Episode 10
[Race] Commander-in-Chief Kkulppang has descended upon the Breathless Land: Heart as the Incarnation of True Night.
[Race] Chief God’s Toe-Wiper: ??
[Race] Curry: ????
[Race] Judgment: Wow holy shit an incarnation;
[Race] Ceylon Tea: Wow, she’s even popping incarnation, this is gonna be fun as hell
[Race] Hardship and Weekend: Wow,.,
<Commander-in-Chief: Incarnation of True Night>. It was one of the active skills exclusive to the Commander-in-Chief, a buff skill that greatly increased stats for 20 minutes. Skill attack power by 50%, defense by 50%, penetration by 70%, critical power by 20%, accuracy by 25%, attack speed by 10%, movement speed by 6%, and skill range by 8m. On top of that, it added an 85% chance to become immune to certain status abnormalities and debuffs, and even increased health by 800%.
If it had a downside, it was that you couldn’t gain fame by any means for 2 hours, and if you died, that was the end of it. But I didn’t need to obsess over gathering fame, and more than anything, even if I had to accept this risk, I wanted to break Retake’s damned stubborn will to keep me tied down until ten o’clock.
[General] Retake: ?
Retake posted a single question mark in chat, as if flustered. He’d probably received a notification on his side too that I’d used an incarnation skill. When you used transformation skills like this, or other field-type skills, even the opposing race was notified.
And even without looking at the notification, my character was currently enveloped in a dazzling black aura and effects, with her wings spread wide open. There was no way he wouldn’t know I’d used an incarnation skill.
[Guild] soloist: The libido-killing balls are even glowing;
[Guild] Ceylon Tea: libidoㅋkillingㅋballsㅋ
[Guild] Romantic Cat: Good grief
[Guild] Romantic Cat: What’s this sudden libido-killing thing;;
[Guild] Summoner: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
[Guild] soloist: But... the color of those balls...
[Guild] soloist: It’s like that legendary appetite-killing meme........
I had a feeling I knew what Solo was talking about. It was an image I didn’t particularly want to recall.
Because I’d just had to look at guild chat, I internally blurred out my character, who looked like she was about to kill something. Trying hard not to look, I drove an attack skill into the flustered Retake.
The speed at which Retake’s health dropped was on a completely different level. It was thanks to my increased skill attack power. His health, which had barely been shaved down by 50% even after I’d hit him for ages, was now dropping by 1%, 2%, and sometimes even 4% per hit.
I preferred fighting under equal conditions more than anything else, but since he’d thrown the first punch, it was only right that I pay him back twice over.
[Combat] You took 512 damage from Retake’s Straight Break.
[Combat] Retake’s Straight Break effect has blocked the Execution Enforcement skill.
[Combat] You took 545 damage from Retake’s Twist Break.
[Combat] You resisted the stun status of Retake’s Twist Break.
[Combat] You used Punishment of Yearning to deal 11,365 damage to Retake.
Wow……. 11,365. A full 11% of his health was gone.
Retake’s fortress-like health was cheerfully falling below 10% in just 30 seconds. It felt like gulping down a can of soda after watching a drama where the leads kept screwing things up through misunderstandings while stuffing myself with sweet potatoes.
[Combat] You took 696 damage from Retake’s Side Break.
[Combat] You are afflicted with attack speed reduction due to Retake’s Side Break effect.
Retake kept hitting me with close-range skills, but the damage was low, and all sorts of status abnormalities were resisted, so all he managed to do was reduce my attack speed. Even the reduction was only 4%, so it was meaningless to me when my attack speed had already increased by 10%.
Perhaps realizing this wouldn’t work, Retake suddenly did a somersault and backed away. It was an evasion skill. Seeing that, I pulled my capture skill right as the evasion animation would be ending.
[Combat] Retake evaded Executor’s Binding with Emergency Evasion.
Retake once again gave up on managing his stress and used Emergency Evasion, putting plenty of distance between us. He didn’t run, but he didn’t charge in either. He simply stayed on guard for whatever skill I might use, barely maintaining a distance of over 31m. It seemed he planned to stay alive until ten o’clock.
