Chapter 58: The Final Boss Has Returned
The first thing I did after ordering the attack was turn on my stream.
The moment I started the livestream, I heard the notification sounds of countless viewers entering.
[Drakan's stream is starting!]
[Where is this? The Pirate Archipelago?]
Chat alerts began flashing continuously in one corner of my vision in real time.
The viewer count, which had started at a light ten thousand, was also increasing exponentially.
[Congrats on hitting 1 million subs, Drakan-nim^^ Do an event!]
[I wish you'd rent a hotel and do a fan meeting or something]
[He's the busiest person in this game right now, why would he do that? Please think for once]
[Why are you so aggressive-- I just said I wish he would]
[Guys stop fighting Drakan turned on his cam now]
After uploading the collaboration event announcement video.
My subscriber count had risen steeply, and it had been a while since I'd surpassed the million mark—the benchmark for a major corporate streamer.
In a sense, I was now a bona fide major streamer, but I didn't feel particularly moved.
"This is the Pirate Archipelago."
[OMG, it really was the Pirate Archipelago]
[What? Did he successfully land?]
[Congrats) Landing successful (lol)]
[Pirates, just you wait. Drakan is coming!!]
The chat window updated terrifyingly fast the moment my words ended, and just as I was about to continue my opening remarks—
[Yujin: Hello, Drakan-nim.]
A nickname all too familiar to my eyes appeared.
"Yujin?"
Yujin!
That person I knew so well that it now hurt my mouth just to explain who he was!
Why on earth had that punk entered my stream?
[Did he say Yujin?]
[Yujin-nim?]
[OMG is it really Yujin-nim?]
[I think it's the real deal?]
[It's real;;]
[Hey, all you guys trash-talking "Yutjin" in chat earlier, come out quick LOL]
[Yujin-nim has arrived!!!!]
[God Yujin! Please save us!!]
[Yu-jin En-ters!]
[Look at Drakan panicking LOL]
[For real, this is the first time seeing Drakan like that;]
[His remarks got cut off LOL]
[Yujin, making even Drakan panic....... you are a moral textbook.......]
The moment Yujin appeared, the chat room erupted into chaos again.
Chat alerts flashing even more intensely than before!
Everyone was showing a heated reaction to Yujin's appearance.
Right at that moment.
[Yujin: I'll be cheering you on.]
['Yujin' has donated 10,000,000 KRW.]
Yujin!
He had thrown oil on the flames.
'A ten million won donation?'
I wasn't the type to pay attention to every little thing in chat, but ten million won was an enormous sum—the largest I had ever received in my short streaming career.
[Ten million. OMG.]
[We're witnessing this in real-time;;]
[Wow. He dropped a huge bill and is leaving]
[Great man God Yujin....... just what are you.......]
[Wait? Weren't those two not on good terms?]
[Didn't you watch the live broadcast of them shaking hands?]
[Wow, did you just come down from the mountains? Do you live without watching Ajusshi TV?]
['TodayImTheBigSpender' has donated 10,000 KRW.]
['noobmaster' has donated 1,000 USD.]
['ssdig122' has donated 2,000 EUR.]
The moment Yujin dropped ten million won on my stream, the chat and donation messages exploded, and of course, the viewer count began to increase truly exponentially.
For me, whose goal was to drag Yujin down, it was an ambiguous situation where I didn't know whether to be happy or not!
In that situation, I expressed my feelings in one sentence.
"Ten million won. There's so much you could do with that much money; what a useless waste."
[Uwak. He called it a waste LOL]
[But isn't this the first time Drakan has reacted to a donation message?]
[For real, this is the first time. I donated 100,000 won last time and he didn't bat an eyelid ㅠㅠ]
[Honestly, when it's a big shot like Yujin, isn't it a bit much to not react?]
[If it's *that* Yujin, even I'd react]
[Look at Drakan's speech. As expected of the only person in the world who speaks casually to Yujin.]
[Drakan didn't even say thank you, just straight-up no-filter]
[Yujin: Hahaha;; It's absolutely not a waste. I'll visit often from now on.]
"Suit yourself."
That's how I replied to Yujin's chat.
Yujin!
I didn't know why the hell he'd entered my stream, but well, I couldn't ban him on stream now, and since we'd already advertised to the whole country—no, the whole world—through a live broadcast that we'd reconciled by shaking hands, I couldn't act cold toward him either.
[Yujin: Please take care of me. :)]
"I should be saying that."
That was why all I could offer was a blunt reply.
When I answered like that, chat flooded with nonsense about me being a tsundere, and how this was the first time they'd seen Drakan communicate with someone on stream—and along with that, donations poured out again.
Yujin's unexpected appearance had caused a slight delay, but I still had work to do.
"Anyway. Listen up everyone. Today, I have something I need to do."
I raised the Ironblood Executor and pointed at the Pirate King's fortress.
"And that is to tear apart and kill those damned pirates. Especially the Pirate King! Today shall be the day he meets his end."
The chat window began to shake violently the moment my words ended.
The Pirate King!
The ruler of the eastern seas!
His name carried that much weight.
"Ignis! Go smash down that gate!"
"Yes, Drakan-nim."
Ignis, having received my order, ignited orange flames across his entire body and stepped forward.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
Flames soared like lava!
With flames wrapped around his entire body, Ignis extended his right hand forward, pointed at the fortress's main gate, and muttered briefly.
"Inferno."
Inferno!
Ignis's ultimate skill that had delivered the finishing blow to Scylla.
