League of Legends: League of Unknowns

(Translator’s Note: I know my usage of quotation marks, as well as capitalization, has been somewhat inconsistent throughout the series. I’m very sorry about that.)

‘Intervention’ for 2.5 seconds. ‘Zhonya’s Hourglass’ for another 2.5 seconds. In all, five whole seconds of invulnerability!

Although Kayle’s ultimate skill negated all damage, Xin Zhao and Leona had otherwise been able to apply their crowd-control effects upon Twisted Fate.

However, that just meant that they were holding him in place while his skills finished their cooldowns. Catching him meant nothing if they were unable to deal any damage to him, and meanwhile Twisted Fate was happily waiting for his skills to refresh!

Since he’d waited a moment before activating Zhonya’s Hourglass, Twisted Fate’s skills were just about ready now!

He threw down a red card: Xin Zhao and Leona were both Slowed!

While Twisted Fate had been drawing all the enemy fire, Kayle had reduced the practically unarmored Xin Zhao to critical condition, and one volley of Wild Cards dropped him all the way to zero!

Yu Luocheng paid no further heed to Xin Zhao, and turned instead to let Kai’s Leona receive the full brunt of ‘Lich Bane’ and ‘Stacked Deck’.

Leona’s health bar melted away like butter under a hot knife! Faced with such overwhelming magic damage, Kai almost hurled his keyboard across the arena! Realizing that he had no hope of overcoming Twisted Fate and Kayle, he tried to retreat.

Red card, Kayle’s ‘Reckoning’, ‘Blade of the Ruined King’… These Slowing effects were laid upon Leona one after another, so that each step back became monumentally difficult. Escape was impossible.

A Jungler and a Support, no matter how many disabling skills they had, could not hope to bring down a Twisted Fate with such potent defensive abilities at his disposal ! ¹

Soon the both of them had fallen, their eyes still glaring with bitter defeat.

With that matter settled, Yu Luocheng and Ocean both turned their wrath onto Olaf!

With a golden card to Stun and a ‘Reckoning’ to Slow, Olaf had no hope of getting away, having activated his ultimate skill much too early, before!

Kayle dealt sustained damage, while the burst damage from Twisted Fate’s combos was titanic. Olaf simply couldn’t stand up to it.

At last, despite being built as a tank, it didn’t take more than a couple of combos to bring Olaf down under a cascade of arcane cards and divine fire!

With Olaf’s demise, the battle was decided. With no front-line to cower behind, Ashe and Brand fell back straight-away.

“One for three!

“Absolutely spectacular! Team Scarlet took advantage of the last moments of their Baron Buff to send one more wave of empowered minions against the tower, and then they pushed right into the enemy base, using Renekton and Evelynn to split the enemy team!

“They succeeded in bringing down Team Aviator’s front-line—Xin Zhao, Leona, and Olaf—once these three went down, neither Brand nor Ashe dared to continue the fight. One golden card from Twisted Fate would have—”

Ding!

Before the MC could even finish that statement, Yu Luocheng’s Twisted Fate Flashed forward, dodging Brand’s long-ranged WQ attempt to Stun him, and then tagged him with a golden card, punishing his slow retreat!

This one golden card knocked off half of Brand’s health! The audience gave a collective gasp when they witnessed that staggering damage.

A fan of Wild Cards followed by a basic attack, and Brand was down—ruthlessly slain in the blink of an eye, right beneath his own tower!

Godlike!

Godlike!

“That’s his seventh kill in a row! Twisted Fate is Godlike! My word, it actually looks like he could even get to Legendary!

“Whether it was going up against a strong lane-bullying champion like Brand, or dealing with Xin Zhao’s endless gank attempts, or even continuing the fight on his own after all his teammates had fallen, and what about the miracle in the Baron pit… is there no one who can stop Twisted Fate from going all the way to Legendary?” the MC hollered, his voice raw with feeling.

Who could have predicted that this 4v5 game would turn out to be Team Scarlet trampling all over Team Aviator?

