Rise

The first seed from the Chinese LPL versus the first seed from the Korean LCK. It sounded like an exciting match when said like this. Until people looked at the lineups. Hand of God’s strongest player was Hermes. One of the Seven Kings. On the other side was SSK. Their team captain was none other than the God Emperor, Rake! The best player in the world. The one who never lost his lane. Then they also had a King on their roster. They were the World Champions. They were the team to beat. And HoG didn’t seem like they were the team to do that.

In the Mid-Season Invitational, HoG had beaten an Emperor team. They’d beaten a Korean team! This was something that until then had seemed impossible. No one could beat the Koreans! But that victory was against Fate. A strong team, yes. But they weren’t SSK. There was still a large chasm separating them from that height. The Moon Emperor had struggled hard together with his team to qualify for Worlds. Then there was SSK. The invincibles. Fate had only managed to beat them once this year and lost six times. It just went to show how big the difference between the two teams was.

From analysts to fans, from professional players to casual players, everyone knew who SSK were. Who Rake was. It didn’t matter how much Hermes improved, he wouldn’t be good enough to beat Rake. And the rest of his team wouldn’t win their lanes either. This would be a stomp. There was nothing HoG could do but extend the suffering. It was to the point that Chinese fans stopped paying attention to HoG and shifted to the KG versus Assassins game. KG might not be as good as HoG, but Assassins wasn’t as good as SSK either. KG versus Assassins looked like a matchup that could go either way. The all Chinese team actually had a shot to make it to the semifinals! This was the game they chose to place their hopes on!

✹

Lin Feng had come home early from coaching High School 13’s esports team. He’d promised to watch Worlds together with Su Xue and her stream and give his insights on the games. So, after enjoying a quick dinner prepared by Su Xue, he followed her into her room and sat down at her desk. Then he waited for her to start up the stream, browsing his phone and looking at the matchups. The first game of interest for the Chinese fans was HoG versus SSK. Viewers were coming into the stream and were welcomed by Lin Feng’s analysis on the matchup, “Mhm. SSK is the better team. I don’t see how HoG is going to get anything from this matchup.”

It wasn’t a great first thing to hear on the stream. The viewers were hoping that they were little balls of negativity. They were hoping that their li’l bro would set them straight! To hear him agree with their own assessment felt like a low blow.

「damn… even lil bro thinks so too?」

「aghh, hog is screwed」

「MANN WHYYY i thought maybe you could convince me they had a chance……….」