Like I’d let that happen. Do you know what kind of resolve I had when I popped incarnation?
As soon as I realized what Retake was thinking, I moved my fingers. The fact that my skill range had increased meant that my charge range had increased too, which meant I could close distances I normally couldn’t.
First, I used Shield Slam, which had a short after-delay. My character jumped high, leaping forward and closing the distance to Retake in one go. I saw Retake retreating again when he saw me approach. I used Vanguard Command in the direction he was moving.
As I raised my shield in front of me and charged in like a shield soldier, closing in at high speed, I saw Retake use Mutant Virus Extraction, whose cooldown had come back up. Without missing the timing, I canceled my charge and used an immunity skill, avoiding the paralysis status that would have been applied by the stacking effect.
Retake tried to run during the after-delay of my immunity skill. But thanks to my increased attack speed, the delay on the immunity skill was practically nonexistent.
The moment I resisted paralysis, I used Taunt. When you were hit by Taunt, most skills would be locked onto the caster, and even some evasion skills, no matter what direction key you input, would be forced toward the caster. If used at an unexpected moment, it sometimes caught people.
And thanks to that, I reaped a huge reward. The Taunt effect applied right before Retake used his evasion skill, and because of that, instead of evading backward, he rolled forward—straight toward me.
I didn’t miss the opportunity and eagerly hammered a combo into Retake while keeping him pinned down.
[Combat] You used Contradictory Prayer to deal 10,639 damage to Retake.
[Combat] Retake recovered 7,715 health through the effect of Healing Formula IV.
[Combat] You used Last Judgment to deal 6,421 damage to Retake.
[Combat] Retake recovered 12,978 health through the effect of Foretold Ruin.
I could feel Retake struggling desperately to endure until ten o’clock by any means possible. But there wasn’t a single player who could win a one-on-one against an incarnation. No matter how much of a ranker Retake was, no matter how renowned he was for his control and mind games, beating an incarnation was impossible.
[Combat] You used Blade of Radiance to deal 7,136 damage to Retake.
[Combat] You used Blade of Annihilation to deal 9,400 damage to Retake.
[Combat] You defeated Retake with Blade of Annihilation.
[System] You have defeated Jeopa Race Commanding General Retake.
[System] You cannot acquire fame.
[Race] Bia Race Commander-in-Chief Kkulppang has defeated Jeopa Race Commanding General Retake.
[Notice] 22:00 | Hello, this is Dusk, the world where two ends coexist. The first week of June update …
The moment the message saying I’d defeated Retake appeared in race chat, it hit exactly ten o’clock. The timing was unbelievable. At the top of every hour, various notices or event announcements went up, and the battle had ended right before that message appeared.
In other words, I had completely, utterly destroyed Retake, who had been trying to keep me tied down past ten o’clock no matter what!
I sprang to my feet without even shouting. It felt like I’d achieved a solo clear of a dungeon’s final named boss after an hour. No, that wasn’t it. It felt far greater than that.
Race chat and guild chat both erupted into chaos, but none of it registered. I sat back down, set the doll down from my arms, and, brimming with excitement, hopped up and down in front of Retake’s lump of light. The way I hopped looked somewhat like those libido-killing balls Solo had mentioned were dangling—no, anyway, like I was dancing, but right now, the thought of changing clothes didn’t even cross my mind.
[General] Kkulppang: Before 10
[General] Kkulppang: cut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[General] Kkulppang: Since you’re 11th place, I’d love to kill you exactly 11 times
[General] Kkulppang: but that number’s way too big...^^
[General] Kkulppang: I have plans, so I’ll be going nowㅎ
Since it didn’t seem like anyone nearby was about to attack me, I tore and used a base teleport scroll from my inventory to get out of there quickly. It seemed they weren’t rashly charging at me because I’d used an incarnation skill. And even if they did swarm me in a group, our Bia Race wouldn’t just sit back and let them.
When the fairly long cast was more than halfway through, I smiled peacefully and pressed Enter again.
[General] Kkulppang: Just try bringing Crit/Spec again, you fuuucking 🖕