"Welcome to Honor of Kings. The enemy will reach the battlefield in five seconds. Prepare yourselves. All troops, attack!"
With the familiar opening announcement, this unremarkable "bronze match" officially began.
Su Hang put a point into his third skill, bought an Iron Sword, and headed out.
Ever since Yuan Ge's major rework in season 39, his pick rate had exploded across every rank.
That was thanks to the new transformation mechanic added to Yuan Ge's puppet.
By using basic attacks and skills to hit enemies, minions, and jungle monsters, he could collect hero fragments. Once he had 50, he could transform the puppet from his first skill into any hero on the opposing team.
Although the transformation could only last ten seconds, it was still incredibly powerful.
Su Hang controlled Yuan Ge as he headed to the bottom farm lane.
He had only just reached the edge of his first tower when he came face-to-face with Lady Sun, an autocannon slung over his shoulder.
Su Hang immediately understood what his opponent was up to.
"Xiangxiang's trying to freeze my minion wave."
Yuan Ge was extremely weak in the farm lane before level three. Even Pineapple Boy, who loved eating delicious roast chicken, could trample him a couple of times, let alone Lady Sun, who was known as the queen of laning.
"Xiangxiang's pretty skilled."
Su Hang kept Yuan Ge pacing inside the tower's range, his eyes narrowing slightly. From the way his opponent froze the wave and moved nimbly in a snakelike pattern, he immediately gauged roughly how skilled he was.
"If you froze the wave against a national-server Yuan Ge, he might play it safe under his tower and soak up enough experience to reach level two. But you're freezing the wave against my bronze Yuan Ge. Sorry, little brother Xiangxiang, you're in for a world of trouble!"
The moment Xiangxiang used his first skill to roll forward again, Su Hang decisively sent Yuan Ge out of the tower and used Flash to get right in Lady Sun's face, closing the distance to zero.
Lady Sun was a little stunned. He couldn't understand why Yuan Ge dared to get in his face, but he immediately fired the empowered shell in his gun and followed up with basic attacks.
What he didn't expect was for Yuan Ge to vanish before his eyes. In his place, two threads swept through the air in an X, their intersection precisely locking onto his throat.
Lady Sun instantly lost nearly a third of his health!
"Where are you shooting, Xiangxiang?"
"Look behind you."
The moment his opponent fired his empowered basic attack, Su Hang used the movement from Yuan Ge's third skill, Cross Slash, to dart behind him.
Not only did he deal damage, he also dodged the empowered attack.
Lady Sun was shocked. He hurriedly swung his autocannon around and fired at Su Hang's Yuan Ge. His opponent's unconventional move had clearly disrupted his attack rhythm.
That was exactly what Su Hang wanted. Experts were experts because they had an attack rhythm all their own, and once it was disrupted, danger was never far behind.
"Take life and death lightly. If you don't accept it, fight."
Su Hang tapped the basic attack button, standing his ground and trading blows with Lady Sun.
Even though his surprise opening had given him a health advantage, Xiangxiang's basic attacks were clearly stronger.
After only a few basic attacks, Su Hang's Yuan Ge was critically low, while Lady Sun still had a third of his health.
To kill Xiangxiang, Su Hang needed at least two basic attacks.
But Lady Sun's first skill had just come off cooldown. He used it without hesitation, rolling and shouldering his cannon before firing a killing shot!
"I've been waiting a long time for that shot!"
Su Hang's hands erupted into motion. As he raised his hand for a basic attack, the shop interface flashed briefly, and the Iron Sword in his equipment slot was replaced with Cloth Armor!
With the extra physical defense provided by the Cloth Armor, Su Hang's Yuan Ge forcibly survived Lady Sun's killing shot.
In an instant!
Attack and defense changed places!
"See yourself out."
Su Hang tapped his basic attack, delivering the fatal blow.
Lady Sun's health emptied, and he met a bitter end.
A resounding kill announcement rang through the Rift.
"Yuan Ge, at 1% health, turned the tables on Lady Sun!"
"First Blood!"
Their teammates were a little surprised by the sight.
"Holy shit! A solo kill on Lady Sun in 42 seconds?"
