𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟕𝟔
That doesn’t mean I immediately rushed at Jerak.
Since my HP was already more than half depleted, I thought I needed to recover. I immediately went outside, drank a potion, and then went back in.
It only took a few seconds, so the situation was still the same, but in other words, Jerak’s solo performance was continuing.
‘He’s like a fish in water.’
He was keeping the guild members in check with various magic spells while simultaneously summoning Skeleton Knights without a break.
Moreover, due to his summoning stats, the Skeleton Knights weren’t being pushed back at all against the Emperor Guild members, and some of them were even shown to be eliminating Emperor Guild members.
‘I can’t let him keep rampaging.’
The momentum had already begun to shift towards the Emperor Guild.
If I just dealt with the variable that was Jerak, everything would be over.
Besides, I had said I would fight alone, so there was no need to keep watching. I decided to move immediately.
“Blink.”
If possible, I wanted to move near Jerak and attack, but Skeleton Knights were already deployed around him.
I don’t know how, but it felt like the summoning time was getting shorter and shorter.
As if stamina meant nothing.
But I didn’t have time to worry about that.
“Blink.”
As I used Phantom Shift once again to move from my spot, a phantom appeared in my original location and used Thunder Strike, and Jerak’s gaze turned towards the phantom.
That way, I kept his gaze fixed on one spot. I sensed with Intuition that this was my chance and ran with all my might.
“Phantom Explosion, Giant’s Sprint!”
And I used two skills.
Even if he used that protective shield skill again, it would be broken by Phantom Explosion, and I thought I might be able to finish him off in one go by using Giant’s Sprint to crash into the gap created.
“Ugh.”
Originally, I thought this attack would be the end of it, but Jerak used the expected shield and threw himself backward.
Kwaaaang!!━
Jerak, who was pushed back by the explosive power of Phantom Explosion, avoided my Giant’s Sprint. Realizing this, I immediately stopped and swung my shield.
“Thunder Strike!”
“Black Curtain.”
Kwaaaang!━
That damn shield!
Seeing Jerak block my Thunder Strike with his shield in that brief moment, I felt a surge of annoyance, but I tried not to show it and tried to continue with my next attack.
That is, if he hadn’t counterattacked as if he had been waiting.
“Corpse Explosion.”
There were already 6-7 Skeleton Knights deployed around me.
I wouldn’t die from being hit, but thinking that this attack had also failed, I inevitably used Phantom Shift to escape the explosion range. Jerak, not fooled twice, turned his head and searched for my location.
I even thought that I might have missed a golden opportunity.
‘But.’
Now, anyone could see that the momentum had shifted towards the Emperor Guild.
Ust, Aizen, and Yua were rampaging on one side.
In addition, the guild members who were logging in looked around and immediately joined the attack, and as the number of such guild members gradually increased, it was a confirmed fact that we would win this way.
‘I don’t know why he’s not giving up.’
For whatever reason, Jerak continued to summon Skeleton Knights while searching for my location.
I understood that he was summoning those Skeleton Knights to use for the Army of Darkness effect and Corpse Explosion, but I was curious about why he could summon them continuously without resting.
“Are you not coming anymore?”
While observing the situation for a moment, Jerak uttered those words and then sent the Skeleton Knights. Afterward, he used Tomb of Bones to summon bone clusters throughout the Guild Castle.
If I stayed still like this, he would continue to summon Skeleton Knights.
The guild members who logged in were occasionally attacking, but they couldn’t even properly break through the Skeleton Knights deployed around him. The guild members who had acquired area-of-effect magic seemed to be attacking, but they didn’t seem to be inflicting much damage.
‘There’s no other way.’
Either way, the longer it went on, the more advantageous it was for him.
Thinking that I needed to actively move as well, I decided to approach him by first eliminating those smug skeletons one by one.
“Absolute Recovery.”
Due to the effect of the Death Zone, my HP wouldn’t recover, but my MP would.
Taking advantage of that, I used Absolute Recovery and immediately slammed Roar of the Thunder Dragon onto the ground.
[Roar of the Thunder Dragon activated!]
[All MP will be consumed.]
KuoOoooo!!━
Considering my current MP, it would deal close to 30,000 damage.
Moreover, the golden lightning swirling around the center of the Roar of the Thunder Dragon I slammed down was enough to engulf everything around it, and I decided to actively utilize that as I quickly moved and continued to slam Roar of the Thunder Dragon onto the ground.
[Roar of the Thunder Dragon activated!]
‘The skeletons have more HP than I thought.’
It took two activations of Roar of the Thunder Dragon to kill them.
Of course, I didn’t care.
Whether it was two or three times, the range of Roar of the Thunder Dragon was so wide that I could sweep away the Skeleton Knights even with moderate use.
