Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: Unconventional Warfare
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-I'm on my way.
A ping from the Blind Monk appeared on the upper path.
Lee Shin deliberately used all his skills on the minions, then pulled back near his tower and started his recall.
It was a feint, pretending to time his return to base to lure his opponent in.
*'He has no choice but to fall for it.'*
Normally, a trick like this wouldn't work against a Challenger-level player, but Lee Shin was confident it would.
Not only was his acting superb, but the situation also made it inevitable.
11 to 9.
Those were the levels of LeBlanc and Galiman.
No matter how good a matchup Galiman was in the laning phase, he was severely behind in levels.
And this was a Challenger against a Platinum player, no less.
In a situation like this, what Kim Ha-seong would try to do was obvious.
Instead of trying to make a play, he'd focus on farming as much as possible to catch up in growth.
Moreover, from Kim Ha-seong's perspective, it was hard to imagine a mid-tier player attempting such mind games.
Even if something felt off, he'd think, *'No way...'*
Lee Shin expertly targeted this gap in his opponent's guard.
-Stonestorm!
Just as expected, Kim Ha-seong fell right into Lee Shin's trap.
Seeing Lee Shin recalling, he had cautiously stepped forward to use a skill on the minions.
Despite not having much health, he was trying to clear 'one more wave' before going back.
Lee Shin moved instantly.
“I'm going in.”
*Flash!*
He closed the distance with Flash, which was off cooldown, and then, the chain.
“!”
The chain hit its mark, a yellow line connecting Galiman and LeBlanc.
Simultaneously, Lee Shin auto-attacked a low-health minion to hit level 6.
[Level Up!]
Lee Shin immediately skilled his ultimate and, weaving in auto-attacks, followed up with another chain on the snared opponent.
“The Blind Monk is almost here!”
“This looks dangerous!”
“Could this be...!”
It was.
The second chain activated, and immediately after, the Blind Monk's sonic wave landed squarely on the immobilized Galiman.
He instantly used his ultimate to kick him away, then followed the marked sonic wave for additional damage.
The damage from the Blind Monk's full combo, who had been quietly farming well while Lee Shin dominated mid, was immense.
“He's dead for sure.”
The caster declared with certainty.
Lee Shin secured the last hit with an auto-attack.
[You have slain an enemy.]
Galiman melted under their combined assault, unable to put up any resistance.
The enemy jungler, who was nearby, belatedly came to help, but it was too late.
In fact, it would have been better if he hadn't come at all.
“Let's get him too.”
-Got it.
Lee Shin closed in with Distortion, which was off cooldown, and unleashed a barrage of auto-attacks with his Rapid Fire Rune activated.
*Chip. Chip, chip!*
His health dwindled away like clothes getting soaked in a light drizzle.
Startled, the enemy Sejuani reflexively used her ultimate.
Lee Shin was about to reuse Distortion to dodge it, but.
*Whoosh.*
“…?”
The skill missed without him even needing to dodge!
It was baffling to see a skill used at point-blank range miss, but…
Truthfully, it was a common sight in lower tiers where players' mechanical skills were lacking.
In any case, it created a kill opportunity.
-Chain.
As if it were a matter of course, he landed the chain, which was off cooldown again, and continued with his auto-attacks.
Sejuani was naturally tanky, but she eventually died from the combined assault with the Blind Monk.
[Double Kill!]
It all happened in an instant.
“……What did I just witness?”
“……”
Not just the arena, but the chat window also began to explode.
***
After that picture-perfect double kill, Lee Shin cleared the wave and recalled.
At that moment, Lee Shin had 2,900 gold.
Thanks to funneling the kill gold and achieving full stacks on his Sickle of Reaping, his gold income was overwhelmingly higher than the other laners.
Lee Shin sold his potions, waited a moment, and then purchased a core item in one go.
[Item Purchased.]
Besides that one core item, Lee Shin's inventory only held his boots.
But at this point in the game, that single item was more than enough.
The first core item Lee Shin built was the Blade of the Ruined King.
Blade of the Ruined King
•Attack Damage +80
•Attack Speed +30%
•Tyrant's Blade (Unique Passive): Basic attacks deal bonus magic damage equal to 8% of the target's current health.
