All-Round Mid Laner

Ye Shaoyang and Chi Shuo spent three days climbing up to the King rank on the international server.

With Chi Shuo's help, Ye Shaoyang became very familiar with the Destruction Mage. After trying out a double flight comp with the Sky Mage and the Spirit Snowbird, they felt that this combination played pretty smoothly as well.

So next, the two of them continued practicing their flight comp.

The play style of a flight comp was rather extreme. When the two of them surrounded their enemies, they absolutely had to strike and kill. Only taking a kill or assist would refresh their flight skills. If they couldn't get their flight skills to come off cooldown by taking a kill or assist, it was very easy for them to crash and burn.

These two heroes were both fairly fragile. Once they fell under crowd control, it was very easy for them to turn into a mid/jungle duo who died together, painting a tragic picture of falling one after another.

The two players joined another ranked match.

They were both currently at King-rank, one star. Since King-rank games started to utilize MMRs in matchmaking, they would start to run into relatively strong opponents. The two of them had won every game on their way up to this rank, so their MMRs were very high.

In the next game, Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang were assigned to the positions of players one and two. They didn't have to worry about other teammates stealing their positions. The two of them instantly locked in the Spirit Snowbird and the Sky Mage.

Chi Shuo took a look at the enemy's team comp—Holy Knight in the top lane, Frost Goddess in the middle lane, Brawler in the jungle. These were very commonly seen heroes at this ranking. There wasn't anything new about this combination.

But Chi Shuo took special note of the bottom laners on the other team—the support was the Master Machinist, and the support was the Machine Gun Huntsman.

Chi Shuo quietly said, "That's a tower-pushing comp, The other team's bottom laners are most likely queueing together."

This combination wasn't often seen in normal ranked matches. To play these two heroes well, the players needed a deep sense of tacit understanding. Strangers who didn't know each other would have a very hard time playing them together. People would mostly only take out this comp when they were playing in a group.

The Master Machinist could release three mechanical soldiers to take damage from defensive towers. Usually, this hero would take 'disrupt' as their basic skill, which could interfere with defensive towers and cause them to stop attacking for a brief period of time.

The Machine Gun Huntsman was the marksman with the fastest attack speed. After using his Q, he could fire off a dozen shots in a row. He could destroy a tower very quickly.

Ye Shaoyang turned and looked towards Chi Shuo. "We haven't run into professional players again, have we?"

"It's possible," Chi Shuo said. "Our MMR is too high. It's currently the right time for night training, for teams in North America and Europe. They also have a lot of alts on the international server that they use to practice team comps."

Ye Shaoyang eagerly said, "Then it's the perfect chance for us to get to know these international server experts."

At the same time, in the training room at the base of American team FNO—

A youth with curly red hair, like that of a toy poodle, rubbed his hands together and gazed at the loading screen on his monitor. Excitedly, he exclaimed, "First time playing on the international server! I hear there are tons of experts here. Allen, you have to protect me well!"

The blue-eyed youth sitting next to him said, with eyes full of confidence, "Relax. When I'm here, they won't be able to kill you unless they march over my dead body!"

The marksman Angus, and the support Allen.

These two youths were the most outstanding rookies from FNO's junior training camp. They were also FNO's substitute players. Their team's marksman and support planned on retiring at the end of the current season. Next season, the two young men would be debuting on the starting lineup.

For the past while, they had devoted their time to double queueing together to cultivate their tacit understanding. Playing on the international server had been Angus's idea. He'd asked their coach for two alt accounts so that they could start playing at the King rank right away, because he felt like facing off against the noobs in lower ranks would be way too boring. As a professional player, if he was going to play, he was going to play against experts. Only annihilating experts felt good!

The game loaded up.

Allen opened up the match info and took a look, discovering a pair of sweetheart IDs on the other side.

Sunshine, Moonlight?

Allen grinned and said, "Let's kill those sweethearts first."

Angus nodded his agreement. "Once we push the outer tower on the bottom lane, we'll go kill that mid laner first!"

In this game, Ye Shaoyang was running the Sky Mage as a mid laner. He didn't take the 'smite' basic skill, instead taking 'flash'. He could fly, and he could flash away in the blink of an eye—that would allow him to play even more aggressively.

As the jungler, Chi Shuo naturally took 'smite' as his basic skill. Since he was double queueing with Shaoyang, he started out by attacking their blue buff at the beginning of the game. This way, if the enemy came to harass them in their blue buff zone, Ye Shaoyang could arrive to provide assistance in an instant.

