Episode 200
- Seriously, why the hell did he pick that kind of rune lol
- No, why didn’t you buy it earlier?
- Only using 3 skills is a huge problem too. Are you just throwing away all the runes?
- If he loses like this, it’s really the abyss.
- Villain shake lol
From 3 seconds to 10 seconds.
It’s the waiting time for the skill, Chain of Destruction’s magic circle.
The longer the time, the harder it becomes to land the Chain of Destruction, which requires you to envision the trajectory in advance. That difficulty naturally rises.
And with that comes the return.
Damage.
It’s not that the damage gets stronger exactly in proportion to the difficulty, but it’s true that the longer the time, the higher the damage.
‘Even so.’
10 seconds is rarely used.
At most, it’s only used when hiding in a bush and setting up an ambush.
And even then, while other heroes preparing an ambush in a bush can usually activate their skill whenever they want or cut it short to strike, Erik has to simply pray that the enemy steps into the exact spot right when the magic circle triggers.
At exactly that location.
An ambush only becomes possible if you can control either time or space. You need control over at least one of them.
Erik can control neither.
So it’s extremely rare to use the magic circle set to 10 seconds.
Then.
[Chain of Destruction: The magic circle’s waiting time increases up to 20 seconds. Damage increases proportionally.]
How often is the rune Seojun chose actually picked?
A rune that just lets you extend it to 20 seconds when even 10 seconds is a struggle, and that’s its whole function.
How many users would throw away that chance—a chance to massively upgrade their specs—on something like that?
- Is there anyone who actually does that? Even as a meme strategy lol
- What meme strategy?
- Like, duoing with a hero that can pull the enemy to a spot you want, hiding, and one-shotting them?
- At 20 seconds, it really would be a one-shot lol
- Yeah, originally the jump from 3 to 4 seconds gives the biggest damage spike, and from 9 to 10 it barely goes up, but at 20 seconds, it’s definitely a one-shot for a ranged carry.
- There’s a reason Erik sticks to 3 seconds, right? For time investment versus damage return, shorter times are more efficient. Sure, the longer it is, the stronger the damage, but it’s about efficiency.
[Seojun, can you land it?]
Alpaca communicated through team voice chat. He was currently on his way to join up here.
It’s team voice, so the enemy and commentators watching can’t hear it, but the viewers can, so it doesn’t mean much.
Of course, if they ever needed to keep something a secret, they could just briefly mute the stream and talk.
[Yes.]
The team knew this strategy from the start.
So there was no real need to explain. They just needed to be told which rune was chosen.
Naturally, from the hero select screen, they had looked at the enemy composition and discussed countermeasures.
Among those, a joke had come up about one-shotting someone with a 20-second magic circle.
The team members thought that even that joke might actually be possible if it was Seojun’s foresight.
Of course.
[Earlier at the pick screen, Seojun himself said predicting beyond 10 seconds is almost impossible.]
[If it doesn’t work, we’ll have to make it work some other way.]
[Understood.]
[So what are we supposed to do? Wait, aren’t we being too hands-off? Hahaha.]
It wasn’t Hayunho, who’d been fighting alone all along, but Baramgeom who spoke.
Seojun chuckled softly and began attacking the approaching minions.
He quickly cleared the minions, pushing the lane.
Because a fight was coming, and minions literally serve as excellent meat shields.
‘I’ve pushed in deep, but they’re still not coming in easily.’
Seojun had moved up near the enemy mid’s tier 2 tower.
The turrets are arranged in a line from the center where you meet the enemy, toward the base: tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 in front of the inhibitor, and then the twin turrets at the Nexus.
In front of the tier 3 turret, one member of the Hanipman team was spotted, eyeing Seojun. Where could Spoon be?
Right next to Seojun was Rumi.
[You did fine even when we left you alone. Pushed all the way to mid tier 2.]
[That’s true. We didn’t even get pushed out of our tier 1. We were lucky.]
The team members were roaming nearby. Positioned on the jungle side so they could come to mid at any moment. So the enemy couldn’t flank them.
The enemy was likely nearby too.
No one knew when or how a teamfight would break out.
They could bait an area for a teamfight, but Seojun didn’t particularly do that.
Because he hadn’t found the answers. How exactly should they fight to land it? Where would it be more advantageous to fight?
He hadn’t figured that out.
The team seemed to believe in him absolutely, but he was always someone who challenged things without knowing everything beforehand.
The streamer was the same.
The viewers probably wouldn’t believe it, of course.
“You guys are all holding a rain ritual praying I’ll miss, aren’t you? I’ll have to check the replay.”
- Lol
- Some chats are gonna feel so called out.
The next minion wave arrives.
Beside him, Rumi spoke through team voice.
[Seojun, should I pull Spoon? Or not?]
A cute dilemma.
As Seojun cleared the minions again, he let him know there was no need for that worry.
[You probably can’t pull him anyway, right? Just do your best. Landing it is my job.]
The whole team laughed together.
[Yes! Huh? But still, I’m Gold rank...]
The enemies are Challengers.
They probably took runes for skill cooldown. So how could he possibly land it?
[Rumi. I told you, but you... Huh? Wait, here!]
How does a teamfight usually start?
It starts when someone gets caught or ambushed.
As they counterattack or flee, each team member inevitably gathers.
Already on high alert, they had been moving from the moment a red dot started getting close to where Hayunho was on the minimap.
Seojun and Rumi were the same.
They took the shortest path.
They weren’t worried about the enemy team lying in ambush in the bushes along the way. If they met them, they’d just fight it out.
