Chapter 189: True Soloking!

December 10, 2022, All-Star Weekend Annual Ceremony.

There is usually a relatively long off-season between the end of the World Championship and the start of the new season.

During this period, the event that receives the most attention is the "All-Star Weekend" co-hosted by various regions.

This event has been highly acclaimed since its inception in ancient times, giving birth to classic iconic moments like "One Cannon, Four PDDs," "Nine Blind Monks Kicking One Ball," "Four-Line Match Record 3/9/6," and "Level 4 Pantheon Camping a Level 6 Mantis for a Fruit."

Unfortunately, starting in 2020, due to special reasons, the "external region" exchange was canceled, and it became an event held by each region individually.

The schedule shrank to only include the key solo tournament and three perfunctory best-of-one matches.

Hosts Liu Hang and Yu Shuang, who had been busy for nearly half an hour, stood at the end of the red carpet and began calling out the players arriving for the grand finale.

"Now walking toward us are the top and mid duo from last year's defending champions, Ye and Flandre!"

The camera panned to the end of the red carpet, where Ye Bo and Li Xuanjun walked together.

Although He Youjun didn't mind much, the officials were still aware of the situation and did not arrange for the EDG members to walk together.

It was Ye Bo's first time walking a red carpet and wearing such a custom-made suit, but fortunately, his physique could pull it off, so he didn't look like he was wearing his dad's clothes.

Arriving in front of the backdrop, the two signed their names to mark their arrival.

Ever since a driver asked for his autograph last time, Ye Bo had spent a massive fifty yuan on Taobao to design a signature and had even practiced it for a while.

It was basically a design using the structure of "Ye" to look like a "Yeah" gesture.

Visually, it was clearly a different style from the crooked English of Flandre.

The livestream chat became instantly lively after the two appeared, and some observant Sherlocks even discovered this detail.

【Master Ye's signature? Wait, then the scalper-signed photo I bought on Xianyu for three hundred bucks can't be fake, right!】

【It's hard to understand why you'd spend three hundred big ones on a signed photo; I thought only fangirls could do something like that.】

【That's where you're wrong! Ever since I bought that signed photo, I've climbed three major tiers! It's super effective to pray to it before every ranked session!】

【It has that function? Why the hell didn't you say so earlier? Get me two!】

【What I'm more concerned about is, why is Uzi here too? Didn't he retire again?】

Uzi was among those who walked the red carpet earlier, and his "V2i" signature was right next to Ye Bo's, looking even more abstract by comparison.

However, it was normal for Uzi to come.

After all, when he left the competitive stage last time, the announcement released by BLG said he was only "taking a break from the stage"... he never said he retired!

It is worth mentioning that during the transfer period, Uzi even contacted two teams.

One was EDG—the other was V5!

One can only say he wanted to improve too much.

Unfortunately, he is currently a free agent.

After signing, Ye Bo and Flandre waited off-camera, then walked into the venue with Meiko and Jiejie, who were arriving one after another.

Naturally, they were seated in the front row.

As he entered, Ye Bo caught a glimpse of Chen Zebin sitting in the very corner and waved at him.

Chen Zebin seemed a bit awkward, but he quickly waved back.

Although the seat was a bit off to the side, who told him to be the substitute who ate the leftovers? Having a seat was good enough; it wasn't like they made him squat!

However, the reason for his awkwardness wasn't his assigned seat—but the comparison between himself and Ye Bo.

He could forget his own failures by looking at the sun—but the success of someone he knew well was like the three suns of the Three-Body world, shining down and enveloping him at every moment!

This sun just won't set!!

Perhaps this is the legendary fear of you living a hard life, yet also fearing you'll drive a Range Rover.

However, Chen Zebin was absolutely full of confidence this year.

BLG officially began building the team around him this year, which is why they spent a fortune to buy his old partner Wei, with whom he had won an MSI title, and even bought his old friend Elk, pairing the mid-lane with the team-oriented Yaogao.

This year's roster is definitely more than just a little better than last year's "Twilight"!

He is super confident; even if he runs into the V5 team, he definitely has the power to fight them head-on. He must prove himself when the time comes!

