Chapter 40: Return Strike! A More Precious {Weapon}! 【Thanks to

"Zoe picked up the Flash that Rek'Sai dropped in the river! And now the three of them are heading back to the top lane!"

"They're trying to take advantage of Rek'Sai being dead to strike while the iron is hot—kick them while they're down!" shouted Wang Duo from the commentary desk.

"TheShy is about to get hit by a return strike!" Gugu had only just begun to mourn for the top lane: "Oh, but Orianna decisively uses Teleport to protect him!"

"No problem there, the Scuttle Crab vision already saw them; this was clearly a three-man play for the top lane! Although Orianna will lose a bit for teleporting before pushing the wave, it's worth it to save him..."

"Hm?" Wang Duo suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

"After Zoe gave up on the tower dive, she used the Flash she picked up with her W to jump over the wall. Is she just using Flash to travel? That works too, I suppose."

Whether it's skill shards picked up or dropped on the ground, Zoe's shards last for 40 seconds.

Not too long, not too short.

But what the commentary desk didn't know was that this was a sudden "stroke of genius" from Ye Bo!

"Back off, back off, back off!"

"I'm going back to pick up his Teleport!"

A level five Orianna using Teleport alone isn't necessarily enough to force a retreat.

After all, Jayce isn't at full health; if Zoe can land an E over the wall, the three of them still have a chance to dive, though it would certainly carry significant risk.

But Ye Bo had thought of a better way to handle it.

"Zoe returns to the mid lane to clear the wave. Orianna originally wanted to push, but because of the timely Teleport, she didn't finish pushing it in. In this case, Angel might lose another half-wave."

"With this kill experience, Zoe has actually made up for the level deficit from level one, and might even have surpassed him!"

"Exactly, and Zoe also picked up Orianna's Teleport, so she can Teleport back to lane! This counts as winning back the advantage in the laning phase!"

The commentary desk clearly hadn't anticipated Ye Bo's true intent.

And as Zoe finished pushing the wave, she disappeared from vision.

Under the spectator's view, a Teleport suddenly lit up at the top lane's outer turret!

"What!!"

"Zoe is back! She's pulled off a return strike!"

"But in this position, since Teleport can only be used on allied turrets before 14 minutes, Zoe can't flank, and her position isn't great. TheShy is playing very safely and won't leave the turret range, and Zoe doesn't have her ultimate, so it feels like there's no chance..."

Wang Duo finished speaking.

Looking at the spot where Zoe had just slipped into, he remembered something—something that had happened only moments ago.

Could it be!?

The audience at the venue, also recalling that scene, had already guessed it, and a wave of noise rippled through the crowd in advance.

Zoe stood once again on the side of the "toilet pit," in a slightly different spot than at level one.

And this time, the direction she was aiming was no longer the enemy fountain.

It was a much trickier angle, slanted toward the lower diagonal!

"Saint! Smoke Grenade!"

They had practiced this move quite a bit; Li Xuanjun understood the command instantly.

The second deeper meaning behind picking Graves was to execute this "combo" after pushing the wave!

Graves threw the [Smoke Grenade] at Jayce, causing him to fall into a {nearsighted} state.

At the same time, a Sleepy Trouble Bubble was once again stuffed into the wall.

Under the cover of the canyon's stone wall, that bubble floated toward the area under the turret at a seventy-degree angle.

"The Smoke Grenade blocked Jayce's vision! TheShy hasn't reacted yet! There's no way to react!" Wang Duo shouted passionately: "It hit!!!"

"Two seconds of crowd control! Graves waits for Zoe to follow up with her Paddle Star; the two of them strike together to wake the sleeping soul!"

"Jayce is really going to explode this time!" Gugu's eyes were full of disbelief: "I really didn't expect this. I thought that play earlier was a one-time thing, I never imagined there would be a 'sequel'!"

"I said it before the match! This player really feels like he has so much more he hasn't shown yet!"

Wang Duo's eyes flashed with what looked like pride.

After all, he had said before the match that he was looking forward to Ye Bo's performance today, and he truly felt the difference in this rookie player.

"With this, WBG's top lane is undoubtedly completely blown open. Zoe has almost single-handedly driven the tempo of the entire game!"

"Truly, a general's brilliant hand strikes with agility; one falling star strikes down two eagles!"

