Chapter Sixteen: Can My Strike Miss?

Heh heh!

Lin Hao let out a wicked chuckle in his heart.

His goal was to provoke his opponents and earn rewards from the system.

In the game, it was always a pain when the hero you wanted to play was picked by the other side or banned altogether.

This was especially true for many streamers, whose signature heroes were often the ones they prioritized every single game.

Just like Li Zhien’s Pei Qinhu, or Yifan’s Elder Master.

In Li Zhien’s streaming room, Li Zhien was so surprised while shoveling rice into his mouth that his spoon clattered onto the table.

“No way, even the Tiger can get banned?”

“Is the other side targeting me on purpose?”

“But that doesn’t make sense, I’m just an ordinary streamer. It’s not like this is some critical match, like fighting for the top spot nationally.”

“Banning Tiger right off the bat—why specifically target me?”

No matter how he thought about it, Li Zhien couldn’t figure it out.

Now that Tiger was banned, his only option was to play Mirror.

Mirror was his second-best hero, but it was nowhere near as formidable as his Tiger.

The same scene was unfolding in Yifan’s streaming room.

“Did this Haoran guy know I was on the other side and snatched Elder Master because of it?”

Yifan felt more annoyed than anything.

Compared to Li Zhien’s helplessness, Yifan was a 114-tier top lane player, with a deep hero pool. He still had options.

However, just when he wanted to prove himself with Elder Master, the opponent beat him to it…

Shaking his head, Yifan settled on Charlotte.

Charlotte was a natural counter to Elder Master.

Elder Master relied on basic attacks for damage, and each attack also reduced his skill cooldowns, allowing him to keep up a barrage of high-damage, high-resistance moves.

But Charlotte could reduce attack speed, greatly limiting Elder Master’s offensive capabilities.

Although Yifan’s Charlotte wasn’t at the national standard, he was still among the top fifty in the country this month—his skills were nothing to sneeze at.

Meanwhile, in Lin Hao’s stream, the chat was getting lively.

“I checked, the other side’s Mirror is Li Zhien!”

“Did Haozi ban Li Zhien’s Tiger?”

“Come on, isn’t this just stream sniping?”

“And Yifan’s Elder Master got stolen too!”

Lin Hao could only explain helplessly, “My well-informed friends, I only realized the other side’s Tiger was Li Zhien just before the game started. How could I possibly know faster than you all?”

“This round, I just wanted to play a different hero for fun. Besides, whenever I play Elder Master, the hero I fear most is a jungler with fast rotations—especially Pei Qinhu. If the other side picked Tiger, with all that tempo and wave management, I’d be completely helpless.”

Lin Hao was clearly making things up, but he maintained such a straight face that many viewers nodded in agreement.

The game began. This time, Lin Hao’s lineup was: Elder Master, Lan, Yixing, Zhang Fei, and Lady Sun.

The opposing side had: Charlotte, Mirror, Xi Shi, Yao, and Marco Polo.

Lin Hao immediately piloted Elder Master to the top lane bush. Before the minion waves had even clashed, he strode straight for the back row minions.

Contesting the wave against Charlotte at level one was pure bliss—she was absolutely useless at this stage and posed no threat at all.

Yifan’s Charlotte didn’t contest the wave.

He’d already learned from chat that this game’s Elder Master was the same dazzling Yuan Ge from the last match—Shark Haoran.

To redeem himself and restore his top lane dominance, Yifan decided to take this match seriously from the very start, not giving his opponent a single chance.

Just then, Lin Hao started up again.

“Today, I’m going to teach everyone how to rush level two with Elder Master. First, tap ‘Recall’ three times to show respect to your opponent, then head straight for the backline minions—basic attack into recall, repeat!”

Viewers watched as Elder Master actually started dancing the recall animation in front of the backline minions.

Basic attack, recall, basic attack, recall—the rhythm was perfect.

And Lin Hao’s recall effect was the striking Shadow City animation, making the dark cloud above his head flash conspicuously even during the quick recalls.

“Yifan’s rage +100.”

Viewers at home figured Lin Hao was just putting on a show and spammed the chat with laughter.

To be fair, in top-tier matches every streamer would go all out. Who else would occasionally mess around for entertainment like Lin Hao?

In Yifan’s stream, watching Elder Master’s antics, Yifan couldn’t help but twitch his eyebrows.

As expected, this was that unmistakable style—definitely Haoran!

This was someone who took recall taunting to the extreme!

Unfortunately, in the last game, he hadn’t managed to truly outplay Haoran in terms of skill, mechanics, or game sense.

But this time, with Charlotte against Elder Master, wasn’t it practically a guaranteed win?

“This Elder Master is cocky, huh? Fine, I’ll let you show off for now. Once I crush you, I’ll dance under your turret!”

He and his viewers talked big, then Yifan turned on his microphone.

“This Elder Master is really arrogant—Jungler, can you gank top at level four?”

Li Zhien was starting blue, and his usual route would be to gank top next.

So he replied into the mic, “Sure, my standard path is blue start into top gank. If you can’t hold, just play safe until I get there.”

Charlotte made no move to last-hit minions. Lin Hao didn’t bother freezing the wave either; he cleared it in front of Charlotte, then casually strolled off to take the river crab.

Yifan used the wave hitting his turret to hit level two first.

“I wonder if I can steal this crab!”

Yifan had already stacked two passive procs.

His passive wouldn’t last forever. Seizing the opportunity, he cast his second skill toward Elder Master.

If this skill landed, he’d instantly refresh his Seven Star Radiance Slash, ready to hit the execute key and claim the crab for himself.

But—

Charlotte’s aggressive skill shot missed!

Elder Master suddenly popped his second skill for a burst of speed, dodged in a new direction, and slipped right out of Charlotte’s attack range.

What?

Yifan’s rage +200!

Lin Hao’s heart skipped a beat.

Was this the power of script-level movement? With this skill, his positioning—whether intentional or instinctive—became unpredictable.

Lin Hao realized that special skill points like these often represented a level beyond the national server—his mastery of movement was now, without a doubt, world-class.

With Charlotte’s poke wasted, Elder Master immediately turned, yanked Charlotte in with his first skill, and hammered away a few times.

Missing that skill left Charlotte unable to fight back.

Back in Yifan’s stream—

“No way, how did I miss that jab?” Yifan winced. At the moment he cast it, he was sure it would hit. How did it not land?

Unbelievable!