However, I didn’t use Absolute Recovery just to catch the Skeleton Knights.
“Phantom Skill Designation. Giant’s Sprint.”
[Designated.]
“Blink.”
I followed the phantom’s charge.
If I ran straight at him, I was likely to be hit by Forced Teleport or Corpse Explosion.
Therefore, thinking that I needed a decoy, I used Phantom Shift, and the phantom, as I intended, charged towards Jerak with its shield raised.
“Giant’s Sprint!”
Naturally, I chased after the phantom.
Giant’s Sprint executed by me and the phantom.
Considering his skills, it was necessary to attack simultaneously like this, so it was a combination attack, but Jerak’s response was also formidable.
“Forced Teleport.”
First, he sent the phantom somewhere with Forced Teleport.
Thanks to that, I was forced to face him, but a translucent black shield was already deployed around his body.
‘Should I break it?’
It was clear that I would be hit by the Corpse Explosion attack if I didn’t avoid it here.
However, considering the characteristics of his skills, I judged that it would be difficult to attack without getting hit, so I pondered for a moment but eventually decided to collide with it, thinking that it would end in one or two attacks.
Kwaaaang!!━
[You have taken damage! -10,227.]
[You have taken damage……]
As I broke the shield, the Skeleton Knights deployed around me exploded.
[Roar of the Thunder Dragon activated!]
[Skill Damage! 17,958.]
“……Forced Teleport.”
However, I also slammed Roar of the Thunder Dragon onto the ground to create lightning and inflict damage on him, and the damage seemed to be significant because Jerak immediately cast Forced Teleport on me.
‘That damn b*stard.’
Forced Teleport was more than enough to interrupt the flow, as I was planning to finish him off with Thunder Strike right after using Roar of the Thunder Dragon.
But I couldn’t stop either.
“Blink.”
Since Absolute Recovery was still active, I wanted to settle things now. I used Phantom Shift once again to move out of Jerak’s sight, and I suddenly felt a small amount of power draining from my body.
[The duration of S-rank skill, Jayer’s Guardian Shield, has ended.]
The duration ended?
Jerak, seeing my Guardian Shield disappear, thought this was his chance and used a skill he hadn’t shown here before.
“Monarch’s Call!”
Pababat!━
“……!?”
I could tell what skill it was right away.
It was the skill that moved the Skeleton Knights near Jerak to my surroundings.
It was the same skill he used to kill me in the territory before.
‘Damn it.’
Even if I wanted to escape with Phantom Shift, the Skeleton Knights were already blocking my vision.
Am I going to die like this?
Zing━
‘Huh?’
As I felt the tension of dying to him, the world suddenly felt like it was slowing down.
In addition, all the movements around me and the consequences of my actions came into my mind. This phenomenon was similar to the Intuition that was used when I drew the Sanctuary of Light.
Furthermore, the actions I would take and my goals naturally came to mind.
“……Jayer’s Guardian Shield.”
Kwakwang!- Kwaaaang!!━
Then, as if waiting, the Skeleton Knights exploded.
Comparing this explosion’s power and my remaining HP, there was no chance of me surviving.
It was an attack that far exceeded my HP.
However, even amidst the explosion, my body moved as I willed, and I immediately began to act to achieve the results drawn in my mind.
“Blink.”
I used Phantom Shift through the gap visible amidst the smoke of the explosion.
The phantom created accordingly used Giant’s Sprint, and Jerak, seeing the phantom charging through the smoke, immediately reacted, but that was exactly as I had expected.
I could kill him right now if I wanted to.
There were no Skeleton Knights nearby.
[Roar of the Thunder Dragon activated!]
Nevertheless, I didn’t finish him off right away and instead activated Roar of the Thunder Dragon to draw his attention. As a result, as soon as he grasped my location, he immediately used Forced Teleport.
Pababat!━
Well, regardless of Forced Teleport, the phantom collided with him and broke his shield.
Also, although Forced Teleport seemed to be a skill that moved the target randomly, I knew exactly where I would be moved, and realizing that the location was behind him, I used Roar of the Thunder Dragon once again.
KuoOoooo!!━
[Skill Damage! 18,072.]
“Ugh.”
Jerak, unable to block the swirling lightning, took damage.
And as the lightning swirled, I swung Roar of the Thunder Dragon, hitting his chin upward. I quickly moved again, digging deeper inside, and delivered the final blow.
“Thunder Strike.”
Kwaaaang!!━
[Skill Damage! 31,487.]
Seeing Jerak’s body, which fell backward with the yellow lightning, turn gray, I let out a long breath inwardly.
‘Phew.’
It’s finally over.
Actually, no matter how high his stats were, I could have finished him off with one or two Thunder Strikes.