Everyone was well-aware that all the magnificent upsets which had taken place throughout this game were thanks to that unbelievable Twisted Fate and his awe-inspiring plays. His cards were weapons of mass destruction, and each flick of the hand was a work of art!

It had already been seven kills in a row. Starting from the double-kill during the fight over the Dragon, plus the quadruple-kill in the Baron pit, and now deleting Brand too… that made seven kills in total.

One more kill, and Twisted Fate would be Legendary!

To achieve Legendary status in a serious match like this… it was unthinkable!

At some point, a chant had begun amongst the spectating crowd:

“Legendary! Legendary! Legendary! Twisted Fate, go Legendary!”

From his seat amongst the audience, Jin Wong had a moment’s urge to strip off his shirt, bite off one finger, and write that same thing in blood: ‘Legendary Twisted Fate!’ Then he could stand in front and use that banner to lead the chant!

Seeing that Ashe was the only one still standing on Team Aviator, the MC said, “Twisted Fate doesn’t have much health left, and Ashe is too far out of reach. I guess he won’t be getting this last kill.”

The MC himself honestly wanted to see Twisted Fate go Legendary, too. It didn’t seem likely, though: They didn’t have enough minions to continue pushing in past the twin Nexus towers.

Foom…

Suddenly, a sinister red eye appeared over Ashe’s head!

It was Twisted Fate’s ‘Destiny’. Wherever those baleful eyes appeared, it was a promise of Death’s imminent arrival, stepping out from behind you to snatch your soul away!

“Twisted Fate is using his ulti! He wants Ashe! The timing really couldn’t be any more perfect, catching Ashe just as she’s reaching the Fountain!

“It’s obvious now that Twisted Fate had just been waiting for all his skills to cooldown—at which point he’d go after Ashe as well! 1.5 seconds… will Team Aviator captain Liu Qi be able to get away from the deadly grasp of Twisted Fate?”

The entire hall was screaming ‘Legendary!’ As though granting their wish, Yu Luocheng used his ultimate skill to teleport over to the steps outside the enemy’s Fountain, intercepting Ashe as she fled for its shelter!

“‘Pick a Card’, at the last moment! My god, Twisted Fate is drawing a card during the 1.5 seconds of casting his ultimate. If he doesn’t get the golden card, he’ll be the one who gets killed!”

Blue!

Red!

Yellow!

Cycling every 0.8 seconds, the golden card only appeared on the third round—but when Twisted Fate appeared before Ashe, sure enough, he had the golden card firmly clutched in his hand!

Ding!

That was the Stun, and even though Ashe managed to get out a ‘Volley’ to Slow him down, there was no avoiding that golden card!

‘Lich Bane’ triggered. ‘Wild Cards’ flew. The two-thirds of health Ashe had remaining was all gone in an instant!

This one single combo had ended Ashe’s life, just like that!

Instant kill! Another flawlessly executed instant kill!

L… Legendary!

Legendary!

Legendary!

He really did it! Twisted Fate actually went all the way to Legendary! The system announcement reverberated through the entire hall!

Even at the edge of the enemy’s Fountain, even with both their Nexus towers still standing, this teleport-kill with his ultimate skill had taken Ashe’s life away in the most casual manner, and he’d achieved ‘Legendary’ status!

Everyone was cheering in unison, echoing the system announcement in their own bellowing voices: “Legendary!”

Seeing it happen in this match felt even better, even more exciting, than getting to ‘Legendary’ yourself in a Ranked game!

“Legendary Twisted Fate! This whole game might as well be a one-man show for him! Such doubtless gameplay, it’s positively breath-taking!”

***

After having just been Aced so that Twisted Fate could become Legendary, the five players of Team Aviator appeared to be thunderstruck!

The looks on their faces were hideous, twitching and wincing, shifting and fidgeting, one step away from succumbing to hysterical madness!

They were five, but they couldn’t defeat four… and they were losing so badly, they were being slaughtered like beasts in trapped cages—an enemy player had even achieved ‘Legendary’ status!

There were… over thousands of people watching this game right now!

Would they ever suffer a greater humiliation for the rest of their lives?