Is It Still My Fault?
Even when Noel was fighting Fiora and Jax in the lane, everyone had been throwing out insults without stopping.
Even though she had shown a slight advantage in the laning phase, it wasn’t the destructive game play that had come out of solo rank.
Maybe everyone had already decided Noel was a hacker, and they were just forcing evidence to match that conclusion.
There had been plenty of places already shouting that Noel was definitely a hacker.
Because of something she had put out there.
Just because she enjoyed dragging people down.
Or because she didn’t want to admit her own words were wrong.
Whatever the reasons, to everyone watching Kanchona’s stream, Noel had been a hacker.
She had to be a hacker.
Only then could all the mockery they had hurled at her so far be justified.
Only then could even the “flaws” in her body become something to chew on.
But as Noel’s real skill slowly revealed itself, the people who had been cursing her so viciously started drying out their lips.
What if she hadn’t actually used any hack at all?
What if everything they had said was just plain violence against an innocent disabled girl?
Even though they hid behind the mask of anonymity on the internet, humans still had at least a basic sense of conscience.
Out of discomfort with their own conscience, they had still tried to deny Noel’s skill.
It was just an observation that happened to be right.
Ah, the enemy team’s Jax was just bad.
A predictable path, but it was stranger that they kept getting caught.
Just bad luck from the enemy team.
Those were the kinds of chats that kept coming up.
Even within those chats, people were gradually starting to admit that the game play Noel had shown so far was purely her own skill.
Chanjun watched the viewers’ reactions grow more and more frustrating.
Honestly, it wasn’t impossible for the content creator not to use them, but simply looking at Noel’s reaction speed, it was beyond human limits.
People used to say human reaction speed could be reduced to 0.1 seconds.
Pro players at the peak of FPS had hit 0.12 seconds.
Considering the evasion moves Noel normally showed, that kind of reaction speed had actually happened.
Sometimes she reacted the moment the enemy pressed a skill.
While watching a game from the sidelines, it seemed more like she was just reading the opponent’s mind.
Not reacting in a single frame to dodge or block a skillshot was something Chanjun still couldn’t understand.
But right now, what Noel was doing, he had to believe it.
Chanjun paid closest attention to how the opponent was gathering information.
Clearly her habit of looking at the minimap was underdeveloped, but that was the only real weakness.
She had an animalistic sense when it came to reading enemy movement and spotting external interference, or deciding when to engage and when to disengage.
Since no external programs were installed, even if Chanjun’s judgment was off, it was still the correct one.
In the end, Chanjun had to admit Noel’s play.
“Noel-nim is an extremely intelligent top laner. You’ve played a lot, so it might be something you’ve internalized, but you’ve been focusing where you should have been tracking the enemy team’s positions. Ah, but right now… that might be pushing it a little too far.”
Before the words even finished, the minimap on the left had been ignored.
For a split second, it looked like the enemy team’s Jax, mid laner Syla, and support Talic were approaching.
But Noel just kept shoving the lane.
Or maybe she had decided to push the tower and die.
If three enemies came this way, the team would take the enemy objective on the other side of the map anyway.
The enemy team’s judgment didn’t make sense either.
They had few kills, but they wanted to cut down the Fiora that had grown like a monster by killing Jax first, then abandon the current Nashor.
Leaving Fiora would just keep her swinging.
Instead, they planned to lure Talic with high damage spells and skills that scaled with lost health, while keeping Fiora in check.
It wasn’t a bad play at all.
Fiora was a warrior, but Noel had built her items around damage.
Talic, the support who strengthened allies with jeweled power, Syla the chain prisoner who stole ultimate abilities, and Jax’s CC chains—they all calculated that the combo was enough to take her down.
Talic was probably charging a silence beam from the bushes.
She would stay hidden in the bushes, charge until Fiora reacted, then blink in and silence her.
Then Jax and Syla would follow up with CC and finish her before she could do anything.
But right there, Noel did something Chanjun couldn’t understand.
She walked straight into the bush with no vision, then suddenly used a dash to slide sideways.
Talic’s silence beam barely grazed the edge of Fiora.
Thinking the spell was wasted, Syla and Jax rushed at Fiora.
How had she known?
Coincidence? Or had there been a reason to dash sideways?
Since Noel was focused, Chanjun kept quiet and watched the 1v3 skirmish.
Talic, who had taken one hit from Fiora, cast her ultimate in panic.
She prayed to the sky and granted damage immunity to allies within a certain range.
Just as Talic looked up to the heavens, Noel suddenly cast her ultimate.
Deadly Duel.
She marked the four directions around a target, then exploded the marks or healed when the target died.
The mark damage was based on maximum health, so it was effective against a sturdy support like Talic.
But why use it when Talic’s ultimate was immune?
Maybe she just planned to burst the mark and heal through it?
Just as Chanjun tilted his head, Noel’s fingers suddenly accelerated.
She first blasted the mark on the side where Talic had blinked in with basic attacks.
Using Deceitful Swordsmanship, which refreshed the attack timer while buffing her next basic attack, she exploded the mark on the other side.
Immediately after, she slid toward the last mark with a dash and stabbed a vital point.
Then, from the spot where Talic had blinked in, she landed a basic attack on Fiora.
In less than a second, Talic flailed and handed over all four vital points.
“Ah, so that’s it. Hitting four times in one second. But that’s probably a 0.5-second cut?”
Chanjun knew the technique too.
He had practiced it against dummies with Fiora before.
It was possible, but that was against dummies.
In real games opponents didn’t stand still, so it wasn’t practically useful.
Yet Noel had done it completely naturally with no tension.
Talic must have known too—each mark exploding on Fiora sent bone-deep pain through her.
So she had tried to stick to the wall in the bush, but the constant blinks had kept her struggling until all her vital points were stabbed.
Because of the blinks, Syla’s chain missed, and Jax tried to counter early to stun Fiora, but it was impossible for even a sturdy support to survive Fiora’s attacks.
Jax’s effort was in vain, and Talic died uselessly.
Without the prayer, the immunity didn’t reach Jax or Syla either.
After that, Fiora ignored Jax and mercilessly stabbed and slashed Syla.
Jax desperately hit Fiora, but the level and item disadvantage made meaningful damage almost impossible.
On top of that, all the Deadly Duel marks had exploded, leaving Fiora at full health.
After finishing Syla, Fiora chased after Jax who had stupidly joined the fight.
While Fiora was distracted, Jax rotated the staff to escape.
She was probably planning to stun Fiora and run.
Sorry to the dead teammates, but someone had to live.
But the counter that Fiora had been saving up hit Jax right after she dashed back.
Normally a slow applied to the opponent, but after blocking it