Chapter 19: Diamond Slayer

Sion’s passive ability and the turret forced Lee Sin to retreat downward, where he ran straight into me.

From my perspective, it was as if Lee Sin had willingly jumped into the jaws of a tiger.

“Peek-a-boo.”

Lee Sin might have thought the dive was successful, but sadly, that was arrogance.

With only 10% health remaining due to the turret aggro, and no spells or skills available, taking down Lee Sin was an effortless task, even for a struggling Sylas.

– An enemy has been slain!
– You have been shut down!

I turned my attention elsewhere. Since I had used only minimal skills and basic attacks to take down Lee Sin, I didn’t lose much time.

The next target was Renekton.

Although Renekton wasn’t taking turret shots, thanks to Lee Sin drawing the turret aggro, Sion’s frozen enhancement rune and relentless pursuit kept Renekton from creating enough distance.

Renekton was as good as mine.

E, E.

Perhaps due to Sion’s persistent chase, Renekton couldn’t even attempt to dodge the chains and ended up getting bound by Sylas’s chains.

– An enemy has been slain!
– Double Kill!

Killing two champions and soaking up top lane minion experience, my level shot up by two in an instant.

[Sylas – Level 5]

The utterly struggling Sylas had not only secured two kills but also caught up to the highly leveled enemy jungler.

The true destructive power of a Sylas jungle begins after enduring countless struggles to secure kills.

And from then on, the path forward was clear.

– An enemy has been slain!
– You are unstoppable!

It was nothing short of a massacre.

If it had been early game when I was completely falling behind, it might have been different. But now, after fully recovering with 2 kills and 1 assist, there was no way the Diamond locals could stop me.

– An enemy has been slain!
– You are dominating!

Of course, the enemy team wasn’t just sitting idly by.

When faced with strength, one must exploit weaknesses.

The enemy team quickly regrouped and capitalized on our team’s weak spot—our bot lane—catching them out once again.

– An ally has been slain!
– Enemy double kill!

The kill score was now tied at 10 to 10.

At first glance, the numbers seemed evenly matched, but there was a hidden catch.

“Considering turret situations, CS, and shutdown gold… our team is ahead by more than 3,000 global gold.”

That wasn’t all.

While the enemy team had distributed their gold relatively evenly among all five players, our team was the complete opposite.

To put it bluntly, the combined gold of our bot lane was still less than mine.

There’s a famous saying in League of Legends:

“The player who is ahead must carry the game.”

It’s more critical for someone who usually performs well to fail once than for someone who always struggles to fail a hundred times.

And in this game, I was the one who could perform better than anyone else.

– An enemy has been slain!
– Unstoppable!

If the enemy team killed our players, I would respond by killing their players who had already expended their spells and skills.

No one was spared, not even the well-fed bot laner or the mid laner who now refused to step out of the mid turret.

[All Chat][Jedoo Master Kim Jang-in (Jedoo)]: “How can you use stolen ultimates to play billiards?”
[All Chat][Jedoo Master Kim Jang-in (Jedoo)]: “Sir, trick shots are banned at this level.”
[All Chat][2021.06.07 (Samira)]: “LOL.”

Despite the game being overturned in my favor, the enemy team maintained a cheerful atmosphere.

Of course, ranked games can drive people crazy because of the stakes involved, but in normal games, it’s rare to see someone lose their temper unless they’re pushed to their limits.

Furthermore, with the obvious skill gap in tiers, the enemy team had no reason to feel sour.

On the contrary, they seemed genuinely happy to encounter someone famous, though that part gave me a slightly guilty conscience.

Amid the skirmishes, the game entered the mid-late phase.

[Sylas – Level 16]
[Lee Sin – Level 13]

The level gap between junglers had grown to three levels.

Unable to hide their desperation, the enemy team attempted to take Baron in secret.

Of course, it was a clumsy attempt.

I promptly stole Lee Sin’s ultimate and kicked him out of the Baron pit.

– Blue Team has stolen Baron Nashor!

And then, the team fight unfolded as expected.

The enemy team had already ruined their formation trying to take Baron recklessly. Moreover, their health, mana, and spell statuses were in poor condition.

– Penta Kill!

Ultimately, the enemy not only lost Baron but also handed me a Penta Kill.

[All Chat][DiamondOrDie (Lee Sin)]: “Wow… the difference is real.”

Diamond 2.

It’s not a tier to be looked down upon anywhere, but at this moment, it seemed he had hit a wall.

With the Baron buff, our team advanced toward the empty enemy base.

[All Chat][Jedoo Master Kim Jang-in (Jedoo)]: “Are you seriously going to end it like this?”
[All Chat][Renekton]: “LOL, boring.”
[All Chat][2021.06.07 (Samira)]: “Please let us go just this once!”
[All Chat][JaeHyeokGosu123 (Kai’Sa)]: “LOL, you camped bot so hard; I knew this would happen.”
[All Chat][JaeHyeokGosu123 (Kai’Sa)]: “Bot diff, bot diff, LOL.”
[All Chat][2021.06.07 (Samira)]: “Plat players, ugh…”
[All Chat][JaeHyeokGosu123 (Kai’Sa)]: “Yeah, next time you’ll lose to that Plat player.”

Amid the flood of chat messages, the game ended just like that.

[Victory]

Without even checking the damage stats, I exited the client immediately.

I had a feeling the chat would be too noisy, so I escaped preemptively.

“Was this enough for the test?”

I slowly replayed the scenes from the game in my mind.

When I successfully executed a “billiard shot” using the stolen Lee Sin ultimate.

When I knocked up all five opponents with the stolen Kindred ultimate and secured an ace.

When I kicked the opposing Lee Sin out of the Baron pit with his own stolen ultimate and successfully stole Baron.

…It felt like I’d mostly been stealing Lee Sin’s ultimate, but that was likely because I was so familiar with it.

“Well, whatever.”

Even though I was using equipment I wasn’t quite accustomed to, the results were highly satisfying.

“Tomorrow, I’ll try out some other tools.”

As much as I wanted to test them immediately, unfortunately, I was far too exhausted.

It had been a surprisingly challenging game for a normal match.

“Let’s just sleep.”

I threw myself onto the bed.

It felt chilly.

Until recently, my room’s environment had been meticulously controlled, but lately, it had been managed rather loosely.

This was one of the changes in my life.

In the past, my mother used to treat me like a fragile porcelain doll, always cautious and on edge. Now, she treated me like any other child, like an ordinary mother would.

For example, instead of sealing off the room and relying on an air purifier, she would simply open the windows for ventilation.

That was probably why.

Why I now found myself curled up like a caterpillar, clutching a thick blanket.

“Achoo!”

The sensation of long silver hair tickling my nose in the morning had become part of my daily life.

“Mmm…”

Roused by a painfully natural bodily reaction, I groggily opened my eyes and habitually reached for the smartphone by my bedside.

Not because I was expecting any messages or had anything to check—just a mindless habit.

“…Huh?”

Half-asleep, I doubted my blurry vision for a moment.

There was a text message from an unfamiliar number.

“Hello. This is Jang Seok-hwan, a coach at GRS. Are you by any chance the player known as ‘Prisoner’?”

[To Be Continued]