While William only tributed to the ug of war by nding a couple of basic attacks, Ronald hit the entire wave at oh his Ray of Light.

  The AoE torched the entire enemy wave, and it dealt det damage thanks to the power in his build. For all is and purposes, his farming speed was nearly on par with that of an early-game Mid Laner.

  "Hehe." Ronald grinned. "Did you see how I cleared almost the entire ne myself? It was all me, bro!"

  "Yes, yes, very impressive." William rolled his eyes.

  "Damn right!” Ronald nodded. “And to think that Cato still says that building early power is trash for Support. Hah! In your face, dumbass! Just look at this result!"

  "I don’t think I ever called it a 'trash' build," Catued. "You better get your ears checked, boy."

  ", you always nag me about this shit."

  "Yeah, because it's ineffit," Cato expined. "You're only enjoying the damage for now while ft power is better than sg. But, by all means, show me your ‘amazing’ damage again whe the mid-game. I’ll wait."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. It’ll fall off and stuff. But, until then...!"

  "Until then, you're wasting yold on building items that will be borderline worthless ie-game. But, you do you."

  "You bet I will! We gonna domihe h my mega clearing speed!"

  As extreme as it sounded, it was no exaggeration. At this early point in the game, Ronald’s clearing speed was impressive enough to domihe ne. He ft-out outcleared everybody else in Bot, which allowed his side to gain the early momentum.

  Against his unparalleled power, the enemy has no choice but to flee in terror!

  "Let's retreat," Yuel said. "They won this round."

  "Tch, what a bummer." Lars pouted. "I was even doing such a good job zoning the Droid, but this Lumi just woke up and chose violence. Impressive damage tho, not gonna lie."

  "Yes, it is quite oppressive," Yuel agreed.

  This oppressive damage showed off Lumimancer's potential as a viable Mid Laner. His Ray of Light delivered sizable AoE DoT and it liked ft power.

  However, the power sg of Ray of Light was rather poor. It was the main thing that held Lumimancer back from being a viable piid.

  But, Challenger is pying Support, not Mid. Yuel analyzed. He's probably pnning to switore traditional support build once we get into the mid-game. I 't say I'm a fan of his approach, but it IS a viable tactic. I’ve seen it a few times even in the pro se.

  With that said, given the Leopards’ game pn, it was odd that Cato approved of su aggressively early-game build. AbsoluteChallenger was stag early power that'll bee borderline useless ier stages of the game. Therefore, this build was literally the opposite of pying the long game.

  In fact, out of everybody in the Leopards, Challenger was the only one fog on the early-game here. Was that iional? Or, was he just a disobedient troublemaker?

  Somehow, I feel like it's the tter. For the better or the worse, Yuel had his fair share of experieg various different troublemakers py Cssmancers. Therefore, he was fairly fident about branding Challenger as a troublemaker who ighe rest of his team in favor of pushing his own agenda.

  I assume he’s the “filler” for their team. Yuel deduced. He’ll probably be the ohey sub out ohe Koreaeps in.

  If true, then Challenger was nothing but a warm-up for the real challenge ahead. Therefore, he wasn't allowed to stump Stratus in any shape or form.

  The harder we shut him down, the more the Leopards will feel the o sub him for Appre least, that’s what I think.

  "Keep zoning the Droid," Yuel said. "I'll hahe Lumimancer."

  "Okey-dokey!"

  The minion wave arrived. Like before, Challenger cast Ray of Light around the entire wave. Torg sunlight burned both the swordsmen and the bowmen.

  However, Yuel didn’t allow it to st. He cast Gaia’s Prote, c himself with a shield made of braheepped into the bzing light. The sequences were immediate.

  The sunlight burned his shield, sapping at its HP. Even though Yuel himself didn’t lose any HP from this, the allied minions still sidered this an atta him.

  And so, they banded against the offender - Challehey charged straight at the guy, leaving the area torched Ray of Light.

  Needless to say, this threw a wren Challenger’s pns.

