Chapter 151: Ghost Shadow Assassin

From the god's-eye view, the Blue side's starting positioning was clearly off.

After leaving the base, Kayn headed straight for the top lane.

He bypassed the jungle and river entirely, arriving directly in the brush of the top lane minion wave, and kept moving forward.

"What is this positioning from Canyon? Is he trying to camp Aatrox?"

"But Flandre's positioning is quite conservative and steady; he's just standing inside the tri-brush to defend the jungle. There's no reason for him to be up at the minion wave."

Even those with the god's-eye view were somewhat confused.

Meanwhile, the members of EDG were also setting up defensive control in their jungle.

Clearly, with such a niche hero picked, it was obvious DK would have a specific plan, and level one was a high-risk node.

"Place wards in these two spots, drop the sapling here."

"We need to hold our positions at level one. If they try to force their way in, we'll swap jungles. Don't give him a chance to steal energy in a level-one skirmish."

Ye Bo directed the defensive setup, and the four others performed their respective duties.

But with the level-five understanding he had just acquired, he only had enough time in such a short window to come up with a choice that offered some slight restriction.

Yet, it was impossible to fully anticipate Canyon's meticulous preparation.

At this moment, Kayn, who had not yet revealed his position, finally began to move.

"This position!? What is Canyon doing!"

"Huh???"

"What kind of play is this!!!"

The LPL commentary desk let out a sharp cry.

Kayn was seen walking out of the brush and heading straight toward the opponent's top lane outer turret—to anyone unaware, it looked like he was trying to feed the turret!

But the moment he stepped out of the brush, Kayn activated Shadow Step, his body turning ethereal.

He transformed into a shadow, merging into the wall at the "edge" of Summoner's Rift.

And the terrifying part was... even as Kayn walked under the top lane turret, even when he was parallel to EDG's top lane outer turret.

There was still no information alert appearing on EDG's minimap!

The 7-second duration of Shadow Step, combined with the 464 movement speed upon activation, helped Kayn "side-pass" all the way from the edge of the map past the Red side's top lane outer turret.

Until he landed behind the outer turret, walked silently into the Krug camp, and dropped a ward over the wall into the Red buff brush.

【Holy cow, that's actually an ultimate move!?】

【Kayn, traversing the universe!】

【Canyon, is that Red buff here too?】

【The power of the Third Uncle has finally been unleashed! The King of Counter-Jungling is here!】

【Jiejie, don't! Run!】

LCK fans, who had been stifled for two games, punched the air and cheered.

LPL viewers, meanwhile, were deeply anxious.

Because Maokai was starting at the Red buff!

Why start at Red?

Because—the bottom lane had a hard-engage support.

The so-called hard-engage and enchanter supports aren't just about whether the hero is ranged or melee, whether they play poke or engage, or whether they focus on fighting or laning.

Simply put.

The main role of an enchanter support is: to apply buffs (or debuffs), or to deal damage themselves; their task in team fights is to stay alive as long as possible and provide more team utility.

At the same time, since most enchanters are ranged heroes, they possess strong "harass" capabilities, making it easier to exert laning pressure.

The main role of a hard-engage support is: to land decisive crowd-control skills, restrict the output of the opponent's key carry, and then soak up damage.

Although most hard-engage supports lack strong harass, they inevitably have reliable crowd control, and many have skills like "hooks" that can seal the deal, making it easier to find kill opportunities.

Therefore, relatively speaking, hard-engage supports must "find fights" as much as possible to exert their most direct impact.

This is also the reason why enchanter supports have become mainstream in the bottom lane this patch.

Beyond the most critical contest for lane priority.

More importantly, in this patch, both the mid and jungle positions have a major carry, and unless the bottom lane has the ability to crush the lane, the safest bet is to transition to a degree of team-oriented play.

For Canyon, it didn't really make much difference whether he counter-jungled the Red or the Blue.

In any case, as long as this infiltration was successfully executed, he could at least steal one side of the jungle, likely resulting in a three-jungle-camp start.

What's more, there was clearly an unexpected gain this time.

"Stole it!!" Jiejie, whose mental state was on the verge of collapse, sat up from his deathbed: "Maokai's jungle clear isn't fast even with E at level one! And he just happened to pull the Red buff into the brush, right into Kayn's face!"

"Kayn uses Smite in the shadows and hits level two! He wants to chase Maokai, but Maokai burns his Flash immediately!"

"With this, the top jungle is going to fall!"

Hearing the hoarse shout Jiejie suddenly let out over the voice comms.

Ye Bo, who had switched his screen over, was also taken aback by this scene.

"Where did he even come from!" Jiejie's tone was full of confusion.

"Yeah, I was guarding the tri-brush the whole time, and Master Ye told us both to watch the brush above the dragon pit; there was no way he could have gotten through..." Flandre was even more bewildered.

"No, I have to go to his Red side!"

Jiejie, who was physically feeling the heat, subconsciously wanted to swap jungles.

After all, he was only level one, and the top half of the jungle was definitely lost.

