In the game.
Just as everyone watching had imagined.
All five WE players felt more pressure than they ever had before!
Even during their loss to SKT at MSI, they had never felt this desperate!
They had to watch Twitch's portrait on the minimap at all times. Whenever he vanished from vision, they retreated like frightened birds.
Their nerves remained stretched taut, and sweat had already begun to bead on some of their foreheads.
"I can't take this anymore." Condi slowly exhaled, seemingly at his breaking point, and said heavily, "Let's force a teamfight. If we die, we die."
Mystic turned to look at him blankly. "Okay."
The others nodded too.
A teamfight would speed things up. If they were going to lose, they might as well lose quickly!
They could barely stand playing any longer!
And so.
As IG grouped up to push the mid tier-two turret.
957's Teleport suddenly lit up on a minion!
As though she had a death wish, Condi's Elise Flashed forward and hurled her E, Cocoon, at Rookie's Viktor!
Xiye's Jayce activated his E, Acceleration Gate, and fired a cannon blast through it before switching to hammer form and leading his whole team forward with the speed boost.
"WE are going for one last desperate play!" Miller's voice suddenly rose. "Braum jumps forward and raises his shield! Jayce's Q gets blocked!"
"Rookie Flashes out of Elise's crowd control! He drops Gravity Field under Jayce in response!"
"Olaf charges in with his Ultimate active! IG are taking this fight, and they're turning it into a turret dive!"
"Jhin activates his Ultimate from the back, in front of the inhibitor turret! Wait..."
On the screen.
Mystic's Jhin had only just activated his Ultimate. Before he could fire a single shot, it abruptly shut off!
Immediately afterward, a notification suddenly appeared on-screen.
IG Chen Yu has slain WE Mystic! Legendary!
Jhin's body lay motionless beneath the inhibitor turret.
At some point, Twitch's dark green silhouette had appeared just outside the blue side's inhibitor turret.
Now, accompanied by his sleazy "Hahaha~" laughter, he brazenly sprayed poison bolts at the WE players ahead!
The terrifying damage made WE's health bars vanish in an instant!
Explosive. Truly explosive!
With Infinity Edge, Runaan's Hurricane, and Phantom Dancer, and a level higher than even the mid laner, Twitch's damage after activating his Ultimate was simply incomprehensible!
Huge red damage numbers popped up over the WE players!
IG Chen Yu has slain WE Ben! IG Chen Yu has slain WE Xiye! IG Chen Yu has slain WE Condi! IG Chen Yu has slain WE 957!
A seemingly deafening announcement rang out: "Pentakill!"
It was as if a dark green hurricane of poison had swept through, leaving nothing but bodies scattered across the ground.
Lu Chen secured a pentakill!
His score settled at 11-0-1!
"Pentakill!" Once Miller recovered, he shouted excitedly, "Chen Yu has secured a pentakill!"
Wawa and Rita snapped out of their stupor too, immediately joining in with their voices raised.
"This is the first pentakill of the Summer Split! And it's also the first pentakill of this young player's professional career!"
"IG win that teamfight five for zero!"
"That was a perfect teamfight! I'm sure we'll be seeing this in tonight's highlight videos!"
"An ADC flanks from behind and bags a pentakill! My god, it's been so long since we saw something this exhilarating!"
"Perhaps we can already congratulate IG on winning their first Best of Three of the Summer Split!"
The live chat completely erupted.
"Holy moly, a pentakill!"
"Holy shit, what a carry!"
"I had a feeling it would happen, but seeing it for real is still so exciting!"
"That damage is terrifying. Is this what a fed Twitch looks like?"
"I'm fired up, boys!"
"A pentakill in his first pro match? Is C God actually cheating?"
"The more suffocating it was for WE earlier, the more satisfying this feels now!"
"The ultimate booster! An actual god-tier booster!"
"I need a kill montage of C God from these two games right now! Hurry, hurry, hurry! I can't wait!"
Even at IG's player desks, there was a second of silence after the teamfight ended.
"Good lord." Ning Wang drew a small breath, his eyes as wide as they could go. "He actually got a pentakill?"
Rookie swallowed too. "One word: beast."
Even TheShy leaned back slightly. "Oh, sho good! Sho good!"
Baolan, on the other hand, simply grinned, seemingly not surprised at all. "With Chen's skills, of course he did!"
Lu Chen tilted his head and continued attacking the turret, amusement in his eyes. "They'd already used all their key abilities, so they couldn't lock me down. I had the perfect setup to deal damage."
Soon.
With nothing standing in their way, IG pushed straight through to finish the game.
The clock froze at 18:12 as the blue side's Nexus exploded!
"Phew..." Lu Chen slowly exhaled and checked the damage chart first. Sure enough, he stood head and shoulders above the rest again.
Twitch, the Plague Rat: 30,291 damage!
Even Viktor, who had the second-highest damage in the game, had only dealt 13,648!
Satisfied, Lu Chen nodded, stood up to stretch his wrists, and began packing up his peripherals.
"What are you doing?" Rookie looked at him curiously.
"Packing up my peripherals," Lu Chen replied, raising an eyebrow as though it were obvious.
"Handshakes, man." Rookie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "The match is over. We shake hands before packing up."
"Oh, right." Realization dawned on Lu Chen. He scratched his head and followed Rookie, TheShy, and the others toward WE's desks.
Ning Wang even reached out and patted his shoulder. "Don't worry, C God. If they try to hit you, I've got your back!"
Lu Chen looked at him, hesitating to speak.
"What, you don't believe me?" Ning Wang flexed his biceps. "I've trained, you know."
"I mean..." Lu Chen was speechless. "Surely they wouldn't actually hit me?"
"Hey." Ning Wang waved a hand. "After the way you played just now, I'd want to hit you too if I were on the other team."
"..." The corner of Lu Chen's mouth twitched, and he said nothing more.
Meanwhile.
Over on WE's side.
Despite losing the match, all five players seemed to have breathed a sigh of relief, their numb expressions finally relaxing.
"That teamfight..." Condi smacked his lips, then suddenly blurted out, "Pretty good."
Everyone around him froze and turned to look at him.
"Uh..." Condi faltered. "I didn't mean getting aced was good. I meant fighting was better than not fighting... oh, whatever. You know what I mean."
Xiye, 957, and the others exchanged glances without saying anything.
Condi was the classic case of bold words before the match and silence during it. Now he had progressed to talking nonsense afterward.
Next.
The handshakes weren't nearly as tense as one might have imagined. They went smoothly, just like normal.
The talk of hitting anyone had, of course, only been a joke.
Most of the players actually got along pretty well in private.
Besides, among all these young gamer shut-ins, there really weren't many with Ning Wang's physical prowess.
After the handshakes, Rookie spoke as they headed back. "There are interviews coming up. You'll definitely get invited today."
"An interview?" Lu Chen blinked. "What should I say?"
"Just talk normally." Rookie thought for a moment. "Don't get into internal team matters. Talk more about your performance, your hopes for the future, things like that."
"Got it." Lu Chen nodded thoughtfully.
With that, this eagerly anticipated Summer Split regular-season Best of Three finally drew to a close.
A wave of "The big one's coming~" also swept across the official stream's live chat.
(End of chapter)
Before you continue