Furious moments ago, the resentment from being scolded had vanished without a trace. Qin Rui looked at his brother with eyes full of admiration: “Brother, you’re so amazing. Can you carry me to Diamond? I’ve been stuck in Gold for a month already.”

Ye Shaoyang readily agreed: “No problem.”

Based on his experience, carrying a beginner to Diamond wasn’t a difficult task at all. Besides, duo-queuing with a support player benefited him as well; he could direct Qin Rui to help scout bushes, and knowing the enemy’s movements would allow him to win matches as quickly as possible.

It was just that his current account only had 5 starter heroes given by the system: a warrior, an assassin, a mage, a marksman, and a support. The only mage he had was [Frost Goddess], an item-dependent late-game mage that wasn’t suitable for carrying ranked games. Moreover, too many people knew how to play starter heroes; if a teammate locked her in first, he would face the awkward situation of having “no hero to pick.”

It was still better to practice a niche hero.

“Wait for me a moment, I’m going to buy a hero,” Ye Shaoyang said as he opened the in-game shop.

“Brother, I’ll buy it for you,” Qin Rui offered eagerly. “My account still has plenty of unspent Vouchers.”

Ye Shaoyang didn’t stand on ceremony with him either: “Then gift me Abyssal Lord.”

“Abyssal Lord?” Qin Rui was bewildered. “There’s a hero like that?”

Ye Shaoyang pointed at the version update notice: “It’s the new hero just released in this version, the one in the opening cinematic.”

“Ahem, I skipped the opening cinematic directly, so I didn’t pay much attention.” Qin Rui opened the shop, and sure enough, he saw a hero labeled “New” in the list—the Season 9-3 hero, [Abyssal Lord – Locke].

A demon from the abyss, clad in a black cloak with a huge hood covering his face, surrounded by swirling black mist. The weapon in his hand was a staff made of a human skull, its hollow eye sockets continuously bleeding.

The hero’s design looked quite cool, but the skill descriptions were a massive wall of text. Qin Rui read for a long time without really understanding it. He turned back and asked softly, “Brother, are you sure you want to buy this one? The operational difficulty is five stars; it looks super complex.”

“Let’s just buy him,” Ye Shaoyang said. “Since it’s a new hero, everyone is touching him for the first time. That way, I can stand on the exact same starting line as them.”

Gods’ War had over a hundred heroes. For those older heroes, professional players had already thoroughly researched every playstyle and meta strategy, leaving little room for him to innovate.

Since no one was familiar with a newly released hero, he could actually establish results at the fastest speed.

Qin Rui purchased “Abyssal Lord,” then asked, “Are there any other heroes you want to play? I can gift you a few more; my account has over 10,000 Vouchers.”

Ye Shaoyang had organized the data of all the heroes. In his spreadsheet, he categorized mid-lane heroes into three main types—

Artillery Mages, Assassin Mages, and Utility Mages.

Artillery Mages were mid-laners with immense magic damage output. Typically, a single full combo could unleash earth-shattering destruction, making them the primary damage carry of a team. However, their weaknesses were equally obvious—they had short legs, slow movement speed, no displacement skills, and were prone to sudden death. They were stationary damage dealers that required protection from teammates to create a proper output environment.

Assassin Mages, also known as “Spell Assassins,” could proactively search for opportunities to initiate team fights, ambush and assassinate the enemy C-position carries, or enter the fight to harvest low-health enemies. Spell Assassins were characterized by flexible mobility, high operational difficulty, and extremely explosive burst damage. However, they were terrified of crowd control and demanded exceptionally high strategic awareness and hand speed from the player.

As for Utility Mages, they were usually picked to complement team compositions. Players would choose mid-laners with heavy crowd control skills and strong survivability to control the battlefield during team fights. Acting essentially as the team’s secondary support, they left the main damage output duties to the jungler and marksman.

