Chapter 139: Trading Kills for the Third Time

Meanwhile, at the CK Club.

Meng Lan frowned slightly.

"What the hell, is this Baili Shouyue's aim really that accurate?"

Meng Lan had encountered countless Baili Shouyues, but one with this level of pinpoint accuracy was exceedingly rare!

It felt as though every single dodging movement he made was completely ineffective against this player!

As time passed and the lane phase dragged on, this sensation only intensified!

With Meng Lan's health dropping in the bottom lane, Lin Hao finally stepped out from his tower and advanced to the front line.

The priority for clearing minion waves now shifted firmly into Lin Hao's hands.

"Pei Quintin is out of energy, get him!"

"Holy crap! Brother Mu is awesome!"

"Push mid, push mid! Do as much damage to the mid tower as you can!"

Lin Hao had his mic on. At this moment, a full-scale team fight had broken out in the mid lane, turning it into a complete brawl.

His teammates began communicating actively within the skirmish.

Lin Hao had no time to check on the mid-lane situation; instead, the presence of all four opposing players showing up on the map for the mid-lane fight gave him a profound sense of security.

Taking advantage of the moment to place a vision ward in the river, Lin Hao returned to applying pressure on Li Yuanfang.

"The bottom lane is just a duel between the two of us. This wave we can push directly under the tower. If this Li Yuanfang tries to defend it, we can poke him while we're at it," Lin Hao said.

Using basic attacks to clear the minion wave, Lin Hao's Shouyue followed closely behind the troops.

Li Yuanfang was sitting at roughly half health, standing behind his defensive tower to clear the incoming wave.

Meanwhile, Lin Hao's health bar was entirely pristine, because before he had sniped Li Yuanfang down to low health, he hadn't stepped out from his own defensive tower once.

Li Yuanfang cleared waves, and Shouyue sniped. Leveraging his superior attack range, despite Li Yuanfang initially holding wave priority, he had been slowly whittled down.

Meng Lan stared intently as the minion wave entered the tower range. He had a hunch that the Baili Shouyue might plant himself right there and transition straight into a surprise sniper shot.

As for leading the minions to pressure the tower?

That was out of the question. After all, both players had reached level four by now, and Meng Lan still held his ultimate ability in reserve. With a single press, the minion wave would be instantly wiped out.

Suddenly, Lin Hao came to a halt just outside the attack range of the defensive tower.

The next moment, Lin Hao began his recall.

A dazzling recall animation suddenly bloomed, catching Meng Lan completely off guard.

Was this... mocking him?

The Baili Shouyue before his eyes seemed to be saying:

Come on, hit me if you can!

Meng Lan currently had all his skills ready, but his health was in a terrible state.

The other eight players on the canyon map had somehow triggered a skirmish in the mid lane, and for the moment, nobody from either team rotated down to interfere. Unwilling to miss out on the minion XP and gold, Meng Lan chose not to recall.

Therefore, if he launched his ultimate ability right now, Shouyue would only need to wait out the animation recovery before combining his second skill and ultimate to instantly vaporize him.

While his second skill wasn't guaranteed to hit at point-blank range, the sheer accuracy this Baili Shouyue had demonstrated earlier left Meng Lan feeling a bit rattled.

"Anger points from Meng Lan +400."

Faced with Lin Hao's blatant taunting, Meng Lan couldn't afford to retaliate directly. Instead, he chose to cast his ultimate right in front of the minion wave to clear it instantly.

Furthermore, this ultimate acted as a barrier between Lin Hao and himself; if Shouyue dared to step forward and attack the tower, he would be struck by the whirling blades of the ultimate.

"Hahaha, Haozi is starting up the recall taunt again!"

"This time he's taunting a pro player, and a 128-segment top development lane player like Meng Lan at that. Why does this feel so inexplicably satisfying?"

"I never expected Haozi's Baili Shouyue to be this accurate. Those missed shots earlier in the lane phase? Now the roles are definitely reversed, and it's Li Yuanfang who's getting pressured by Shouyue."

