A pair of Elf and Dark Knight arrived in Bot Lane. It was an odd sight, that of a defensive marksman accompanied by a hyper-aggressive bruiser. Considering their damage outputs at this stage of the game, it was hard to tell who was supposed to be the “Carry” and who was the “Support”.

And indeed, it was the Dark Knight who took the spotlight this time. Luke unleashed Dark Blast on the enemy wave, erasing it in one fell swoop.

“Haha, goteem!” Luke grinned. “Git outplayed, boi!”

With no minions on his side, Winner had no choice but to retreat from the area. Even though the guy got here long before Luke and started farming ahead of time, his lousy farming speed couldn’t even begin to compare to Dark Knight’s explosive might.

“This is so hax, haha!” Luke laughed. “I love it!”

“Yeah, it’s cool as heck!” Lars agreed. “I wish Elf had that kind of early-game power. This is sick!”

“Hey, hey, you wanna make Elf totally broken or what? I mean, you gonna get this kind of damage in the late-game, right? So, if you had it early too, then Elf would be like SSS tier.”

“Haha, true dat.”

Both classes were powerful but in different phases of the game. For now, Elf was the weak class that needed help farming minions, whereas Dark Knight was the uncontested king of the hill.

As such, it was up to Luke to use his hax strength to dictate the flow of the game for now. In a sense, he was the “Carry” of the team during this phase of the game.

“Alrighty. Next stop, the Ogre Camp!”

“Right behind ya, dude!”

The duo left the lane and traveled to the back of the Jungle, to the Ogre Camp on their side of the map.

The ogres there must’ve been feeling themselves after staying alive for this long, thinking nobody dared to farm them. But, they were totally wrong!

They don’t know how "Only the strong can survive in this harsh world". Luke giggled menacingly while quoting Dark Knight’s ultimate.

The duo reached the Ogre Camp and ran into another ally there.

“I’ll tank it,” Yuel nominated himself.

“Thanks, man.” Luke appreciated the help. He had already lost 15% HP from firing his Dark Blast all over the place, and now he was going to lose yet another 5% to another Dark Blast. So, it was nice that somebody else was going to share the burden and at least tank these ogre bois.

And so, the trio started fighting the ogres. But soon enough, Dark Blast came out of cooldown.

WHISH! A wave of darkness consumed the entire camp, delivering the ogres to their graves!

Well, not quite. The two smaller ogres buckled over, but the big boss survived somehow. That chonky boi wasn’t so easy to take out, even for an early-game Dark Knight.

Still, the Dark Blast erased 80% of the boss’s HP. From there, it was a no-brainer to smack this dude to death.

SPLASH! Yuel shot water.

ZAP! Lars fired a laser beam, straight in the ogre’s forehead. Headshot!

WHISH! Luke brought down his blade last, slicing through the ogre’s neck and torso. The last hit is mine!

He was the one to finally deliver the big ogre to its death, earning the most exp and gold in the process. It was a little sneaky of him, almost equivalent to kill stealing.

But, it was only fair. After all, Luke did most of the work here and he was the Jungler, so he was the most dependent on income from Jungle Camps. As such, nobody had any objections.

I gotta git strong real fast if I wanna stay relevant. Luke thought. I’m OP right now, but I won’t stay like that for long unless I farm like a pro.

Such was the curse of Dark Knight. This class was always in a race against the clock. It had to abuse its overwhelming early-game power and snowball early, or else it’ll lag behind and vanish into obscurity. Indeed, with great power came great responsibility.

But, no worry. Luke grinned. I know all the gud tech. I’ve practiced this shit a billion times by now. So, I’mma snowball real gud on these scrubs, word!

Alas, despite how much Luke was in a hurry to become stronger, Yuel ordered for the power buff from the Ogre Camp to go to Lars, not to Luke.

“Welp, I guess that makes sense,” Luke conceded without a fight.

Getting the power buff would’ve been nice for getting stronger, but in the end, it was just a temporary boost. It wouldn’t make Luke permanently stronger.

Not to mention, Dark Knight was already so OP that getting a temporary boost won’t even affect his camp clearing speed by much. Heck, even his ganking potential probably won’t see a notable increase.

