1 Worlds for the Tenth Time

"Flank here! Peel for me! No, wrong way!" Yu Pengkai spammed his Q key in hopes that his ranged attack could steal the Medusa over the wall, doing his best to block out the searing pain in his wrists. The instant enemy execution buff was their team's ticket back into the game and his last chance to make a mark at the Kings of Valor World Championship stage.

"We have no vision!" His teammate protested.

"My Ultimate isn't up yet!" Another teammate added, obviously unwilling to potentially add another death count to his already pitiful statistics.

"My Strike does 820 damage. Their jungler's Strike does 950!"

"This is suicide!"

"Now isn't the time to be doubting!" Yu Pengkai gritted his teeth, quickly glancing at the sidebar with his peripheral vision. They were down to their last two towers and at a 6K gold deficit. Not to mention, their base was nearly half gone, with only three lone inhibitors standing at half health.

If the enemy team took the Medusa as well, there was no question that they would immediately try to end and storm the ally Castle without a second thought. Yu Pengkai knew their tactics all too well. After all, only at last year's World Championships, he wore their team's uniform.

He cleared his throat.

"Well, it's either we risk it, or we lose!" Yu Pengkai found anger boiling up inside himself, his tone a harsh command, making it clear that they had no other option.

His teammates were young. Protecting their KDA meant a chance to sign a better team next season. They could afford to lose this game. He couldn't.

"Three…"

"Two..."

"One…"

If they were going to win this game and make it to World Quarterfinals, they were going to need a miracle. And no matter what, he was going to make it happen.

He took a deep breath and popped the blast plant.

Their five-member team jumped into the pit to find the awaiting enemy champions attacking the Medusa, now at 4000 HP.

From his position, as long as the rest of his team tanked the attacks, he knew he would be able to fire exactly two skills. With those two shots, he could kill the enemy team's fed mid-laner, and his jungler would have the opportunity to contest the Medusa buff. By then, his Ultimate would become fully charged, and the game would be saved. He had it calculated down to the split second.

It all made so much sense at the time, and his fingers flew across the keyboard without hesitation, the actions ingrained within his muscles from ten years of practice. His entire life, he had been just training for this single moment.

He narrowed his eyes in concentration, taking in the entire fight all at once while somehow simultaneously focusing on his own champion.

"An ally has been slain." Their support was down.

He landed his first arrow. The fiery red hit with a sizzle, and the blue bar of the enemy mid laner was reduced to 100 HP. Just one more shot, and there would be no one to stop him from taking the game with his Ultimate.

"Double kill!" His top laner was dead.

He aimed, seeing the perfect moment. His champion raised his bow once more. The familiar animation began—

"Triple kill!"

A grayed-out screen.

"Respawning in 50 seconds."

Yu Pengkai quite literally didn't know what hit him, much less why his mid laner and jungler flashed away at the last minute, leaving him to die and the enemy team to take the buff. All he could do was watch in desperation as the game spiraled out of his control for the umpteenth time.

"Quadra kill!"

The enemy team mid laner flashed Yu Pengkai's favorite emote, a beaming chibi Robin Hood holding the Championship Cup, and the rest of his team soon followed as they marched triumphantly toward the ally Castle. Something stabbed Yu Pengkai from inside, almost as if the arrow he failed to land had struck deep into his own heart.

He closed his eyes, the pain in his wrist flaring like never before.

One wrong step, and it was over. And this time, it would be over for good. As much as he hated to admit it, he was 28 years old, well past the prime for a professional eSports player.

It seemed like only yesterday when he was the rising star of the hit MOBA game, Kings of Valor, and today, he was already the setting sun. He had given this career his entire youth, his health, and his family. But yet, where was he now?

A joke. That's all he was. A pathetic player who made it to Worlds ten times but could never even make it to the Quarterfinals. A hopeless ADC who disappointed his shrinking fan base game after game. He once swore to retire when he held the Championship Cup with his very hands, but now, his past words sounded absolutely absurd.

At that moment, reality suddenly hit him. He would never return to this stage again.

"Pentakill!"

In front of the gaping 50 million-member virtual audience, "Pentakill" Yu Pengkai slammed down his headset and strode out of the arena, leaving behind his destroyed base, his four equally-dead teammates, and his last chance at Worlds to crumble.