  “Heh, so that’s how they py.” Ronald grinned. “Pretty smooth. But, also kinda annoying, not gonna lie.”

  Thanks to Chessmaster victimizing himself, the entire enemy army was angry with Ronald for no good reason. The little dudes charged at him like an angry mob ing to execute a criminal.

  To make it worse, Ronald built Attack Power over HP and Defeherefore, the minions’ attacks were going to hurt that much more.

  “Yikes, I gotta scram!” Ronald backpedaled, all the while firing balls of light at the approag mob. “What a nasty trick, seriously”

  Chessmaster’s little ploy messed everything up. It nullified Ronald’s amazing clearing speed because the miniohe range of Ray of Light, and it also put Ronald himself in jeopardy. What a pain, dang it!

  “It sure slows us down,” William said. “But, we use this to our advantage. Lure them toward me and I’ll pce a drone.”

  “Okay, got it.” Ronald led the approag mob like a shepherd, drawing them toward his brother.

  In the meantime, William summoned an Assault Drone. And, u time, he didn’t order the droo follow him around, as that proved to be too risky.

  Instead, the drone ced on the field as a stationary object. When pced like this, the drone will not budge from its fixed position, which was either a good thing or a bad thing depending ouation.

  In this particur sario, it was far more advantageous to pce the drone in a fixed spot, far away from Gunz’s reach. With the drone residing this deep within the allied territunz would have to overextend in order to shoot it down.

  And so, the drone safely popped up at the designated location and started shooting at the ining minions.

  In this stationary mode, the drone had a mind of its own and targeted enemies with the same priority a minion would. Therefore, the drone shot ser beams at the minions first. Namely, the swordsmen.

  Not optimal, but good enough for now. William nodded in satisfa as he opened fire at the bowmen in the back.

  Normally, besides the minion-like AI, a stationary drone would prioritize the Droid’s targets. However, in this case, it was impossible. The bowmeoo far in the back at the moment, so the drone couldn’t reach them.

  As such, the drone defaulted to the usual minion AI priority and tinued shooting the swordsmen. However, that was far from ideal and William wahat fixed ASAP.

  “Ron, draw the bowmen closer to the drone.”

  “W on it!”

  Ronald drew the minions deeper and deeper until the bowmen finally stepped within the drone’s attack range. , William and the drone joined forces to elimihe entire enemy bae first.

  Thankfully, William didn’t have to test his drone for st-hits. Any kill scored by the drone ted as William’s own kill, including the st-hit bonus. This made the euation rather ve.

  Frankly, this is much easier than rag against Ron’s spell. William admitted. I even missed a couple of st-hits in the previous wave because his spell dealt too much damage.

  pared to that, farming alongside the drone was an easy life. This was the true way Droid was desigo be pyed.

  With that said, even with the drone helping him, all of William’s damage was siargeted. Oher hand, the enemy side had a nice way to hit the entire wave in one shot.

  BAM! Gunz unleashed Backfire on. The big shell bsted through the entire minion wave.

  Dang! Ronald pouted. They gonna outclear us at this rate! Our flippin' drone is taking way too long to do any real damage!

  It was such a shitshow. Ronald went for a power build in order to domihe ne, not to lose it against some me shit like this…!

  "Hey, bro!” Ronald called out. "This is taking way too long, so I'mma go in too."

  "That's unnecessary-"

  "Too te!" Ronald activated Blinding Light, coating himself in whiteness. Then, he used Fsh and blinked right into the middle of the enemy formation!

  All the minions still had their eyes on Ronald, so they raised their ons to strike the reckless prey! But of course, he didn’t let them to. His Blinding Light exploded faster than the minions delivered their attacks.

  Whiteness exploded from Ronald, blinding all the minions around him. For a moment, all of them lost track of their target and lowered their ons. For a few seds, not a single one of them was going to hit Ronald.

  "Huehue, did you see that tight timing, bro!?" Ronald grinned. "I disarmed them i moment!"

  "As impressive as it’s unnecessary." William shrugged.

  ", don't be like that, bro. I even timed it so it hits right after you score a st-hit on that st bowman. It erfect!”

