Rise

Zed’s ultimate ability was Death Mark. As far as most players were concerned, this ability allowed Zed to dash to an enemy champion to place the eponymous death mark on them. Once the mark was placed, Zed had three seconds to deal as much damage as possible to the marked enemy champion. After the three seconds elapsed, the mark would trigger and deal a portion of the damage Zed had done to the enemy champion again. Simple.

But Orion was not a player who could be clumped in with the ordinary masses. He was someone who understood that the most important part of Zed’s ultimate was the small effect that most other players ignored. At the moment of activation, Death Mark rendered Zed untargetable. What untargetable meant in practice was that any skill or attack launched at Zed that had yet to make contact before Death Mark was activated would not land on Zed once Death Mark was activated. That brief window of absolute invincibility was the most potent weapon in Zed’s Arsenal.

And it was that window of invincibility that Orion used to allow his Zed to dodge the whirlwind that had flown off from Yasuo’s sword with the third cast of Steel Tempest. If that whirlwind had hit, Zed would’ve been knocked up and triggered the condition for Yasuo’s ultimate—Last Breath. That would’ve been the end of the fight. Yasuo would have hacked through Zed’s health and gained the upper hand. That was what all of Yasuo’s moves up until this point in the fight led toward.

But Orion had mentally played out all of CN•HOOK2’s moves before they had happened, and prepared a counter-strategy in the middle of the fight that would decide this entire game. And then he executed it flawlessly, completely turning things around! With Death Mark, Orion’s Zed had not only broken Yasuo’s onslaught, he’d also positioned himself to bring the fight back to Yasuo.

Lightless Heart’s stream chat was in complete disarray as more than a million viewers tried to express their frustration, disappointment, fear, and also begrudging respect for Orion. Pulling something like this off not only required skill beyond that of an ordinary gamer. It took an unshakeable mental state, iron will, and balls of steel.

When it came to the professional players, the faces of Hermes, Nightsong, Read XIII, Tian Tian, Shi Hang, and Aurous all showed disappointment and sadness. All of them instinctively understood the situation better than the viewers, and it shattered the fantasy that had been building up deep in their hearts. The mechanics and reflexes required to perfectly time a Death Mark and dodge an almost point-blank whirlwind from Yasuo’s sword were extremely high. But for a King like Orion, this was a very low threshold to clear. They were all watching the game in real time, but Orion was playing the game several seconds ahead in his mind.

In a single move, Orion had forced all of them to acknowledge that reality was a cruel mistress and that there was a clear difference between ordinary players and those who had risen to the point where they were named Kings.

As the four crimson Living Shadows converged onto his Yasuo, Lin Feng’s eyes flickered with a sharp light. His hands on his mouse and keyboard never stopped moving. The whirlwind missing Zed did not phase him in the slightest. Lin Feng already predicted that would happen even before he had his Yasuo let the whirlwind loose. His eyes narrowed. This is fine, no big deal at all. I figured that’s what Zed would do. There’s no way it’d be this easy to outplay Orion. He’s probably sitting there smiling about how he managed to turn things around on my Yasuo. I lost the advantage, sure. But that doesn’t mean anything. Orion’s not the only one who can think a few steps ahead. This battle is far from over!