Chapter Eighty-Nine: Punishing Meng Tian at the Frontier

Wen Yang focused his attention on Mulan.

He wanted to see for himself how this Mulan would be blown apart.

“Rotate to the middle, grow quietly, avoid fighting. That’s fine; Mulan in the early game is no match for Montaigne.”

“The problem comes in this wave.” Wen Yang hit pause. “The opposing Montaigne reaches level four first and opens with a full combo on Mulan, who is still level three. Mulan’s idea of clearing the wave to hit level four and counterattacking is also correct. If she had cowered here and missed the minions, she would only have been pressured even harder.”

“This Montaigne handled tower damage avoidance and charge timing very well. The details are impeccable.”

After carefully watching the first exchange, Wen Yang let out a quiet sigh.

It really could not be said that Mulan was bad.

It could only be said that this Montaigne was too strong. In that tower-dive, if Wen Yang had been the one piloting Mulan, he would not have handled it any better.

After that, the tempo kept swinging toward Lin Hao’s Montaigne in wave after wave.

Since Wen Yang mainly focused on the bottom lane, his early-game tempo and Lin Hao’s were able to coexist, which led to a world of difference between the top and bottom lanes.

Wen Yang silently kept his view fixed on Lin Hao’s Montaigne and watched the whole match through to the end.

“Indeed impressive. There wasn’t a single mistake I could clearly pick out all game. In fact, many of his plays caught me off guard, yet the results were excellent.”

Wen Yang knew that the moment he began thinking this way, his own level was already beneath this Montaigne’s.

A jungler not understanding the side lanes was normal.

He glanced at Montaigne’s ID, Heartbeat Shared, and gave a bitter smile.

It really was shared heartbeat indeed.

Shaking his head, he started the next game.

...

Meanwhile, Lin Hao also queued into the next match.

After entering the game, the viewers were still lost in the sheer might of the previous Montaigne.

Lin Hao was in the fifth slot. Looking at his teammates’ usual picks, the side lane was still unfilled, so he simply typed, “I’ll play side lane.”

His teammates chose their heroes fairly decisively; from their confident manner, they seemed to be farming hero proficiency too.

When it was Lin Hao’s turn to lock in, he glanced at the barrage and said, “Weren’t you all still wanting to see another Montaigne game? I’ll give you one more.”

So Lin Hao instantly locked in Montaigne.

Still Montaigne?

The opposing fifth pick quickly secured Zhang Fei.

At that point, viewers who understood draft counters began examining the enemy lineup.

This game, the enemy was the red side, with Ma Chao, I Xing, Ju, Zhang Fei, and Marco Polo.

Lin Hao’s side was the blue side, with Montaigne, Han Xin, Jinchan, Liu Chan, and Gongsun Li.

Against this lineup, Montaigne would not have an easy time at all.

On the side lane, he would be facing Ma Chao. While Ma Chao did not suppress Montaigne the way Pigsy did, he had absurd movement speed and constant dashes, making him very hard for Montaigne to pin down, let alone solo-kill.

Then there was Marco Polo, even more elusive, arguably one of the marksmen that most restrained Montaigne.

There was also I Xing, whose ultimate could trap enemies in place, and the jungler Ju, who could vault across walls and rooftops...

So where exactly was this supposed to be easy?

Lin Hao said nothing. Silently, he changed his summoner spell from Flash to Smite.

Then, in his item presets, he found the second build he had prepared yesterday when he first obtained Montaigne’s skill.

It was the tank-jungling Smite build.

“Montaigne with Smite?”

“What kind of trick is this?”

Question marks began filling the barrage.

Lin Hao coughed twice and said, “Today I’m going to teach you all a side-lane Smite Montaigne setup.”

“The playstyle is actually very simple. The core principle is one thing: ruin the enemy jungle!”

“We start from the opening. If you want to leave base faster than everyone else and win at the starting line, you can do what I do and double-tap the screen continuously when the loading bar reaches one hundred percent.”

At that moment, the ten summoners on both sides were ready, and the screen shifted into the crystal interface of the King’s Canyon.

A clear, resonant female voice rang out: “Welcome to the King’s Summit.”

The viewers could see very clearly that while everyone else was still standing dumbly in the fountain, waiting for the camera to zoom in, Lin Hao’s Montaigne had already begun moving.

The air barrier shattered, and the call to “Advance!” rang out.

Lin Hao cast his second skill repeatedly, speeding out of base while also buying a pair of boots.

When he reached the area near the high-ground tower, he sold them again.

“This is another little trick for a faster opening,” he said. “For a short time at the start, items can be sold at full price in the high ground.”

“By buying boots first, you can get out of base a little faster.”

Lin Hao kept moving.

Before the two waves of minions had even met, and before the enemy wave had barely reached the first tower in the side lane, he was already there in defensive stance, waiting.

“Pay attention to the details.”

Lin Hao controlled Montaigne, charging while walking forward, stepping directly into tower range and thrusting out with a fully charged strike.

Then he took one step back, leaving tower range. At that moment, the tower shot struck Montaigne, and it could be seen that the energy bar he had already been charging suddenly surged, instantly filling to the top.

He continued to repeat the same pattern. Every spear thrust was timed to the rhythm: charge while stepping into tower range to take a hit, then the tower shot would land on Montaigne as he thrust out, and his rage would instantly fill.

“By using tower damage to stack rage quickly, you only need about thirty-two seconds to thrust four times and clear an entire wave!”

As he spoke, Lin Hao kept an eye on the Ma Chao opposite him.

That Ma Chao was not reckless. He had already come under Lin Hao’s tower and was exchanging lanes with Montaigne.

Lin Hao ignored him. His objective had been clear from the very beginning: the enemy jungle.

After clearing this wave, Lin Hao went straight into the enemy red side!

“He’s invading already?”

“Damn, isn’t this enemy setting up a trap?”

“Montaigne going into the jungle alone?”

The viewers were all in disbelief.

But when they thought of Montaigne’s massive damage reduction, they calmed down a little.

They did not fully understand his mechanics, but judging from Lin Hao’s performance in the previous game, he should be very confident about this red-side intrusion.

Lin Hao stepped into the red jungle and first saw Ju, who was auto-attacking the red buff. At that moment, the red buff had just dropped to a little over half health.

“Smart,” Lin Hao praised with a click of his tongue.

Seeing me bring Smite and immediately opening the jungle from the side-lane half, and not using Smite early, that was already a very fine detail.

But did it matter?

Lin Hao walked straight over, clearly intent on making a move on Ju’s red buff.

At that moment, Ju, still fighting the red buff, pulled back, while quietly holding his own Smite ready.