The Werewolf cut across Julia’s back, deliverio her death. There was not a shred of mercy or hesitation to be found in Rosemary’s calcuted movements. She was like a killing mae trained for murder from birth.

  “This ’t be happening...” Julia gritted her teeth. It’s all because she was Lv. 5! It’s all Dan’s fault for feeding her!

  Yeah, that’s right. Perhaps Julia didn’t make the best decisions in that situation, but clearly, this oute wasn’t only her fault. It’s the circumstahat preceded this py that affected this oute the most.

  Of course, it won’t be easy to vihe police officer with that...

  “ you please expin what you were thinking there?” Howard demanded. “I believe I told you to retreat.”

  “I-I tried...” Julia lowered her eyes.

  “Oh, you tried? Well, how nice of you! Thank you for listening to my shot call a whole mioo te.”

  “W-Well, I thought I’d be able to handle her...”

  “Oh, really? And how did that go?”

  “N-Not very well, I guess...” Julia felt herself shrinking in the presence of the judge. She didn’t have a single goument to fire back except for shifting the bme on Dan. “I-It wasn’t really all my fault, though!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, I should’ve been able to get away from her no problem,” Julia expined. “That is, if she wasn’t a freakin’ Lv. 5! That wasn’t supposed to be a thing so early into the game! It’s all because Dan is feeding!”

  “Dang, right in the feels...” Dan smiled wryly.

  “I agree, Dan also messed up big time,” Howard said. “But, his ‘mistakes’ were that much harder to avoid. The truth is, Rosemary deserves a lot of credit for pulling off all these surprise attacks.”

  “Y-Yeah!” Dan almost teared up at that evaluation. Just as he was falling into the absolute pits of despair, where it felt like everything bad that happened in this game was his, the captain actually stood up to him!

  “Don’t worry, Dan,” Howard added. “We’ll analyze your pys iail ter. It’s not like you’re exempt from criticism.”

  “True, haha...”

  “But anyway,” Howard tinued. “You’re right, Julia. That situation was a little unusual for su early stage in the game.”

  “Totally!” Julia rongly, thinking she finally made a dent in Howard’s unbreakable defense. As, she was wrong...

  “First of all, you should’ve dohe minimal amount of researd checked Rosemary’s stats before even thinking about engaging her in bat,” Howard criticized. “If you just looked at her exp, it should’ve been easy to do 1 + 1 and figured she’ll hit Lv. 5 after killing Dan.”

  “That’s... fair, I guess.” With that, Julia lost the one and only ter-argument she had. She tried to pass most of the bme onto Dan’s feeding, but Howard wasn’t having any of it.

  “But seriously,” Julia insisted. “I couldn’t even imagine her being Lv .5 this early into the game. Like, what the heck? That makes no sense! Just how much did that girl farm??? It’s crazy stuff.”

  “As I said, I agree it was an unusual situation,” Howard repeated. “But, I clearly told you to retreat, didn’t I? I believe I did it right away.”

  “Right, you did...” Julia didn’t have a single terargument to this. Indeed, Howard very clearly ordered her to retreat before things went south for real. The guy reized it was a terrible situation at a gnce.

  “If you retreated as soon as I told you, you would’ve made it out alive without any problem. The Werewolf probably wouldn’t even have bothered to chase you.”

  “Maybe...”

  “You uand that this mistake is going to cost us a lht?” Howard asked. “You might’ve sealed the fate of the entire game with your own two hands.”

  “Nah, you’re exaggerating...” Julia tried to reassure herself but her voice came out surprisingly weak. At the back of her mind, she uood that Howard might be right. Her death might, indeed, cost the team dearly.

  Dan also died twice so far, but he was the Jungler. Sure, losing him for a while was also a huge blow to the team, but it wasn’t remotely as bad as losing a ner.

  Julia’s death meant nobody was there to defend Mid right now. And, the Jungler couldn’t rotate over there to repce her either because he was freakin’ dead.

  Thus, in the wave, the enemy had full freedom to push Mid without aance. And, Rosemary opted to do exactly that. She stayed in the ne and helped the Sage to swiftly kill all the ining minions. After that, the duo pushed forth with nobody there to test them.

  “AWOOOOO!” the Werewolf howled loudly, boosting the power and speed of her attacks.

  As a css that heavily relied on basics, Werewolf was great at demolishing towers despite not being a marksman. So, if left untested, Mid tower was going to suffer immense damage from this push.

