Chapter 627: The Hunt Begins!

At the crucial moment when the Rift Herald was about to respawn, EDG had won the team fight but, due to the disadvantage in the bottom and mid lane minion waves, did not gain the initiative in the next round; they chose to swap lanes, sending their duo to mid lane—a clear signal.

Xiao Duan also noticed; when the enemy duo appeared in mid lane, he immediately pinged and quickly said, "They seem to be going for the Rift Herald."

Liang Yan was clearing jungle, pressed Tab to glance at the enemy's equipment: "Hmm, no rush; after I finish this jungle camp, we'll set up vision first."

Obviously, the victory in the previous team fight gave EDG some confidence, so they decided to contest this Rift Herald with VG.

After taking F6, Liang Yan entered the river and met up with Xiao Duan. Xiao Duan swept with his scanner, and Liang Yan placed a control ward at a key spot—yet they found no EDG wards at all.

Xiao Duan felt surprised: "Didn't you scan? How come there isn't a single ward?"

Liang Yan, however, trusted his judgment more: "They probably really didn't place any."

"They're not even placing wards—do they not want the Rift Herald?"

"With Ice Archer able to scout, maybe they're trying to save on buying control wards, planning to scout after the Rift Herald spawns…"

Liang Yan's sentence trailed off suddenly.

He suddenly came up with a plan.

Only a few seconds remained before the Rift Herald respawned; the entire river had no EDG wards, and the Ice Archer was saving his E ability to scout later…

"Come with me!"

Liang Yan quickly decided, pinged the five-way junction in EDG's upper jungle, and charged straight through the opening opposite the Dragon Pit.

"Wuhu~~ The hunt begins~~!"

Xiao Duan shouted excitedly and quickly followed.

The two circled the jungle, placed two wards, then returned the way they came.

At that moment, the Rift Herald had spawned.

While the two were invading the jungle, EDG's jungler and laner, who were together clearing the top lane minion wave, made an obvious retreat—clearly there were wards in the jungle; VG's support's move was seen by EDG, prompting their top laner/jungler to adopt an anti‑gank stance.

Of course, EDG also saw VG's two leaving the jungle. But EDG had no river vision, so they only knew the VG support had left, not where they would go next.

The audience and commentators, however, were already excited.

"... Jiao Shen is feeling for wards over the wall, Bu Long steps out and presses up… huh? What are they doing? Why did they just come out and then sneak back around?!"

At that moment, the director switched to EDG's point of view.

It was clearly visible that VG's support duo took an extremely sneaky path, slipping just outside the vision of the ward at EDG's upper river entrance, wall‑climbing back into EDG's upper jungle.

Xiao Duan inserted his last control ward into the tri‑brush behind the blue side's first tower, but found no wards there.

The two then crouched by the wall.

EDG's bottom and mid lanes were still pushing normally, unaware of VG's duo's actions.

A strange aura began to spread across Summoner's Rift.

The commentators grew tense as well:

"They wouldn't be trying to dive the turret, would they?"

"Impossible—how could Ai Luoli dive here? Kennen and Bu Long have no flash, and diving 3v2 is too risky; I think they're trying to bait someone."

"Um, who are they baiting? The monsters in the upper jungle are already cleared; Ai Luoli wouldn't come over—could it be…"

When the chief wasn't present, Meiko, who was acting as EDG's main shot‑caller, was also thinking.

The Rift Herald has spawned—could the two be going straight for it?

Looking at Kalista's positioning, she indeed seems to be moving up……

In the current patch, a freshly spawned Rift Herald has 8000 health and 60 armor, looking quite tanky, but each time its eye is destroyed it takes damage equal to 12% of its max health; although the eye's reopen timer has a 10‑second cooldown, it can be reduced by basic attacks—each basic attack cuts 2.5 seconds, down to a minimum of 3 seconds—meaning that even without any attack speed bonus, two people attacking the Rift Herald together can compress the eye's cooldown to the minimum.

That is, with a jungler participating and two people attacking together, the Rift Herald can be taken down in about twenty seconds.

The time left for EDG is not much.

"Hurry up and come over."

Meiko made a decision, pinged the Dragon Pit, issued a rallying command, then ordered Zet to scout: "AD, take a look!"

Zet quickly responded, standing in mid lane and firing an Eagle Strike the Sky toward the Dragon Pit.

The magic eagle flew across the sky of the Rift, illuminating the entire upper river—including the Dragon Pit, the upper river entrance, and the red side's upper river tri‑brush.

However, the Dragon Pit was empty, with no trace of any VG personnel.

EDG's members were momentarily dazed.

Where are they?

"They couldn't have gone home to buy wards, could they?"

Ai Luoli guessed,

"The blind monk has no control wards—I saw Bu Long just place two more in our jungle, and he probably also put one in the river earlier; maybe he's out of wards."

That's possible.

Meiko thought silently for a few seconds, then said: "Never mind, it's good if they're not fighting—go place a ward first."

Ice Archer's scouting ability had already been used and was on a cooldown of several tens of seconds; to stop VG from sneaking back for a steal on the Rift Herald, vision in the Dragon Pit was essential, and Ai Luoli happened to have one control ward left.

"Want me to come along?"

Mouse asked while walking, seeing Kennen leave the lane toward the tri‑brush and instinctively step a few paces toward the river.

"It's fine, keep pushing; I'll go back to base after placing the ward."

Ai Luoli felt relaxed and said with a smile. Since Zet's arrow had also lit up the area near the upper river entrance, she sensed no danger and, without any precaution, guided her lion‑dog into the river toward the Dragon Pit, intending to place the control ward over the wall.

Little did she know, in the viewers' god‑view, she had already stepped into an extremely dangerous hunting ground!

Figure: Upper half situation

Just as Ai Luoli approached the Dragon Pit to place a control ward over the wall, the Mang Seng hiding on the high ground behind the enemy river wall suddenly vanished from his spot.

A yellow light flashed, and the Mang Seng leapt over more than a thousand yards to appear beside the lion‑dog, his bulging‑muscle thighs coiling before he unleashed a ferocious kick at the lion‑dog's side waist!

"Holy fuck!!!"

The incident happened too quickly and too unexpectedly, the unprepared Ai Luoli completely failed to react, the blind monk who suddenly appeared beside him caused his pupils to dilate instantly, he was so scared his heartbeat skipped a beat, after coming to his senses he only then thought to run, he slammed his index finger onto the D key at a speed beyond his own limits!

However, it was too late!