  "It was meically impressive, sure. But, leaving the st-hits to me is a given, not an achievement.”

  "Haha, okay. I see you aren't gonna praise my awesome py no matter what, huh."

  "There just isn’t much to praise there." William shrugged. "I know yood enough to pull pys like this, so it’s nothing new. I mean, I only allow you to py wild like this as my Support because I trust you to do things properly."

  "Aww, bro~ o ftter me so much."

  "Seriously?" William made a face. That's why I hate giving any praise. It always goes to his head. Sigh.

  With all that said, William did think positively of Ronald’s performance overall. Despite pying an off-meta supp style, Ronald was doing a good job living up to the expectations of a traditional meta Support.

  Meanwhile, there was someone else oeam who was far less impressed with how things were developing in Bot.

  "Ronald, how did you lose so much MP so early?" anded.

  "Oh brother, here es the nagger..." Ronald rolled his eyes. "Well, how do YOU think I lost MP? By casting spells, duh. I made some sick pys and stuff."

  "My, 'sick pys', you say." Cato opened up the list of Ronald's skills. As he feared, all three of the Lumimancer’s spells were on cooldown. "Did you really just dump your e on one enemy wave?"

  "Haha, sure did!"

  "What for, exactly?"

  "Well, you see..." Ronald summarized the uation. "So, with how things developed, I had to even things out!"

  "In other words," Cato said. "You wasted a lot of preP for no good reason."

  "Pretty much," William agreed.

  "Whaaaa?" Ronald pouted. ", seriously? Are you two certified bullies or something? Because I'm sure feeling bullied right now."

  "Maybe you shouldn’t make stupid pys, and then we won’t have anything to criticize you for. Ever thought of that?”

  “Hah, fat ce,” Ronald said. “Even if I py better than the best pro out there, you two would still nitpiething. I’m like 1,000,000% sure.”

  “Hmm. I ’t deny it’s a possibility,” itted. “But, jokes aside, you seriously have to take better care of your MP.”

  "But, look how awesome that py was!" Ronald insisted. "We woire hanks to it."

  Just as he said, the damage he delivered with Blinding Light strongly shifted the ne advantage in their favor. It was only thanks to this marvelous py that their side outcleared the enemy Pirate, a bruh who had access to AoE damage via Backfire on.

  So yeah, it’s only thanks to Ronald’s amazing execution and brave effort that the brothers earheir sed victory in the hey were 2-0, baby!

  "My, you sure make it sound like you did such good work,” Cato said. “10/10 effort, no doubt,”

  "Right? Right?"

  "Now tell me, sidering the MP cost of this entire routine, how many more times do you think you repeat it before you burn yourself out?"

  "Welp, probably not too many," Ronald admitted. "But hey, it's the message that ts, right? I showed them that me and bro outclear them every time, so they won’t even try to test us again!"

  "Oh, my sweet summer child. I wish our oppos were that braindead."

  Uhat brainless buffoon, Cato was capable of reading a few steps ahead. That’s why he khis situation wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows like Ronald believed.

  And surely, Yuel reached the same clusion on his end.

  “Yo! You saw that?” Lars excimed. “Dude straight up blinked into the middle of the wave while everybody and their moms were aggro’d on him! But, they couldn’t even hit him because of that fsh! Sick py!”

  “Yeah, I saw it,” Yuel said. “As far as execution is sidered, I agree it was retively impressive.” But, it’s just a cocky show-off. There was no real substance behind that py. It didn’t solve anything for them.

  Although Challenger’s slibo of Blinding Light + Fsh allowed him to ree adva came with a great MP cost. The Lumimancer was already down to 70% MP after just two waves.

  He won’t be able to keep this up for long. Yuel thought. So, this isn’t a real solution for him. I keep tering his AoE with the same tactid wait for his MP to run dry.

  And so, in the wave, Yuel nning to do exactly that. Until the enemy es up with a real answer, he was going to force them to repeat this unfavorable routine. Over, and over, and ain.

  DarkestCymore