But at this moment, Ye Bo, having surveyed the battlefield, had his thoughts racing.

"Wait, Jiejie, don't go. Just hurry up and clear our Blue side first."

Ye Bo put himself in the opposing jungler's shoes, using his own logic to think through the potential chain of attacks the opponent might follow.

He thought of a possibility.

If Maokai just went to swap jungles, what if Kayn didn't choose to finish clearing the top half, but instead circled back to ambush Maokai?

Whether they could win a 2v2 was secondary.

The problem Ye Bo truly realized was—that way, Kayn could steal a huge amount of energy!

"Jiejie, listen to me. If Kayn comes looking for you later, be decisive and just give him the jungle."

"Just swap jungles hard this game; even if you lose some farm, it doesn't matter."

Jiejie seemed to understand what Ye Bo meant.

"Understood!"

Under the dark shadows of the god's-eye view.

After Kayn Smited the Red buff, he didn't go to clear the closer Krugs, but turned toward the Raptors.

Kayn's jungle clearing relies mainly on his Q skill; two instances of AoE damage plus a short cooldown are enough to clear camps quickly.

And just after speed-clearing the Raptors, he immediately headed toward the river, hugged the wall to activate Shadow Step again, and quickly dashed from his own outer turret back to the bottom jungle.

But when Canyon entered his own Red side for a search.

He was stunned to find that Maokai hadn't come over at all!

"He's not coming?"

From the first game with Lee Sin, it was clear that Canyon was a jungler who valued jungle resources extremely highly; he couldn't accept any loss of his own resources, to the point where one could almost call him petty.

And the situation this time was completely different from the first two games.

Maokai not coming meant he had implicitly accepted the loss of two camps in the top half, which was even hard to make up for.

But even so.

Canyon was not prepared to lower his spear of aggression.

"Everyone check your positions, I'm going to find Maokai."

Having finally successfully executed a counter-jungle in this game, Canyon was ready to flex his muscles; even his expression seemed to reveal a long-lost ferocity.

Although because the opponent didn't come to the Red side, the "level difference" between the two sides was temporarily smoothed out by "travel time," and Maokai had certainly leveled up by the time he got there.

But Ye Bo's thinking was spot on.

Canyon's main goal wasn't to kill Maokai, nor was it even to counter-jungle.

He just wanted to find Maokai to fight—to accumulate energy!

Walking into the jungle, he found the Blue buff gone, but the Gromp was still there.

He immediately activated Shadow Step again and rushed toward the Wolves to find traces of Maokai!

Seeing Kayn appear, Maokai immediately kited and retreated, using his final Q to kill the large wolf before turning around and leaving without looking back!

"This!?" The three people at the LPL commentary desk were all somewhat stunned.

"Jiejie is losing so much here; actually, there isn't much difference in their health, and this is still his own jungle!"

"Kayn finishes the two small wolves first, turns to hit the Gromp, and then recalls immediately!"

"The Third Uncle still hasn't gone back to clear his own Red side; he leaves base and goes straight top, still wanting to hunt down Maokai who is trying to head to the opponent's Blue side!"

The commentary desk clearly hadn't grasped Maokai's intent.

But Canyon realized it.

Yet, just as he called Gragas and Sylas to surround him, attempting to forcibly arrest Maokai in the top jungle, he discovered that Maokai had only taken one Blue buff and had already left the top half early!

"This guy..."

Canyon's originally relaxed expression suddenly changed slightly.

On the surface, Maokai was losing a lot.

Even if he were to turn around immediately right now to kill the remaining Stone Krugs in his top jungle, the Tree would have barely managed to clear 4 camps from the first wave of jungle monsters.

Of course, because Kayn had been persistently hunting the Tree, he hadn't cleared his own bottom red quadrant, so he had actually only cleared 5 camps.

But more importantly—despite such a smooth counter-jungling start, he hadn't even managed to touch the Tree once!

Kayn's first wave of aggression ended, and he needed to clear his jungle for a while.

The fighting in the jungle temporarily ceased.

The director once again activated the Erlang Shen perspective, presenting the footage of the three lanes laning against each other.

Selecting Gragas for the top lane in this match was because Danny thought that since they couldn't break through, he might as well let the two top laners farm against each other.

Letting the top laner take on more team-oriented responsibilities.

As for the bottom lane, picking Lucian and Nami was for the sake of an aggressive offense, but EDG hadn't picked a late-game hyper-carry, so the imagined flames of war didn't break out too early.

The most frequent trading of health was actually in the mid lane!

Provided that being beaten one-sidedly counts as "trading health."

"ShowMaker chose the {Fleet Footwork} + {Doran's Shield} laning approach this game; he probably wants to forcibly contest lane priority with health, ensuring that the jungle invasion doesn't become passive."

"But why does it feel like he's under so much pressure!"

ShowMaker is a player with no champion pool weaknesses.

He naturally knows how to play a version-meta powerhouse like Sylas and has practiced it.

But it is very obvious that this champion is not among his most proficient, and his mastery can only be considered average at best.

In fact.

