It was Nasus versus Riven in the top lane! Nasus, the jackal-headed monster who needed time to scale, and Riven. Riven was an early game beast, especially if she got that first kill. That was why the towerdive earlier with her Jungler was so important. And they got that all important kill! The kill that could make the lane! If only the Riven had gotten it. But she hadn’t. The Jarvan IV had. And in the process, they’d given two kills to the Nasus. Now, the Riven found herself up against a Nasus with two kills. A Nasus who’d gotten enough gold to buy items with health and armour. There wasn’t much she could do in this matchup anymore.

The Jarvan IV had gotten the kill on the Nasus. He might’ve lost his double buffs, but he got that important kill. It was enough for him to stay relevant. More importantly, he could go and fight in another lane, a winning lane, and get back into it again. But this wasn’t the case for the Riven. There was nothing she could do but sit in top lane and face off against a Nasus she couldn’t kill anymore, waiting for the game to reach the point where she fell into the pits of futility. She didn’t even dare to step up to the Nasus anymore. His Siphoning Strike was quickly becoming the most powerful skill in the game.

✹

Lin Feng focused on farming his Siphoning Strike. Siphoning Strike was perhaps the most important skill on Nasus. This was not for its power at the start, but for what it could become. Every time Siphoning Strike whacked a monster, minion, or Champion to the next life, its power increased. This stacked indefinitely. Lin Feng was calm and confident, smiling. But Su Xue wasn’t as convinced and had mumbled more than a few complaints. So Lin Feng turned to her and explained, “Don’t worry! Things are only just getting started! Nasus needs at least 300 stacks on his Siphoning Strike! That’s what I’m getting right now. I just push this lane and get stronger, all the way until I destroy the nexus. And if a teamfight breaks out somewhere, then I have my teleport and can jump into the action. I’ll clean house, get more kills and more stacks and then go back to farming in my lane. It’s easy. Really!”

Su Xue shook her head and sighed. “You know, I normally have some confidence in you. And you sure sound believable. If not for the fact I just saw you look up a guide on your phone…”

“Oh, that? Don’t worry about that,” Lin Feng laughed, waving her worries away with his arm. “It’s been a while. I was just making sure I was doing this right. No worries, haha!”

Su Xue looked at Lin Feng and then back at the game. She bit on the inside of her lips. He looks confident, it’s just that… It was just that his actions didn’t match his confidence. So she asked, “A-are you really sure?”

“Ease up a little! Haha! Have I ever let you down? My Nasus is great. I told you already! Just have a little faith in me,” Lin Feng replied. Then he paused for a moment. He nodded to his phone and asked, “Oh, uh, can you maybe open that guide again and tell me what items I should get? I forgot…”

Su Xue was about to fire off a sling of insults, fighting the very real urge of tearing Lin Feng a new asshole. But then she gave up. This kid is hopeless… She shook her head and grumbled a little, quietly enough so that Lin Feng couldn’t hear her, but still grabbed his phone and opened the guide. A deep breath to force away the last of her annoyance and then she said, “First you want to buy…”

Lin Feng soaked up the knowledge Su Xue was instilling by narrating the guide. It didn’t go into too much depth. Just the basics. From what his skills did to which items to buy in which situations. As for how to play specific matchups, there were only general tips. This was to be expected. It was impossible to line out every single possible scenario. This was also a depth of detail Lin Feng didn’t care for. He wasn’t going to play how some guide told him to. He had his own playstyle and would stick to that.

When Lin Feng took his first steps into the professional League of Legends scene back in Season 1, it was under the guidance of One. One told him back then that he was good enough to play any of the five roles in a League of Legends match, but that his particular playstyle was especially suited for mid lane. That, in combination with the team he was joining being in need of a Midlaner, was how the initial decision of becoming a Midlaner was made. As for why he still wanted to play the mid lane now, four years later, that was a lot simpler. Rake. The best Midlaner in the world and his rival. He was going to beat Rake. And to do that, he had to play in the mid lane.

✹

At 5:30 minutes, Lin Feng had pushed the Riven far underneath her tower. He was farming the Red minions that charged at him. Then, he Siphoning Striked another minion to the afterlife. It gave his Nasus the last bit of experience needed to hit Level 6. This was a turning point for Nasus. His ultimate skill made him a true raid boss, granting him health, armour, magic resistance, cooldown reduction, and attack range! Tanking an energy shot from a tower suddenly wasn’t all that daunting anymore. And as if on cue, the Riven decided this was the best time to take a step out from under her tower to last hit two low health minions.

“Oh? Is she stupid?” Lin Feng asked, confused. He pressed down on his R key–Fury of the Sands! A frightening sandstorm brewed around his Nasus and then exploded out around him, grains of sand piercing the Riven and damaging her! The Nasus transformed into an ancient ascended being, doubling in size! He raised his staff and slammed down on the Riven–Siphoning Strike! Then he raised his staff again to call forth a ring of ghastly flames! The Spirit Fire exploded on the ground beneath the Riven’s feet. Her armour dropped! Her magic resist dropped! Her health sunk!