  But, not under my watch. Howard entered Mid right as the enemy was invading the tower area. There was no way in hell he’d let this push go untested, so he rotated over here to intervene.

  As usual, Rosemary was expressing her efficy with the push. She charged into the tower area as soon as the first swordsman crossed the lihis girl refused to let even a single millised go to waste.

  To punish her for her rashness, Howard summoned an ice wall. He pced it perfectly to isote Rosemary from the rest of her army.

  The girl now found herself practically alone iower area. There was only one swordsman by her side who was in charge of tanking the tower’s shots, but otherwise, she was isoted.

  Perhaps for the first time in this game, this was a move that actually gave that wolfwoman a pause.

  A strong move. Fiona appuded her oppo. She was fident she would have an easy time demolishing the tower, yet Aegis showed up just in time to throw a wren her pns. As expected, his defense is airtight but in a very different way from Cato’s.

  Cato would have done everything in his power to prevent such a situation from in the first pce. He would have ordered all his chess pieces to bolster their defenses from the get-go and focus wholly on defleg any ining attacks.

  Oher hand, Aegis was more about adaptive defense. He gave his pieces retively more freedom, but he made sure to stantly monitor their status and cover up all the holes in their defenses.

  Most of the time, his dynamic defense prevented disasters like these. He would either tell his allies to retreat in a timely fashion, or he would have somebody rotate to the area to provide aid.

  In the worst-case sario, when something fell apart, Aegis would generally take matters into his own hands. He was not only a strong defeacti, but also a strong defender otlefield itself.

  He must have started rotating over here a while ago, back when I was still chasing Venus. Fiona deduced. It means he foresaw that clusion from a mile away. Impressive.

  But, if this were a regur rotation, then Fiona should have noticed it in advance. Karen and Lua would have informed the team about the enemy missing from the ne.

  Aegis was aware of that as well, therefore he covered up his rotation with a trip to the Wolf Camp near Bot. He and Athena headed over there together uhe pretense of farming the camp, which they may or may not have done.

  Regardless, at some point, they must have goheir separate ways. Atheo Bot, while Aegis rotated to Mid.

  To effitly mask their iions, Athena took her sweet time returning to the his kept the Valkyries in the dark just long enough fis’ rotation to be ued.

  Truly, Aegis stood head and shoulder above the rest of the pyers in StormBlitz. He was not the type of shot-caller to craft plex pns, but he was extremely capable of ruining other short-callers’ pns.

  Such as mi this very moment. Fiona frowhis was the first time sihe start of the game that she failed to anticipate a developmeed to her schedule.

  In Fiona’s head, the few moves had already pyed out clearly. She nning to assault the Mid Turret with Andria’s help. Then, after redug the tower to about 30%, the minions would perish and Fiona would move on to ter-jungling. It was a fwless pn.

  As, Aegis’s arrival ruined everything. Now, Fiona could no longer push, not without running the risk of getting shot down by the turret.

  At the moment, only one minion separated between her and the tower. The others were currently busy cirg the ice wall Aegis created, so it’d take them a few more moments to arrive in the area.

  So, ohe leading swordsman bites the dust, the tower’s full attention will fall on Fiona. And, of course, Aegis wahat to happen. So, he unleashed Icicle Rain on the sole swordsman to take him down even faster.

  BAM! A huge bolt smashed into the swordsman! In the moment, the man was on the ground without any signs of life. Now, Fiona was left all alone inside eerritory.

  But, of course, she did not spend all this time idling about. While the Turret and Aegis were busy eliminating the swordsman, Fiona made her way to the edge of the tower area. She had to retreat as soon as possible.

  Once she circled the ice wall, she leapt forward with Grievous Assault. There was no actual target ahead of her, but the skill still allowed her to jump forward quickly.

  After that, she also used Dodge Roll to cover even more distance. ing two movement skills might have seemed like overkill, but she had to get out of the area without receiving a single instance of damage from the Turret.

  I have to keep all the HP I have. Fiona g the risky 50% she was running oing hit by the tower even once would reduce her below 40%, which was definitely undesirable.

  I have to adjust my schedule posthaste. Fiona closed her eyes for a moment, erasing all the pnned lines of py from her head. She had to rethink everything from square one.

  It was clear to her that this push had run its course, so there was nothing more to achieve here. As such, Fio her eyes on the objective.

  "Andria, you will have to tihis push by yourself," Fiona informed. "I pn to take their Ogre Camp in the meantime."