•Siphon (Unique Passive): Attacking the same enemy 3 consecutive times steals 25% of their movement speed.
As one could tell from its name and stats, it was an item typically built by AD fighter-type champions.
Naturally, it was a complete mismatch for an assassin-mage like LeBlanc.
The chat window went wild.
-Wow lolololololol
-lolololol this is insane lolololol
-The OP item has appeared.
-It *is* an OP item, but...
-No, if LeBlanc builds that, it's just straight-up trolling lololol I've never even seen this in solo queue lol
A mage champion had built an expensive attack damage item!
And it was hard to see it as a mistake, since Lee Shin had already purchased Berserker's Greaves.
“……What is this?”
“I'm not quite sure……”
“……”
“……Ahem.”
Silence fell over the commentary desk.
The play-by-play caster quickly threw out a comment.
“It seems player Lee Shin has, uh, prepared a new build to face the opposing team! What are your thoughts, commentator?”
“Well. It's so new that….”
The color commentator, trailing off, answered a moment later.
“Conventionally speaking, it's a troll pick.”
“……Ah.”
“But looking at his plan, from his rune selection up to this point, it seems this situation was part of the design.”
“Ah, so you're saying he picked her with this build in mind from the very beginning?”
“Exactly. That's likely why he went so far as to swap lanes with Hwang Dong-min.”
The commentator's guess was correct.
The reason he'd gone to the trouble of swapping lanes to play AD LeBlanc.
The moment he completed the Blade of the Ruined King, colloquially known as BotRK, Lee Shin began to demonstrate exactly why.
Distortion.
Ethereal Chains.
As soon as he returned to lane, he closed in on Galiman, who was farming minions, and landed his chains.
And then, auto-attack, auto-attack, auto-attack.
-???
-Wtf?
-Why does that hurt so much?
Thanks to BotRK's on-hit magic damage based on current health, Galiman's HP melted away.
And on top of that….
*Thwack!*
The Blade of the Ruined King's unique passive activated on the third hit.
With the 'Siphon' effect stealing some of his opponent's movement speed, a now faster Lee Shin closed in on Galiman and threw out another chain.
“If that hits, he's dead.”
Galiman used the Flash he couldn't use earlier to escape.
The commentator let out a dry laugh.
“…It certainly is strong.”
Even considering the difference in levels and items, a semi-tank champion like Galiman was being chased away by the auto-attacks of a mage champion like LeBlanc!
It was not a common sight.
After chasing Galiman under his tower, Lee Shin immediately headed down.
His targets were the enemy bottom lane duo.
As he moved, Lee Shin gave an order to his team's bot duo.
“Pretend to go back to base.”
-Without engaging?
“Yeah, if we do it awkwardly, their mid laner might notice.”
-Ah… right. Got it.
An order that even took the opponents' psychology into account.
With such meticulous planning, the opponents naturally fell for it.
“……!”
Lee Shin appeared behind Alistar and Varus, who were hitting the Yeonhui University team's tower.
Alistar, noticing Lee Shin, stopped attacking the tower and turned.
He immediately charged menacingly toward Lee Shin.
-Headbutt!
Even though LeBlanc had three kills, her items were AD and they had the numbers advantage, so he intended to turn and kill her.
But.
“…He dodged it!”
“Excellent reaction.”
Lee Shin reacted without difficulty, using Distortion to dodge Alistar's Headbutt.
Simultaneously, he used his ultimate, which mimics the last spell cast, to close in on the enemy ADC.
While looking for an angle for his chain, he unleashed auto-attacks.
Auto, auto, auto. He animation-canceled an auto with his chain.
“Huh?!”
Caught by the sudden angle of the chain, his opponent was hit before he could even think to dodge.
In the end, Varus was rooted in place.
He desperately charged and fired an arrow, but Lee Shin sidestepped it with ease and continued to cram in auto-attacks.
*Thwack, thwack-thwack!*
“……!!?”
His health was dropping rapidly!
The startled Alistar used Flash and Pulverize to protect his ADC.
But.
*BOOM!*
“…He dodged it?!”
The skill hit nothing but empty ground.
