassadin had reached Level 6, there was no way that he could kill him alone. He needed to bait him to the jungle.

When the third Blue Orb appeared, this signified that the early phase of champion growing had finally ended. The battle for the jungles was going to erupt at any moment now!

“Zhou Yan, heads up. Zed’s coming your way.” Luocheng cautioned.

Now, Zed was a super assassin. With just one set of skills, he could instant-kill just about any champion that he wanted to. Therefore, if they wanted to guard the Blue Orbs, the both of them needed to stay close to each other. If either Zhou Yan or Luocheng went their separate ways, they would both be toast.

Nodding his head, Zhou Yan sent his Olaf to Luocheng’s side.

There was no sign of the enemies at the top and middle lanes. Thus, it was quite obvious that all of their opponents had now gathered at the Blue Orbs.

It would be a 3 vs 3 situation, they could handle this.

This Blue Orb was crucial for Kassadin. If it were to be taken away, his ability to kill creeps would be severely hindered! In fact, he would be missing out another 50 creeps.

50 creeps! That was almost equivalent to 1,000 gold. This much gold was quite important for an AP Mid to start steam-rolling his way to victory!

“I’ll drop a ward.” Luocheng said.

The ward had now lost its effects, leaving them without any vision around the Blue Orbs. They would never know if the opponents were closing in on them without the wards.

“Leona is missing.” Wu Sen, who was handling the bottom lane, warned them.

“How long?” Luocheng asked.

“About 20 seconds now…” Wu Sen had seen his opponent Teleporting back to the base earlier, however, the Leona Support that should have arrived by now was nowhere to be seen. This meant that she had disappeared from the bottom lane for a whole 20 seconds!

There was no way a professional player would waste 20 seconds waiting by the fountain. No, Luocheng knew that Leona was now heading his way, she was definitely somewhere around him!

Suddenly, a glaring red beam appeared out of nowhere!

It was Vi, the Piltover Enforcer, and she was coming in with her skills locking onto Luocheng!

Without hesitation, Luocheng quickly Flashed away from his oncoming opponent and quickly moved 1,300 yards away, pulling Vi straight to his teammate.

Without warning, a woman clad in full armor appeared from the walls behind, and with a powerful grunt, Leona, the Radiant Dawn, quickly Flashed toward Luocheng!

Luocheng’s Kassadin was quickly stunned, delaying his time to react to oncoming attacks.

Following that, Leona quickly rained hell on Kassadin with her Shield of Daybreak and Zenith Blade!

“Roar!”

In the meantime, Rengar leapt out of hiding with his Kirai Saber, another set of fierce attacks wrecking Kassadin like a storm!

And finally, Number One’s Zed appeared! Like his teammates had done, he too quickly Flashed toward Luocheng.

Seeing Zed’s skills come crashing in, Luocheng had given up on fighting back. His Kassadin was dead, there was no use denying it.

Even if his HP was doubled, with Leona’s stun and the combined attacks of both Rengar and Zed, Kassadin would still die.

In fact, even before Zed’s Death Mark had exploded, Kassadin was already dead. Da Luo’s Dr. Mundo and Zhou Yan’s Olaf were still standing there stunned at what they were seeing.

Holy sh*t, they straight up Flashed their captain twice and rushed in with 4 skills like a hurricane, all of that just to kill one Kassadin!

“D*mn it, you two! Run! What are you doing? Want to die together!?” Luocheng yelled at them.

Zhou Yan and Wu Sen quietly fled. Their opponents had come in with all this fierceness and momentum just for that Blue Orb…

D*mn it, 4 skills raining down like hell!

You want this Blue Orb? It’s all yours.

“D*mn… they’ve put all of their attention on Captain Yu! They didn’t even give him any chance to strike back at all, raining down tens of thousands of crowd-controls and Ultimates!” Miracle was also shocked at what he had just witnessed.

