BXBX NOVEL Chapter 269 - Springboard
Chapter 269: Springboard
There couldn’t be even the slightest, tiniest bit of error, right now!
Biting hard on his lower lip, Xiao Bei warded off his nervousness with these thoughts.
Now was the moment.
Xiao Bei jammed down on the W key!
Rocket Jump!
Tristana, the Yordle Gunner, pointed her cannon to the ground as it erupted with a massive explosion, the force of which threw her high into the sky.
She was diving right into the enemy’s midst!
“What’s Tristana doing? Why’s she throwing herself at the enemy?”
Everyone watched the screen as Xiao Bei performed this wholly unfathomable move.
Wasn’t this basically committing suicide?
Tristana’s ‘Rocket Jump’ could move her a distance of nine hundred units—enough to drop her right into the heart of the enemy’s formation. Everyone was baffled by her seeming eagerness to meet her doom.
Boom, boom, boom!
As she came to ground, Tristana unleashed her fury upon Lee Sin!
Lee Sin had not expected Tristana to make such an aggressive move just to trade her life for his. Frantically, he tried to escape with his W-skill ‘Safeguard’.
Meanwhile, a great mass of writhing vines arose from beneath Tristana!
Zyra had used her ulti the instant Tristana leaped towards them. In another moment, the Stranglethorns were going to launch Tristana up into the air again!
If that happened, Tristana would be dead before she came back to ground—and then this game would really be over.
Xiao Bei’s teeth bit deeper into his lip. He tasted the sharp tang of blood.
Faster! Faster! Get a Critical Hit!
Hurry up and die, Lee Sin!
Boom! One final cannonball hurtled after Lee Sin, still wrapped in his golden energy shield.
In the late game, Tristana’s attack range was no laughing matter. Even though he’d dodged away with Safeguard, Lee Sin was still within her reach.
532! Critical Hit!
With both Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge augmenting her attacks, she’d managed to land a Critical Hit, which shattered through Lee Sin’s shield and ended his life!
Shut Down!
She’d done it!
W! W! W!
Xiao Bei rammed the W key, as the vines beneath Tristana’s feet tensed to spring. If he didn’t get her out of there right now, the effect could still catch her in mid-air!
Getting a Champion Kill would instantly end the cooldown on Rocket Jump!
At the instant of Lee Sin’s death, Tristana’s cannon flared again, and then she was soaring through the air, just barely escaping the combined wrath of Jayce, Ezreal, Orianna, and Zyra.
The vines lashed upwards, licking the soles of her feet. For a moment, Xiao Bei was unsure whether they’d actually hit him or not.
Tristana shot through the sky like a runaway comet… and the Stranglethorns failed to catch her, after all.
***
A sea of wide eyes stared up at the screen as Tristana performed this death-defying maneuver, escaping Zyra’s ulti by the skin of her teeth—not to mention all the skills being thrown out by the other enemy champions!1
With the first Rocket Jump, she’d left safety behind to dive into the fray.
With the second one, she’d thrown herself onto their rear line, crashing heavily onto Jayce and Orianna!
Still not far enough!
Two Rocket Jumps in a row totaled up to 1,800 units’ distance—she was still two hundred units short!
Bamf! Flash!
As Tristana touched down, Xiao Bei hit Flash!
Two thousand units. Against all odds, Tristana had made it two thousand units across the battlefield, starting out from in front of the enemy team to end up behind them!
Take aim…
The Yordle Gunner whirled around, leveling her cannon at Jayce and Orianna, both champions having just been badly Slowed down!
… Fire the ‘Buster Shot’!
Tristana’s cannon roared with fire. An enormous cannonball slammed heavily into her target!
Unable to dodge aside, Orianna and Jayce were sent tumbling away!
The devastating cannon fire left a trail of scorched earth.
Jayce and Orianna were both knocked back a thousand units’ distance!
Witnessing this turn of events, the crowd fell silent, completely baffled.
Then they saw, at the edge of the screen, the appearance of Kennen, charging in with Homeguard!
At first, Da Luo had been just as bewildered by Xiao Bei’s actions. However, when Tristana hopped behind the enemy formation, and then delivered Jayce and Orianna—the enemy’s key damage-dealers—right to his feet, Da Luo’s burning eyes flared like a thousand suns!
“Well done, Xiao Bei!” he roared. It was hard to tell which one held the greater fury—the champion, or the player.
“Ooh-hah!” That was the E-skill, ‘Lightning Rush’!
All of Da Luo’s frustration, he fed it into the storm raging around Kennen, and pushed forward to receive Xiao Bei’s gift!
A great lightning bolt descended from the heavens, coursing through Kennen’s body and forming a wide ring around him. It seemed to be crackling with all the energy Da Luo felt in his heart!
This was his ultimate skill, ‘Slicing Maelstrom’!
