The Saintess Crushes the Legend

When I finally clawed my way out of the nightmare black hole, the team fight had already tilted heavily against us. Our berserker and commander had been eating the rune mage’s vicious pokes for a while, their health slowly shaved down. They couldn’t survive the two-second window of being outnumbered and simply melted. To make things worse, the rune mage—with only a sliver of health left—was hanging far back, raining down meteors and magic bullets.

Considering where the meteor would land and the swordmaster and necromancer’s pursuit, a demon hunter with only a conditional dash would struggle to survive. The top laner and support seemed willing to give up the demon hunter if it meant saving the illusionist and playing for the long game, but I disagreed.

The moment the top laner saw I had no intention of retreating, he immediately started briefing me on the enemy’s spell and ultimate cooldowns. With only four seconds left before the meteor dropped, I sent my clone charging straight toward the rune mage—the core of their composition.

From the enemy’s perspective, a well-fed illusionist had just walked straight into their range. Still, if the overextended illusionist’s skills landed on the rune mage, the fight could swing wildly. The rune mage reflexively burned every cooldown he had to mark me.

Got you.

My real target had never been the rune mage. The fact that both the demon hunter and I had suddenly changed direction after skirmishing with them meant they had burned all their mobility. The black arrow the demon hunter fired from afar struck the necromancer, while the illusion I launched alongside my clone hit the swordmaster twice in succession. Both the swordmaster and necromancer were dragged into the nightmare world.

With all their cooldowns exhausted, the enemy support and top laner couldn’t withstand the nightmare’s continuous damage and fell one after another. After escaping the nightmare, I checked on our demon hunter. As expected, with no pursuit from the swordmaster or necromancer, he had safely dodged the meteor. On top of that, in the 1v2 between our demon hunter and the enemy rune mage and pirate, the rune mage was already out of health. He couldn’t easily close the distance against a marksman. The pirate also suffered from range disadvantage and poor matchup, so they had no choice but to let our demon hunter escape safely.

At least we cleaned this mess up.

The situation was now 2v2. Both sides had used their ultimates, and the enemy could recover near their base, so the game’s direction shifted to the next fight.

Yeah, yeah, I did it all. Of course I did lose the black hole mind game earlier… but anyway. Since it wasn’t a siege like before, the Demon King team fight had swung back in our favor. Both top and support had bought Guardian’s Oath as their second item, adding stability on top of everything else. There was no longer any risk of them getting deleted in two seconds.

The enemy kept looking for a steal angle on the Demon King fight before eventually choosing to retreat, but—

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The illusionist and demon hunter dove in at the perfect moment and deleted the enemy bot duo. The opponent’s plan to siege until the buff ran out and stack more late-game value on the rune mage was completely shattered. Even after losing their bot duo, the swordmaster and rune mage tried to clear waves and buy as much time as possible, but—

With even their final bastion, the rune mage, taken down, the game ended right there.

Done…

To be honest, the joy of finally reaching fifth place was nothing compared to the satisfaction of crushing Hades—the man who had given my post-reincarnation self her first death and first loss—head-on in lane. Since practically every crack play in the game had been created by the two mid laners, friend requests flooded in from both teams without distinction.

I was scrolling through the friend list with a satisfied smile when one name caught my eye.

Hades didn’t send one.

It wasn’t mandatory, but I noticed that only Hades hadn’t sent a friend request. I briefly wondered if it was because he was too salty about losing, but knowing his personality, it was probably just his habit of only keeping teammates in his friend list.

Out ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of nowhere, Han Seongkwang asked about Hades through in-game chat. But what does Hades have to do with Han Seongkwang…? Oh, right. They’re on the same team.

“What…?”

That stone-faced Hades…?