“Not only that, I realize now that Noxus Cafe’s Team Beijing is quite something. Just now, Vi sent a powerful Flash that couldn’t be avoided, and then, Leona came in with a long-ranged attack. With Vi successfully stunning Luocheng, there was no way that he could evade the attack. Right after, Rengar and Zed rushed in with their powerful strikes, the guy was dead even before the stun was over!” Jojo exclaimed.

“Although it was an overkill, this also shows that Team Beijing really loves our dear Fighting Hawk!” Miracle replied.

Team Beijing’s fabulous combo had earned the viewers’ comments flooding in on the live streaming website.

Luocheng had already been very quick in reacting to the oncoming attacks, pressing his R-key the moment he saw Vi and casting his Flash! He had even moved away, a whole 1,300 yards. Under normal circumstances, Vi wouldn’t have been able to collaborate with her team mates at all, and yet, things hadn’t turned out that way…

It didn’t matter now, Kassadin was dead!

***

Luocheng’s face was all grim. If he had known this earlier, he wouldn’t have needed to Flash at all. It didn’t matter if his Kassadin was dead now and it didn’t matter if they had lost the Blue Orb. These things didn’t matter. All that he had on his mind right now was that his Flash was now in a 5-minute cooldown, this was his biggest problem!

Luocheng knew how terrifying his opponents were just by looking at their line-up.

Vi could come down with her crowd control and then strike in with her Q and R-skills, then, Zed could use his W-skill, Shadow Mark, to switch positions with the target. This was equal to Flashing their enemies twice in a row! If these two worked together, they could basically kill anyone they wanted. It didn’t matter how agile Kassadin was, even if he blinked away with his Riftwalk, the most distance that he could move away was just 700 yards!

If he still had his Flash…

Without it, his opponents could basically kill him anywhere they liked – at the middle lane, the jungle… anywhere!

***

Now that they had lost the Blue Orb, Luocheng quickly bought himself a Seeker’s Armguard and quickly strolled up to the lane to continue growing his Kassadin.

The enemies’ skills were still under cooldown, so in other words, right now was a safe time for Luocheng to come out and play. He needed to acquire his Zhonya’s Hourglass as soon as possible, otherwise, he would be slaughtered again and again.

Now that Zed had gotten another 60 CS, he must have acquired better equipment by now. Realizing this, Luocheng felt a shiver down his spine.

“I should have chosen Lee Sin. At least with him, I can kick Zed out of the way when he hits you with his skills.” Zhou Yan said.

“Just continue growing your Olaf and stay close to me. This will at least give them a bit of pressure.” Luocheng replied.

Zhou Yan nodded his head. He knew that if Zed and Vi really wanted to kill Kassadin, his Olaf couldn’t do much to help him at all.

Thus, Luocheng continued on with his grinding for gold. He knew that there was no way that he could buy himself an Archangel’s Staff now. Now, he must aim at getting himself the Zhonya’s.

After a while, according to his calculations, Luocheng was aware that Vi and Zed’s skills’ cooldown were over. Therefore, he carefully dropped his ward again.

Sure enough, his ward detected Vi in a matter of seconds.

Seeing this, Luocheng quickly rushed to the towers. He wasn’t very far away, all he dared to do was move around the attack range of the towers.

Just as he was preparing to continue with his CS, suddenly, Vi rushed in with a Flash and her Vault Breaker. The second these attacks landed, she quickly lashed out with her Assault and Battery!

“Godd*mnit!”

Luocheng couldn’t help but to curse out loud before Riftwalking away diagonally toward Tower 1 and Tower 2.

Vi’s attacks were quite a nuisance. If you were locked on, it didn’t matter how far you moved away, you would still get hit.

Number One’s Zed had ignored the towers entirely, activating his Living Shadow and going straight at his target!

Luocheng was quick too, and when Zed appeared, he quickly cast a Null Sphere to silence Zed.

However, Vi and Zed both possessed extremely powerful DPS. Even though their skills didn’t land, the continuous barrage of normal attacks had already stripped away a huge chunk of Kassadin’s health.

Luocheng had given up again, and with another powerful strike, Zed took away Kassadin’s last drop of HP.