Chapter 27: The Terrifying Dominance of the Specialist

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Lu Zi'ang had no intention of letting him escape.

The moment his Q struck Xin Zhao, Lu Zi'ang was absolutely certain he could kill him.

“Run?”

“Where exactly do you think you're going?”

Following behind Xin Zhao, Lu Zi'ang continued landing basic attacks. The man had been beaten senseless and did not even think to turn around and fight back.

All he wanted now was to flee...

But in the end, he could only be beaten to death in the river of the lower half of the jungle.

On the blue side, the bottom-lane duo instinctively swallowed. They were stunned by Caitlyn's mechanics. Wasn't that far too smooth?

In barely ten seconds, Xin Zhao had been utterly destroyed.

They had not even had time to provide backup before Caitlyn was already back in lane, calmly farming as though nothing had happened.

They had simply watched.

They had watched the entire thing unfold.

Strictly speaking, it could not really be called watching a spectacle. The kill had happened too quickly and ended too quickly; they had simply been unable to arrive in time.

“????”

Looking at his gray screen, Xin Zhao angrily typed a string of question marks into chat.

Ezreal and his support were duo partners, so they naturally acted together.

Ezreal helplessly replied, “Who told you to go that far forward and start dancing?”

“If you hadn't danced around, none of this would have happened.”

“???? So this is my fault? Is that your excuse for standing by and watching your top laner die?”

“Fine, I shouldn't have danced around. But I spent five whole minutes hiding in the bottom lane, sacrificing five minutes of development just to help you gank! And what did you do? You just watched me die?”

“You really talk too much. Your mental is terrible, too! You could have waited ten minutes and it still wouldn't have mattered. You didn't accomplish anything. What are you even talking about? Muted. Trash jungler.”

Ezreal was not about to indulge him.

Xin Zhao completely lost his composure in chat, unleashing a torrent of abuse, but no one responded. It seemed the others had all muted him.

At fifteen minutes, Lu Zi'ang had already claimed three kills. His economy was far ahead, and he was crushing his opponent in gold.

Even the top-lane Tryndamere specialist did not have an advantage this overwhelming. The difference in farm and kills between them was enormous.

(Page 2 of 3)

The blue side had somehow begun to fall behind.

No one had expected it, including Tryndamere in the top lane, who was somewhat astonished.

After Lu Zi'ang finished clearing the wave, he returned to base to upgrade his equipment. Over the next five minutes, relying on his overwhelming item and level advantages, he effortlessly destroyed the bottom-lane outer turret.

Jelly also killed the opposing mid laner once, gaining a solid advantage. In the top lane, Sion was being hammered into the ground by Tryndamere.

Just as Tryndamere had promised earlier, by the twenty-minute mark he had indeed destroyed both the top-lane outer and inner turrets and had begun attacking the inhibitor turret.

A Challenger Tryndamere with twenty-two thousand games under his belt was not to be underestimated. Up to this point, the entire ranked game had been carried by Tryndamere.

“Jelly, go deal with their top laner,” Lu Zi'ang messaged him.

“Sure. This guy's pretty good...” Jelly had a considerable advantage, but compared to Tryndamere, he was still far behind.

At this point, the only player on the entire map ahead of Tryndamere was probably Lu Zi'ang's Caitlyn.

The red side's top laner had been ruined. After the jungler invaded the red buff at the start and gave away first blood, he had practically vanished for the rest of the game, doing nothing but farming monsters in his own jungle—and even then, he could not secure his buffs.

He did not need to gank the bottom lane; the enemy was hiding under their turret to farm.

The mid lane did not need a gank either.

As for the top lane, he did not dare go there.

Just how miserable could a jungler's game be?

Anyone unfamiliar with the match might have assumed it was a Bronze or Silver game. There was no sign whatsoever of Diamond One-level play.

Looking at the overall situation, the blue side still held a certain advantage. Xin Zhao's mental state had completely collapsed, but his mechanics remained intact, and he had secured both the dragon and the Rift Scuttler.

If the game became a full five-on-five team fight, the red side had very little chance of winning.

Lu Zi'ang knew that as well.

The only way to win this ranked game was for him and Jelly to establish an overwhelming advantage, then secure victory through small-scale skirmishes, split pushing, and taking down turrets.

Team fights?

Were they supposed to rely on the 0–5 Sion? Or perhaps Mordekaiser, who had spent twenty minutes farming in the jungle and had made almost no impact at all?

Lu Zi'ang already had a clear plan in mind, and he was carrying it out.

Twenty-one minutes.

The blue side's bottom-lane inner turret was destroyed.

Lu Zi'ang began attacking the inhibitor turret. By then, his farm had reached a terrifying 257 minions—already ahead of the game clock.

The opposing Ezreal had only 119 minions.

On top of that, Lu Zi'ang had killed a blue-side champion once more during the previous five minutes.

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In other words, Lu Zi'ang's KDA was now 5–0–0. The bottom lane had been beaten into submission and could only farm beneath their turret.

But Caitlyn had superior range, a respectable turret-taking speed, and a massive level advantage.

Compared to Tryndamere's speed at destroying turrets, Caitlyn was actually faster. After all, the blue side's bottom lane was practically nonexistent and had no crowd control.

The red side's Sion might have been useless by then, but at least he still possessed hard crowd control, and even after dying, he could clear waves. If the split pushing continued like this, the blue side would not come out ahead.

The main problem was that Xin Zhao and the mid laner had no ideas whatsoever. Even after the push reached this position, they still did not come around to collapse on Caitlyn.

“I can't beat him.”

The game reached twenty-three minutes. Jelly had already fought Tryndamere once, but he sent Lu Zi'ang a message.

“It's fine.”

“Wait for me. I'll deal with him,” Lu Zi'ang replied.

He had glanced at the livestream comments from time to time and had also seen the viewers explaining the situation.

The opposing Tryndamere was a high-win-rate specialist with twenty thousand games. Players who almost exclusively played a single champion could not be measured by their ordinary rank alone.

Even if Lu Zi'ang faced him one-on-one, he would probably lose. After all, Lu Zi'ang was playing Caitlyn. The moment Tryndamere got within melee range, he would be finished.

That was why he still needed to coordinate with Jelly, use crowd control, and force Tryndamere to activate his ultimate first.

At twenty-five minutes, the pace of the game began to slow. Meanwhile, the number of viewers in Lu Zi'ang's livestream had surpassed ten million, and his follower count had grown by more than two hundred thousand.

It was most likely because of JackeyLove's shout-out from afar, which had drawn countless viewers to Lu Zi'ang's ranked game out of curiosity.

After all, JackeyLove now carried the title of championship ADC. His statement had effectively served as an endorsement of Lu Zi'ang's ability.

An hour had passed since Invictus Gaming won the championship. JackeyLove had already given interviews to several media outlets and had finally found a moment to rest.

He opened his phone to see what kind of impact his words about Lu Zi'ang onstage had caused, only to discover that the man was livestreaming a ranked game.

JackeyLove was a little angry.

He and Lu Zi'ang were the same age, and both could be considered prodigies. The difference was that Lu Zi'ang had chosen the all-Chinese roster of Royal Never Give Up, while JackeyLove had been selected by Invictus Gaming.

In the end, JackeyLove had won the Season Eight World Championship with Invictus Gaming, while over the past two years Lu Zi'ang had not even managed to secure a starting position. During the quarterfinals, Royal Never Give Up had even pushed him onto the stage to take the blame.

When he thought about the distance between them now, JackeyLove could not help feeling a little wistful.

After all, back in those days, Lu Zi'ang had possessed even greater talent than he did...