Chapter 88

Whoosh!

The sword filled with maximum sword energy slashes the vitals of the rigid Heavenly Killing Star.

The health remaining, a little less than one-third?

It disappears.

[Heavenly Killing Star defeated!]

[Enemy fortress health –20]

The damage from sword energy enhanced through Heavenly Demon Divine Art is reliable.

Internal energy isn’t infinite—it’s a limited resource, but if this level of return is strange, then consider the reality that most people still don’t use it even now.

-Heavenly Killing Star cut down in a 3 vs 1!

-Shivering

-Is he actually going to win????

-That guy’s dead, seriously using a heavy attack there, damn Orthodox bastard like cancer

-Trying to land two hits in one go and ended up in the grave lol

“Going overboard, right? Of course, if you hadn’t been greedy, I would’ve kept dodging until you did get greedy, so the result would’ve been the same.”

From the moment it became 2 vs 1, Seo-jun had become relaxed and started reading and responding to chat while lightly dodging NamgungFamilyWaitress’s attacks.

-Ah. So that’s how you gaslight them?

-That confidence in being able to keep dodging, wow

-Always showing and proving, so can’t argue with it lol

“Ah.”

Clang!

NamgungFamilyWaitress, whose attack was blocked, let out a sigh.

He was the one who had gotten his attacks blocked just as much as Heavenly Killing Star the day before.

“Did the PTSD kick in?”

OnlyOneWon said.

“No.”

Instead of positioning front and back to surround Seo-jun, the two stood on either side.

Because standing separately was now dangerous.

Hadn’t yesterday already proven enough that the enemy’s sword, even at slow speed, was unavoidable and powerful?

Of course, OnlyOneWon still believed that with two people, they could create different variables or escape.

But that would only be possible after learning martial arts at level 6 or higher.

The reason was the fundamental skill difference.

“A pure battle really isn’t going to happen.”

OnlyOneWon judged as his shoulders sagged, and his teammate beside him grumbled.

“Where the hell did this guy crawl out from, really.”

Unlike yesterday, they weren’t pressing the attack, but their enemy Seo-jun was steadily succeeding with his attacks.

In contrast, they had been failing at everything since Heavenly Killing Star died.

“If only we had martial arts, we could at least put up a fight.”

OnlyOneWon’s chest was pierced by a sword as he analyzed until the very end, his health fully depleted as he turned into a corpse.

“Now it’s 1 vs 1.”

[OnlyOneWon defeated]

[Enemy fortress health –20]

* * *

“Won the first round. Everyone.”

It hadn’t been a long fight.

Both he and the enemy preferred to decide things quickly rather than drag it out.

The result was his victory.

Seo-jun finished off the enemy and quickly occupied the central stronghold before entering it.

His health and resources recovered.

-Wow

-Winning a 3 vs 1

-Are you really a boss monster lol

-But being able to use martial art traits alone was an advantage, wasn’t it?

-Don’t you think about the Heavenly Demon Divine Art penalty?

-If there was no penalty and no traits, he probably would’ve caught them all without taking a single hit

If there were enemies around, he couldn’t recover, so he had to finish it now.

“Right. If I could only use swords without penalties, I wouldn’t have gotten hit once.”

[‘Who Am I?’ donated 50,000 won!]

[Shin Ha-yeon slayer!]

“That’s a ban.”

-Lol

-Lmao

-Shouldn’t he cut back on the showing off first if he dislikes that kind of thing?

-No matter how disadvantageous it might not be, if you won 3 vs 1, showing off is legally allowed lol

-Why do group battles degrade like that? The streamer’s skill isn’t higher than 3 rankers, is it?

-What are you talking about lol Does 3 vs 1 mean the difficulty is tripled? Lol

After confirming his health was almost fully restored, he got up from his position.

“Let me explain group battles so you guys don’t fight about it.”

Seo-jun explained simply while calming the chat that seemed ready to argue.

It wasn’t difficult to understand that while more people naturally made you stronger, you didn’t become proportionally stronger, and most interested people already knew this.

Of course, this only applied to For the Murim where team killing was possible.

No matter how much you spread skills in all directions systemically, if it’s not your team and only affects enemies, wouldn’t the difficulty of coordination drop tremendously?

-Ah, For the Murim is like that

-It is different

-How did they not know this while watching group battle streams?

-Hey, I’m here because I like the streamer~

-Ignoring the fundamentals who’ve been watching since Assassin’s Dawn

-So the streamer isn’t worth 3 rankers after all

“Ah, I didn’t say I wasn’t worth 3 rankers. What I meant by that is, I’m worth more than 3 rankers.”

What Seo-jun had explained was only the characteristics of group battles, not that he was lower than the combined skill of 3 rankers.

-??? Lmao. You’re not wrong though

-Right

-Actually has credibility

Huh?

That’s not the reaction he expected.

Why are they accepting this so obediently?

Normally there should be a comprehensive gift set of consonants harsh words, but the viewers were surprisingly accepting that it made sense, which was a bit flustering.

Fortunately, the chat he’d expected started appearing with a time delay.

‘Phew.’

-Bullshit

-Without Heavenly Demon Lordship Steps, you couldn’t have won, yes or no

-Level 6 is where the difference starts

-Then what about Green Forest? Green Forest also starts with passive traits from the beginning lol

-Assassination Guild also has basic passive traits applied

After confirming his health and resources were fully replenished, Seo-jun left the stronghold and headed toward the center.

“Well. We’ll see who’s right when we fight after level 6, won’t we?”

