Chapter 32: We Are the Light That Has Become One.

"Mebius is in a bad spot!"
"Mebius is making poor decisions!"
"Mebius is struggling!"
"Mebius is trapped!"
"Mebius is making a desperate last stand!"
"Mebius is done for!"
"Mebius seems to be planning to kill everyone on TES!!!"

The broadcast desk. The three commentators were completely at a loss for how to describe the scene unfolding before them.

Cool, clear-headed decision-making, silky-smooth mechanics, and bold, limit-testing ideas had forged this highlight-reel moment. Diana and Gnar entered the cycle of death one after another, and the struggles of Thresh and Draven seemed pitifully futile in this moment.

As the Aatrox's final blade fell:
V5 Mebius kills TES JKL.
Penta-Kill!!!

The supreme declaration of a pentakill echoed throughout the Demacia Cup broadcast!

The chat fell silent. The commentators were speechless. The entire world watching the Demacia Cup fell into a hushed stillness at this moment. No cheering, no howling, no applause could truly capture a pentakill born in such circumstances.

At the casting desk, Jiekou gulped hard, but he reacted quickly, beating out his colleagues to get his lines out first:
"This 18-year-old rookie from V5 has produced a highlight-reel play in the deciding game of a best-of-five! Can he get the pentakill? Can Mebius get the pentakill here!?"

"Karsa is trying to hold on, Rookie is trying to hold on, and JKL's Draven hasn't even reached his potential, yet his teammates are falling one by one! Aatrox is closing in, Aatrox collects the final head on the field!"

"Pentakill!"

"A youth draws his bow to the limit, fearing neither the passage of time nor the winds of change!"

"The first pentakill of the 2021 Demacia Cup Finals goes to V5’s top laner, Mebius!"

At the desk, the three commentators were left stunned by this exhilarating display of individual brilliance. They had expected to just punch the clock, but never imagined a mere Demacia Cup match could reach the intensity of a Spring Split Final.

In the first three games, every member of V5 had stepped up, blooming like flowers of hope. That will and spirit, which could be felt without words—the sheer determination to win—was easily readable from their every action, even through the screen: They wanted to win. They really, really wanted to win.

Everyone was sacrificing for each other, and everyone was elevating each other. The greatest charm of esports lies in this seamless coordination. And this final game was the perfect embodiment of individual heroism. They had to admit: it was exhilarating!

[Is this a ragtag battleship!?]
[This team fight gave me goosebumps. How did he dare to do that?]
[Using Flash-forward to answer a Flash-forward, a genius rookie paying tribute to another genius rookie. Is this the Demacia Cup? It’s a Spring Final!]
[I’m shivering with excitement! Aatrox pentakill—this V5 rookie top laner is about to take off!]

The atmosphere in the arena turned electric. Many viewers regretted that force majeure had prevented them from experiencing this passion and adrenaline in person.

At the V5 player station:
"Pentakill! Damn, Wo-meng, you got a pentakill!"
"Incredible! You’re absolutely insane! Why didn’t we pull out this Aatrox earlier? We would’ve steamrolled them!"
"What Draven? A control ward can tank four hits from an Aatrox, how many can a Draven even take?"
"I kneel before the master."

After the team fight, joyous laughter erupted from their booth—a feeling hard to describe with words. They had imagined all sorts of ways to win, but never this: their own top laner becoming a terrifying Aatrox daddy in the final game. Facing the compliments of his teammates, Luo Ji couldn't hide his smile, though his right hand was trembling uncontrollably.

He knew that this legendary moment was established not just by his daring Flash-forward, but by that arrow fired from afar. You trusted me, and I didn't betray that trust by successfully following up. This is something that rarely happens in reality, existing mostly in theory, but when it succeeds, the exhilaration that wells up from the heart is unparalleled.

Watching the laughing players on the giant screen, behind the scenes, Nofe and Zero finally let go of their worries. For a reassembled team that cost a fortune, their goals were set on the playoffs and even the year-end World Championship. The Demacia Cup performance was just a microcosm, but it was enough to make the entire club ecstatic.

"I said it before: Wo-meng is a completely different type of player compared to other rookies. His maturity and intuition influence his teammates in subtle ways, and at the most critical moments, he receives the payoff that belongs solely to him."

"Do you know what a leader is?"