"This player Ye has shown a style and system completely different from our FMVP mid laner! He is absolutely a treasure of a player!"

As Jayce's body fell once again, the chat exploded instantly.

[Counting the level one play, a return strike? It's a return strike!]

[Toilet? This is the "Paddle Star Grenade Launcher"!]

[This cringey poetic commentary is so annoying! Always Paddle Star this, Paddle Star that, and "general's brilliant hand"! I'd like to ask, is there a hero in League of Legends called Paddle Star? Is there a hero called General!]

[The composition of the person above is hard to judge—are they a 'sister' fan or a 'mother' fan? Surely not a 'zombie mother', right?]

[Huh? Why is it suddenly raining in Summoner's Rift!]

The commentator's words were just an unintentional remark.

But the director was definitely stirring the pot by intentionally cutting to a shot of the backstage area.

Ming Kai, Mao Kai, and the substitute jungler Junjia were all clapping hard, excited by the perfect execution of their team's tactics!

Only one person stood with arms crossed, his expression stiff.

It even sounded like there was a clapping sound coming from somewhere.

Wasn't it just a "one-time" and "flashy but useless" little trick?

It's fortunate that the team manager is mature now; otherwise, as the king of trash talk, he would have definitely come over to ask about it~

Relying on the advantage in the bottom lane, EDG successfully took the dragon at 5 minutes.

At 6:30, Vi, having reached level six, headed to the top lane once again, using the shameless point-and-click ultimate to strike and kill TheShy again, successfully changing the record to 0/3!

With Jayce's current growth, a shock blast to the face really does feel like just a shock blast!

At 8 minutes, WBG had to give up the Rift Herald fight.

All three lanes simply hunkered down to farm, hoping to drag the game out until their two carries' items were completed.

SofM didn't even look at the lanes, continuing to farm his jungle according to his peculiar pathing.

Though, it must be said, he actually had a slightly higher jungle creep count than Vi; he really knows how to farm.

"Ugh, this durability patch is disgusting!" Sun Yalong complained angrily: "Picking mid lane Azir or Orianna, bottom lane Sivir or Aphelios—as soon as they're at a disadvantage, they turtle up and just farm gold. Boring!"

"Not quite, EDG doesn't seem to be planning to farm with them! They want to speed things up!" Xika pointed at the mid and jungle heading straight to the top lane after taking the Herald.

Vi openly crushed the Herald eye.

"Rek'Sai might be behind us. I'll initiate with my ultimate, then use Flash to get out. Master Ye, Saint, follow me with damage!"

Jiejie pinged the enemy Gromp's location, signaling that SofM was likely there, and gave the command.

"OK! After you land your three punches, you can leave the turret immediately. Don't worry about Jayce flashing away, I can chase!" Ye Bo quickly coordinated.

"Wait for me to take the turret aggro, go ahead and chase, Rek'Sai shouldn't be able to solo kill you," Li Xuanjun replied affirmatively.

Since joining EDG, Ye Bo had become closest with these two—Jiejie because they were the same age and had plenty to talk about, and Saint because they were roommates.

Plus, the bottom lane duo usually trained as a pair.

Over these past few days, the top-mid-jungle trio had been practicing in high-intensity "back-to-back shifts," and their synergy had become quite good.

A few words on the fly were enough to understand each other's intentions.

However, none of the three expected that, in fact, such precise deployment might not have been necessary at all.

"Holy crap! SofM, come on already!"

Xika, watching Rek'Sai lingering with the Gromp without the slightest intention of coming to help, completely lost it.

"Hey, no way! Are they really just going to watch TheShy die like that!"

"The richest man has gone mad!"

EDG had thought through all the responses, guessing that the enemy jungler might be right behind them.

Relying on the super high burst damage of Zoe and Graves, they could definitely force a kill.

But they certainly didn't expect that the opposing jungler was burying his head in farming, unwilling to give up the frog meat right in front of him, even though he had seen the three of them moving and was only 500 meters away.

Is this the legendary "jungle farming OCD"?

But because of this, Vi's R-initiation, landing Q-A-E, combined with Zoe's point-and-click Paddle Star, and one final ultimate from Graves...

They even saved Vi's Flash.

"Huh? Was he not there?" Jiejie exclaimed in shock after the dive, thinking the opponent had once again outplayed his thought process: "As expected of SofM, I can never guess his farming pathing!"