The viewers joked and bantered in the chat.

Suddenly, they noticed Lin Hao's right-hand control wheel sliding.

At that exact micro-second, Shouyue canceled his recall state, stepped forward, and executed his ultimate in the reverse direction!

Followed instantly by a Flash!

The ultimate-Flash combination was performed with such blinding speed that the audience barely had time to register it.

One second he was taunting, but the next he initiated with an ultimate-Flash combo!

Yet Meng Lan's reaction was even more absurd. Shouyue's flashy recall animation had been too glaring, and combined with his cautious minion-clearing stance, Meng Lan's attention was locked entirely on Shouyue.

Seeing Shouyue cancel his recall and take a step forward, an alarm bell rang instantly in Meng Lan's mind. The very millisecond Shouyue pressed his ultimate and leaped backward, Meng Lan instinctively triggered his second skill!

Li Yuanfang's second skill slid him away instantly without even needing to drag the joystick!

Lin Hao's ultimate-Flash and Li Yuanfang's second skill were deployed almost simultaneously!

Li Yuanfang dashed out of the tower range, while Shouyue flashed directly into the tower. In the blink of an eye, the two players had completely swapped positions.

Even more fatally, Lin Hao's ultimate-Flash had missed completely.

This was because Li Yuanfang entered an untargetable state while casting his second skill!

He visually read my ultimate-Flash?

Is this the true power of a 128-segment national server top marksman?

His reaction speed is genuinely insane!

Lin Hao's brow furrowed tightly. Having his move dodged like this meant Li Yuanfang was about to turn the tables and pull off a counter-play.

Li Yuanfang applied his first skill and began unleashing basic attacks.

Lin Hao sidestepped slightly to dodge Li Yuanfang's spinning giant flying dart that remained hovering right in the middle of the lane.

Then, aiming his rifle straight at Li Yuanfang, he fired a basic attack!

Immediately following the recovery frames of the basic attack, he chained it into a snap-fired second skill!

Bang!

The bullet struck Li Yuanfang dead-on, reducing his health bar to an absolute sliver!

With one final micro-adjustment of his positioning, Lin Hao landed a concluding basic attack, taking Li Yuanfang down!

Yet, less than a second later, Li Yuanfang's returning flying dart triggered its fourth-layer passive mark, exploding and taking Lin Hao down with him.

The two of them had traded kills yet again!

Phew.

Lin Hao let out a soft sigh.

The skill points of the national server Shouyue were starting to wear thin against a formidable opponent like Meng Lan. He had relied entirely on the lingering grace of those three enhanced skill charges to guarantee that nearly every single snipe hit its mark, resulting in three consecutive double-kills where both players traded blows and died together.

"Are you kidding me? This is too insane!"

"Holy crap, he even dodged that ultimate-Flash? What kind of god-tier reaction time does Meng Lan have?"

"Talk about an ultimate plot twist."

"Damn, after Meng Lan dodged that, I thought Haozi was done for, but that final quick-turn shot canceling the recovery frames to secure the kill was just too cool!"

"Wait, hasn't the score between these two basically traded kills three times in a row now?"

"True. I've watched plenty of live streams, but this match takes the cake. It's completely insane!"

Lin Hao once again received a notification of anger points generated by Meng Lan.

"Anger points from Meng Lan +300."

Not many, likely because that final shot lowering his health enabled a counter-counter-kill.

Otherwise, missing that ultimate-Flash would have meant he was the one getting outplayed.

Staring at his darkened screen in death, Lin Hao gathered his composure and explained to the audience: "My idea for that play was to catch him off guard—using an instant ultimate-Flash chained directly into the second skill for a burst explosion to take Li Yuanfang down.

"I never expected this Li Yuanfang to use his second skill to dodge my ultimate-Flash, so I immediately improvised. You guys probably noticed that I had already held down my second skill; I almost released it, but forced myself to drag it back to cancel. Then I sidestepped to avoid his flying dart, landed a quick basic attack to calibrate my crosshairs, and instantly snap-fired the second skill for the kill."