With everyone present, a simple opening ceremony followed.

Then, LPL helmsman Jin Yibo took the stage to begin the awards.

"The nominees for the 2022 Rookie of the Year are..."

The big screen flashed the various stats of the nominated players, as well as corresponding match footage.

Of course, this award was teased by the chat audience as 【The award with the least suspense of the century】.

After all, as a pure rookie, Ye Bo was naturally among the nominees.

And his competitors were OMG's Shanji and TES's Wayward.

"Ye Bo! Congratulations!"

Following that, one award after another was announced.

The Best Foreign Player went to TheShy, Best Public Welfare Club went to TES, Best Charity Club went to BLG, Most Improved Award went to JDG, and Best Marketing Award went to WBG.

Tengjing was really trying their best to divide the cake.

After some strange awards were finished, it was time for those that truly had real weight.

"Best Mid (Jungle/Top/Bot) of the Year"

"Most Popular Player of the Year"

"Best Lineup of the Year"

Before Ye Bo's butt was even warm, he had to go back on stage to give his acceptance speech.

Among them, Best Mid of the Year brought him another trophy!

Even more worth mentioning was the "Best Lineup of the Year."

This time, it was also the first time in history that a "whole team swept" the best lineup—last year, EDG had top-laner Top Tiger replacing Flandre!

But with this year's unprecedented two consecutive regional championships, no matter how much Tengjing wanted to divide the cake, they really had no way to cut it.

Viper couldn't attend, so everyone held a photo of him together on stage, grinning at the camera.

However, these were still awards with no suspense.

What was truly eye-catching were the other few awards that didn't receive much attention.

【2022 Best Manager: EDG-Ming Kai】

【2022 Best Coaching Staff: EDG Competition Training Department】

【2022 Best Youth Training Coach: Wang Chujun】

【2022 Best Overseas Caster/Host: Lyric】

【2022 Top Ten Match Content Creators: EDG Club, Chujun Aike, Ashuai Paike, Xianyu Wang Xuhansan, Honest and Simple Xiao Xiao, Tuwan Games...】

The recipients of several awards seemed inexplicable.

In fact, they all hid mysteries!

Take, for example, Wang Chujun's "Best Youth Training Coach"—the LDL youth team this guy originally worked for was gone; he should have been "unemployed" long ago!

The reason he could still be named best coach was simply because, according to file records and procedures:

Ye Bo was considered the "performance" he discovered while working as a youth coach.

Looking at it this way, this single achievement alone was certainly enough to qualify for the Best Youth Training Coach position!

Who could beat that!

Besides that, the Best Overseas Caster "Lyric" was a well-known "Ye-fan" among overseas LPL casters, dubbed the English version of Wang Duoduo; every time Ye Bo had a brilliant play, he would become famous for delivering a super-long English commentary.

As for the top ten content creators, a closer look revealed they were all kings of various highlight clips and sharp critiques.

Among them, that small, transparent roadside figure named Xianyu Wang Xuhansan was the UP who made the "Ye Play Compilation"; that one video alone garnered tens of millions of views!

【Oh no, Wang Chujun really has to change his name to Ye Chujun now!】

【I can only say that the wall behind Ashuai's camera already has Master Ye's photo hanging on it; it's the same routine as hanging Ma Huateng, so respectful, family!】

【This clearly has shady dealings; how come my number one filial grandson Kid didn't get a title?】

【It's the legendary "when one person attains the Dao, his chickens and dogs ascend to heaven," right?】

【It's reasonable; do you understand the power of the Dou Emperor bloodline? Even the chicken in the next village can directly ascend to become a Kun!】

To boost ratings, the awards ceremony was specifically interspersed with the All-Star main event.

After more than half of the awards were presented, the main event was immediately inserted—the solo tournament.

Except for TheShy, who couldn't attend and participate, all EDG members, Ye Bo, Uzi, Bin, and all other players went to compete.

In the player tunnel, Chen Zebin even took the initiative to find Ye Bo.

"Hey, how about we both pick Akali later? Let's play a match!" He looked full of fighting spirit.