  "Oh, are you leaving me all by my lonesome self, o fair dy?" Andria preteo be hurt. "And here I thought we were going to quer this tether."

  "With Aegis here, that is no longer possible."

  "Is it so? ‘Tis still a fine 2v1 situation."

  "Yes," Fiona agreed. "Against any other oppo, it might have been worth pushing regardless. However, defense is Aegis’ trade. He will surely make all the right moves to block us out."

  "Yes, that does sound in lih our analysis of his previous scrims. He is the paragon of defes very maion."

  "So, there is nothing more to be done in this position," Fiona said matter-of-factly. "I must move forward to the py."

  "Uood.” Andria bowed. “Have a safe trip, your majesty."

  "Thank you."

  While the versation was taking pce, Fiona already ehe enemy side of the jungle. Soon, she will reach the enemy Ogre Camp. In this position, that was the most optimal py she found.

  With that said, sidering her current HP and the fact she had to spend Grievous Assault to get out of the tower area, this py was definitely on the riskier side. However, there was a way to guarahe enemy would not have any terpy for it.

  "Karen, Lua," Fiona called out. "Please stick close to the eower area even after you are done pushing."

  "Wait," Karen started. "Are you finally giving the green light to fight this annoying turtle!?"

  "Not quite. I simply need you to keep her occupied. In particur, I want you to block her access to the jungle, so she ot interfere with my pns."

  "Oh, I see what you’re cooking!" Karen grinned. "Alrighty, no problem! It'll be done."

  "Thank you."

  With that, the stage was set. Andria kept Aegis occupied in Mid, whereas Karen and Lua locked down Athena in Bot. With this setup, none of the enemies will be able to interfere with Fiona's otherwise risky ter-jungling.

  The enemies soon figured out exactly what was going down, but they were helpless to do anything about it.

  So, she's going after the ogres. Howard frowned. A risky py, sidering her remaining HP and the fact she spent both of her skills.

  Without the burst damage of Grievous Assault and the power buff of Chilling Howl, Rosemary was in for a tough fight against the ogres.

  Werewolf was rgely a basic-attack-focused Jungler, but that mainly applied for the mid/te-game. During the early-game, Werewolf had to rely on its skills to dish out good damage. Therefore, at this early point in the game, Rosemary was bound tle against the camp.

  Normally, a slow ter-jungling like that would be very punishable, but... Howard couldn't actually do anything about Rosemary's bold invasion. Nobody was avaible to punish this hooligan.

  In Mid, Howard had his hands full dealing with PrinceCharming, who was uncharacteristically aggressive despite being alone in the his girl was usually on the cautious side, yet here she ulling out all the stops.

  Is she letting herself run loose because we have no Jungler? Howard wondered. Or, is this all part of a bigger distra tactic?

  In a very simir way, the enemy duo in Bot decided to push harder than usual. That one wasn’t as surprising sidering their Carry was clearly itg for a fight ever sihe game started, but the timing was still suspicious.

  Was this aggression even going to achieve anything big right now? No, probably not. If anything, it would only give Ellen some opportuo deal damage to the aggressors in case they overextend.

  As such, this also felt like a part of a rger distra tactic. The goal wasn't so much to push as it was to keep StormBlitz busy.

  And, in the meantime, Rosemary gets to steal res. Hrumped. She’s got everything figured out, huh.

  From the very start of this game, this so-called " Princess" has been dictating the pace. All her ply linked each other and delivered a heavy blow to StormBlitz.

  It all started with the ued early kill on Dan, and things have been snowballing out of trol sihen. So, at this point, even when Rosemary was clearly taking a risk, it was nigh impossible to punish her.

  But, that doesn't mean I won't try. Howard left Mid immediately after dealing with the minions. He dashed to the Ogre Camp as fast as possible, he eve his Dodge Roll to get there a little faster.

  Maybe I catch her on the way out...! Howard had to deliver some sort of punishment on that cocky Werewolf. That girl had been farming StormBlitz's jungle all day long as if she owhe pce. She had to be taught a lesson!

  As, Howard didn't make it. By the time he got to the Ogre Camp, its tents were already emptied and there was no sign of Rosemary.

  Hrm. She didn't head in this dire and none of the wards spotted her on the way out. Hoieced together all the avaible information. So, she recalled. Yeah, that makes the most sense.

  The Werewolf departed for now, but she was soon going to return strohan ever. How was StormBlitz going to deal with this menace...?

  DarkestCymore