After going over their plan the all too familiar teleportation commenced. At this point Elijah was getting pretty used to it. He didn't even really feel disoriented.
The team found themselves in the arena once again. This time they were the blue team so all their Thralls had blue metal plating.
"Alright guys remember to stick to the plan and try to watch out on the map." Elijah said firmly.
Everybody smiled and gave a nod, their confidence palpable.
As soon as the spawn gate unlocked signaling the beginning of the game they all ran out of base to their positions.
Elijah decided to start with the bottom jungle to kill the monster that would give him the red buff, which would give his attacks a small burn effect for the next few minutes.
"Rennik, Sylvara come help me get started with this jungle monster. Leave once it is below half HP (the HP bar of monsters and enemy shields were shown as an overlay using their government issued implants). That will help me keep up tempo so I have time to gank you guys later. Remember you have to get back to lane before your thralls meet the enemy thralls in the center. That way you won't risk missing out on any thralls kills"
Rennik responded with a weird mixture of reluctance and optimism, "Alright Elijah, I'll trust you on this, but I better not miss out on any gold"
Rennik and Sylvara proceeded to do Elijah's request before making their way to lane.
Elijah spoke up again "Thanks guys! And Sylvara remember as support you need to poke enemies with your ability to just whittle them down here and there. Don't commit to a fight unless Rennik is ready. Also as support you have more freedom to move around since you're not focused on kills or gathering gold by killing thralls so make sure you get good vision on the bottom side of the jungle by placing lanterns. That'll make it easier to tell when an enemy is coming on the map and allow me more opportunities to gank."
Sylvara responded in her typically meek manner "alright Elijah I think I can do that. Just follow Renniks lead and get vision on the surroundings right?"
"Yup pretty much!"
As they spoke on comms Elijah focused on clearing out the other jungle camps. He climbed over walls to increase his maneuvering speed and went for all the monsters weak spots to finish them off as fast as possible.
Meanwhile in the other lanes…
In bottom Rennik and Sylvara listed to Elijahs orders and made it back to the lane in time to not miss anything. As they got into lane they saw their enemies for this game Velra Sunfell and Theron Pike. They started off with both sides staying back and farming gold from the thralls. At level three though Rennik and Sylvara commenced the first part of Elijah's plan.
Rennik made sure to prioritize killing the thralls a little bit faster than the enemy while Sylvara attacked the enemy from time to time with small noncommittal attacks to keep them off. As soon as Rennik and Sylvars shields reached level three they immediately went all in on the enemy who's shields were still level 2, giving them a slight edge. The enemy tried to back up but not expecting the sudden aggression from Elijah's bottom laners they were caught off guard, allowing Rennik to kill Velra as Theron fired off his ability to push them away from himself with a weave of water. First blood went to Elijah's team.
Rennik let out a whoop of joy as Elijah smiled to himself while he cleared jungle camps.
Just according to plan, he thought.
In mid lane…
Mira was playing with Orric. He wanted to fight her as he tried to box her in with the panels formed from his ability, but every time he did it was another illusion. Mira was playing safe, confusing him with illusions, slowing him down, until it was time to strike.
Orric was getting more and more aggressive as Mira just hung back baiting him forward with her illusions, causing him to over extend.
Around this time Elijah finished clearing out the bottom jungle of monsters so looking at the map he saw a gank possibility mid lane and went to punish Orric for overextending. Elijah climbed over the wall and leaped off landing a kick on Orric's back pushing him into the range of the Obelisk. At that point it was over for him. Orric noticing his mistake too late tried to back off but naturally filed as Elijah pulled him back in with a sticky line. Mira used that opportunity to turn up the heat causing him to slow down even more as she fired off bolts of hot mana at him while Elijah punched and kicked him till he was down.
Elijah gave Mira a thumbs up before immediately running to his top jungle. He didn't want to lose tempo after all.
As he went to run to his top jungle however he saw what was happening top lane on the map.
Elijah's team was up 2:0 so the leader of the enemy team finally made his play.
Brax was trying to play it safe top lane but his opponent Kaelen was doing the same so the thralls were just kind of frozen in the middle of the lane with neither side pushing. It didn't make for an amazing gank opportunity so Elijah had just been planning on ignoring it for now in favor of killing more jungle monsters for gold.
The enemy leader and jungler Nysar had a different idea however. One second top lane looked fine and then the next Nysar rose up from Brax's shadow behind him, with a cheap starting knife in hand that he must have recalled and bought after killing a couple jungle monsters on his side.
Brax didn't even have time to react before Nysar bound his feet with shadows and started furiously slashing with the knife.
Brax easily broke out of the shadow binding, but that was only meant to slow him down to give Nysar's teammate Kealen enough time to react by summoning iron vines to lock Brax down even more and begin whipping him.
They had to get through his stone skin before the shield would even begin registering the attacks but with two people furiously slashing at him it took no time at all for Brax to go down.
Nysar scooped up a kill and immediately helped Kealen push the thrall wave into the Obelisk to get some damage on the massive tower before he disappeared into the shadows once again.
The score was now 2:1. Elijah's team was still leading but clearly the enemy wouldn't roll over to their plans and lose easily.
The match continued on this way for 15 more minutes with Elijah shouting call outs to his team on where to go and what to do while he tried to gank whenever possible. Meanwhile Nysar would randomly pop up from people's shadows and kill them with increasingly more and more powerful items as he began to snowball as most of his team's kills were funneled into him. Elijah's team had most of the kills going to Rennik but they were still much more evenly distributed so nobody was significantly stronger than the others. This made Nysar a significant threat as he was becoming a one man army.