During the break just now, ShowMaker had raised his hand to signal: "Coach, I want to play Syndra!"

Syndra is definitely ShowMaker's favorite and most "signature" champion.

It's just that because her strength is truly not high under the durability patch, almost no one plays her in professional matches.

But in this desperate situation, he also wanted to choose his most confident signature champion just like Canyon—to compete with Ye Bo!

But there was no way.

The foundation of Danny's draft this game was Sylas.

And ShowMaker knew his own Sylas wasn't top-tier, especially after realizing the opponent's laning strength in the first two games; he knew it would be difficult to use the most common Sylas laning style.

Not to mention anything else, just the accuracy of the E skill alone—missing one could potentially be fatal.

He absolutely did not want to be solo-killed again.

But ShowMaker had his own understanding and ideas.

Beyond the choice of runes and items.

Sylas would often deliberately give Azir the distance to use Q, but not the distance to Q point-blank, wanting to bait the opponent into using it for poke—and then, relying on his reaction time, use E to dodge!

You have to know.

Q is not only the only way for Azir to command his Sand Soldiers, but it is also Azir's main maxed skill and his highest mana-cost skill!

Not to mention that Azir using Q is equivalent to using W in tandem.

In comparison, Sylas's E1 is inherently a non-damaging dash and wouldn't have any impact.

As long as Sylas can successfully dodge Azir's Q, not only can he prevent the opponent from controlling the Sand Soldiers to influence the minion wave state, but he can also significantly drain their mana, allowing him to turn around and seize lane priority!

The first two times were successful.

But the moment Ye Bo discovered the opponent's intent, everything began to change.

"My god... how does player Ye's Q Sand Soldier seem 'invisible'!?"

"No wonder ShowMaker's fast-reacting E still hasn't been able to dodge it!"

"Because he can't see the path the Sand Soldier is traveling at all!"

During yet another {Conquering Sands} command for the Sand Soldier to poke, Wang Duo finally discovered the clue.

That charging Sand Soldier actually "disappeared" from its spot the moment it raised its hand... yet it still left a bloody mark on Sylas!

The principle is not complicated.

It is simply because {the Sand Soldier disappears when it reaches its destination, but it does not cancel the Q command}.

Therefore, as long as you use the Q skill at the exact moment the Sand Soldier reaches its destination and dissipates, it causes the Sand Soldier to dash out as "air"—forming the effect of a "Ghost Sand Soldier"!

ShowMaker's reaction is already very fast; he can always react the moment Azir makes a Q motion.

But from the enemy's perspective, that Sand Soldier has no movement trajectory at all; even if he reacts, he doesn't know where the opponent is poking!

So ShowMaker is effectively eating all of Azir's skills, which is why his health has remained so unhealthy.

Laning against different champions requires different solutions.

In the first game, Ye Bo chose to take {Hail of Blades} because he wanted to utilize the attack speed effect of Hail of Blades to assist with wave-clearing ability.

And in this game, facing Sylas, a champion that is clearly easier to lane against, he chose {Arcane Comet}, which has the highest poke damage.

Azir's early-game damage is indeed very limited.

So even if he achieved this level of performance, it was still very difficult to pose a "fatal" level of threat to Sylas.

But it was enough to maintain constant health suppression and thereby maintain constant control of lane priority.

That was enough.

Time reaches five minutes.

Aside from occasionally wandering to the top lane to try something, Kayn had almost never ganked, putting all his energy into the jungle—because in this EDG lineup, only the top and jungle are melee, capable of providing "Red Energy."

But as the second wave of jungle camps respawned, the same plot played out once again.

If you want to counter-jungle, then the jungle is yours.

But if you want to come and fight me, no way!

However, Jiejie would still occasionally give away his position on purpose, letting the opponent "touch" him once, and then immediately Q to face-check and knock him away to "escape."

Because Ye Bo had reminded him earlier.

"You can occasionally give away your position and let him touch you once..."

That is because of Kayn's passive "Compensation Mechanism": {If too much time passes without touching any energy, the multiplier for the next energy gain will increase}.

But if he touches even a single energy point in the meantime.

Regardless of the type of energy, it will reset this timer!

Of course, avoiding fights like this is not without a price.

"Canyon's jungle, the CS is already doubled! His counter-jungling tempo is just too good!" Guan Zeyuan seemed very worried.

"If it weren't for the fact that EDG's bottom and top lanes have support capabilities and the mid lane has lane priority, and Kayn still can't go too deep, I really feel like the Tree wouldn't even have the right to breathe in the jungle!"

"The only good news is that the Tree's frantic avoidance of fights has resulted in Kayn's energy bar still being almost empty even now..."

Time reaches six minutes.

The CS difference between the two junglers at their peak is 21 to 42, level six against just over level five.

However, despite having such a huge jungle advantage.

Canyon's Kayn still hasn't, and cannot, actively start the Dragon.

Because before Kayn transforms, he has absolutely no ability to fight for resources!

