Chapter 196
The ban-pick phase ended.
[The group stage’s first match isn’t going as expected! Spoon saved Eric, and Seo Jun picked Eric and went bottom!]
Arin shouted at a rapid pace.
They had predicted what might happen before the match started, but not a single guess was correct.
[The players are ruthless! How much did they prepare?]
[I really didn’t think they’d save Eric here. In case you don’t know about what happened before the tournament, let me tell you: Spoon has a record of being utterly destroyed by Seo Jun’s Eric. That’s why the PTSD talk keeps coming up. Everyone thought Eric would be banned!]
[Yes, it was unexpected. But Wealth Gap banned the sniper as if they knew this would happen. I’d really love to know what kind of mental battles and conversations took place during the ban-pick phase!]
- I want to hear it too lol
- Wait, did Wealth Gap even prepare anything?
- That’s the strategy of Team Korea
- Strategy of Team Korea, my ass lol. You think they just let Eric through for no reason? Picking him anyway is just a lack of brains
- Eh, their mechanics are insane anyway, so it doesn’t matter. When both brains and body are top-tier, you can pick and choose
- Pick and choose, agreed lol
[Exactly! I really want to hear it too. Anyway, what do you think about ADC Eric? Penguin commentator?]
[Ah, yes. ADC Eric, you see.]
[Yes.]
[It’s trash.]
[Yes, I understand! Commentator Taeyang?]
[Eric is just trash.]
They gave a crystal-clear answer.
As expected of Travel’s best casters, former pros who were once superhuman.
How succinctly they explained it.
[I see!]
[But since he’s shown something, we can’t help but have expectations. There’s no one who hasn’t seen it, right?]
Of course, that commentary assumed that everyone had seen it.
- I haven’t
- Eric is totally trash
- What the hell lol, does he see the future? If he’s within range and hits everything, then Eric would be good lol
- Yeah
- ????
But since even those people would end up watching after this match, they didn’t bother replaying Seo Jun’s video.
[Once you watch it, even the uninformed will know! Now, the game begins! Are they not doing a leash? No, they’re not!]
[The junglers are headed top. Usually, the bottom lane helps with the first jungle camp, but this time they’re going opposite and getting help from top!]
[Ah! Both bot duos have met. It’s like they planned it! Did they agree to meet bottom before the minions arrived?]
[Spoon! He’s getting closer!]
- What is this lol
- Spoon!
- He sees the future? ???
* * *
Seo Jun had chains coiled around his arm like a snake.
Eric. An escaped convict who uses chains as his weapon.
Is there a problem with using this hero as an AD carry?
Seo Jun could answer that definitively.
The absence of a ranged dealer who can consistently land basic attacks with explosive late-game destruction is significant.
That’s why pure ADCs go bottom, no matter how much you can crush the enemy bot lane early.
Occasionally, an overpowered hero appears in a bot-destroying combination, but they get nerfed and vanish quickly.
And isn’t Eric not even an overpowered hero?
Of course, the chat that Seo Jun couldn’t see was scrolling like this:
- The streamer's Eric is OP lol
- It’s totally possible to destroy bot and then the whole game
- Who needs an ADC when you can’t even stop Eric lol
- But against Spoon, who prepared like crazy?
- Gasp
- Let’s see, Spoon just showed up
Seo Jun raised his chain-wrapped arm. He visualized emitting intangible energy.
Blue energy gathered before his hand, forming a sphere.
Basic attack.
Behind Spoon, the support Gongbeolle stepped back, and so did Lumi.
Someone would back off if they tried to settle this here, so they were saying, “Just play without burden.”
The moment Seo Jun and Spoon locked eyes with joyful grins, Seo Jun clenched and unclenched his hand.
The sphere that had been pulled taut when clenched shot forward as his hand opened.
At the same time, Spoon pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Seo Jun’s attack was intercepted midair, nullified. And then.
Bang!
Dual Pistols Luke’s second shot flew toward Seo Jun.
Seo Jun had already read it and took a step back.
Right in front of Seo Jun’s brow, the mana bullet unraveled like a spool of thread and returned to nothingness.
And in that instant.
Clatter-rattle.
[Chain of Destruction]
The skill Seo Jun had created behind him three seconds ago activated. Specifically, the chains shot out.
But Spoon wasn’t flustered at all. Instead, his smile grew thicker, his eyes brimming with certainty, as if he’d been waiting.
It was a light exchange. A light attack.
But Seo Jun’s move encapsulated his predictions, combining not only the Spoon movements he’d analyzed before their practice match, but everything from when they faced off directly, and from the tournament matches in Rios.
Because the attack had been decided three seconds prior.
‘Will it land?’
The chain grazed past Seo Jun’s neck and shot forward.
The range was enough.
Even if he backed off, it would hit.
Spoon’s body flinched for a split second. Seo Jun saw the extremely subtle twitch born from his habit of dodging to the right.
But.
In that brief gap of time, Spoon defied his instinct and used his skill to the left.
A mobility skill.
[Quick Shot]
And the chain.
Thud.
Passed through the air slightly to the right of where Spoon had stood, and embedded itself into the ground.
So natural, as if he’d intended to dodge left from the start, that only Seo Jun could perceive the anomaly.
To everyone else, Spoon had perfectly dodged Seo Jun’s attack.
“That’s it!”
“Huh.”
Gongbeolle, watching from behind, cheered, while Lumi’s relaxed expression vanished.