Fortunately, the opposing jungler didn't seem to have a very aggressive personality. They developed steadily and didn't come over to bother Chi Shuo.

As a result, Chi Shuo developed steadily as well, swiftly taking down his side's blue buff.

After clearing a wave of minions, Ye Shaoyang went to get a look at the other side. The position of the mid lane made it very easy for mid laners to get a look at the situation in the enemy jungle. Ye Shaoyang circled through the woods and caught sight of the flash of light from the enemy jungler's skill, near the red buff.

He warned Chi Shuo, "They opened with red."

"Then I'll get them at Level 6," Chi Shuo said simply.

"Okay," Ye Shaoyang said. "Get ready to fight for the river crab."

The crab by the river in the middle lane spawned. This little crab granted a fairly large amount of experience points, which made it an extremely important resource for the junglers in early-game. But the tacit understanding between Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang was very obviously stronger than that of the passerby mid laner and passerby jungler who were playing for the other team.

By the time the enemy jungler rushed over, Ye Shaoyang had already gotten the river crab down to critically low health.

Chi Shuo perfectly calculated the cooldown time of his smite, using that simple skill to take down the crab. They didn't give the enemy jungler the slightest hint of a chance; the two of them divided up the experience from the little crab between them.

As a result, Chi Shuo reached Level 6 before the enemy jungler. Ye Shaoyang would also reach Level 6 before the opposing mid laner. The two of them could team up more quickly and start to gank enemies before the other jungler!

In the bottom lane, their marksman and support had been pressured back to their defensive tower by the enemy bottom lane duo.

The support, Master Machinist, released mechanical soldiers that could stun the enemy when their attacks landed. The marksman on Ye Shaoyang's side was stunned by one of these soldiers, and the enemy marksman unleashed a flurry of blows that immediately took the stunned marksman down to low health!

The friendly marksman had no choice but to flee under their tower and hit the key to recall to their base.

However, the enemy was a pair of professional players. The Master Machinist sent a mechanical soldier forward to tank damage from the tower, and the Machine Gun Huntsman immediately charged in and attacked to take down the marksman who had been trying to return to their base!

First Blood!

The enemy marksman had gotten the first kill. This wasn't good news.

At that moment, Chi Shuo was lurking in the lower jungle, waiting to stage an ambush. He clearly saw all this unfold. He hadn't let his teammate die on purpose. Rather, he'd tried to wait for the right opportunity to jump in.

Angus, who'd gotten the first kill, started to work with his teammate to destroy the enemy tower.

The main purpose of the Master Machinist and Machine Gun Huntsman combination was to push towers quickly. As soon as they killed an enemy, the two heroes could swiftly hack away at the defensive tower's HP without any help from their minions. After getting two kills, they could basically destroy the bottom lane tower and shift their focus onto pushing the mid lane tower. And after destroying two towers, they could swiftly gain an economic advantage and snowball their way to victory.

However, just as these two players got the enemy tower down to half-health and prepared to retreat for the time being—

The Spirit Snowbird suddenly swooped down from above!

Chi Shuo had circled around, avoiding the expertly-placed wards in the jungle. He had silently taken to the skies from behind a nearby wall, swooping in for an attack.

Allen instantly called into his headset, "Fall back!"

Angus wanted to retreat as well, but he couldn't!

The instant the Snowbird appeared from behind a wall, a snowball descended from above, precisely striking Angus's body. Angus was frozen in place, unable to move. The Snowbird took him down to low health with one flurry of blows. Angus's reaction speed was quick enough, though. He flashed away the instant he was unfrozen, escaping with his life.

However, just as he breathed a sigh of relief, he saw another white figure suddenly erupt from behind a wall.

Flash plus flight. That was just enough to reach him.

Ye Shaoyang had actually been lurking off to the side all this time, waiting for the enemy marksman to use up his flash.

Once the enemy used that skill, Ye Shaoyang could strike without worrying about anything. After he took flight, his mage's brilliant white orbs of light pelted down from above like rain. Every shot slammed into the body of the fragile marksman, swiftly bringing his HP down to zero.

After killing the marksman, the Spirit Snowbird and the Sky Mage saw their flight skills simultaneously come off cooldown. The two of them took flight together and casually departed, leaving the support Allen shaken up in the wake of the storm.

Huh? You guys aren't even going to touch me? Do you think my head isn't worth anything?!

