Chapter 250
After about half an hour, people began to get a grasp on the raid.
[Oh, the difficulty of this raid is insane?]
[Not just insane, completely batshit crazy]
[It's hard enough just to stay alive, what about regular players!]
[Well, they let you enter at least, isn't that enough?]
[They only let you enter, lolololololololol]
[I'll just spectate. I used up all my potions in an instant and died.]
[I never knew supporters were this important!!!! We went in without any supports, 6 people, and immediately gave up, then played rock-paper-scissors to decide which 2 would leave lolololol]
The most discussed topic was the difficulty.
Not only are the attack patterns hard, but even a single hit takes off more than half your HP.
The next element that drew attention was countering.
[Can you counter it or not?]
[If you counter, it spins the other way and attacks again. Wow.]
[The pros are testing counters now, and all of them are failing. But why isn't the director saying anything about it not working?]
[They don't even dare try parrying lololololol]
[Isn't it just systemically impossible? Even the Sword God hasn't shown a single sign of it yet?]
Debates over whether it was possible or not naturally drew attention.
Other skilled players attempted counters just to make the raid a bit easier. But they failed.
Since it was only phase 1, they could just skip past it, so there was no need to obsess over raid proficiency, but because phase 2 hadn't even appeared yet, it was an important issue.
In that situation, Seojun spoke definitively.
[???: The raid's going to be easy now, lololololololol]
[Honestly, it sounds true and that's terrifying]
[Just please fail, please fail, please fail]
[???: It must be hard for the rest of you]
[Fail, fail, you bastard who poisoned the race!]
But contrary to the viewers' wishes that Seojun would fail.
['Sword God 1' has neutralized the enemy knight's greatsword!]
"Oh! Parry again!"
"Let's deal damage! Very good, Seojun-nim! You're the best! Kehehe."
"We're reaching 40 bars soon, so think about positioning too!"
The raid proceeded smoothly.
Seojun's sword precisely caught the moments the developers had allowed, neutralizing the greatsword.
The timing opportunities were surprisingly many. Even for the same pattern, the attack could be parried at a certain probability, and as long as you caught this subtle difference—and since the speed was similar—if you swung your sword at that thread-like perfect timing.
It was easy to succeed.
"It's really easy, right?"
Seojun explained this point.
By the way, Seojun could also see an unnatural timing that would allow a counter, but he didn't mention that.
He was also in a competition. Just because it was phase 1 didn't mean he had to pull up his sleeves and help others first.
-Aha!
-Parrying is definitely possible lololololol if you do it, the raid becomes so much easier, that's true
-Wow look how fast we got to 40 bars
-Is this a bus? Is this a bus? Is this a bus? Is this a bus?
At the 7 o'clock position, they were fighting.
And then Seojun neutralized it once more.
['Sword God 1' has neutralized the enemy knight's greatsword!]
When everyone's skills flew in and bombarded the sword that had been neutralized and stood rigidly stuck in the ground.
Kwaaaaang!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sword disappeared.
They had been waiting. The observer had positioned so they could view at an angle, and the team members who had been using skills from afar were already prepared.
Seojun and Ppopi Appa, who had attacked up close, were near 7 o'clock anyway.
It was the second attempt of the second mechanic, which was inferred to have a similar spawn pattern to the first mechanic, but if you treated it like the first, you'd die.
"Let's finish it in one go! Fighting!"
Taewoo shouted.
They took their positions.
Simultaneously, they prepared to jump or duck.
The sword sweeping across the map to attack happens in an instant.
A battle of timing.
But if they were experts.
Shwaeaeaeaeaek!
There were no casualties.
-One-try success!
-Wow. wtf we got to the 40-bar pattern so damn fast? Dd
-Up to 80 bars, it took about 5 minutes at semi-proficiency, 7 minutes when unskilled. At full proficiency, probably 4 minutes? But these guys did it in 2 minutes and 30 seconds lolololololololol
-The speed reaching 40 bars is even more insane?
The terminology for raid parties in Last Chronicle is as follows.
Headbutting party: a party that knows absolutely nothing and charges in head-first.
Trial party: a party that reads the guide and then bashes their heads.
Clear-experienced party: a party of people who have cleared it but are also confident they might die.
Semi-experienced party: honestly they've gained a bit of confidence but still expect to die.
Experienced party: they almost never get hit by simple patterns and finish in one try.
Hardcore, homework party: even if a few people die or leave by mistake, they can clear with immense proficiency.
In other words, all current raid groups are headbutting parties.
Nevertheless, the groups aiming for the first clear attacked as if they had reason for their challenge—their skills were good, so they quickly became proficient up to 80 bars.
The average time for those seasoned groups to reach 80 bars was 4 minutes.
But after Seojun said it would become easy, they indeed reached 80 bars in just 2 minutes and 30 seconds as he said.
And while other teams took 15 to 20 minutes to reach 40 bars due to lack of proficiency, they had just arrived in 8 minutes and 30 seconds.
-This is a balance break, isn't it?
-Wait lololololol these guys are really crazy
-No, the party leader is already at hardcore level
-Did one person come to do homework instead of a first clear? lololololololol
It was shock and awe.
It hadn't even been an hour yet?
This news spread immediately.
Raids are not inherently competitive content, but the first clear race is competitive content.
Continuously reporting the status of other parties is the viewers' duty.
So upon hearing this news, not only users in other streaming parties but even regular player parties began to think, 'Should we try for a parry too?' while thinking, 'But counters don't seem to work anyway?'
That's right.
Seojun had once again poisoned the race.
"Alright. Let's go see the next mechanic."
All raid members had survived without a single death.
The normal patterns were unchanged.
'If so.'
The sword, which had risen about 1 meter further into the air, spun around and came crashing down to stab Seojun.