"Sure, it just so happens I have a lot of new understandings of Akali recently~" Ye Bo naturally had no reason to refuse, though his mouth was a bit fast.

The person opposite heard it and felt a bit confused; as he turned away, he muttered, "What does it mean that you and Akali have new understandings..."

The solo tournament is a 3-ban blind pick system, meaning you can ban three of your opponent's heroes and pick heroes against each other in a blind pick.

This is why if there is a specific matchup you really want to play, you have to talk about it privately in advance.

Unfortunately.

Bin, who was highly anticipated by everyone, confidently picked Aatrox in the blind pick, not knowing who he wanted to cosplay, but was defeated by AL's Harder's Crocodile in the first round!

A first-round exit!

As he walked off the stage and brushed past Ye Bo, he clearly said, unconvinced: "Don't rush, see you in the main event!"

Some people in the solo tournament focus on entertainment, picking happy heroes like Yasuo as soon as they get in.

But others are very serious about it—after all, who says a solo champion isn't a champion.

Of course, Ye Bo was also very serious.

The reason is simple: he also gets a trophy for winning the solo tournament.

From the perspective of exchanging for practice points, the solo tournament is truly no different from the World Championship.

The multi-time solo king winner Uzi once again displayed his prowess, fighting his way up from the group stage, and soon, under the official's deliberate arrangement, met Ye Bo in the final bracket.

"It's here, it's here! Master Ye and Uzi's solo match! This is a rare sight!" Guan Zeyuan on the commentary desk seemed very excited.

Meanwhile, Uzi's expression in the player booth was incredibly serious.

During the ban phase, he cautiously banned Akali, Sylas, and Zoe—three of his signature champions who are also top-tier picks on the solo map.

Ye Bo didn't particularly change his selection, still blindly picking the champion he had played quite happily in the earlier group stages.

"Master Ye still picked K'Sante; he seems to really like playing this champion," Miller said with a smile.

"But come to think of it, this champion was hit too hard by those previous nerfs. Now, in casual games, it only has a win rate in the low 40s. I wonder if we'll still see it in future tournaments."

In the current landscape, K'Sante is a highly controversial champion.

On one hand, because of the various powerful mechanics it had upon release, everyone thought it was an overpowered monster, and it was almost permanently banned in every game.

Then, the designers urgently released several hotfixes in a row, slashing many of its stats, which caused its pick rate to plummet instantly.

Professional players' opinions are also vastly different, or rather, most have not yet mastered or developed it.

But after using it during this period, Ye Bo firmly believes—this champion is absolutely overpowered!

"Uzi picked Vayne!!" Guan Zeyuan was incredibly excited.

"This match is going to be good, though it feels like K'Sante playing against Vayne is a bit like being in prison, especially on this map."

The solo tournament uses a specialized mode, and the map is the "shrinking" Howling Abyss, which is the ARAM map.

Everyone knows that Vayne is definitely very good at fighting K'Sante.

And that is indeed the case.

For K'Sante to fight a champion with knockback capabilities like Vayne, the only chance of winning is to use the {Unstoppable} effect of the W to negate the opponent's E skill, then use the Q3 to pull them back into close range.

But Uzi's spacing and kiting are extremely strong; he never gave many opportunities for trades, and didn't even give any room for the W and E skill mind games, simply auto-attacking to slowly chip away health.

The good news is that this mode doesn't allow buying wards, so K'Sante can use the brush to avoid being zoned out of experience.

And because of the shrinking circle mechanism, there is no "100 CS" victory condition, only victory by kill.

Ye Bo kept his health up while waiting for the circle to shrink inside the brush.

Whenever the minion wave approached, as long as Vayne didn't actively use Q to chase and auto-attack, he would at most get hit two or three times, so the health disadvantage wouldn't be too great.

But Uzi wasn't anxious at all—because this mode allows recalling, he could go home to convert his CS advantage into better items, and combined with the chipped-away turret plating, the equipment gap would only grow wider!

"Master Ye is having such a hard time; he can't touch Vayne at all. Uzi's distance control is just too good!"