"He doesn't need to be involved in specific shot-calling, nor does he need to handle every detail. He just needs to set a direction and tell others what he wants, and they will subconsciously rally around him and trust his decisions."

"Like a small group, there is always that one person who makes the final call."

"That is exactly the quality Wo-meng possesses."

Nofe’s eyes sparkled with excitement. The success of this game meant infinite possibilities for V5's top-side tactics. He was a coach with a repertoire of tactical permutations, and the players' performance proved they were raw gems waiting to be polished.

A 0-for-5 exchange completely tilted the scales of the game. No matter how fed JKL’s Draven was, they had to face the reality that the Aatrox had grown into an unreachable existence. Goredrinker, Death's Dance, Spirit Visage—and he still had an unused Stopwatch. The tradition of building tanky after establishing a lead made the TES players curse Luo Ji’s "stat-padding" behavior.

"Never won, have you? Take the stats, I surrender!"

Unlike the joyful atmosphere at V5, the biggest problem for TES was that they lacked such an atmosphere-lifter. Zoom could have, but in this game, the biggest monster on the opposing side was one he had fed himself. How could he speak up? If someone asked what was up with that Aatrox, he’d want to hide behind his gaming chair. Who the hell knew this rookie's Aatrox could be this absurd?

With their morale crushed, TES's macro-game descended into chaos. The top laner stayed silent, the jungler retreated into his own shell, the mid laner went with the flow, and JKL was always the type to just roll with whatever. That left Zhuo. Well, as mentioned, Zhuo doesn't like to be evaluated, so we'll skip that.

Now, a demoralized TES could no longer stop V5’s advance. The monster from the LDL landed in the mid-lane... The unspeakable man-eating demon closed in on the second tier... The despicable dragon-thief entered the river and the jungle... The supreme super-rookie arrived at the high ground he was loyal to today...

On the screen, a dramatic scene unfolded. JKL carefully adjusted his positioning. Although the chance of a comeback was slim, his KDA was on the line, and he was the only source of damage left for the team. He didn't expect a comeback, but he hoped to at least contribute what he could when the fight broke out. That was his thought.

But the problem was... the V5 players were thinking the same thing.

At the moment the two teams were dancing around the high ground, Rookie finally caught a slight misstep from JKL.
W - Distortion!
In an instant, LeBlanc dashed onto the high ground.
"Coming for me?" JKL was stunned. He wasn't too panicked; although LeBlanc was great at picking off AD carries, the one who got the pentakill last time was Aatrox, not LeBlanc. One LeBlanc alone would at most leave him severely wounded, not kill him.

But! The next instant, his eyes widened. Because... apart from Rookie dashing over the wall, appearing above and below LeBlanc were Ashe’s Enchanted Crystal Arrow and the Aatrox—the Darkin Blade—from V5’s top lane!

It wasn't just the bravery of one man, but the unified strike of the trident! JKL was stunned by the sight. In that moment, the scene felt like a flashback to S8, flickering before his eyes. Until the arrow hit him. Until his teammates' cries filled his ears. Until he finally regained his consciousness and refocused on the game.

Before him, Aatrox jumped, blotting out the sky.
"Really, I lose to you." JKL laughed.

Immediately after, he took his hands off the keyboard. The moment Ashe's ult hit him and LeBlanc’s chains locked him down, it didn't matter if he had Cleanse or not. In other words, he was already dead.

V5 Mebius kills TES JKL.
From this point on, the game was decided.

"Here we go, brothers! Rush!"
"End it, end it, end it! We're champions, everyone!"
"Don't rush, don't rush, you can't rush this, but we need to be fast! I want to see the TES nexus explode right now!"
"GO GO GO! Champions, here I come~"
"Woohoo!"

One by one, the TES players fell. Just like the defensive towers and the high-ground inhibitor, even without hope, the last remaining members of TES charged forward, filling the final high-ground view with their corpses. There was no helping it; the local philosophy was: you can be bad, but you can't be a coward. If you die in battle, it's a tactical failure, not a personal one. With that mindset, even knowing they couldn't win, they sought a heroic death to contribute their final KDA.

For dozens of seconds, countless viewers watched as V5 pushed through, until finally, they shattered the TES nexus. When the "Victory" prompt flashed on everyone's computer, everyone broke into uncontrollable, radiant smiles.

They won! They actually won! 3:1, they had successfully defeated the Demacia Cup favorites, TES!

