Chapter 77
CHAPTER 77
Chapter 77
So this map was a forest.
Seo Jun spawned inside a wooden cabin.
He looked around his surroundings while waiting for the game to begin.
Outside the window, he could see a clearing surrounded by thick vegetation and trees.
‘They said matches become hard to find after four consecutive wins. Guess it’s finally starting.’
For the first four matches, it was unavoidable that users with much lower fame scores than him would get matched against him. But starting from the fifth match, matchmaking only paired people with roughly similar fame levels.
Since this was extra gameplay people did regardless of contribution points because they wanted to gain more fame, if players kept getting matched against opponents far weaker than themselves even after the fifth match, they could practically “copy” contribution points endlessly.
So from the fifth match onward, if there weren’t any users of similar level available, there were cases where matchmaking would continue indefinitely.
And people used this to prevent other rankers from stacking contribution points through winning streaks.
By simply refusing to queue.
But there was also a countermeasure against that.
If nobody would queue into your region, you could just go find them yourself.
Of course, even among players of similar level, winning consistently wasn’t easy.
Seo Jun was currently on a six-win streak.
And it had taken over ten minutes for this match to finally appear.
Which meant the rankers were either avoiding him or actively targeting him.
There was no way to know which was true.
Maybe if he looked into the faction group chats of the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions?
Anyway, the opponent he met after ten minutes was—
[Cheonsalseong]
The very person who had started this whole event and its cause (7): Cheonsalseong.
“So we finally meet.”
He really came.
Guess he had no intention of listening to the warning.
How lamentable.
-Finally!!!!
-The duel between Rank 2 and Rank 1
-All of this started from that martial arts tournament
-Cheonsalseong, show us something different!
-Let’s go!
-All the patriotic bettors in our country are betting on Cheonsalseong
-Just lose once already, man. Six straight wins is enough profit already
Right, there was betting too.
Seo Jun waved his hand and opened the stream settings to read the betting entries.
“Wow, it’s literally split in half. Not even favored odds or underdog odds this time?”
Among them, one particular nickname stood out—the user who had bet the most points on Seo Jun winning.
Joseon’s Assassin.
The richest point holder in Traveler history had wagered the maximum possible amount for prediction betting: 250,000 points.
And this wasn’t only today.
Maybe because he had overflowing amounts of points, he apparently maxed out 250,000 points on every prediction.
Even on other streams.
-Those guys betting against our country are seriously dead lol
-What do you mean “anti-national betting” lololol
-If you’ve watched this much and still don’t know, Cheonsalseong or whatever is getting destroyed
-Honestly, I think this stream is more famous than the world’s number one player now lol
-If he wins this too, he becomes the most popular person in For the Sake of Chivalry
-At this point he doesn’t even need Rank 1 anymore
-But why doesn’t he use Heavenly Demon Descending Step???
While chatting, the game started.
“Heavenly Demon Descending Step? Should I try using it once?”
Heavenly Demon Descending Step was a skill unlocked by users who invested in Heavenly Demon Divine Art after accumulating even more internal energy than before.
Seo Jun immediately focused his mind and gathered internal energy into his right foot.
Didn’t they say you had to stomp properly?
Seo Jun lifted his knee, and dark internal energy began gathering in his foot.
The longer he waited, the more internal energy it consumed, and the stronger the energy became.
Gradually, his foot started feeling heavier.
And the moment that heaviness stopped increasing any further, Seo Jun stomped downward.
Boom!
The wooden floor of the cabin caved in with a thunderous noise.
An area crowd-control skill capable of dealing damage and stunning nearby players.
The skill users called Heavenly Demon Descending Step.
The minimum internal energy required to activate it gathered slightly slowly in the foot, so dodging it wasn’t difficult, but its range was quite wide, making it an incredibly useful skill if used well.
-No lolololol that’s not when you’re supposed to use it
-He used all his internal energy again
-Why inside an empty cabin lolololol
The skill had the characteristic that the more internal energy you poured into it, the larger the range and power became.
“Hm, I accidentally used almost all of it.”
Seo Jun clicked his tongue.
“Well, I’ve won without internal energy before, so it should be manageable.”
-We believe in you
-Is this good news for anti-national betting?
-Honestly, if Rank 2 can’t beat someone who ran out of internal energy…
-He always creates handicaps for himself lololol truly consistent
-At this point maybe he just likes suffering…?
Here they go again.
But he let the misunderstandings slide for now. Even if he explained, nobody would believe him anyway.
Seo Jun stepped out through the shattered cabin door and changed his tone at the same time.
“Did you wait long?”
Cheonsalseong was waiting in the clearing.
“No. But… how exactly did that cabin explode?”
At those words, Seo Jun turned around to look.
So it really had been half-destroyed.
It strangely reminded him of the aftermath of an assassination.
“I was just testing my skill.”
-“I was testing my skill” lololol
-Technically true
-How is this not a comedy stream but a skill showcase lolololol
lololol
The reactions were good.
Seo Jun felt satisfied as a streamer and shifted his gaze forward again.
“You didn’t seriously use up all your internal energy, did you?”
“Don’t worry. Even without that, I can still beat you.”