The score 21:19 with Elijah's team barely maintaining the lead. Of those 19 on the enemy team though 13 were Nysar's. He was truly becoming a menace.
Elijah had wracked up quite a bit of gold and items himself however. By focusing on clearing jungle monsters as fast as possible while also being around to get assists and sometimes kills on most of his team's fights he wasn't slouching either.
He made sure to get items such as boots that increased his speed and gauntlets that would slow down enemies when punched while also being barbed to inflict extra damage. And light armor that reduced damage done to him while increasing his shield regeneration rate. Even a couple buff for his gauntlets that gave him lifestyle on attacks, to help him keep his shield health up.
While Nysar's build went for full lethality, Elijah's was more utility based.
As the game progressed Elijah snuck into the enemy jungle to get a good angle for a gank on the top laner and maybe steal some of Nysar's jungle camps while he was at it.
Unfortunately as he was sneaking around he ran into an enemy lantern, making him show on their map.
He destroyed it as fast as possible but by the time it was broken he felt a chill as the light around him seemed to dim.
*Clang*
Nysar popped out of his shadow, but Elijah had been expecting it and blocked the attack with his gauntlet.
That reduced the damage but his shield still counted that as some damage being taken due to Nysar's high lethality.
Nysar looked slightly surprised that someone so low ranked could stop his attack. He didn't let that phase him however and immediately launched into a combo attack with dual serrated knives that looked as if one knick could be fatal.
Elijah tapped into all of his training and dodged out of the way of the attacks with a hair's breadth.
I need to use my ability somehow to fight this guy, Elijah thought.
Elijah dodged another attack by making a movement that wouldn't normally be possible. He struck his feet to the ground with his ability and lunged forward as if he was falling, making the knives pass right over his head. However Elijah also made sure to reinforce his legs with mana so he was now standing incredibly bent forward at an impossible angle right into Nysar's guard.
Nysar looked shocked as Elijah swung his gauntlet at his leg pushing Nysar's legs together, while simultaneously ap[plying is stick ability to stick Nysar's legs together.
Elijah then unstuck his own feet in one smooth motion allowing himself to roll forward and using a handstand kick, buck Nysar right in his side with mana enhanced legs.
Nysar let out a cough of pain, before his look hardened and he disappeared into the shadows. Elijah was breathing heavily from the maneuver as he looked around himself waiting for the attack that he knew was bound to come.
Nysar was too fast for him though. Nysar lunged out of the shadows landing a powerful strike on Elijah's armor, causing half his shield health to go down instantly in that one attack.
Nysar immediately disappeared again, not wanting to give Elijah another chance to stick his limbs together and do more damage.
Meanwhile Brax was trying to make it to Elijah to help him since he was the closest but he was too slow and Elijah was too far. The battle would be over by the time he made it. Elijah had to do this himself.
The next time Nysar lunged out of the shadows Elijah ducked down as low as he could while also firing off a sticky line in the direction it seemed Nysar would come out of.
Elijah just barely managed to dodge the attack as he felt the pull of the line on Nysar as it caught.
Nysar attempted to merge back into the shadows but Elijah gave the line a tug causing Nysar's body to seemingly stick to this plane of existence, not allowing him to go into the shadow realm, as he was tethered to Elijah.
While he was caught by surprise Elijah pulled the nearly invisible shimmering blue line and yanked Nysar towards himself landing a powerful haymaker to his jaw with his spiked gauntlets.
He saw Nysar's health was low and prepared to finish him off before he could counter attack, but at that moment Nysar unleashed his ultimate ability.
He heard Nysar whisper "Shadow Realm", and everything went dark. Not just for ELijah but for all his allies too, as their vision was obscured by shadow.
This unexpected development caused some of his teammates to take unnecessary damage from the enemies but they were all able to survive and get back under their obelisks.
Elijah was not so lucky however. The force of the shadow mana was too strong, overpowering Elijah's relatively new sticky line ability application, causing it to break, freeing Nysar from the tether.
With Elijah's vision obscured as well he had no defense against Nysar's next attack. Nysar slammed into Elijah with another dagger slash, bringing Elijah's shield health down to the red.
Elijah tried to swing out to hit him but of course he caught nothing but air.
Elijah's mind was going crazy ramping up to speeds he didn't even know were possible for himself.
Think Elijah think. There must be some way to beat him. I need to dodge this next attack no matter what otherwise this could be the turning point of the game. There must be some way to win this.
Since he couldn't see anyway Elijah closed his eyes trying to hear his environment. Trying to feel the movement of the mana in the air.
This shadow mana is suffocating. Kind of like the mana in the cave where I awakened. In hindsight there was probably a lot of shadow attribute mana there too. I could feel the mana around me. Maybe if I remember that feeling from when I awoke... Something was different then, as if my power has more oomph. Something felt different.
As Elijah sunk further into his consciousness. Nysar prepared for the final strike to finish Elijah off and start snowballing the game.
At that moment however, Elijah felt something. As if all the hairs on his skin were rising with static electricity in the direction of the attack.
As Nysar entered Elijah's zone of mana influence, it was as if he appeared on a radar for Elijah as he felt the attack coming before he saw it.
Elijah dodged the swing and countered with a swing of his own. As Elijah swung pure shock was now evident on Nysar's face, because up close he saw… Elijah's eyes were closed.
As Elijah's swing connected Nysar's shield health depleted and his respawn time begun.
Elijah then used that time to rally his team to the Aether Guardian while the enemy team was down their strongest member.
Once Elijah's team secured that objective the enemy team couldn't come back anymore. As the game progressed and Elijah's team destroyed the enemy mana core the final score shone.
35:25
Victory.
Elijah's team had finally won. And for Elijah himself, something new had seemingly awoken.