That’s how high the attack power of Thunder Strike was.
In a way, I had been doing useless things, but it wasn’t without reason.
[You have killed a player from a hostile force.]
[Reward Experience……]
[Reward Item ‘+15 Daylis, Origin of Darkness’ acquired!]
[Reward Item ‘+11 White Reaper’s Mask’ acquired!]
‘He won’t be able to attack again now, will he?’
My goal from the beginning was to take away the legendary staff.
This was because I thought he wouldn’t be able to attack again if he didn’t have this staff.
No, maybe he would even quit the game.
It was a staff that he bought for 6.5 billion won, wasn’t it?
Considering his wealth, it might not be a big amount, but still.
‘By the way……’
Apart from Daylis, I also obtained the White Reaper’s Mask.
It was probably the mask he was wearing.
Therefore, Jerak, who had collapsed and turned gray, was in a state where his mask had been removed, and when I checked his face, my head naturally tilted in puzzlement.
No, why is this guy……
“Good work.”
Meanwhile, Aizen approached me and spoke, as if the cleanup was finished.
And he also checked Jerak’s face and then nodded nonchalantly as if he had expected it to some extent.
“Did you know?”
“I had a hunch after the conversation we had when we fought in the territory before. But it was just a hunch, so I didn’t mention it.”
“Really? But why did he have a grudge against me?”
“Well, maybe it’s because he lost to Rudin-nim twice. But it seems like he also had a grudge against the guild.”
Either way, I couldn’t know anything unless he said it himself.
It was just speculation.
Of course, since I had taken the legendary staff, Daylis, there was a high chance that he wouldn’t log in anymore, so that speculation would probably remain just speculation.
‘But Yua……’
I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask.
How did she know, where did she bring the reinforcements from?
So I looked for Yua, but strangely, she was nowhere to be seen.
“That lady has already logged out.”
“She logged out?”
“Yes, she said she had something to do.”
What was it?
I was curious, but it was something I could ask later.
After all, I could now log in to Twilight continuously.
Also, right now, because I logged in with a different helmet, I had a headache……
‘Hmm? It doesn’t hurt anymore.’
I don’t know how, but my headache disappeared as if it had been washed away.
But still, thinking that it would be better to be careful, I decided to log out first to change helmets and log in again.
“Logout.”
……Huh?
“Is there something wrong?”
“Ah, no. It’s nothing. More importantly, we’re done now, right?”
“I’m going to go outside and provide support.”
“Okay. Sorry, but I’ll take a break and then go.”
“Yes. Understood.”
Aizen said those last words and headed out to the Guild Castle entrance, and I quickly grabbed any room and went inside, where I tried saying Logout again.
“Logout. Logout!”
Why wasn’t there any response?
Normally, I should be logged out with a message, but that wasn’t happening at all right now.
‘Crazy, why is this happening all of a sudden!’
Reminding myself to stay calm as much as possible, I kept saying Logout, but there was still no response.
Do I have to hold out until the connection time runs out?
The maximum connection time for Twilight was 6 hours, so I thought I might be automatically logged out if I just endured that time, but somehow, I didn’t think it would be like that.
‘Is it because of the helmet? Or Intuition?’
Realizing that the situation was getting serious, I kept thinking, but no good solution came to mind.
Should I try dying? No. Even if I died, I would just remain in a soul state, and I wouldn’t be logged out.
So, the only thing I could hope for now was to wait until the connection time ran out, but the problem with this was that I was currently using Intuition.
Moreover, it was an unknown Intuition that surpassed the second Intuition.
I didn’t even know what would happen if I endured for 6 hours while maintaining this Intuition.
“Ha, crazy……”
No matter how much I thought about it, no clear solution came to mind.
Even Intuition didn’t tell me anything this time.
What would happen to me if I couldn’t log out like this, or if 6 hours passed and I was logged out?
‘Ah, Illia.’
I had to contact Illia.
She would definitely know a way. No, I believed so.
Also, thinking that it would be faster to find Aizen to contact Illia, I left the Guild Castle and tried to find him, but.
Pababat!━
At that moment.
My vision went dark, and at the same time, I felt an illusion as if my consciousness was falling into darkness.
* * *
“……”
Could it be…… that I’m dead?
The darkness robbed me of my vision, as well as all the senses in my body.
It felt like I was trapped in an intangible space where I couldn’t feel anything.
‘Ha, this is truly a dog’s death.’
I had seen people on the news who died from playing games too much, but I never thought it would be me.
More importantly, what would happen to the money I had earned?
It was frustrating that I died without even being able to use all that money, but it was already too late to regret it.
My parents and Jaehoon would be sad, right?
And Yua too.