"I'm short on gold for Rocketbelt. Saint, can I take the cannon minion?" Ye Bo asked.

"Take it all," Li Xuanjun didn't hesitate for a second, then glanced at the turret's health: "You two take it, I'm backing. The kill gold I got early is enough."

The person who summons the Rift Herald is forced to share the turret plating.

But Graves hadn't auto-attacked the turret yet; if he left now, the remaining three plates would be split between the two of them.

"Master Ye, you take the first turret gold. I'll go invade the jungle; Rek'Sai probably went to my bottom quadrant just now."

You can avoid sharing the first turret gold by stopping early; Vi retreated in advance when the turret had only half a bar of health left.

Of course, there was nothing wrong with this, because Zoe's nature as a hero requires an advantage.

Furthermore, due to the opening and subsequent Teleports to the top lane, Zoe inevitably lost out on some things; otherwise, with the tempo of kills he was getting, he should have taken off long ago.

This was a form of "feeding" from his teammates after he had contributed.

"Wow, emperor-level treatment! This new mid laner has so much status in EDG, he really is the boss!" Although Xika understood the meaning, he couldn't help but stir the pot.

"I heard that EDG actually has some things going on with Scout privately... eh, never mind, can't say that on stream!" Sun Yalong knew how to be a cliffhanger, intentionally leaving his sentence unfinished.

Clearly, through their channels, they had heard more or less about the situation between EDG and Scout.

It’s just that the two sides seemed to have reached a superficial reconciliation before, so there wasn’t much point in exposing anything.

But this baiting really got the viewers in the chat riled up; the screen was flooded with question marks, and quite a few people had already started searching and digging.

And losing the top tier-one tower at 8 minutes is obviously devastating for WBG’s tempo.

WBG is a team that relies on their top laner and jungler to make plays; one can tell from giving Huanfeng first-pick Sivir that his tactical status is extremely low—though of course, it’s also because he really has had too many "underworld" moments, and there’s always a fear he’ll be a liability if put in a carry position.

But now that their primary playmaking points have collapsed, the entire team has naturally, in effect, announced their end.

This match is clearly a victory for "Design Bureau," and it can also be considered Ye Bo successfully verifying a few things.

He doesn’t have to be that reliant on "proficiency"!

Take this Zoe game, for instance; in fact, Ye Bo didn’t use any overly difficult maneuvers, one can only say that sufficient proficiency is evident.

This is also because Ye Bo’s Zoe proficiency is indeed only at level 5, still a bit away from level 6.

But the current situation has already proven it.

Proficiency only affects the hero’s mechanics, but it doesn’t affect Ye Bo’s brain!

Aside from proficiency.

Ye Bo clearly has other, more valuable {weapons}.

"Bad! How did TheShy get solo killed!"

"Doesn't count! Doesn't count! This can't count as a solo kill! How many times did the mid and jungle come before! I firmly oppose unfair duels!"

The two from Deyunse started playing off each other: "Isn't this SofM's problem? If you had come to gank once, could TheShy have been solo killed?"

"Weibo feels like they're done for; this Zoe ruined the top lane in five minutes, and no one can save them. Once TS falls, how can there still be hope for a comeback!"

Xika spoke with a look of surprise: "Oh, so there was still hope for a comeback in this game?"

[Holy Gun! Solo Kill!]

[There's nothing to say about this solo kill; the mid lane helped so much, even my grandma could get the kill.]

[Pure passerby, I don't think you can blame the top laner for this one; it's a pure mid lane gap! Damn, the enemy mid is roaming the whole map, and our mid is still farming minions!]

[Still saying don't blame him, he's already 0-4 and still trying to act cool against Graves, and that second wave where Vi went to gank top, he didn't even set up vision and just wanted to pressure—really, don't blame him at all.]

[Anyway, the Rich Man is definitely a total clown, plus those two b-tier players in the bot lane are naturally collapsing; total clowns!]

[One thing to say, Master Ye definitely deserves the number one credit for this, right? I’m personally petitioning to have player Ye titled as the "First Generation Heavenly Master"! ]

Originally, the support, On, was prepared to give up the bot lane and roam to help top after hitting level six.

Normal bot lane duos usually hit level six around the 8-minute mark; this game, the bot lane matchup was so disadvantageous that it was even slower.