-Right lol

-So where are you going now?

-Don’t tell me the enemy fortress?

-They’ll respawn soon, so blocking the entrance would be a bit awkward lol

The viewers expected him to head to the enemy fortress now.

The reason was that Seo-jun always went to the center first, beat everyone, and did exactly that.

His main pattern was to fight each respawn and prevent them from coming out while sending teammates to the center through chat to hunt soldiers.

He preferred this because he could end games quickly with continuous damage from the 3 strongholds and damage from killing soldiers each time.

Suddenly, Seo-jun, who had gone to the center, started hunting soldiers.

“If I just aim for their weak spots, I can get the fight done in three hits without using any resources.”

Seo-jun entered the central war zone where Orthodox and Demonic Cult soldiers were fighting and began brilliantly targeting soldiers whose health had dropped below a certain threshold in the chaotic situation, stabbing them with his sword.

[Enemy fortress health –5]

[Enemy fortress health –5]

[Enemy fortress health –5]

The Demonic Cult and Orthodox soldiers had differences in equipment, but distinguishing them by equipment wasn’t particularly easy.

Instead, since parts like emblems were painted red for Demonic Cult and blue for Orthodox, distinguishing by color was easy.

[Enemy fortress health –5]

[Enemy fortress health –5]

[Enemy fortress health –5]

-What are you doing?

-Why are you suddenly hunting minions when you never did that before

-Scared? Lol. Going hardcore mode lol

Seo-jun hunted soldiers with full concentration.

One by one.

Even in the chaotic battle, he never took light damage while thoroughly targeting only enemy vitals for efficient kills.

“Why am I doing this? To end the game quickly.”

No one believed him.

-Then just go to their fortress lol

-Trying to build a level gap

-No, this is actually the right way to occupy the center lol. You just never did this before

In-game levels rose through experience gained by killing soldiers, handling special map objects, or occupying and maintaining strongholds.

“Levels don’t make that big a difference.”

Martial art traits that unlocked or improved at every 6 levels were different, but he knew well that no matter how much you killed, creating a 6+ level gap was impossible.

Because of that, Seo-jun, who had other reasons, was speaking sincerely.

[Enemy fortress health –5]

[Enemy fortress health –5]

[Enemy fortress health –5]

-If it doesn’t make a big difference, then stop lol

-The streamer wanting to get even a little faster because he’s scared is hilarious lol

-Does he really think it’s difficult?

Of course, no one believed him.

* * *

“We’re losing this.”

Heavenly Killing Star said from inside the fortress.

Dead users were given two choices.

Watch the surroundings from where they fell and rejoin immediately if a teammate revived them.

Second was to just go to the fortress in the dead state if they judged there was no hope.

The latter was a system that allowed smooth communication between the dead.

“Ah. What were you doing, rank 2? We lost because of you.”

NamgungFamilyWaitress and Heavenly Killing Star chose to go to the fortress and wait.

The respawn wait time was less than a minute—short if you considered it short—but these two were rather impatient.

There was also the disadvantage that staying in place made communication inconvenient due to distance.

“Yes yes. Sorry. I didn’t expect him to parry while spinning around like that.”

It wasn’t like he had eyes in the back of his head—if he could set that up while surrounded alone, it was absurd.

“Right.”

Waitress accepted it. It seemed like he’d just said it casually.

“You’re pretty calm.”

“You too. I thought you’d be shocked after losing.”

“Right. I’m not really upset about losing 3 vs 1.”

Heavenly Killing Star nodded as he spoke.

“Pure skill-wise, we’re no match.”

He didn’t intend to make excuses about the enemy being able to use martial art skills or group battles being this or that.

It was clear that three people couldn’t beat one person.

NamgungFamilyWaitress thought to himself.

‘How far could I win in a 3 vs 1?’

Looking at ranked game tiers, maybe if they went down about 3 tiers it would be possible.

That meant there was a 3+ tier difference between that streamer and him.

No matter how much For the Murim was considered a dead and outdated game, he was clearly a top-tier user, so this was an absurd result.

There were excuses available.

“This is just comparing pure physical skill, and it’ll be different once we hit level 6.”

Pure fighting skill could be lost.

Even though For the Murim had a high proportion of pure fighting skill, it was still a game.

“That person is still bad at the game though.”

“Right.”

He fought well and had good control, but he was bad at the game.

“Since he always just crushes with physicality, he doesn’t need game skill.”

He seemed to play the game well, but that wasn’t true at all.

They’d never seen anyone play the game as carelessly as that streamer.

“By the way, what’s that bastard doing?”

20 seconds until respawn.

As soon as he finished speaking, OnlyOneWon was summoned to the fortress.

“What were you doing?”

“I was watching what the enemy was doing. This isn’t the time for that.”

“Why?”

“Right now Heavenly Demon is grinding levels desperately. We need to stop him, but can we win if we go to the center right after respawning?”

He had quickly come to the fortress to organize the situation and asked.

OnlyOneWon was also a veteran, but compared to the other two, he had skills one level below.

“It’d be better to hit level 6 before fighting him.”

“I don’t think we can win.”

OnlyOneWon spoke without a moment’s hesitation, as if he’d expected this.

“Then there’s no choice. We have to narrow the gap as much as possible and fight after hitting level 6. Let’s split up. Waitress, you go to point A, and Heavenly Killing Star and I will go to point B.”

They scattered immediately upon respawning.

And until then, they hadn’t noticed.

The fact that from the moment they respawned, the fortress health depletion speed had visibly slowed down.