In the early game, Kayn's ability to counter-jungle like this relies on his two mobility skills, Q and E, which allow him to traverse all the walls in the jungle repeatedly, making him impossible to guard against, and bullying a herbivorous jungler like the Tree in a 1v1 is not a problem.

But, if it's a head-on team fight.

Even a level six Kayn, it's really hard to say if he's more useful in a team fight than a level five Tree!

This is why Ye Bo needed to have the bottom lane pick Kalista.

Even if they clearly weren't playing around the bottom lane this game and it was definitely a scaling lineup—only Kalista could keep the combat power gap between the two bottom lanes from being too large.

In this way, unless DK can achieve a breakthrough in the side lanes, fighting a head-on Dragon team fight isn't necessarily easy, and might even be giving away an opportunity.

Canyon saw that there was truly no hope of breaking the deadlock in the jungle.

Although he was very unwilling to "pollute his energy pool," he knew the importance of tempo even better.

So he decided to attempt a breakthrough.

And the gap for the breakthrough was still the bottom lane!

The worry Ye Bo had during the draft still inevitably appeared.

Kalista can be said to be the ADC champion that relies most on mechanics; she is far from the formulaic choice that Caitlyn was in the previous game, and even every leap of her passive auto-attack needs to be considered, making her heavily influenced by her current state.

Even though Viper was as focused as possible.

The impact of his state still caused him to make quite a few small detail errors during laning—such as taking a few extra hits from Lucian's {Piercing Light}.

Solo queue players generally like hard-engage supports because it's easy to find opportunities in solo queue; if a hook lands, you can secure a kill, and it feels more powerful.

But in professional matches, the hit rate of hooks is infinitely lowered!

Lucian can constantly perform one-sided poke, while Nami can provide him with healing and bubble amplification, as well as the synergistic poke of her W {Ebb and Flow}.

In comparison, Thresh's poke ability is only his auto-attack!

The hook cannot be thrown easily; otherwise, what awaits is a direct face-check output from Lucian and Nami, a situation similar to facing Keria of T1 in the group stage.

Ye Bo couldn't possibly keep watching the specific details of the bottom lane laning all the time.

Kayn feigned leaving, but actually circled back to the wall behind the bottom lane.

"The Tree should have gone to the top quadrant; we can try a dive this time."

"If the Tree hasn't left, baiting them over to fight is also fine."

Waiting for the minion wave to enter the tower.

Kayn activated {Shadow Step} to scout for vision, and after confirming the Tree wasn't there, he suddenly killed from behind the tower!

"Jungler!" Meiko shouted the moment he discovered him.

Ye Bo also quickly switched screens to check the moment the hero icon appeared on the minimap.

But the reason he did not sense danger was that the health of his team's bot lane was quite healthy, and it did not seem easy to dive.

Although Kalista had been poked down a bit, she was still a distance away from the danger zone.

The only threat in this wave was that Kayn had reached level six.

"Remember what I just said, brother Meiko!" Ye Bo reminded him again.

"Mm!"

When it came to the tower dive, the difference between a tank support and a utility support was revealed once again.

Because utility supports are squishy and have unreliable crowd control skills, their ability to coordinate with teammates during tower dives and ganks is clearly inferior to tank supports.

"I'll tank first!"

Kayn had his ultimate to dodge turret aggro, so he walked into the tower first to get close.

He did not start with W to tank the tower early, but instead started with an auto-attack and Q to deal full damage, while also trying to bait out skills.

But Thresh did not use any skills.

Instead, the moment Kayn dashed forward with Q 【Blade's Reach】, Thresh immediately countered with 【Flay】!

As everyone knows.

Kayn's Q skill is divided into two parts: first the dash, then a spin in place after a short delay.

Both parts deal an equal amount of AOE damage.

And this skill can only be "interrupted" by {knockback/knockup} type crowd control, and it is not easy to interrupt—at least Maokai has a hard time interrupting it.

Maokai's Q has a 0. -second cast delay.

Coincidentally, the second-part delay of Blade's Reach is also 0. seconds.

This means that unless Maokai predicts and uses Q early, even if they Q at the same time, Kayn can still reliably land both parts!

If it weren't for this, Canyon wouldn't use Kayn to play against Maokai.

But Flay—is an "instant effect" long-range knockback!

The second-part spin damage of Blade's Reach was interrupted.

Not only that, but because of the instant knockback from E, the first-part dash posture was immediately pushed backward, only hitting Thresh who was standing in front!

At the same time, Thresh threw out his Q hook aiming at Kayn—he knew it would be dodged, but he just wanted to force Kayn to use his ultimate!

This way, the opponent would be unable to pull out of the tower to reset cooldowns and would be forced to use R on Thresh!

The Q skill hadn't grazed Kalista earlier, so there was no target to select!

"Kayn's ultimate is very timely to dodge the hook! But he can't fly out immediately, Thresh is pulling him deeper into the tower at the first opportunity!"

"The DK bot lane duo can't abandon their teammate, they have to bite the bullet and follow up, trying to burst down Kalista with damage!"

"Nami follows up with a bubble, but because there is no follow-up crowd control, Kalista uses 'QA double jump' to dodge quickly!"