"It looks like Master Ye can only play defensively and wait for the circle to shrink, but Vayne's equipment advantage is growing, and she already has lifesteal, so she isn't afraid of your poke."

【The legendary solo kill king is nothing more than this! The real solo king has to be my Uzi!】

【Damn it, it's obvious he knew Master Ye had been playing K'Sante in the group stage, so he picked a red-glasses champion as a counter, and now he's all confident?】

【Heh, if you lose, you lose, don't make excuses. In terms of individual skill, my Uzi is definitely top three in history! The only solo champion!】

【The person above is clearly a fake fan! That's a S(olo) tournament champion! The S must be capitalized!! — This is the real S(olo) tournament three-time champion!】

【So noisy, I heard someone applied to EDG and V5 but got no response; don't tell me they want to go inherit the trophy (】

Just as the various trolls were flying across the chat.

The circle had already begun to shrink in the Howling Abyss.

Ye Bo knew he couldn't drag it out any longer; he used E on a minion to close the distance, forcibly used W to push forward, and fired his Q to trade a wave of health.

However, there is an extra gold bonus in this mode, and Vayne had already bought Blade of the Ruined King, possessing decent sustain. By the time the circle shrank, her health would definitely be back to full. This was clearly a failed trade!

To Uzi, it looked like his opponent was getting desperate!

Vayne kept pulling vision in and out of the brush and minion waves, using lifesteal to keep her health high.

Although he didn't know much about this K'Sante thing, he only knew that it seemed to have outrageous burst damage, almost like an assassin.

But no matter how high it is, it is essentially a tank champion.

There is no way it could instantly kill him from full health!

As long as it couldn't kill him in one burst, Vayne could use R and Q to go invisible and create distance, then easily outplay him with a counter-push. Relying on the health advantage, she would immediately be in an invincible position!

K'Sante gathered his Q3 【Ntofo Strikes】 again, but didn't rush to use it.

Vayne was clearly giving him an opening on purpose—just because if K'Sante couldn't wait until the circle shrank and went all-in now, Vayne only needed to create distance and the match would be over early!

But Uzi felt it was a pity, finding that his opponent was very smart and didn't seem to be falling for it at all.

However.

Actually, Ye Bo was looking for an angle.

Just as Vayne entered and exited the brush again, disappearing from vision and entering a state of psychological safety.

K'Sante suddenly raised his hand, bursting out in a strange direction!

Without vision, he aimed at the brush where Vayne had disappeared and used Q-Flash to initiate, knocking out the Ntofo Strikes that were about to disappear, firing a "Whirlwind Shockwave"!

Without any warning or wind-up animation, Vayne was hit almost point-blank and knocked back.

Uzi, however, was not panicked at all.

His health was at least 70%; K'Sante couldn't kill him even after a full combo. Using Flash to force it like this meant he didn't even need to use Flash to create distance; it was simply a desperate move.

The situation was almost locked in!

But—Vayne's body "stalled" in mid-air and was instantly pushed in the opposite direction toward the wall!

It was K'Sante using the {knockback} of his instant W 【Path Maker】 to interrupt his own Q3's reverse {knock-up}, changing the displacement direction of the Q!

The next moment, the R skill 【All Out】 directly grabbed Vayne's red-glasses head and slammed her hard into the wall in the middle of the first turret—she disappeared!!

"What is happening???"

"Where did she fly to!!!"

The director's camera couldn't even keep up.

They only saw a black man grabbing the head of a red-glasses young woman, "gliding for ten thousand miles" inside the "wall" of the Howling Abyss!

During the forced glide.

Both of them had already entered the true damage range of the "Shrinking Fire," and their health began to drop rapidly!

And the destination of the flight... was actually in front of the nexus turrets!

By the time they landed, both were at very low health, but K'Sante was clearly lower.

But K'Sante, having entered "All Out" form, had all his skills upgraded, gained {true damage} on his passive, faster Q cast times, and added an extra execute effect to his W!

The ultimate reset his entire skill set; the second set of empowered QW landed and executed her instantly.

Vayne, who still had one-third of her health left, had only just raised her Silver Bolts before falling instantly to the outrageous burst of true damage!