In reality, the two players just didn't want to waste any time on killing the support. Because the Master Machinist was especially tanky, he wasn't easy to kill. Chi Shuo and Ye Shaoyang had used all their attack skills on the marksman, and there was no need for them to fling basic attacks back and forth with the support. It made sense for the two of them to simply retreat after slaying the marksman.

Allen, who still stood at full health, looked at his slain teammate with a complex expression as Angus was spirited back to their base.

Angus's curly red hair looked like it was about to blow up. "I'm gonna kill that couple!"

After respawning, Angus returned to the bottom lane. The opposing marksman was just alright in terms of skill level. They weren't all that careful with their positioning, so they were once again immobilized by Allen and killed by Angus.

The bottom lane duo swiftly destroyed the outer tower. Just as they started to turn towards the middle lane, they were ambushed yet again by the river.

This time, Ye Shaoyang struck first and beat both players down to low health. Chi Shuo came in for the kill.

Once again, they completely bypassed the protection of the support in order to target the marksman directly. After slaying the marksman, they left without even sparing a glance for the support.

Allen was silent.

Didn't I say you would have to go over my dead body? Why are you treating me like air?

Their rhythm of swiftly destroying enemy towers had already been disrupted.

After the sun and the moon killed off the marksman, they instantly invaded the enemy jungle to steal the blue buff!

Luckily, the opposing jungler and mid laner weren't blind. They hurried over to defend, turning the fight into a 2v2. A chaotic mess of skills were flung out, and the sun and moon were quickly beaten down to critically low health. Angus should have had time to respawn and charge back over for the kill, but in the end—

The Spirit Snowbird flew over the wall and escaped to the left.

The Sky Mage flew over the wall and escaped to the right.

Was this what people called 'going your separate ways in the face of great adversity'?

In any case, with the two of them escaping in two opposite directions, the other team didn't know who to chase down right away. As a result, they didn't manage to catch up to either of their targets—the crippled pair managed to escape!

Angus was pissed. He swiftly signaled for his teammates to group up for a fight in the middle lane.

Many players on the international server couldn't communicate fluently with one another, so they often had to rely solely on the in-game markers and commands to communicate. Angus's other teammates could sense that they were on their way to a defeat here, so they instantly met up in the middle lane to aggressively push the tower.

The two teams clashed in the first team fight of the game. Angus was very cautious. He hid out in the woods nearby, firing bullets like crazy while taking shelter under the protection of his support. In the blink of an eye, the front line heroes on the enemy team were killed.

However…

Angus didn't even get a chance to celebrate. Two white figures swooped down from above once more!

The Spirit Snowbird used a long-range freezing skill to immediately freeze the back line, and then the Sky Mage's glowing orbs of light rained down, slashing away most of their HP. Then, the Snowbird suddenly dove down. White feathers flew through the air, and with one ult—he took a double kill!

All the other players could see that they were in a bind. They instantly scattered and fled.

But those flight skills had been refreshed. The Snowbird took to the skies yet again, swiftly giving chase to the hero escaping to the lower left of the map. The two of them exchanged basic attacks, and the Snowbird deftly took down the fleeing glass cannon mid laner.

The Sky Mage gave chase to the hero escaping to the right, felling the crippled top laner with one W skill.

The two of them worked in perfect sync, one slaying the player who ran to the left and one slaying the one who ran to the right. They managed to wipe out all of their badly bloodied enemies.

ACE, Team Kill!

Angus couldn't believe his eyes.

The Snowbird continued to circle in midair, like a hawk eyeing its prey.

The Sky Mage continued to attack with his hail of golden light, which rained down like a dazzling display of fireworks.

When the two of them took to the skies, it felt almost like they were issuing their enemies a death sentence.

The result was going to be a bitter defeat, especially for Angus's fragile marksman. Every time they clashed, he was frozen by that Snowbird. The Snowbird could always sneak past his support's protection and freeze Angus in the back line, before instantly taking him down.

The Sky Mage had an extremely high hit rate with those orbs of light. In team fights, not a single strike missed.

This feeling… it was like the five of them had just stood there, staring dumbly at a pair of lovebirds dancing through the skies, gifting them a dazzling performance? Then, they would been minced up like a platter of vegetables.

…what a terrifying flight comp.

Angus dazedly said, "How could he freeze me every time? I was being careful enough with my positioning, wasn't I?"

Allen wore a perplexed expression as well. "I clearly set up my wards in the right places, but they could always circle around in my blind spots. They always came around from the side I couldn't see. They weren't using some sort of visibility hack, were they?"