Seojun's foot stepped back, and his body naturally twisted to match.
Then his arm rose and he swung his sword.
['Sword God 1' has neutralized the enemy knight's greatsword!]
There is no failure.
"Let's attack."
"Wow! Nice! You're really a crazy bastard! This is the Jinseojun bus! This!"
"No, how do you distinguish whether that will work or not! It's amazing!"
Dangso's eyes sparkled with delight.
He's happy because he gets to use Meteor. That's what that is.
Dangso's class is Mage.
And the Mage's strongest attack, the Meteor skill, has a long cast time so it's hard to land, but if the enemy is in a neutralized state?
Kwaaaaang!
The skills hit, and its HP decreased significantly at once.
"We don't know when the next mechanic will appear, so let's be careful."
From Seojun's perspective, there seemed to be one more.
"Wow, I only used 1 potion this time. Crazy."
"That's plenty, Taewoo youth."
The sword began to move again.
From attack patterns that required simply turning the body to avoid, to patterns where they had to dodge the intricately rotating sword by going outside, then the sword would sweep the outside so they had to go inside.
After chipping away its HP like that, when 10 bars remained, the third mechanic began.
And they failed and were wiped out.
* * *
"When the mechanic started, the sword was glowing in an invincible state in the center."
119 said.
They had just failed to solve the mechanic and were now at the starting point, reviewing the broadcast to find as much information as possible.
"Here, spheres appear in six directions. What are these?"
"Through the observer, they appear as red spheres and white spheres. If you look normally, they're black spheres."
"I think each person needs to break one."
"When the sword used its party-wipe attack at the end—when the black waveform covered the map from the center—did anyone watch through the observer?"
Amid the various opinions, Seojun spoke.
"I did. I confirmed it."
"Oh. Seojun-nim, let's go to the replay."
And so they checked Seojun's replay, and they cursed with their eyes.
Because it had passed in a single instant.
-lolololololololol
-We'll have to play it at 0.25x speed again like before lololololololol
-What a remarkable bastard!
-Still, your party is the first to show the final mechanic!
"Hmm. This is the kinetic vision of young eyes……."
"Ppopi's dad. That's not because he's young. It's because he's a real crazy bastard."
"You confirmed it in the blink of an eye again. Let's play it at 0.25x speed and pause."
"Still, because it's a single moment, it seems equally hard to confirm clearly. Hmm."
While the party members were lost in confusion watching Seojun's replay footage, Seojun said leisurely.
"We can just go back and look. Right?"
"That's true."
"We're being carried by someone."
"Yeah. Let's go!"
-These guys' raid times are just insanely fast!
* * *
The solution is simple.
First, break the sphere to receive a buff.
Then, depending on the color of the sphere seen through the observer, either stick close to the sword or dodge far away.
White means inside. Red means outside.
And this.
[Alright, did everyone hear me? White means stick to the sword, red means pull back.]
[Yes!]
Seojun said just before the second attempt of the 10th mechanic.
Based on the evidence that through the observer, the inner color of the black waveform was white and the outer was red.
"You didn't need to confirm it. You already roughly knew at a single glance."
"At this rate, you'll clear phase 1 soon too."
"No. The design was such that reaching 10 bars at proficiency standard normally takes about 20 minutes, but that party reaches it in 11 minutes. Without a single mistake. A first-time party. Is this the raid we designed?"
Would nerfing even mean anything?
Is the balance even right?
Such thoughts wouldn't leave the developers' minds. The more they watched, the stronger that thought became.
That user had not been hit even once so far in the raid they proudly deemed the hardest.
The only death was when they inevitably got hit once after failing to solve the last mechanic.
"The fortunate part is that they keep streaming. Although the raid clear time will become much faster than we predicted."
"Since they keep providing information through the stream, even if users are dissatisfied with the parry mechanic, it will be offset to some extent?"
"Yes."
Above all, phase 1 is relatively easy. Predicted clear time: 4 hours.
But phase 2 is different.
As the final phase, it was designed to take over 3 days.
So even if they go in first now, they won't be able to clear immediately, and late starters can sufficiently catch up.
As long as that party keeps streaming, that is.
In other words, the race was just beginning now.
[Nice! Survived! Finish it quickly!]
[We're taking the world first clear for phase 1!]
[Come on, it's not over yet.]
[As expected, Seojun-nim is composed, kehe.]
"They're going to clear it. The very first. When do you think the second party to clear phase 1 will do so, Raid Team Leader?"
"Um. In about 2 hours?"
"……."
Everyone fell into silence.
"Everyone has to reach the 10-bar pattern alive."
Of course, there are strategies where not everyone needs to survive, but it's too early for that to be discovered.
Since the first party to clear has already shown the correct way, they probably won't consider other possibilities.
"Are you saying that even top-tier players need that extra 2 hours to reach 10 bars safely?"
"Yes."
"Hmm?"
"Is the gap that big?"
"Hey."
"Everyone's standards have gotten high……."
Immensely.
The raid team leader let out a sigh.
That is absolutely not easy.
'And how much will the predicted 3 days be shortened? Hey, but phase 2 is extremely hard difficulty…….'
The raid team leader pushed aside his worries for now.
Phase 2's mechanic difficulty skyrockets compared to phase 1, so the team members would hold each other back; there was no way he could grab them by the scruff and drag them forward.
'Could there be……?'
['Sword God 1' has neutralized the enemy knight's greatsword!]
Either way, Seojun's party was the first to reach the final stage.
[Sword God!!! Phase 1 clear!!!!]
==
Aren't the other parties working hard!!!!
==
As a side note, the second party to clear didn't appear until 2 hours and 30 minutes later.
Whether the sudden surge in retries from the now impatient other parties attempting parries had an influence or not, no one knows.