Three people, and only Nami's Q skill for crowd control.

If it were Red Kayn after transformation, he could have engaged first, gotten in their faces to W for a knockup, and then let Nami land the bubble reliably to execute a crowd control chain.

But now, they could only try to brute-force the damage.

However, Blade's Reach is Kayn's most important damage skill, accounting for nearly half of his early-game damage.

It was interrupted, and the ultimate failed to focus down Kalista.

This led to a very desperate tower-diving efficiency.

"Nami is tanking the tower on the edge, Lucian and Kayn want to force a kill on Kalista," the Roaring Emperor said nervously: "But the damage is a bit low, they're killing her very slowly!"

"Kalista flashes backward to create distance, Kayn and Lucian both flash to chase, but Thresh suddenly flashes to attack Nami who is tanking the tower, Flash-A followed by Ignite!"

"Fortunately, Kayn still gets the First Blood! Support and AD trade, but they still need to take another plating, it's worth it!"

"DK's early jungle aggression has paid off! They already have a gold lead!"

The LCK commentary desk was very excited.

But there was not a hint of joy on Canyon's face.

Although Kalista would lose some experience, Thresh could eat the minion wave under the tower without wasting it, and Maokai could take the opportunity to farm the opponent's top jungle.

EDG could actually accept this.

And Kayn and Lucian's health were both left critical by the turret, so they couldn't turn around to take the dragon!

This tower dive did not achieve the ideal effect.

Thresh was the hero Ye Bo found at the last minute of the draft that could best "restrict" Kayn.

Q can hook Kayn when he enters a wall, W can pull Kayn's R-target teammate into the crowd, E can interrupt Q, and the ultimate can ensure Kayn gets hit by a 99% slow upon exiting R, making it hard to escape!

Even if this wave was definitely still a win for DK.

It didn't really change anything essential.

The reason was simple—because Thresh is considered a ranged hero, all the "Blue Energy" Kayn stole in this wave!

It was completely useless!

Kayn's two energy bars do not "share progress."

In other words, Kayn actually has two independent "hidden" energy bars!

Getting Blue Energy, for Canyon who wanted to transform into Red Kayn, was useless except for the compensation mechanism that pollutes the energy pool!

There were many things in this game that could restrict him, and the extra crowd control from Red Kayn had strategic significance for the match; he could only transform into Red Kayn this game.

Time reached 8 minutes.

Looking at the farm alone, Kayn was absolutely explosively superior.

A 1-0 record, carrying a shutdown bounty, leading Maokai by a level and a half. The only problem was that he still hadn't managed to steal any Red Energy!

He really couldn't steal any!

Top lane was a tank that wouldn't cross the river; camping him was just a waste of time.

The jungler had already given up the jungle without fighting back, what more did he want?

The mid-lane Azir was very hard to gank, and the bot lane was also avoiding trades as much as possible.

Canyon was clearly already getting anxious.

Both ADs were farming in the bot lane, and the four others were gathering, hovering near the Rift Herald.

"EDG seems to want to contest this Herald! They called the support over, and it's Thresh, who just ate the bot lane tower plates alone and reached level six!"

"It's hard to say if DK can fight, because Kayn hasn't transformed, his combat power is really poor."

The four members of EDG were not in a hurry to move up.

After all, for them, farming was a natural advantage; not fighting was the best choice.

But if the opponent wanted to force the Herald, with the Rift Herald's zoning, EDG had plenty of room to maneuver in the dragon pit and definitely had the strength to fight!

The first game had already demonstrated Azir's ability in the dragon pit.

But ultimately.

Kayn had a huge jungle advantage, but due to the nature of the hero, he couldn't exert the significance of his advantage before transforming; he needed to transform to cash it in twofold.

But DK acted as if they were pushed to the edge.

The four of them suddenly dove into the dragon pit and started the Herald!

"Watch out for Gragas and Sylas, he's stealing my ultimate this wave." Ye Bo reminded them.

"We don't fight if we don't have to; not fighting is a win for us. They are more afraid of stalling than we are!"

"I think they might not commit to the end, they probably still want to fight..."

Because they were watching the four opponents dive into the dragon pit, and the other side had a champion like Gragas who could force an engage.

The four members of EDG didn't rush to get close, just carefully stood toward the lower side of the river, waiting calmly for the Rift Herald to consume some of the opponent's health and skills first.

But just at this moment.

The commentary desks on both sides simultaneously realized the change.

"What does ShowMaker want to do!?"

"EDG needs to be careful!"

From the god's-eye view, one could see the four members of DK who dove into the dragon pit first placed a Control Ward to ensure there was no vision inside the pit.

Then Sylas approached the wall... and actually aimed directly at his own mid-lane tier-one tower and pressed TP!

In the early game, both junglers were busy and tacitly didn't come to the mid lane.

Both mid-laners were also holding onto their TPs.

Because of this, Sylas even fell behind by nearly twenty CS because he was pushed in and pressured by Azir.

But this saved TP had come into play!

