Hao wasn't acting on impulse. In fact everything was played according to his plan.
He was playing against such a strong champ in close quarters, one that could deal a burst of damage especially when combined with her stun attacks.
But as an experienced player he knew that wouldn't matter as long as she wouldn't hit him.
So as he used his W, he dashed forward for a brief second, with animation that made his champ jump high up, landing three attacks over her champ.
Then he followed it with two auto attacks, dealing ten damage per hit.
He ended his barrage of attacks with a Q, pushing her back and forcing her away from him.
"Damn! He took away almost three hundred health from her in that one attack!" the guy exclaimed in shock. "He should have been followed by auto attacks or even his Q. She had slow movement speed for three seconds. Such a noob indeed!"
"But look… Here comes our lady's champ combo… A Q followed by an E then a W… Couple of auto attacks before R and another Q… What the hell is that?!!"
Just as Hil regained her former fast speed movement, she started her own barrage of attack. Yet as she did that, she missed the point in what Hao just did.
Hao didn't miss attacking her during the past seconds of slow movement, but he intentionally did that. He knew that pushing at a magic based enemy while he was a melee was a great mistake.
Especially when the enemy had her full mana and all of his skills were on cooldown.
Just as she started her barrage of attacks, he simply used his blink skill, moving from his place towards another that was far enough from the reach of her attacks.
She was surprised a little by his timing. He didn't use this skill too early or too late, just at the moment when her animation started after using her Q.
If her Q linked, then his champ would be stunned for two seconds. In her entire arsenal, her Q was the core skill that she planned everything upon.
And Hao knew that!
Just missing her Q was enough to make him away from her danger. All her skills landed and hit empty air, totally missing him.
"Oh… Our lady is mad!" the guy said in fake worry. Just as that happened, a loud bang occurred as Hil slammed her fist heavily on the table. She roared in a low tone, like an injured beast.
"She won't stop until killing him now!" the girl said, "look! She turned and started pushing over him using her autos. She won't give him a chance to escape."
That was true. After missing that, she knew her enemy had some talent in evasion. So the best course of action was to corner him using her auto attacks.
Auto attacks were the standard basic game attacks used by any champ. It dealt little damage compared with other skills, but it also had a low cooldown to be used each one second easily without any problems.
Her autos were in the form of magic slashes that kept coming at Hoa's champ, pushing him back slowly while cornering him.
At that time, his skills were all ready to use. But he didn't. He even didn't bother using his auto attacks for now.
He knew at such moments, it was best to endure and focus on evasion. Out of five autos landing at him, only one hit and others missed.
That wasn't only because he was good and skilled in that, but Hil did commit the most famous noob mistake ever; losing control over herself after missing a hit or two at the start.
But eventually his champ faced the back of the wall, with no way to turn this around anymore.
Or that was what Hil and everyone else here thought.
"You are going to die pretty boy," Hil's voice came, filled with much anger. In her eyes, she felt humiliation for not being able to hit him with her combos just before. And that was her biggest mistake so far. "Let's see how you'll evade that!"
Just as she said it, her champ started her combo once again. However, just as her champ started the animation of her Q, Hao used one skill first.
"It's an E!" the guy screamed in shock, "but he didn't use it against her, but against the wall!"
But as the result appeared the next second, the entire place fell quiet for a moment. "Damn me!" the girl also screamed in shock, "can his skill be used in that way as well?"
Just as she started her Q, his champ was already facing the wall. He used his E against it. His E would deal a strong blow to one enemy, pushing the enemy back.
But what others didn't know was that when his champ hit nothing but the wall, the power of that push would recoil and instead his champ would be pushed back.
And not only that! The champ would take a random direction, anywhere but a place with a champ, a monster, or a minion.
"I won't let you run like that!" another bang landed and this time it was on the keyboard. Just as her Q missed, she turned her champ around and tried to hit him with her E, W, and R.
But again Hao proved how slippery he was! Just as his champ landed on the ground, he knew she wouldn't let him go and would turn to shower him with her remaining skills.
"It's a W! He used his W to dash across, evading her attacks!" the girl shouted and the entire theatre was filled with cries of awe.
"Damn! Damn! Damn! I never saw the lady missing two combos in succession ever in my life!" the guy shouted back, as things weren't looking that good for Hil.
"I'll teach you an important lesson now," Hao slowly said, with a tone that was void of any worry, anger, or even excitement, "just watch and learn… Don't disappoint me!"
"Who the hell do you think you are? The Prince?!!!" in return to his neutral words, she bellowed back while smashing over her keyboard. "I'll kill you! Even with my autos I'll do that!"
"We'll see…" Just as he evaded her barrage of attacks, he started with his Q first, then followed with his R then a barrage of his autos. When she finished her animation, and before she would turn to face him, his champ moved in an awe inspiring way.
"Damn me!" the girl shouted again, "is that the legendary nimble mirroring feet move?"
"...!!!" she turned to the guy next to her but that dude was all shocked to be speechless.