"That Lady Sun must be a bot, right? He gave up first blood so fast, even Taobao flash delivery couldn't beat him."
"Guys, Garlic isn't a bot. A gaming buddy just messaged me on WeChat and said we've run into Sang Jie's smurf squad. This Garlic is fucking Gu Shi?"
"Holy shit! You don't mean Gu Shi, the guy with ten national-server marksmen, do you?"
Dian Wei: "So this bronze brat called Exalted Emperor solo-killed Gu Shi, the number one national-server marksman?"
The voice channel erupted with his teammates' cries of surprise.
Su Hang frowned slightly, then typed, "Dian Wei, what did you call me?"
Dian Wei froze. "Bronze brat."
Su Hang's frown deepened. "I solo-killed Xiangxiang and indirectly protected your jungle in the early game. What did you call me?"
Dian Wei hesitated for a moment. "Bronze brat."
Su Hang was deeply dissatisfied with the derogatory title. "Listen, when you called me a bronze brat on the hero selection screen, I didn't hold it against you. Now I've solo-killed their marksman. Tell me, what did you call me?"
Dian Wei's mighty frame trembled: Boss!
He immediately caught on. "Boss Exalted Emperor, come take the red buff!"
Satisfied, he left.
Su Hang's frown gradually eased, and he chuckled. "This Dian Wei isn't all that stupid."
Taking offense was a pretense; getting the red buff was the real goal.
Su Hang looked at Lady Sun, who had just respawned, and murmured to himself, "Gu Shi? I do remember him a little."
KS, Sang Jie's livestream.
The on-screen chat had already exploded.
"Fuck! How did Gu Shi get solo-killed by Yuan Ge?"
"I'm dumbfounded. He went head-to-head with Xiangxiang at level one. How many bear hearts and leopard galls did Yuan Ge eat to dare fight like that? And the crazy part is, he fucking pulled off the solo kill."
"No way. Yuan Ge must have a health-lock hack. Gu Shi's cannon shot after rolling didn't finish him off!"
Sang Jie and Ting An stared wide-eyed, utterly astonished.
Gu Shi had used Lady Sun to thrash their 20,000-point Yuan Ge players as easily as playing a game. Yet now he'd been solo-killed by an unknown Yuan Ge player, and during Yuan Ge's weak early game at that. It was simply inconceivable.
Sang Jie asked, "Little brother Gu Shi, did you make some kind of basic mechanical mistake?"
Ting An asked suspiciously, "Could you have miscalculated the kill threshold?"
"Neither."
Gu Shi's face was blank, and he had yet to recover from his shock. "I played at my limit, and I calculated the kill threshold very precisely."
"At the final moment, when I was about to kill him, their Yuan Ge swapped to Cloth Armor in an instant!"
"Swapped to Cloth Armor in an instant? Little brother Gu Shi, weren't you two fighting at level one? He hadn't even cleared the wave. Where did he get the money for Cloth Armor?"
Sang Jie opened the economy panel. At the start, he had noticed that the enemy Yuan Ge's first item was an Iron Sword, but now it had become a piece of Cloth Armor worth 220 gold.
As everyone knew, swapping equipment after leaving the high ground cost gold. Even if a player wanted to swap, they had to farm the wave until they had enough money first.
Gu Shi shuddered violently. "That's what's terrifying about their Yuan Ge. He used Flash to get in my face at the start, then cast his third skill, Cross Slash, in the opposite direction. He wasn't just trying to lower my health; he was lowering the front minion's health too!"
"While we were fighting, the front minions died naturally. Because he'd deliberately lowered the front minions' health at the start, ours died faster. Even though he didn't land the last hit, he still got the gold from that front minion!"
"This was all part of his meticulous plan."
A chill ran down Gu Shi's spine, and his fingertips trembled. "In other words, he saw through me from the moment we met. He carefully laid a trap for a solo kill, lured me into it step by step, and turned around and killed me instead."
A shadowy memory etched into his mind was awakened.
At that moment, Gu Shi remembered the terror of being dominated by a certain man three years ago!
"He's a super expert who dominates his lane!"
"He's a player who can be called a [King]!"