An orange sphere concentrated at the tip of Ignis's right finger burst forth, piercing the fortress's main gate like a single laser beam.
KA-BOOM!
A deafening roar rang out as the area where the fortress stood was entirely blown apart.
If it had been a proper fortress, destroying the gate with a single skill would have been nearly impossible, but the Pirate King's fortress was essentially a pseudo-fortress that only looked the part, making it possible.
Watching the burning, collapsing gate and the startled pirates, I gripped the Ironblood Executor.
Thump!
I could feel my heart pounding.
Feeling the heart of a gamer trembling, I stood at the vanguard of the army and charged toward the enemy camp.
To the place where I belonged—the battlefield.
* * *
Blade of the Tidal Wave!
The fortress where the Pirate King resided, and where the treasures plundered over time were piled up underground—this fortress had turned into a war zone in an instant after Ignis's Inferno struck the main gate.
"Kill the human bastards!"
"Die! You fish bastards!"
The two sides—the Fishmen and the pirates—were engaging in chaotic melee inside the collapsed fortress, but the pirates were struggling to maintain the front lines because their main forces had been drawn away to Golden Harbor.
And above all, the very fact that most of the core forces, including Drakan and Ignis, were present on this side was nothing short of a nightmare for the pirates.
"Combustion."
When Ignis waved his hand, flames erupted everywhere.
Over Ranker!
Flame King Ignis!
His power, known to be at the level of a strategic weapon with only twenty users possessing it in the Arth World, was so tremendous that it was hard to believe he had already expended his ultimate skill, Inferno.
But Ignis wasn't the only one on this battlefield.
"Hahahahahahaha!"
A near-naked warrior bursting into mad laughter!
The muscular body of the Panty Warrior, wearing nothing but a pair of panties as he wielded a greatsword, narrowly evaded the pirates' spears and blades and ruthlessly hacked off their heads—his body was already stained crimson red with pirate blood.
Besides the Panty Warrior and Ignis, numerous named users belonging to JDG were slaughtering pirates here and there while livestreaming.
"Blade of the Withering Wind!"
And among them was the magician Sin Ha-yeon, who sprayed ice-attribute magic wildly into the air.
Sin Ha-yeon, participating directly in combat, chanted magic spells with an expressionless face, and each time her staff gleamed, a barrage of ice colder than the Arctic glaciers surged toward the pirates.
But among them all, the one who was by far the most "popular" with the enemies was Drakan.
"It's Drakan!"
"Kill him!"
Drakan!
The Demon God's Contractor. And to the pirates, a figure who was nothing less than the instigator of this war.
Because he was the top-priority target of the Pirate Alliance, countless pirates rushed at Drakan like a swarm of bees.
An ordinary user would have their knees buckle just seeing so many enemies surging like waves.
But Drakan looked upon that sight and smiled.
"It's been a while since I've felt such passionate popularity."
To Drakan, the current situation was an extremely familiar—rather, intimately familiar—scene.
Six years ago.
When he had continued war after war to unify the continent.
The more wars he fought, the more countless people on the battlefield had tried their utmost to kill him, but each time, he had broken through that hell and seized victory.
And compared to back then, this current "popularity" was at a cute level.
Thinking so, Drakan took a step forward.
"Tyrant's Dominion."
When he manifested the skill, an intangible pressure emanated from Drakan's body, and the pirates rushing at him momentarily faltered.
In that fleeting instant, Drakan activated another skill.
"Tyrant's Command."
The moment the incantation finished, a massive symbol appeared in the sky above the Blade of the Tidal Wave fortress.
A red gear and a skull!
The Ironblood Alliance!
Along with the spectacle of the symbol of the Ironblood Alliance—which had once briefly unified the entire continent and was a symbol of terror and oppression—adorning the sky, the skill's effects were applied to everyone on the battlefield.
Morale boost and stat buffs for allies, and morale drop and stat debuffs for enemies!
Having been hit by Tyrant's Dominion followed by Tyrant's Command in quick succession, the pirates' movements were now noticeably slower, and Drakan stepped in among them and swung the Ironblood Executor.
"Kuaaack!"
"Argh!"
[Critical Hit!]
Critical messages popping up every time he swung his sword!
Drakan smiled as he watched those messages.
The Arth Saga series was a game where you had to move your body directly to strike enemies, different from previous games due to the nature of virtual reality.
In other words, unless one chose a class unrelated to physical movement like a magician, priest, or spiritist, a person who had learned actual martial arts like kickboxing or kendo was far more advantageous in the game than an ordinary person.
No matter how much the system corrected things with passive skills, there was naturally a difference between the movements of an ordinary person who knew nothing and those of someone trained in martial arts.
Of course, since it was a game, even a clumsy person who knew no martial arts could enjoy the game thanks to system corrections.
But in the heavenly realm where victory or raid success could hinge on minor differences, whether one had martial arts training was a significant variable.
Therefore, numerous rankers and high-level users registered at dojos, and thanks to that, martial arts dojos enjoyed an unexpected boom.
And Drakan was one of the first users to recognize that characteristic of Arth Saga and register at a dojo before the dojo trend began.
Through long years of accumulating experience in both the game and reality, Drakan's sword techniques had already reached a considerable level.
But reality and the game weren't completely identical. Because there were no skills in reality, but there were skills in the game.
And since Drakan was a user who had once reached the top, he was already more proficient in "game combat" than any other user.
Such a Drakan could never be stopped by mere pirates.
Aura rippled across the Ironblood Executor.
Now, it was time to clear away the pirates blocking Drakan's path.