The four members of DK deliberately didn't pull the Herald into the pit, intentionally leaving it at the entrance to fight—ensuring the four members of EDG could clearly see the Herald's health!

Their team composition clearly didn't take down the Herald quickly; it would take at least a dozen seconds, and EDG was also taking their time.

However, Sylas had already landed behind them.

"It's here!!" the Roaring Emperor screamed, dragging out his voice.

"Show~~~Maker~~~!"

Sylas suddenly flashed over the wall, starting with 'Flash-E-R' to push across!

Flash over the wall + E1 displacement push instantly unleashed 【Emperor's Divide】, then followed up with the E2 chain to follow, bringing himself forward as well.

Silky, smooth, and done in one go!

Although because Azir's level one ultimate 【Soldier Count】 was only 5, the width of the cross-section wasn't enough to cover all four people completely, it still covered everyone except Thresh who was near the top side!

Xu Xiu's hand speed was already very fast.

However, there was still the "back-to-front" mechanic of the Emperor's ultimate, plus the action of flashing over the wall.

Ye Bo reacted in the final half-second, barely managing to flash and dodge toward the upper side.

But the old man and the little sheep-man nearby were not so lucky.

The position of appearance was too unexpected, and even if they had reacted, they still needed to decide whether or not to burn their Flash.

The bodies of the Twisted Treant and the Aatrox were instantly shoved toward the Rift!

At the same time, the Gragas, with perfect coordination, threw a backhand 【Explosive Cask】 for an aerial relay, blasting the Twisted Treant and Aatrox directly into the crowd and separating them from their teammates!

"It's over!!!" Guan Zeyuan let out a wail.

"This position is surely a certain death, and that Rift Herald is probably..."

Wang Duo shook his head and sighed: "A wave of perfect coordination from DK's mid, top, and jungle, using this Rift Herald teamfight to execute a key rhythm play—wait?"

"Why haven't the remaining two members of EDG left yet? Are they still trying to save them!"

"It feels like they can't be saved! If they get caught together, this wave is going to blow up!"

The Gragas stunned them in mid-air with his E, and the Nami landed a bubble upon hitting the ground.

A perfect crowd control chain was executed.

Even with Flash in hand, being surrounded by four people like this, if the two EDG members tried to run, they would most likely just be handing over a "death flash."

"I can save one, you guys get ready to flash and pick up my lantern!" Meiko shouted loudly.

Thresh was the hard-engage support hero he played best, and his understanding and attention to detail were spot on.

Meiko knew very well that if he threw the lantern at his teammates' feet immediately, what awaited him would be three or four vision wards being placed on top of it.

His two teammates would definitely not be able to pick up the lantern!

So he had to wait until his two teammates were free from crowd control, throw the lantern outside the opponent's reach, and then let his teammates flash over to pick it up; only then would there be a chance to save one.

But this was still not easy.

After all, four people had already surrounded the pair; if the opponents reacted fast enough, it was entirely possible for them to flash in sync!

But just at this moment, the Emperor suddenly soared into the air!

"The Emperor!!!"

"He doesn't have Flash! We can kill him, we can kill him!"

"Knock him down!"

Seeing the Emperor flying in, the noisy, excited voices of the DK members rose one after another, as if they had seen prey walking right into a trap!

Kayn flashed outward, blocking the only path, intending to use his physical body to "bump" the Emperor out of his E skill!

Ye Bo had no time to explain.

While making his move, he let out a roar and pinged the map.

"Throw the lantern here!"

Meiko did not hesitate in the slightest, throwing the lantern somewhat blindly.

But that position was clearly still a significant distance from the two people at the mouth of the Dragon Pit; it didn't seem like a spot they could reach by flashing to pick it up.

Of course—it also wasn't a spot where the opponents could immediately place a ward.

As the Emperor swept across the lantern's range, five imperial soldiers pushed out with shields: Emperor's Divide!

And at the same time, the Emperor's figure separated from the soldiers.

He did not reach the final landing point, but instead "turned in mid-air," riding the lantern-car to return halfway, just in time to brake and avoid the Kayn who had come to block him!

It was as if a "yo-yo" had performed a geometric turn!

"Lantern Geometric Imperial Guard!"

The wall of imperial soldiers knocked the four people away, creating an escape route for the two teammates deep in the encirclement!

"Run!"

The Twisted Treant flashed outward over the wall.

And because the enemies had all been pushed far away, the Aatrox didn't even need to use his skills, simply walking a few steps and using his E dash to flip over the wall.

"Huh?" Guan Zeyuan, who had just pronounced their death sentence, was stunned: "They can survive this too!?"

"Using the soul lantern as a guide and the imperial guard as a bridge, the Emperor has forcibly saved his teammates who were already at the gates of the afterlife!" Wang Duo shouted excitedly: "The mid-laners of both sides are practically engaged in a life-or-death duel!"

"In that case, DK might not necessarily be able to take this Rift Herald!" Rita said, watching the scene.

Although the two who were focused had both dropped to half health.

But on EDG's side, everyone except the Emperor still had their ultimates!