The Riven forgot to use her Ki Burst to stun the Nasus. Instead, she turned around and dashed away–Valor! But Lin Feng wouldn’t just let her get away. He cast Wither on her, turning this woman in the spring of her life into an old lady. She needed her sword as a walking stick as her speed dropped drastically. The Nasus caught up to her and hit her with one auto attack. Then another auto attack. Her health dropped low enough. One more Siphoning Strike and she’d be dead. The Nasus raised his staff and then brought it down, whacking her back to the fountain.

《You have slain an enemy!》

“Oh, man! I love it when the other laner just feeds me a kill!” Lin Feng laughed as he had his Nasus walk out of tower range. After the last energy shot hit him, he still had more than a third of his health remaining. More than enough to feel comfortable.

✹

Zeal heard the kill announcement. It came from top lane again. This Nasus was now 3/1/0. It was starting to become annoying. He moved his camera to the top lane. His eyes twitched. The Riven’s corpse was underneath her own outer tower. She wasn’t even towerdiving. She was being dove by a Nasus. Not even six minutes into the game a Nasus towerdove her! “This is fucking ridiculous! How bad is this Riven?” he cursed.

Ron scratched his hair and said, “Yeah. Very. But this Nasus is going to become really strong like this. We’re going to have to shut him down soon. It doesn’t matter how fed we get. If that Nasus becomes any bigger, there’s nothing we can do. He’ll just throw a Wither on you and chase you down. Look at his stacks! At this speed, he’s going to one hit you…”

Zeal looked at top lane. He couldn’t care for bot lane right now. Bot lane was easy. He barely had to pay attention. But this top lane. His gaze turned cold. CN•Maple, huh? Just you wait… He then turned to Ron and said, “It’s fine. We’re going to ignore top for now. It’s that Riven’s own fault for being an idiot and tower diving so early on. Let’s just get this bot tower down and then move mid.”

There was good reasoning behind Zeal’s decision. The longer the game went on, the more difficult it’d become to stop the Nasus. So they had to end the game early. That meant destroying the enemy Nexus. Or, for a more immediate objective, taking down outer towers. First the one in bot lane, which was easy. They’d just killed the Nami and the Tristana couldn’t do anything to stop them on her own. Then they’d go mid and help their Midlaner take the Blue team’s outer tower down. However, there was one flaw with this plan. It didn’t take the Nasus and Riven into consideration. More specifically, this plan only worked if the Riven could at least hold onto her lane and not give away any further kills. This obviously wasn’t going to happen. She’d just died underneath her own tower!

At 8 minutes, the Riven didn’t even dare to show her face in lane. Lin Feng was working on last hitting the minions to build up the stacks of his Siphoning Strike, while looking at the map, at the wards he’d placed around the vicinity of top lane. Then he turned to Su Xue and explained, “See, the minion wave is pushed up a little. I froze it nicely just outside of their tower range. She can’t come here to farm, so she has to go somewhere else. Now, we know she just backed. So the most likely place she’s going to go to is the Krugs camp right next to her lane.” He sat up straight in his chair and smiled the smile of a bad man. “So let’s go and sit in the brush right next to it and wait for her there. You’ll see. She’ll come.”

Sometimes it felt like Lin Feng had a magic ball that told him the future, because it went exactly as he predicted. The Riven walked into her own jungle, over a ward placed by Lin Feng. She made a beeline for the Krugs and started attacking them. Monsters without intelligence. Her own focus dropped. She just wasn’t expecting the Nasus to be here. But he was.

Lin Feng pressed on the R key–Fury of the Sands! A frightening sandstorm brewed around his Nasus and then exploded out around him, grains of sand piercing the Riven and damaging her! The Nasus transformed into an ancient ascended being, doubling in size! He raised his staff to call forth a ring of ghastly flames! The Spirit Fire exploded on the ground beneath the Riven’s feet. Her armour dropped! Her magic resist dropped! Her health sunk! Then came the soul-shattering whack. A purple fire lit up on the top of Nasus’ staff as he raised it up above his head. Siphoning Strike! Space itself trembled as it came crashing down on the Riven. The spirits wailed in anguish! The mighty blow smashed down on the Riven!

《Killing Spree!》

The announcer’s voice boomed across Summoner’s Rift, informing all 10 players of the Nasus’ feat! A killing spree! The Riven was annoyed, Lin Feng’s teammates were happy, and Zeal. Well, Zeal was red with anger. Steam came off his head. He threw his mouse at the wall next to him and shouted, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS STUPID BITCH DOING? FUCKING INTER! FUCK!” He grabbed his mouse from the ground and moved it around. It still worked. Then he shook his head and cursed, “Does this fucking bitch want to lose? What the fuck is wrong with her. All she has to do is not feed and we can carry this. But no, this stupid waste of oxygen feels the fucking need to feed the Nasus. Oh my fucking god, how stupid is she!”