I’ve tested it enough times to know. Luke thought. Getting the buff really didn’t feel that different. Seriously, DK is so OP that you don’t even notice the damage boost, haha.

Most of Dark Knight’s overwhelming damage came from the high base damage of Dark Blast. On the other hand, the scaling of the skill was actually piss poor, so getting a power buff barely increased Dark Blast’s damage. It was unfortunate, but that’s life for ya.

I’m actually surprised Yuel is aware of this stuff. Wasn’t he supposed to be a meta slave? How does he even...? Luke couldn’t compute any of this. Heck, the guy even had a name for this thing. How did he call it, again? Something like “diminishing returns”? Dude legit knows everything there is to know about the game, huh.

With the Orc Camp demolished, it was time to move toward the next destination.

“Let’s do the wolves next,” Luke suggested.

“Good idea,” Yuel agreed. “We’ll join you.”

The trio traveled to the Wolf Camp near Bot Lane. Thanks to Luke’s Dark Blast, they cleared the camp within seconds. It was like playing the game on Easy Mode.

Except for the fact it rapes my HP. Luke smiled wryly. He had used Dark Blast five times since the game started, which resulted in losing 25% HP just for that.

On top of that, Luke tanked some damage from mobs. So, in total, the damage accumulated to 30%.

Yes, that’s right. Luke was already down to 70% HP even though nobody has even fought him so far.

And, I’mma drop to around half HP after doing the camps in Top Jungle. Oh, and there’s the griffins, too. I better steal these now… which means extra damage to myself. Seriously, this class is so maso.

Combined, all of that was a lot of self-inflicted damage. And, for what? Just for casting a dang skill. It was such a bruh moment.

But, that’s also what made Dark Knight so interesting to play. This maso class was hurting itself while dishing out big PP damage. So, Luke could go for a lot of crazy plays, but he also had to carefully monitor his health every step of the way.

Though, I can restore a lot of that missing HP real fast with one good gank. Luke snickered. I totally should go for it soon.

This was one of the unexpected benefits of playing Dark Knight as a Jungler. Out of all the existing roles, Jungler actually put Dark Knight’s passive to best use.

The Soul Eater passive allowed the Dark Knight to restore 30% of his MaxHP upon scoring a kill. A great passive overall, but a little hard to utilize in Top where progress was always slow as heck in the early-game.

On the other hand, a Jungler had the freedom to roam to any part of the map and gank literally anybody. So, if Luke successfully scores at least one kill via a gank, he’d instantly restore himself back to full health. Yes, the passive was that broken.

With this setup, Luke could burn a lot of his HP by casting numerous Dark Blasts, and then restore all that HP in one fell swoop by scoring a single kill. It was like a neverending loop!

Hehe. You wanna learn how to do a fuckin’ infinite!? I’mma show you an infinite!

With that said, it probably won’t be so easy. After all, his opponents today were none other than the Leopards, the regional champions.

I have a feeling these turtles gonna be real shook once they realize I’m jungling with DK. Luke grinned. INB4 they all start hugging their towers to make sure I don’t get any chances. Welp, that’d be hilarious in its own way, haha.

For now, Luke focused on efficiently farming the next few jungle camps. It was too early to assault the Leopards directly. Before that, it was best to observe their movements and get a feel for their game plan.

Let’s see how them “pros” handle my DK. Luke smirked. I hope they’re total meta slaves and got no idea how to deal with this, hehe.

It sounded unlikely that high-level players will not know how to deal with Dark Knight, but stuff like this actually happened a few times in Ranked. Some opponents thought Luke was making fun of them with his jungling, so they attacked him early or tried to contest his camps.

Needless to say, it didn’t bode well for them. Basically, Luke whooped their asses.

Of course, a high-level team like the Leopards was unlikely to commit such grave misplays. But hey, a man could always dream, right? Maybe, just maybe, this irregular pick will throw the champions off their game, just enough for Stratus to steal a sneaky win.

Hehe, I can already imagine the clickbait video. “The champions lost against WHAT!?” “You won’t believe this pick worked in a real match!” This gonna be gud.

With such silly thoughts in mind, Luke headed to the Griffin Camp in Bot Jungle.