What happened just now was a mind blowing for these youths. When Hil's champ tried to face Hao's, Hao's champ turned around and kept himself behind her back, leaving enough distance from her champ, taking into account avoiding any incoming attacks at any moment.
His autos were raining down on her without pause while she struggled. She tried to move her champ right and left, tried to break the rhythm, yet in the end she failed.
This was a skill not easily learnt except for pros. Even in the pro world, not all players knew how to perfectly execute it. It needed not only extreme control over micro play, but also outstanding reflexes and deep knowledge about the opponent champ and his moving speed and pattern.
"F*ck you!" she was forced to use her blink. Yet just as she did that, he used his W, dashing forward towards her before following it with his E.
He crossed more than half of the distance with her using his W. Then the remaining distance was covered with his E.
But that gave her time to use her Q. this time her skill hit, and for two seconds his champ was stunned.
"You are done for, ugly monkey," she roared as she finally managed to link her skill and hit him.
But just as she said these words, her face changed as she found her champ had slow movement and attack speed reduced.
"Let's see how you'll kill me!" The two seconds passed while her champ already came closer. Hoa's champ was already in the range of her champ's skill attack range, but Hao wasn't worried at all.
"Another blink?!!" The guy exclaimed in doubt. Just before Hil could attack, Hao blinked towards the wall.
"But he cornered himself again! Dumb!" the girl said in disdain but the guy next to her screamed at her:
"That's not dumb! He can bounce against the wall! Our lady won't be able to hit him again!" The guy was faster than the girl to catch what Hao intended to do here.
It was just as that guy commentator guessed. Hil's E missed, she followed it with W and then another Q. But just before her first skill animation would end, Hao's champ again shifted his position using his E against the wall.
"Now you are dead," Hao spoke in a low tone. Despite doing all that, Hil's champ still had more than half of her health. Saying such a crazy judgement was simply outrageous in Hil's eyes.
"It's you who'll die here!" Hil didn't accept his challenging words and retorted back with a faint roar. But what happened next made her face turn ashen white!
"She…" the girl commentator couldn't even say what was going on in this match.
"Her mana… She ran empty of mana… Don't tell me he calculated all this beforehand!" The guy seemed to be a better player than he looked on the surface, much better than the girl sitting next to him.
He managed to see through Hao's actions here. He wasn't a good player in fact, but one who loved to watch pro games and listen to game analysis from experts his entire day.
So watching this made him recall one of the comments he once heard about at one of the pro matches he recently watched.
"How can he even do that? No way! No f*cking way!'' The girl was in a state of denial, just like Hil herself.
Hil was the one feeling the most pressure and bitter here. As a good player herself, she also had a habit to watch pro games and surf their analysis to learn a thing or two.
And what happened just now had no other explanation but this; Hao planned this beforehand! Just while her champ was getting butchered with Hao's fine mechanics, the infamous copy mirror movement, and raining her down with his autos, she kept wasting her mana without any reservations..
She couldn't help but recall the course of the match in her head in the next few seconds.
Everything he did from the start was just evasion! He had many chances to hit her but instead he focused more on keeping the distance between the two wide, keeping his skills and depleting her mana in return.
Instead she jumped like a clown, releasing her own attacks left and right without any plan. Yes she had a mana regeneration tool, but it would require her skills to connect and fall over an enemy or even on an ally champ to regenerate more mana to her.
But Hao didn't even give her this chance! Only her autos worked at some point, and sporadic Qs. out of the barrage of skills and attacks she used, she couldn't count more than ten times she managed to hit him.
What about him?
He managed to land over fifty attacks on her! A strange feeling started to grow inside her, a feeling of helplessness.
"Were you counting all my skills mana usage all this time?" she couldn't help but turn towards him, asking him this important question.
If he was really doing that from the beginning, then he wasn't a noob. He wasn't even a good player! Good players wouldn't have such a meticulous mind, or such a great focus from the start of the game to its last moments.
And his answer made her feel more helplessness and slight fear.
"A magician without his mana is like a sitting duck waiting for slaughter," he calmly said before his champ landed the last hit. A message popped up notifying everyone watching that Hil's champ got killed and wouldn't be able to be alive for the next one minute.
"He…" the girl gulped her saliva while feeling terribly shaken from the inside. She turned to her lady, Hil, to just see her face was filled with an expression of helplessness and loss.
"He won," the guy had better control over himself, "he won the game, he killed our lady… But folks, this is just the first game, we still have two more games ahead of us."
"Yes," his words drove life inside the girl next to him, "it's not the end of the challenge! Our lady can do it! She will do it!" she said the last phrase in a louder tone that was filled with hope and anticipation.
"I concede!" Yet the next moment, Hil stood up, raised her head and said to the entire theatre, "from now on, I'm not your lady. The leader of this dorm will be Hao, not me."
And as her words landed, it felt like the entire place went deadly silent, like it was a cemetery and not a theatre.