It’s just that WBG wasn’t prepared to contest the Rift Herald, so On wasn’t in a rush.

But as a result, just past eight minutes, the top tower was directly wiped out!

What’s the point of roaming now!

Furthermore, due to the fall of the top lane, Zoe could also free up her hands to assist the jungler in continuing to invade the jungle and the bot lane, which only added to WBG’s mounting pressure.

In just 15 minutes, WBG already showed signs of a total collapse across all lanes.

The "Lock-on Flying Star" combo formed by Vi and Zoe, with Zoe’s terrifying single-target burst combined with the guaranteed lock-on, almost became a death note!

Zoe is a famous "wins lane but loses teamfights" hero, and the mechanics of her E and R skills also dictate that it’s very easy to lack a point of impact in losing games.

But everything has two sides.

The opposite of that is that Zoe has extremely powerful capabilities during {advantageous pushes}!

Just because both sides of the defensive towers are covered in thick walls that can serve as "gun sights," providing space for the Sleepy Trouble Bubble and Paddle Star to aim and hide.

19 minutes.

Zoe hits Sivir with an E from the flank without vision; it’s common knowledge that Sivir cannot block the sleep after the fact, so Huanfeng could only helplessly burn his Cleanse.

The EDG members took the opportunity to take down the tier-two tower and pressed straight toward the base.

"Master Ye, should I engage?" Jiejie, subconsciously, had already started treating Ye Bo as the team’s shot-caller.

"Wait a second, wait a second, get ready, but I feel like there might be an opportunity."

Ye Bo found a positioning flaw exposed by the opposing AD.

Zoe’s E skill is incredibly terrifying right now; no one on WBG can take it, including the support.

And because Sivir has an E, her positioning is relatively the most daring, especially now that she is on the open high ground with sufficient reaction time.

Ye Bo walked back toward the tier-two tower position and disappeared from vision.

He scrutinized the minion wave rotation.

Subsequently, he threw a Q into the empty space behind him.

"Give me a speed boost!"

Meiko’s Karma decisively unleashed her Crown and RE all at once.

Zoe’s movement speed soared, and she began to charge forward with fierce steps, timing the limit of the vision before the enemy high-ground tower, and jumped out with Portal Jump!

From the enemy’s perspective, it looked like she suddenly appeared out of thin air.

And at the very moment she appeared, the Paddle Star was pulled back with a wave of her hand in mid-air!

Flash, two-stage dash!

"Careful!"

Tang Huanfeng couldn't possibly fail to react to this; facing the Paddle Star that shot out inexplicably from the dark vision, he activated his Spell Shield.

But just as the jump returned, he followed up with a point-blank, three-stage Rocketbelt dash!

Before the Paddle Star collided, a long string of Rocketbelt missiles melted the shield first.

A meteor that crossed a full 5000 yards, along with the Sleepy Trouble Bubble that was delayed, followed and flew out.

Rockets, Paddle Star, Bubble.

The three arrived almost simultaneously, then exploded with Electrocute!

《5000-Mile Snipe!》

"Holy shit!!!"

Amidst the shouts of the entire arena, a Sivir, crushed by a single hand and the first to be taken out, served as the horn for EDG’s teamfight.

"Engage, brothers!!!"

The Ashe arrow shot out, and everyone charged onto the high ground with the group speed boost from Karma that hadn't yet dissipated.

Explosive bombs, lock-ons, ice arrows, and yet another Paddle Star.

WBG collapsed like a mountain, and three more were taken out in an instant!

The five members of EDG pressed straight to the enemy crystal, and finally, at 19 minutes and 57 seconds, blew up the base!

The mechanics have already been recreated in the article in GIF format~

4.7k two-in-one, just finished writing it.

Sorry first! Late again, again, again, ying ying ying.

But the benefits of updating in the morning are showing; no need to post first and edit later!

Zoe still has many novel maneuvers; so anxious, really want to write them.

Let’s ask for monthly tickets first!

Thanks to the alliance leader, Shanzhong Buzhinian, for the support!!!

I will add more chapters upon launch, qaq.

Thanks to Shanzhong Buzhinian for the 10,000 point coin donation!

Thanks to the brothers for the monthly tickets!

Thanks to the brothers for the support!

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(End of chapter)