While they spoke, they heard a voice that was tinged with laughter sound out from behind him. "What visibility hack?"

The two youths instantly sat up straight, respectfully calling out, "Captain."

Team FNO's captain, Mitchell, was a world-class mid laner and one of the Top 10 players in the global professional Gods War rankings. Even the top-tier mid laners from China, like Fang Zhengqing and Zhou Jiawen, would only be able to win 50/50 when they ran into him.

This blond-haired, blue-eyed alpha had a very elegant appearance, but his play style was incomparably ruthless. He chose glass cannon mid laners and played them as fighters. He could charge in for the kill and actually succeed in taking his enemy down, which created a lot of mental pressure for his opponents.

When he saw the blacked out screens of the two younger players, Mitchell grinned and said, "Team kill?"

The curly-haired Angus drooped his head. "A couple was running a flight comp. I was out of place and accidentally got myself killed a few times."

Mitchell shooed the younger player away and took a seat in front of the computer.

There was already no way to recover in this game. The other team was already pushing their minions up to the base.

Mitchell swiftly typed a message into the global chat: [Hi, sun and moon. May I ask which country you are from?]

Ye Shaoyang answered: [We are from the earth. ^^]

Mitchell fell silent.

WTF do you mean the earth?! I'm asking what country you're from!

This Sunshine was all smiles and no decency. It was obvious these two didn't want to expose where they were from.

After the game, Mitchell instantly sent over a friend request, but only received a system notification in response—those two players had set their accounts to reject all incoming friend requests. When Mitchell tried to check out their battle history, he found that their history was hidden as well.

…not adding friends, hidden battle records. These were definitely, absolutely, 100% the alts of professional players!

Mitchell swiftly took a screenshot of the pair's IDs and sent them to someone named Zhou, along with the message: [Zhou, do you know them?]

Zhou Jiawen answered very quickly: [I don't know any of them. What happened?]

Mitchell typed out a confused emoji, then sent over the recording of this game to Zhou Jiawen.

He was very familiar with the play styles of all the professional players in the North American and European divisions. There absolutely wasn't any mid/jungle duo who played this sort of flight comp and had such an intense sense of tacit understanding with each other. He had no idea where these newbies had come from.

Zhou Jiawen, who had just woken up, yawned while opening up the video file. After the replay finished playing out, the coach who was standing behind Zhou Jiawen couldn't help but mutter, "This is too outstanding! This combo is too good!"

Zhou Jiawen fell deep into thought. "Sunshine, Moonlight… I haven't heard of them?"

The coach ventured a guess. "Chi Shuo's ID is Shuoyue, meaning new moon. He's the only one I can think of who has an ID related to moonlight."

Zhou Jiawen furrowed his brow. "But Tianhuan's mid laner Qu Jiang doesn't play like this. Qu Jiang has played the Sky Mage in ranked before. I heard he was prone to crashing and breaking his legs."

The coach thoughtfully mused, "That's true. You can tell at a glance that this mid laner isn't Qu Jiang. Could they be from the Korean division?"

Zhou Jiawen said, "It's nine in the morning now. The Korean division teams all train in the afternoon. Judging by the time, I feel like it's more likely that they're from North America or Europe. Mitchell doesn't know them either. Maybe they're some team's new players?"

The coach took a deep breath. "Regardless of which division these alt accounts belong to, this comp will really make the other teams in that division suffer if it pops up next season. This tacit understanding is too powerful!"

Fleeing in separate directions in critical health, making it impossible for their opponents to give chase.

Attacking one after another while ganking, to trick the enemy into wasting their important skills. One crippled the enemy, and the other took the kill.

In that game just now, these two had managed to string together so many kills that they could enjoy endless flight!

The hardest thing about playing a flight comp was staying in the air. It was necessary for these players to continuously get kills to refresh their flight skills. If they crashed halfway through a fight, the two of them were glass cannons who would very easily be counter-ganked.

However, Sunshine and Moonlight had done very well.

Who they would kill first in a team fight, who they would kill next… the two had planned everything out very clearly. After the first wave of a fight, they had a clear 'you go left, I go right' plan in place, which allowed them to chase down two fleeing enemies and ultimately wipe out the entire enemy team.

Most duos wouldn't be able to achieve such detailed precision, which required a high level of synchronicity.

The ones who could do it would become gods.

The coach of Team Huowen silently prayed—

The sun and moon duo that has suddenly emerged on the international server had better not be in our division! Otherwise… next season will be too much to handle!