[Big V Dragon!!!]
[Wonderful! A round of applause for a team that gave it their all!]
[Everyone gave it their all, everyone made sacrifices. This is something I actually got to see at the Demacia Cup? I'm tearing up.]
[S12 is going to be great! Not only are there so many "Galactic Battleships," but now a top-tier dark horse like V5 as well. Exhilarating!]

The moment the match ended, training match invites from over a dozen LPL clubs poured in. Esports is pure, but it has always been realistic. If your team's results are bad, no one cares about you. No matter how exciting your story is, you’ll be treated like a stray dog on the street, bullied at will. Conversely, as long as you are strong enough, you can feel the respect from other teams from every angle.

It wasn't just training invites; even the defeated TES team agreed to a post-match dinner with V5 during the handshake. It wasn't just for the reunion of JKL and Rookie from the old IG, but also because of the curiosity others felt toward the V5 players—especially their new top laner. Throughout the Demacia Cup, his presence had been too hot, especially for Zoom.

When watching through the screen, his playstyle seemed like that of a snide, old trickster. But meeting him in person, he thought, "Why do you look like such a sunny, cheerful boy?" And he's way too handsome, right? From a distance, and with the generally poor eyesight of esports players, he hadn't noticed, but up close, he found him even better-looking, which only added to his envy.

After the initial meeting, the stage was left to the victorious V5.
"Congratulations, you’ve taken a perfect new step in your professional careers."

Behind the scenes, coaches Nofe and Zero walked out, and many V5 staff members rushed out with excitement. Unlike other teams—half of the LPL teams had a history of success and didn't care much for the Demacia Cup—V5 had never achieved anything in the LOL scene since its inception.

V5 was clearly one of those teams. After last year's sixteen-game losing streak, to bounce back and win a championship in the new season was a joy that, from the bottom of their hearts, was no less than Xiao Yan returning to the Yunlan Sect after three years.

Golden rain fell on the stage. Even though they knew the Demacia Cup championship was somewhat surreal, and there were no fans in the arena to cheer, it was still their first title. Luo Ji stood there, blankly watching the golden ribbons drift down, his heart pounding like never before.

Beside him, Nofe and Zero each placed a hand on his shoulders. By the time he reacted, the Demacia Cup trophy in the center of the stage was already surrounded by his teammates.

"Come on, it's time to lift the trophy."
"Enjoy this feeling. Many players may never get this chance in their entire lives. Once you feel the weight of this trophy, you will understand that you are not just lifting a product of an assembly line, but the fruit born from your tears, sweat, and effort."
"Only by falling in love with that feeling will you have the motivation to keep fighting."
"Of course," Nofe added, "the most important thing now is not to keep everyone waiting too long."

No matter what the future held, at least for now, they only had one thing to focus on: lifting the trophy!

...

When all the formalities were over, the already empty Demacia Cup arena felt even more deserted. But the victory interview process had to be completed. Luo Ji didn't have much experience with interviews, but having lived two lives, he knew the polite things to say. The questions were all about how he was "bad" and his teammates were "strong," summarizing that even though they were "killing it" throughout the tournament, he was only responsible for the "killing," while his teammates did the heavy lifting.

Until... when they were getting ready to leave the arena, perhaps because it was their first championship too, Xiao Yan and Ppgod still felt a sense of reluctance looking at the empty hall.
"It's a shame. If only there were fans here today," Xiao Yan sighed helplessly. Ppgod felt the same and sighed along with him.

Truth be told, a Demacia Cup title is great, and the trophy is heavy, but without the cheers and applause of a live audience, something just felt missing. Rookie and Karsa looked at each other with helplessness in their eyes. If it were a skill issue, they could be comforted, but for a natural disaster, there was nothing they could do. You couldn't risk your life, could you?

"Actually, it doesn't matter," a sudden voice spoke up.

The surrounding teammates looked at Luo Ji. They saw the confidence on his lips, the seriousness in his eyes, and watched as he walked away from the team toward the center of the stage, turning his back to the audience seating.

"In the coming year, we still have four chances to win a championship."
"If not the Demacia Cup, there’s the Spring Final. If not Spring, there’s the MSI. If not MSI, there’s the Summer Final. If not Summer, there’s the World Championship."

"I believe that one day, we will definitely... pack this arena to the rafters!"