Thinking about the people who would be sad because of my death made me feel bitter.
……! …… Shit!
If I had known this would happen, I should have confessed to Yua.
Ah, maybe not.
Thinking about me suddenly dying while playing a game, I thought it would be a bad thing to do.
Maybe this was better.
And I remembered what Yua said when we were returning from Illia’s house together before.
She said that she had developed social anxiety because she was bullied by many people for rejecting someone’s confession, and because of that, she had lived at home for several years.
But she couldn’t stay at home forever.
Just in time, she started playing Twilight at the suggestion of her younger cousin, a game where she could face many people, and she said that she was grateful to have met me and Sina in Twilight and gradually overcome her social anxiety.
‘It might be an unnecessary worry now.’
Yua would probably do well.
Gi……! ……Won…… Shit!
‘Huh?’
At that moment, I seemed to hear a faint voice from somewhere.
So I focused again to see if I could hear the voice, but it was probably my imagination because I couldn’t hear anything……
Giwon……! Giwon-ssi!
‘Huh? This voice is……’
As soon as I recognized the owner of the voice, my consciousness was suddenly pulled up as if it were floating.
“……!?”
The first sensation that gripped me was a headache and an unknown pain throughout my body.
I winced at the pain and barely opened my eyes……
“Gi, Giwon-ssi. Are you alright?”
Yua, with her face covered in tears, was looking at me.
“Ah……”
I wanted to speak, but my voice wouldn’t come out properly.
But Yua seemed to think that was enough, as she bowed her head and shed tears again while holding onto my shoulders. I raised my hand to wipe away her tears.
Somehow, even the hand I was trying to raise was trembling.
I wanted to just rest like this, but there was nothing I could do for Yua, who was crying right now, so I forcibly raised my hand and finally managed to touch her face.
As my hand touched her, Yua’s face turned towards me.
She was still crying.
I wanted to stop her tears, so I managed to force a smile and said,
“It’s…… okay now.”
* * *
Fortunately, my body, which had felt abnormal, gradually recovered as time passed.
During the recovery process, I was able to talk a lot with Yua, and among those conversations, there was the topic of Yua’s login and the reinforcements that I had been curious about.
Simply put, Yua and I had logged into Twilight for a while when we visited Illia’s house.
It seemed that Illia and Yua had exchanged contact information while talking about this and that while I was logged in.
And then, when Illia found out about the Emperor Guild’s attack, she immediately contacted Yua.
In the end, Illia was the cause.
‘Well, thanks to her, I’m alive.’
Also, the reinforcements were unexpected for me as well, but it turned out that Yua had asked Raz for help.
It had been several months since I last saw Raz, so I thought he had quit Twilight, but it turned out that he had joined a guild and was actively playing there.
Of course, it wasn’t enough to mobilize the entire guild, but at that time, Raz said that he knew someone in the Emperor Guild and that he could extort compensation from them.
Naturally, they couldn’t refuse to give compensation, so it seemed that Aizen had handed over gold, items, and even access to a few dungeons.
They suffered losses from the battle at that time, but the compensation was more than enough to make up for those losses, so both sides were satisfied.
Lastly, the connection issue.
‘This was also Illia’s doing.’
Just in case I tried to log in with my old helmet, she had installed some kind of device on it.
It seemed that she had set it up so that if I logged in with my old helmet, some kind of signal would go to Illia, and she could also vaguely grasp my condition. So, she urgently contacted Yua.
She told Yua to quickly go and turn off the power.
Yua said that she quickly logged out and turned off the power to the capsule in my room after hearing that I would die with a 100% certainty if left alone. However, she didn’t tell me how she got into my room.
Well, she probably went to the security office and got the key.
Anyway, after that war, the Messenger of Revenge Guild and the Iron Blood Knights Guild were nowhere to be seen in Twilight.
To be precise, we made them disappear from Twilight.
Aizen said that we should never remove them from our enemy list and kill them on sight, and the guild members, having suffered so much until now, went around each country killing those with the hostile mark, to the point where not a single one could be found now.
If Jerak had been there, things might have been a little different, but it seemed that he, having lost his staff, had stopped logging in.
“But Giwon-ssi, are you really okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
By the way, I realized that my Intuition had disappeared after that incident.
No matter how much I concentrated, I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
It was a shame that my Intuition was gone, but I decided to consider myself lucky just to be alive.
“And you haven’t completely quit, right? You can log in whenever you think of it.”
Since my Intuition was gone, there was no problem logging in with my old helmet, but I decided to focus on reality for now.
And as I said this, Yua nodded and then held out her hand with a smile.
“Then shall we go out for the first time in a while?”
Looking at her smile, which gave others a bright feeling, I smiled back and took her hand.
━END━
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