"Wow wow wow!!!" Guan Zeyuan stole Wawa's catchphrase.

"My god, can he fly that far!?"

"Flying from in front of the first turret to the front of the nexus turrets, using the damage of the fire circle while 'living and dying together' inside the wall, letting both lose health until they hit the execute threshold, and then completing a limit-test execution with K'Sante's outrageous burst upon landing!"

Actually, there was one small detail.

K'Sante's ultimate isn't actually "cost-free," but it directly consumes 45% of his maximum health—but if he is already below that health, it is a cost-free skill!

This is why Ye Bo went to make that attempt that looked obviously a bit "anxious" and resulted in a huge loss in trading health.

Anyway, whether he traded that health or not, he would lose that much health once he used his ultimate later.

"Then congratulations to our final solo tournament champion! Ye!!"

Fireworks erupted on both sides of the stage.

Ye Bo also happily clapped and took another trophy!

The chat, however, instantly became lively.

【Haters! Speak! Up!!!】

【Laughing to death, the ones who were popping champagne just now, come out! Do you understand what it means to be the solo kill king and laning king! Hmm?】

【Master Ye is too mean, wuwuwu, even taking away this S-championship of my Uzi, I'm a hater for life!】

【Master Ye stole my Uzi's life!】

Although the chat was joking, Uzi himself didn't have much of a reaction; he just took a few deep breaths on the spot to regain his composure and even took the initiative to go over to Ye Bo to offer his congratulations.

Can only say.

Familiar, too familiar.

The event continued without stopping, moving straight into the team tournament.

However, there were only teams from the LPL region, and several big-name players didn't come to the venue, so there wasn't much expectation for this team tournament.

As the team captain, Ye Bo directly chose three old EDG teammates.

And since Viper wasn't there, he finally chose Uzi, who was holding a Geodude.

On the other side, JKL and Bin formed the Huanggang Fried Rice duo, facing off against this "4+1 EDG" team.

This match was clearly bullying; the opponents had several second-tier players whose IDs weren't even familiar, facing this "almost" full-strength EDG.

Everyone chose entertainment lineups, and Ye Bo directly went with Teemo mid!

Only Bin chose Jax, and while he dominated during the laning phase, it was of no use to the result because the gap between the teams was too large, and he was even blinded by that Teemo's blowdart, making his eyebrows twitch wildly.

"Congratulations to Team Ye! Winning this fun team match in 37 minutes!"

"Uzi's Draven is really good, and Master Ye's mushroom formation also drove Jax crazy. This match was truly a crazy arrest of Bin."

The chat started to get lively again.

【Uzi: I told you! Look, I told you! I said EDG could win the championship even if they replaced them with me!】

【Bin is going crazy; he was the only one who was super serious and picked Jax, so why was he still arrested? Arrested twice in one day, I don't even dare to imagine how many times he'll be arrested this season~】

"Quick, quick, quick, bring out the main event!"

With the two main matches concluded, it was finally time for the most prestigious award.

"Annual MVP."

Jin Yibo stepped onto the stage once again, building up the atmosphere with deliberate mystery.

"Congratulations! Player Ye!"

"Winner of the 2022 LPL season Annual MVP!!"

As the unsurprising ID was announced, Jin Yibo was the first to lead the applause with vigor.

And when Ye Bo walked onto the stage.

Beyond the applause from everyone in the venue, the voiceover commentary echoed to build the atmosphere.

"Shadows as his retinue, sharpness like thunder, the coronation mark of the new generation's King of Assassins."

"On the field, he arrived in the Canyon draped in starlight; the moment his silver moon blades were unsheathed, they became the light of dawn, forging the mid-lane Canyon into a path of inverted slaughter in a journey of only a hundred days."

"Off the field, the muscle memory he forged through constant training and his declaration of total dominance from niche assassins to traditional mages brought one miraculous performance after another to everyone."

"Annual MVP, well-deserved!"

Ye Bo, having a massive harvest, held four heavy trophies in his arms.

He left behind a group photo amidst the brilliant fireworks covering the scene.

(End of chapter)