Lightning fell like rain, laying waste to everything around him!
All the enemy champions were enveloped within Kennen’s tempest. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked. The heavens themselves struck against his enemies! Jayce, Orianna, Zyra, and Ezreal were Stunned senseless!
The entire enemy team had been locked down within Kennen’s lightning storm!
“Yeah! That’s right!” Inspired by this perfect combo from Xiao Bei and Da Luo, Lin Dong was shaken from his stupor.
When all seemed lost, he’d found hope again. It was an indescribable sensation!
Da Luo had pulled off the perfect crowd-control effect. Anivia could now come in with her own ultimate skill, and catch all four enemy champions with it!
Lin Dong hit R, and the Cryophoenix batted her wings mightily!
This was her ‘Glacial Storm’!
Shards of jagged ice whirled around amid a blizzard of hailstones and frost, tearing the enemies to shreds while freezing their blood solid!
With all four remaining enemies trapped within the Glacial Storm, ice and lightning raging in unison, the enemy team’s health bars plummeted in free-fall!
Then Anivia used her Q-skill, ‘Flash Frost’!
Next, her E-skill, ‘Frostbite’!
She fired off these skills in rapid succession. The huge ice spike from ‘Frostbite’ impaled Jayce clean through!
Jayce had a magnificent set of equipment, true—but it was all for damage. He couldn’t withstand two ultimate skills compounded one upon another, and when Anivia’s Frostbite struck him, there was a horrific spurt of blood, and he toppled over in the blizzard with a muffled crack.
Shut Down!
After racking up countless Champion Kills for himself, Jayce’s kill-streak had finally been shattered!
The next Flash Frost sought out Orianna!
Unable to take so much as a single step, Orianna was rooted to the spot all the way until her death. The final blow came from Kennen’s Q-skill, ‘Thundering Shuriken’!1
Zyra fared no better. The fragile Support champion stood no chance against the full brunt of Kennen’s ulti. Soon, she was at death’s door, and one more skill from Kennen finished her off.
Three kills!
With Kennen and Anivia stacking their ultimate skills together, those three champions from Team Fudan were promptly wiped out. In spite of the differences in gear, the combined damage they produced together was enough to get the job done!
“There’s still Ezreal! Ezreal’s still alive!” Lin Dong hollered.
“He’s mine!” Tristana had less than half her health remaining, but she wasn’t worried about losing a head-to-head duel against Ezreal!
An Ezreal with a mana-focused item build could only dish out a paltry amount of burst damage, at least before he assembled a full set of six items. Against a Tristana with Bloodthirster, Infinity Edge, and Phantom Dancer—not to mention her ‘Rapid Fire’ skill fully maxed out—he just couldn’t compete!
In the face of Ezreal’s flurry of skills, Tristana just activated her Barrier as she pummeled away at him!
Two Critical Hits in a row, and Ezreal’s health was suddenly in dire straits!
Panicking, Lin Siyong hit Flash—but with Tristana’s incredible attack range, that still wasn’t enough to escape her.
Boom! One last cannonball came hurtling after him!
“Shut Down!” Another one down for the count.
***
“Ace!”
***
Ace! Team Fudan had been Aced!
Bam! “Outstanding!” Stricken mute up till this moment, Zhou Yan slammed both hands onto his keyboard, howling like a deranged beast!
Seeing the light of dawn from the depths of the abyss, it was a sight to set the heart afire!
Zhou Yan and Wu Sen had never imagined that Xiao Bei, Da Luo and Lin Dong could pull off such a flawless combination ulti!
Ace! They’d taken out the entire enemy team!
***
Across the screen, the word ‘ACE’ was a staggering sight to behold.
Everyone in the arena gaped, too stunned to applaud.
A flight across a distance of two thousand units, followed by an ulti over the shoulder to knock the enemy team into the waiting arms of your allies…
This feat alone had already left the whole audience gibbering with amazement. But neither the three thousand spectators present on the scene, nor the ten thousand more watching live online, had imagined that Team Skycrown, teetering on the very precipice of defeat, would suddenly pull off this unbelievable combo-ulti!
Who could have foreseen it?
Who could possibly have imagined that Team Fudan would suddenly suffer a turnaround massacre, slaughtered to the last man?
Now, every player on Team Fudan was staring blankly at a black-and-white display. As one, they were reliving the sight of Tristana’s flight overhead, while their ears still echoed with thunderclaps and howling winds.
Ace… To think that they’d been Aced!
The looks in their eyes bespoke utter confusion and disbelief!
***
“Heavens above! What a shocking performance by Team Skycrown! Is it even possible to see a more startling, more flawless combo than that?”
Qi Qiao’s voice echoed loudly through the hushed arena, jolting everyone out of their dazed stupor. A few scattered hoots rose up, swiftly growing into a deafening storm that rolled through the entire hall!