[As expected, it’s on cooldown! He uses Quick Shot every 3 seconds? 2.5 seconds?]
Hayunho relayed the information. Alpaca joined first, and Seojun arrived near the fight shortly after.
The enemy had four members, with the fifth who had been mid about to arrive at the battlefield soon.
Their Baramgeom, who was on the opposite side, was a bit late.
No matter.
Hayunho’s health was below half. The enemy team’s health, perhaps thanks to Gongbeolle, was completely full.
No matter.
They quickly briefed the skills that had been used. Then they tangled together like intricately knotted strings.
Likewise.
‘No matter.’
He wiped it all away—how much health the enemy had left, which skills to watch out for.
‘Their comp is focused on protection and healing anyway. There’s no threatening crowd control to lock down my movements.’
So he focused entirely.
Even now, to Spoon, who weaves in front of and behind Hayunho, beside Alpaca, and lands the energy chunk follow-up from Quick Shot.
Above all, the spot Spoon moved into was right in front of Seojun and Rumi.
‘He came in knowing that.’
Even though he entered alone into the middle of a triangle, and even faced Seojun directly, Spoon showed no sign that it was a mistake.
Rumi, flustered, collected himself, and Alpaca and Hayunho rushed in.
Magic circles began to rise one after another. This was Seojun’s unique combat style.
Bang! Bang!
Meanwhile, bullets—basic attacks with critical strikes enhanced by runes—targeted Alpaca, and Seojun, anticipating this, clenched and opened his hand.
Boom!
Seojun’s orb, intervening from the side, blocked him.
The remaining shot hit Alpaca.
Spoon smoothly slipped backward as if moving at high speed.
And he didn’t forget to launch a follow-up at Hayunho.
But Rumi, who moved to protect his teammate after failing to find the grab timing, took the hit instead of Yunho.
At the same time, the chain that emerged from the magic circle chased after Spoon. As if it knew he would back off.
Thud!
The chain was blocked not by Spoon, but by the C-grade mid who dashed out from the side. Just like Rumi.
A sturdy hero. Gongbeolle, sitting safely further back, would heal him anyway.
Alpaca and Hayunho hesitated. They were debating whether to chase or not.
Ignoring the two of them, Seojun moved forward.
Hayunho began clashing with the enemy top laner who came attacking from the side again.
Seojun only looked straight ahead.
Chains shoot out.
Magic circles are created.
Spoon used a skill to move to Seojun’s right. He launched the follow-up at Alpaca, who was going to help Hayunho. A light bullet, condensed into one from the two gun muzzles, struck Alpaca squarely.
With that, the skill’s cooldown would have been drastically reduced again.
He didn’t aim it at Seojun, despite the skill’s high damage, probably because he must not fail the follow-up attack.
‘And if he can take down Alpaca while he’s at it, he will.’
The chain created 3 seconds ago knew that Spoon would dive beside them again.
[Chain of Destruction]
It was 2 seconds until Quick Shot.
Still listening to Gongbeolle’s premonition, Spoon took a step away from Alpaca.
“Your kiting is impressive.”
“Should we just go with the chains?”
“You know that if we fight here and lose the teamfight, the game could end, right?”
“Even if I wanted to fight further forward than this, could you? You’re the ones pressuring us. And I trust my teammates.”
In the middle of all that, the mid who had taken hits in Spoon’s stead rushed toward Seojun.
But this chain, as if having predicted even that, shot out not at Spoon in front, but at the mid on the side.
Charrrk!
The mid’s health dropped sharply.
He seemed flustered by this unfamiliar situation, but Spoon was not.
Rather, Spoon, who had been preparing for the next attack, got a 1-second window and did not miss it.
He attacked Alpaca, but Seojun still had his basic attack available.
But he couldn’t block one shot, and Alpaca’s health fell below half.
Alpaca, undeterred, charged at Spoon with everything he had.
[Quick Shot]
Look at that.
Spoon didn’t back off; he came even further forward.
The light bullet flew at Alpaca. Alpaca couldn’t react to Spoon’s attack after he instantly repositioned to the rear.
To block the follow-up, you have to hit Spoon, but unless you launch the attack the moment you start moving preemptively, it’s too late.
The only choice is to block the basic attacks.
Bang!
Pang!
Because if both shots hit, bonus damage kicks in.
Bang!
The mid reached near Seojun. Gongbeolle was watching from a safer spot further back.
But now, from this moment on, Seojun focused every chain on Spoon.
‘Is it now?’
During the laning phase, Seojun had not summoned the fourth magic circle.
Also, for chains he was sure would hit during laning, he had set the delay to 4 seconds instead of 3.
But he had summoned them 1 second earlier, so attacks still went out every second. That hadn’t changed.
In other words.
Having been hit by a 4-second attack, the enemy probably thought:
‘He enhanced the damage with a rune.’
Naturally.
Who would do such a thing?
Specifically, who would go to such lengths to lay the groundwork and hide a dagger?
‘20 seconds.’
Would they ever think he’d use a 20-second magic circle?
‘If it hits, it’s over. If it fails, it’s over too.’
It will only work once.
It’s a time so long that if they know, they’ll never get hit. That’s why he hid it.
The three magic circles he had created were at a low altitude. They automatically kept the view at Seojun’s eye level.
Like that, chains rained down.
And then.
In the sky, higher up.
At a height of 4 meters from the ground.
At a timing even the viewers wouldn’t notice, Seojun created the fourth magic circle for the first time.
The countdown began.