Conversely, the four members of DK had almost exhausted all their skills, and the Rift Herald still had over half its health, meaning it would take at least ten more seconds to finish.

But now, DK no longer had any hard-engage skills to disrupt the Emperor from harassing them from outside the Dragon Pit.

Seeing EDG regroup and walk back, the Emperor stood tall with his soldiers, full of intimidation.

In the end, DK made the decision to retreat.

The top, mid, and jungle trio absolutely did not want to repeat the mistakes of the first game; they could not let the advantage they had worked so hard to build in the early game be reversed by the same plot again!

"DK very calmly chose not to continue fighting for the Rift Herald! Not giving them a chance means they can continue to maintain their economic advantage; this is effectively... two Flashes traded for two Flashes and a Teleport?"

CT was just about to praise his team's decision when he suddenly noticed something: "Wait, why does it seem like EDG actually profited!?"

"Of course they profited, we used two key ultimates here, while they only used one," the clear-headed Roaring Emperor said in a heavy tone: "Gragas's ultimate has a two-minute cooldown, which means for at least two minutes, we cannot launch another attack on the Rift Herald..."

"Most importantly, Kayn didn't get much energy from this wave!"

"How could he even be saved from that situation!"

The gap between expectation and reality was too great.

Kayn would receive a massive amount of energy points for completing a "kill," much faster than the speed of farming energy slowly.

So in this wave, if he could have killed both the Twisted Treant and the Aatrox.

Even if he couldn't transform immediately, it would be very close!

This was the reason DK made such a desperate attempt; the goal was clear.

The Roaring Emperor realized his loss of composure and quickly tried to make up for it: "But everyone don't worry, in terms of economy, we DK still have a lead of nearly 1. k; the advantage is still in our hands!"

"We just need to wait steadily for the next wave of attacks!"

But unexpectedly.

The next wave of offense didn't come until the 11th minute!

Because Kayn could not transform, his combat effectiveness in front-line resource teamfights was too weak, and it was impossible to create an opportunity like the previous wave so easily again.

So Canyon made the most correct choice—utilizing his economic advantage to rush his Mythic item ahead of time and play for the equipment gap.

This decision was undoubtedly correct.

At 11 minutes, Kayn left the base carrying 【Goredrinker】 and immediately led the team to start the Dragon.

After finishing at 12 minutes, they turned to take the Rift Herald.

EDG chose to give it all up.

Because there was no longer any need to contest it.

The first Dragon at 11 minutes was destined to no longer serve as a resource for a Dragon Soul teamfight to accelerate the tempo.

And by the time the Rift Herald was finished, it was 12: 0, with only a minute and a half of plating time remaining.

Although DK held an economic advantage, the only plating they had actually taken was one in the bottom lane; the rest was basically an advantage in the jungle.

Yet.

With a nearly 1000-gold lead in the jungle, they just couldn't translate it into an effect outside the jungle!

Canyon felt a strong sense of urgency.

Seeing that the plating time was running out, and as time progressed, Sylas's laning in the mid lane was becoming increasingly difficult.

He simply went straight to the mid lane to drop the Rift Herald, treating it as a way to relieve pressure on the mid lane and convert it into direct gold.

"Canyon... Kayn's red energy bar is still almost empty, and it's already 13 minutes!" The Roaring Emperor had gone from his previous ecstasy to becoming somewhat nervous.

"An untransformed Kayn, whether it's ganking, teamfighting, or damage, is just lacking way too much!"

"Not being able to get much energy in the last Rift Herald teamfight really hurts!"

The optimistic CT also became worried: "EDG's members have all successively completed their Mythic items; Kayn cannot create a key equipment gap, and if he doesn't transform soon, his intimidation factor will plummet..."

"Is the Twisted Treant farming the top half of the jungle? Is there a chance to catch him!?"

With the Rift Herald dropped in the middle, it clearly posed no threat to the Emperor, so the Twisted Treant didn't come over, taking the opportunity to quickly clear his Red Buff.

But Kayn, who had controlled the jungle for 13 minutes, could easily guess the opponent's position.

And this time.

There was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity.

Because of the Herald being dropped, Sylas, who had been pressured and unable to gain lane priority to assist in invasions, finally had his first opportunity to roam first.

Canyon looked at the mini-map with sharp eyes, his tone somewhat urgent.

"His Flash isn't up yet, he should be doing his F6!"

Although there was no vision, Canyon had indeed guessed the Twisted Treant's position correctly.

ShowMaker had extreme trust in his partner's judgment.

"Kill!"

Although Sylas had been pressured quite badly, he had successfully managed to buy his Mythic item.

Like the Emperor, both were building {Everfrost}.

It was just that for one, it was the most common build for the hero, while for the other, it was an "exclusive build" that almost only one person used.

"Canyon and ShowMaker seem to want to make a move on the jungle again!"

"Jiejie, you can't be greedy for the jungle camp right now!"

EDG has protective vision set up at the entrance to the red buff area.