“Hah. Do I look as easy as Brother MurimMania?”
Instead of answering, Seo Jun merely gave a gentle smile.
“I’ll make you regret it.”
‘Good. I played around with you a little at first, but for you, I’ll specially go all out from the start.’
Seo Jun raised the tip of his sword and pointed it toward Cheonsalseong.
Cheonsalseong unconsciously swallowed.
The opponent had merely aimed his sword at him, yet his body instinctively tensed, strength filling his legs down to his toes.
‘Did I just get nervous? Why?’
In one-on-one duels, he was someone who never lost if he stayed calm. So why was he tense?
‘He’s definitely skilled if he beat all those others, but if I fight him seriously, I’ll win.’
Win rate: 90%.
That had been his duel win rate last season.
‘Still, it’s definitely worth trying.’
After finishing four matches as quickly as possible, he had watched the playstyle of the opponent standing before him now.
And every time he watched, the impression he got was:
“He’s good, but if it were me?”
If it were him, he wouldn’t hold the sword like that.
If it were him, he would dodge to the right at that moment.
If it were him, he would create more distance.
If it were him, he could counterattack.
These kinds of thoughts weren’t unusual or special for him.
‘It’s always been like this.’
Whenever he watched other people fight, these thoughts naturally surfaced in his mind.
It wasn’t something he consciously learned.
Nor did he have years of fighting experience since childhood.
‘It’s just natural.’
The moment he saw something, he instinctively sensed it.
That was why people called him a genius.
Of course, even geniuses weren’t born perfect and overwhelming from the start.
But as experience accumulated, the number of flaws he could see increased.
And after surviving countless sniper attempts and reaching Rank 1 last season, he had achieved tremendous growth.
That was why, even while other rankers were losing helplessly, Cheonsalseong naturally accepted that he alone could see Seo Jun’s weaknesses.
He even thought:
‘Has the skill gap widened even further?’
Because of that, Cheonsalseong faced Seo Jun with complete confidence.
“You’re going all out from the start? That works for me.”
He knew how to use tension properly.
If tension became excessive, you eased it—like casually chatting now.
When that happened, the remaining moderate tension instead helped bring out your true abilities better.
That too was instinctive behavior for him.
“Very well. Then I’ll let you have the first move.”
Among all sects, there was one that had particularly many users.
“Alright.”
Giving away the first move meant viewing the opponent as inferior.
But Cheonsalseong didn’t mind.
Rather than protecting trivial pride, it was better to protect his victory and preserve a greater pride.
“Then I’ll go all out too.”
Cheonsalseong spun his sword playfully before finishing his sentence, then properly gripped it and charged forward.
The sect he had chosen was the Mount Hua Sect.
And the martial art he chose was the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique.
The characteristic of the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique was that every single form became an individual skill, and those forms could be chained together into even more powerful techniques.
Additionally, players could either receive motion correction through settings or personally control their own movements to execute the forms manually.
This applied to all techniques, but the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Technique stood out because it contained twenty-four forms.
If you received correction assistance, using skills became easier.
However—
Even with the same form, there were optimal ways to utilize it depending on the situation.
When relying on motion correction, power naturally decreased, and weaknesses became easier to discern.
That was why players who wanted to become truly strong abandoned the correction system.
And researched the techniques themselves.
Incidentally, what helped greatly with that process was the Demonic Cult’s Hundred Interpretations Sense.
Which was why the Mount Hua Sect had so many transcendent-level users.
Cheonsalseong immediately unleashed a sword form from the very start.
Unlike territory wars, duels had no level concept. They were true life-and-death battles fought at maximum level with access to everything.
Which meant that, if successfully executed, he could immediately chain all the way into the final form of the Plum Blossom Sword Technique—a technique said to decide victory the moment it unfolded.
His sword began moving in a pattern deeply engraved into his body.
First Form.
A crimson aura burst outward, enveloping the battlefield.
The blade flashed brilliantly as it aimed to wrap around the opponent’s body, pouring internal energy into the strike.
This actually wasn’t a very good choice.
Because trying to compete against Heavenly Demon Divine Art with internal energy alone already had a predetermined outcome.
[The divine art that stands above all cultivation methods.]
Though people rarely used it because of its penalties, the single line describing Heavenly Demon Divine Art was not something that could be ignored lightly.
Even so, the reason he still used the form was because if he directly interfered with the opponent’s sword and prevented the technique chain from breaking, he was confident he would win once he connected into the higher forms.
Moreover, his opponent had already nearly exhausted all his internal energy.
Even if he took some damage from the clash right now, it was fine.
As long as he successfully connected into the higher forms in the end, he would win.
Just as expected, a slow black line cut through the air, erasing the crimson aura as it sliced across his body.
Seo Jun neither dodged nor blocked.
A bit of his HP decreased.
‘As expected, it looks even slower in person. And did he really use up all his remaining internal energy?’
Thinking the duel would end far more easily than expected, he moved to unfold the next form—
But before he could even properly begin, something caught on his sword.
‘When did he get here?’
At some point, Seo Jun had already stepped right in front of him and crossed swords with him directly.