Well, he’d succeeded in dodging a few times before. Even Seo Jun couldn’t land every attack perfectly.
So he’d mix attacks that lured the enemy with strikes that hit.
But just now, Seo Jun’s prediction had clearly failed.
Though the enemy might narrowly dodge, Eric’s chains usually at least grazed a single hair.
But this time.
“A 50% gamble. You failed.”
As Spoon said, Seo Jun’s prediction had failed.
The most basic directional prediction.
That carried quite a lot of weight.
“A 50% gamble?”
Seo Jun laughed.
He remembered their first meeting.
Back then, Seo Jun had thrown predictions left and right, and Spoon had dodged using a skill just like now.
At that time, he’d said that if Seo Jun only threw one chain, it was a 50% gamble, and he was referencing that.
“If you think about it, this time it’s 33%.”
Wasn’t it front, left, and right?
“Ah. You’re right. Then would you like to try another 33% gamble?”
- It is 33% lol
- Anyway, it failed?
- Tsk tsk, we’re collecting big data
- Streamer, if you can see chat, answer. That was just testing the waters, right?
“Once the minions arrive, we’ll resume that gamble.”
Naturally unable to see chat, Seo Jun answered Spoon and stepped back for a moment, thinking.
‘I think he usually tried to dodge without using a skill…….’
Hmm.
Was it a minor mistake because he was using it in a real match for the first time?
He’d have to watch more, but he knew the opponent had found a method.
‘Defying his instincts?’
It was interesting.
Seo Jun read his instincts, habits, patterns, everything to predict him, so Spoon had found a way to go against them.
Was there an easy way? And even if there was, was it easy to learn?
“Spoon, you’re far more incredible than I thought, everyone.”
Seo Jun spoke to the viewers out of habit.
“Huh? What? Is this really dangerous?”
“Ah. Hmm. Still, don’t worry. Lumi, you just need to land your hooks.”
[Minions have spawned.]
Lumi and Gongbeolle.
Both had something in common—they were D-rank supports.
Gongbeolle was the team leader, but that wasn’t important right now.
So, in a way, you could see this as a pure AD carry battle.
A Challenger ADC.
Seo Jun, who came with bot-destroying.
And a revenge match.
The setup was perfectly tailored for a broadcast.
Lumi’s hero was Soul Reaver.
She had a skill that threw a scythe-tipped chain to bind enemies.
Her passive allowed her to collect the souls that appeared when minions died, pulling them in with her chain-scythe weapon.
When she pulled in souls, based on soul stacks that could be maintained for up to 3 stacks for 30 seconds, the range and size—in other words, the area—of her skills changed.
- Chain duo lol
- Gongbeolle is the Mother
- Mother ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
The support hero Gongbeolle picked was Mother Lea.
A sacrificial hero who exchanged her own HP with her team’s. As such, she didn’t step forward but stayed back, continuously healing and assisting.
Lea’s basic attack laid a field on the ground.
She could deal slight damage to enemies standing on the field and drain their HP.
- So streamer, what’re you gonna do?
- Ugh, right now Spoon and Gongbeolle both turned off their mics so it’s super boring, that’s why I came here
- So this guy was that good at Eric?
- Yeah, he’s future-seeing. Just a prophet, basically
The minions approached.
And they started fighting at the very center of the lane.
The melee minions clashed, forming a single line in the middle.
Behind them, on both sides, the ranged minions formed their own lines, creating three lines total.
Seo Jun started using his skills from behind the ranged minions, while Lumi moved between the ranged and melee ones.
Bang, bang!
Clatter-rattle.
Slash. Slash.
Spoon, standing at the very back, alternated between hitting minions and hitting Lumi.
Lumi tried moving here and there to pull Spoon in, but there was no way the Challenger Spoon would give an opening to a D-rank like Lumi.
Gongbeolle was even further back, so there was no need to worry about him.
Bullets and spheres flew toward the minions, each gauging the other’s reactions.
And then.
‘Let’s confirm once more.’
Seo Jun suddenly shifted his aim from the minions to Spoon.
Spoon’s second auto-attack was just finishing. He couldn’t counteract it.
To Seo Jun’s eyes, Spoon would choose to dodge.
Gongbeolle behind him could heal him without much risk, but choosing to dodge here was the instinct Spoon had always followed.
Clatter-rattle!
[Chain of Destruction]
And a magic circle glowed, shooting a chain that aimed precisely at the endpoint of that dodge, weaving exquisitely through the allied and enemy minions.
And in that instant.
Another anomaly occurred.
Normally, it would have hit Spoon’s face, but Spoon didn’t dodge and simply took the auto-attack.
[Sacrifice]
Gongbeolle immediately healed back the shallowly chipped damage.
And Spoon, concentrating, began hitting the minions again and managing the lane.
‘Definitely…….’
The chains cleaved through empty air twice in a row.
‘This time he didn’t go the opposite way but stayed still, and I don’t know how he’s doing it.’
Seo Jun was troubled.
Should he figure out how Spoon was defying his instincts?
Or should he do what other Eric players did?
- He sees the future?
- This is just a normal Eric though?
- For real lol
- Sigh. Someone play the video. Show us how Spoon got wrecked
- Among the people dissing the streamer now, there’s probably some who know but are typing in chat because they think this is their moment lol
- So what is it. Did Spoon really awaken?
- At this rate, it’s over
- W e ’ r e s c r e w e d
- A prophet briefly losing their prophetic power is a common cliché. He’ll get it back soon lol
- Stop bullshitting lol