It is precisely because of this that when Jiejie saw the mid-laner and jungler disappear, he did not immediately retreat as he usually would.

Ye Bo was clearing the Rift Herald under the tower; he walked to the outer edge and destroyed the Herald's eye with a single auto-attack to kill it.

But at this moment, he suddenly saw a Sylas lurking over the wall, rushing up from the nearby F6 path!

Following closely behind was Kayn, who had dived into the wall.

"Careful!"

Because there was protective vision at the entrance, and they were right next to him.

Ye Bo didn't realize for a moment—both of them had the ability to "climb over mountains and cross ridges"!

Sylas rushed up the wall and blindly cast his E, the E2 Abduct chain flying toward the F6 pit!

He blindly bound a small raptor to trigger the displacement!

Having crossed two walls from the river to reach the F6 pit, Sylas instantly appeared in front of Maokai, threw out Everfrost to freeze him, and then backhanded his stolen ultimate at point-blank range!

"Caught him!!!" Two surprised shouts erupted from the LCK side: "DK's mid and jungle are exerting pressure again!"

"We have to kill this Maokai! He has no Flash; let's see where he can run to this time!"

Everfrost can {root} for 1. seconds.

Combined with the 0. 5 seconds from Maokai's point-blank Nature's Grasp, it was enough time to wait for Kayn to arrive via Shadow Step through the wall!

Maokai had no Flash, and because he had been giving up his jungle to avoid fights, his items were very poor; he was the only one on EDG who hadn't bought a Mythic item yet, so he clearly couldn't withstand the focus fire from these two.

But, it was precisely in this scene.

A strange glint flashed in Ye Bo's eyes.

"Jiejie! Use that!"

"In my direction!"

Hearing this, Jiejie understood and instantly recalled a combo Ye Bo had come up with on a whim a few days ago.

{Root effects still allow the use of non-displacement skills.

Still rooted, Maokai aimed at the two people in his face and cast his ultimate, Nature's Grasp, toward the mid lane!

The two DK players were rooted for a very brief 0. 5 seconds.

And it was at this moment—a Sand Soldier was erected inside the F6 pit.

Xu Xiu suddenly realized something.

The next moment.

The Emperor of the Sands moved as light as a swallow, hands behind his back as he flew straight into the pit, only to complete a U-turn in mid-air—at the same time, five soldiers appeared in the mid-air turn, charging with shields held at a slightly eerie angle!

The two were pushed by the soldiers against the wall, until they flipped over the diagonal barrier and landed inside the mid-lane tower!

"Mountain-Crossing, Reverse Parking"!?

Xu Xiu had just realized the position and thought of this maneuver.

But fortunately, both of their health bars were healthy, so even if they were pushed under the tower, there was absolutely no way they would die!

But.

That was clearly far from a simple "reverse parking."

Because, Xu Xiu and Canyon soon discovered with horror.

After landing, both of their names had uniformly changed to 【Rooted】.

And for a full 4 seconds or more!!!

Terrifying double root!

"Maokai and Imperial Soldiers' Soul Fusion Technique"!

The crowd control duration of Maokai's R skill, 【Nature's Grasp】, is 0. 5 seconds to 2. 5 seconds, increasing based on the distance the ultimate travels, reaching its maximum at about 40% of its path.

But in fact—【Nature's Grasp】 can actually "affect" the same person multiple times.

Not only can the crowd control be stacked multiple times, but the damage can too!

As long as, after taking the first hit from the ultimate, there is a 1. -second interval and an additional displacement to reach the next area where the vines are spreading, it can be done.

Of course, since the vines on a single path disappear after being triggered, the position must be changed.

This is also why the angle of the Emperor's wall of soldiers was slightly eerie!

The two-stage Nature's Grasp's "0. 5 seconds" + "2. 5 seconds" + Everfrost's "1. seconds" finally formed this terrifying self-contained control chain!

The defensive tower's laser hummed incessantly.

【Arise!】 hit the target, refreshing the W cooldown.

The Emperor of the Sands summoned a third sand soldier, gaining the W passive "Three Men Make an Army" buff, his attack speed skyrocketing as he stabbed fiercely at the two frozen figures under the tower!

One strike out, three spears, six holes.

The sand soldiers held their sand spears, rapidly piercing and withdrawing between the two shells, each strike seemingly drawing out a spray of blood mist.

And the two bodies were like torture stakes, unable to move a single inch from where they stood!

Watching all of this happen with their own eyes!

【Shutdown!】

【Double Kill!】

A bizarre and transcendent scene unfolded, and two announcements rang out.

The DK backstage area fell into dead silence.

The livestream chat, however, seemed to go insane at this very moment.

【HOLY!!! SHIT!!!】

【Eight hundred infantry! Defeating a hundred thousand thieves! This is the true hero's entrance!】

【The Heavenly King of Tower Pushing!】

【The Yellow Chicken's claws are restless, craving a fight!】

【What Yellow Chicken? This is—the Desert, Emperor!】

【Reversing the situation with a single move!!!】

【Master Ye is still making moves! He is still saving this home!】

(End of chapter)