Ye Shaoyang could play all kinds of mages, but his favorite was the Spell Assassin, because assassin-type heroes could proactively seize opportunities to turn the tide of battle. Glancing at his spreadsheet, he said, “Flying Sky Mage, Goddess of Destiny, Illusionist. Let’s buy these three first. Any more and I won’t be able to play through them all.”

“Alright.” Qin Rui located the heroes he mentioned and realized they were all five-star difficulty spell assassins. He couldn’t help saying, “Brother, why do you specifically pick the hardest ones to buy?”

“Heroes with high operational difficulty have a higher skill ceiling, making them suitable for setting the tempo.” As Ye Shaoyang spoke, he flipped open his younger cousin’s match history. No wonder Xiao Rui had been stuck in Gold without ranking up; he played support in every single match and constantly got cursed out. It would be a miracle if he could gain rank stars!

His younger cousin didn’t understand how high-tier supports were supposed to be played. Through his observation earlier, Ye Shaoyang noticed that his cousin played games with extreme caution and couldn’t let loose, which might be related to the gentle personality of an Omega. However, as long as he personally taught him support awareness, getting his cousin to Supreme King rank wouldn’t be a problem—at the very least, he wouldn’t be randomly cursed out by strangers anymore.

“How many support heroes do you have?” Ye Shaoyang asked.

“I have all of them.” Qin Rui opened his hero list. “Which one is better to play?”

Ye Shaoyang leaned over to look at his screen—Tsk, his Omega cousin was actually a mega-whale! Every single hero was collected, with countless skins to boot, topped off with a “Supreme VIP” emblem. That was truly the power of money!

Ye Shaoyang teased with a laugh, “Buying all hundred-plus heroes must have cost a fortune, right?”

Qin Rui explained, “Dad topped up my account to buy them. Father doesn’t approve of me playing games, thinking it’s a waste of time. But Dad has always respected my hobbies, and this computer was a gift from Dad, too.”

Ye Shaoyang was almost dizzy from his phrasing, a giant question mark slowly rising in his mind.

Dad? Father?

Didn’t those mean the exact same thing?

With a second thought, he quickly understood—Qin Rui had two dads. An Alpha dad, and an Omega dad. Qin Rui was born from the Omega dad, and grew up to differentiate into an Omega as well.

Was that understanding correct?

Ye Shaoyang rubbed his nose, once again marveling in his heart at the wonder of the ABO world, before refocusing his attention on the game: “You play [Blessed Priest], and stick with me the whole time later.”

“Got it.” Qin Rui clicked open the information panel for [Blessed Priest] to check the skill descriptions. Blessed Priest had an operational difficulty of only two stars, making it very suitable for beginners. The Q, W, and E skills increased a targeted teammate’s attack power, restored a teammate’s mana, and provided a area-of-effect speed boost respectively. The Ultimate R skill granted a full-team health shield.

“This is a support with strong single-target protection capabilities. Keep the attack-boosting Q skill applied to me at all times. When you see I’m out of mana, press W to restore my mana, and save the other skills until I call for them,” Ye Shaoyang instructed.

“Understood!” Qin Rui paused, looking at the white icon in the top left corner of the hero. “Brother, I’ve never played this hero before. My proficiency is still at 0, so I can’t enter ranked matches with it.”

“My new hero’s proficiency is also 0. Let’s just go play a few bot games,” Ye Shaoyang said as he opened the party panel, invited his cousin into the lobby, and headed to the training camp to start bot matchmaking.

Bot matches didn’t award or deduct rank points whether you won or lost, but they raised hero proficiency, making them the best place for players to practice heroes. After playing a few bot matches to reach 100 proficiency, the hero could be used in ranked games.

Ye Shaoyang also took this opportunity to familiarize himself with the mechanics of his new hero.

After trying out Abyssal Lord for a few games, he realized this hero was completely his cup of tea.

Q Skill “Night Envoy”: Dispatches a black shadow capable of passing through terrain, dealing a small amount of magic damage to enemies in its path and applying an Abyssal Mark. A maximum of three shadows could be dispatched and controlled separately, with each shadow inheriting 30% of the owner’s current health.