Lee Shin had reused Distortion to evade Alistar's skill.
After that, auto, auto. LeBlanc's arm moved without rest.
From the BotRK's percentage health damage, Alistar's health also began to plummet.
*Ding! Ding! Ding!*
A thoroughly infuriated Alistar charged forward, his bell clanging.
But just before he entered auto-attack range, Lee Shin reactivated his ultimate (the copied Distortion) to move back in front of Varus.
Having dodged all of the enemy's key abilities, the situation was over.
*Thumbs up!*
Displaying a cheeky thumbs-up emote, Lee Shin weaved back and forth, delivering a relentless stream of auto-attacks.
“Kiting, kiting! Player Lee Shin is kiting! The Rapid Fire Rune activates… No, what in the world am I watching right now?!”
“……”
The play-by-play caster shouted in excitement at LeBlanc's dazzling, relentless damage output.
The color commentator was already speechless.
The chat, on the other hand, was in an uproar.
[You have slain an enemy.]
“…Varus is down! Can Alistar at least get away?!”
It was impossible.
His opponent was a LeBlanc with an S-tier mobility skill like Distortion and an activated Rapid Fire Rune.
Once she was on his tail, he was as good as dead.
***
[Double Kill.]
[Killing Spree!]
An enormous amount of kill gold poured in.
Lee Shin thought to himself.
*'It's over.'*
Team composition and all that, with a gold lead this big, it's all meaningless.
Unless the game dragged on past the 40-minute mark into the extreme late game, it was possible to just crush them with gold and mechanics.
After recalling to base and buying a heap of items, Lee Shin chose his next target.
Galiman, who was farming the top lane to try and recover.
He was meticulously clearing jungle monsters as well, steadily growing stronger for his eventual revenge.
“……Hmm.”
Watching him carefully, Lee Shin pinged Hwang Dong-min.
“You go mid.”
-Me? Why?
“I need to get my revenge. ……I'm going to kill that bastard.”
-…!!
Relentlessly, until the enemy's Nexus exploded.
…For Kim Ha-seong, it was the beginning of a nightmare.
***
[You have slain an enemy.]
A sudden solo kill in the top lane.
It happened when Galiman tried to farm one more wave before recalling.
The commentator spoke in a much calmer voice than before.
“It's still okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes. It wasn't a mistake that drastically affects the flow of the game. After all, AD LeBlanc is a champion with clear limitations.”
The thought was that if they recovered slowly, they still had a good chance of winning.
But there was one thing even the commentator failed to anticipate: Lee Shin's tenacity.
Lee Shin relentlessly, literally, dug into Kim Ha-seong.
[You have slain an enemy.]
Killed him from a bush.
[You have slain an enemy.]
Pretended to recall, but was still hiding in the bush. Another kill.
[You have slain an enemy.]
Faked a roam down, then immediately came back up for the kill.
He used literally every method in the book, as if no one else on the map existed. He chased only Galiman, killing him again and again.
The result.
[You have slain an enemy.]
[You have slain an enemy.]
[You have slain an...]
[……]
-…….
-W-Wow….
Kim Ha-seong dying over and over.
It felt almost malicious.
It was so bad that when Galiman reached 14 deaths, even his own teammates stopped cheering and started exchanging wary glances.
Then, at the 22-minute mark.
When Galiman and Lee Shin met again in a 1v1 in the top lane.
-…….
The moment they met, isolated, Galiman must have been certain of his death, because he simply stopped moving, offering no resistance.
Kim Ha-seong had persevered through difficult situations, but even he finally gave up in the face of Lee Shin's relentless pursuit.
“Hm?”
But Lee Shin didn't attack him.
Instead, he just circled around him, spamming his emote.
*Thumbs up!*
“Hahaha! Is he actually going to let him live?”
A familiar sight.
Seeing this as revenge for the first set, the caster laughed heartily, finding it amusing.
But for Kim Ha-seong, the one on the receiving end, it wasn't something he could just laugh off.
The moment he was being completely toyed with by the AD LeBlanc he had dismissed as a troll pick.
…*Snap!*
His mentality, which had been holding on by a thread, had no choice but to completely shatter.