W Skill “Abyssal Gaze”: Locks onto a target, dealing magic damage and applying an Abyssal Mark.

E Skill “Position Swap”: Swaps position with a designated shadow.

R Skill “Bloody Vengeance”: Detonates all Abyssal Marks, dealing massive area-of-effect dark magic damage. Upon successfully killing an enemy, the Q, W, and E skills immediately reset, entering Vengeance Mode to increase attack power while reducing defense.

Wasn’t this a textbook multi-dash mark-stacking Spell Assassin?

The Q skill’s shadow could cross terrain, and the E skill swapped places with the shadow. Executing Q-E combos allowed up to three dashes, making it extremely flexible whether for chasing, assassinating, or escaping.

Q and W combos could stack marks to set up conditions for clearing the field. Coupled with cooldown reduction items, it was entirely possible to stack up to 8 marks provided one’s hand speed was fast enough.

Finally, detonating the marks with the R skill made securing kills a breeze.

What was even more terrifying was that after securing a kill with the R skill, all skill cooldowns immediately reset, and the boosted attack power in Vengeance Mode allowed him to continue slaying. In theory, Abyssal Lord was the type of hero that grew “stronger as he fought.” Once you entered his vengeance rhythm, he was simply unstoppable!

However, Vengeance Mode had its drawback—while attack power increased, defense dropped, turning him into a super squishy glass cannon. Therefore, positioning was crucial to avoid getting crowd-controlled, which would lead to instant death.

After playing several bot games, Ye Shaoyang gained a clear grasp of the operational mechanics for this hero.

He liked high-difficulty heroes like this.

Only with high operational difficulty could one truly show off.

Ye Shaoyang stretched his arms and said, “Let’s go, time to try a real match.”

Qin Rui pulled him into the ranked match lobby.

During the preparation phase, Ye Shaoyang instantly locked in [Abyssal Lord]. Qin Rui picked the support [Blessed Priest] as instructed, and the match quickly began.

Qin Rui obediently followed his brother to the mid lane.

Less than 5 minutes into the game, mid-lane [Abyssal Lord] scored a solo kill on the enemy mage.

Immediately after, he began to rapidly roam.

He roamed to the bottom lane, killed 2 enemy bot-laners, and pushed down the outer turret.

He roamed to the top lane, killed the enemy top-laner, pushed the outer turret, and invaded the enemy jungle to plunder resources.

Right after, during a team fight in the mid lane, Abyssal Lord secured a triple kill!

His teammates were utterly bewildered, feeling only that this Abyssal Lord was insanely strong!

Slaughtering wherever he went? He was practically a walking humanoid weapon!

Teammates typed in global chat one after another: “Is the new hero this strong? I’m gonna buy one too.” “Is this a smurf account, big bro? Carry me please!” “How do you play this hero? Teach me, master!”

Ye Shaoyang roamed everywhere to build up an economic advantage, turning into the best-geared player on the field in the blink of an eye, and seized an opportunity to wipe out the enemy team.

Qin Rui: “…”

The talent his brother spoke of was actually real.

A brand new hero, practiced for just an hour, and he could already chop through enemy players like slicing vegetables in a real match?

However, compared to Qin Rui’s shock and admiration, Ye Shaoyang didn’t feel much joy from the victory—the skill gap was simply too massive, like an NBA professional player playing basketball with elementary schoolers; winning held no real meaning.

Gods’ War was a brand-new game, but the underlying mechanisms of MOBA games were all the same. Combined with the afternoon he spent studying the game’s data, Silver rank was a walk in the park for him. Dominating a group of complete newbies was nothing to be proud of.

To truly improve himself, he had to face off against top-tier experts.

Ye Shaoyang secretly made up his mind: he needed to rush to Supreme King rank as fast as possible and push this new hero, “Abyssal Lord,” onto the national server rankings.

Only then could he match against the top experts of this world and attract the attention of major esports clubs.

He wanted to know just how wide the gap was between his reincarnated self and the esports masters of this world.