Episode 251
“Wow! Phase break?”
“Nice!”
The last pattern, thanks to Seojun’s correct prediction, they succeeded on the second attempt.
They were lucky.
And thanks to that, they reached zero HP.
The moment Dangso’s meteor struck and the health bar plummeted from zero, the screen froze and a cutscene began.
This signaled the raid’s clear.
Unless a hidden, surprise showtime round appeared.
“World first clear of Phase 1! This is what friends are! This is friends!”
-Kyah!
-World first 1st gate clear! World first 1st gate clear! World first 1st gate clear!
-That was way too easy
-lol real
-Taewoo you bastard lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol how much do you like it lol lol lol lol lol lol
In the cutscene, the sword in the center, continuously struck by skills, began to tremble.
The trembling was visible to the naked eye.
And then the sword.
Kwaaaaang!
With a tremendous roar, it shattered into countless pieces, scattering everywhere.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
As the sound of the sword fragments falling faded and the dust settled, a brief silence fell over the area.
But soon, a massive wave of energy swept through the region, centered around the ship floating in the sky.
It seemed enraged.
Then, energy began to gather.
Seojun watched with keen interest.
The raid had a Phase 2.
So now it was time for the final boss to appear.
The camera zoomed in on the lower front of the airship floating in the sky.
The bottom of the airship was splitting apart sideways.
What emerged was a black cannon wreathed in red energy.
And before they could prepare, the cannon fired a mass of crimson energy, and just as the terrifyingly fast projectile rushed into their view—
A small airship flew in from behind, deploying a shield and blocking the energy blast.
[Ha.]
A dark voice echoed across the land from above the airship.
[Fine! Come up! I will judge you myself!]
Soon, the bottom of the airship closed, and the small airship that had leapt forward landed near them, ending the cutscene.
-We ride that thing up!
-You’re dead, Pain!
-Let’s clear this one in an hour too!
-But it would be too anticlimactic then lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol
Reading the chat, Seojun thought it would absolutely not be a one-hour clear.
‘The real fight starts now.’
Phase 1 was definitely hard.
That was a fact everyone would acknowledge.
Even without Seojun’s party, it would have been cleared in four or five hours.
‘Now that we’ve shown the patterns first, other parties will start clearing in two or three hours.’
But if you asked whether it was an unprecedented difficulty, 99% of users would naturally say absolutely not.
Sure, getting hit took a lot of health and potions were scarce, but once you got used to it, it was avoidable, and above all, the mechanics were easy.
Forget being unprecedented or whatever; it was just easy.
‘A taste tester, maybe?’
So the real fight starts now.
A day.
Two days?
Three days?
He didn’t know how long it would take, but it would ultimately become a marathon.
Even if they were ahead now, there was no point in celebrating.
“Hahaha, a world first clear. It’s lit a fire even in this old man’s heart.”
“I hear other parties haven’t even seen the 10-bar mark yet! Hm! This is how we do it.”
“Dangso, but what did you even do?”
“Hey there, Tasting Corner. Did you not see my mighty meteor!”
It was a pleasing sight.
Seojun grinned and looked at the window that appeared before them.
It was a window showing a myriad of overall stats, such as how much damage each person dealt in the raid and how much they were hit.
It was common, as you could also see damage dealt and received after a match in The League.
-Let’s see the damage!
-How much did the party leader deal?
-At first glance, doesn’t look like it’s over 25%
-But he did parry, so...
Before the stats were shown, the raid’s MVP was announced.
It attached a photo and an epithet related to their role in the raid.
And the raid MVP was.
[Possessed Acrobat Swordsman1]
It was Seojun.
“Haha. ‘Possessed’ again.”
For reference, Seojun’s damage was 17%.
If four DPS players each did their fair share, they’d need to do 25%, so Seojun was clearly lacking in damage.
-Possessed!!!!
-‘Acrobat’ is given for landing counters or parries well to get MVP, but ‘Possessed’ is lol lol lol lol amazing
-But he parried 7 times; it’d be weird if he didn’t get ‘Possessed’. Just doing it 2 times gets you MVP as ‘Acrobat’, so whatever lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol
“Alright, alright. It’s not that important; in the end, it just means I carried again, doesn’t it?”
“I admit it.”
Dangso admitted it readily, for once.
He used to dislike it when Seojun got MVP despite low damage during raids.
“Cheonma, who else would get it but you? Thanks to you, our damage was boosted, and that inevitably widened the gap with a beginner like yourself. Hahaha.”
He must be thrilled about getting top damage.
Dangso’s damage was 32%.
There’s a reason they say Meteor Mage is the strongest if you land all skills.
“Of course! I can’t deny my own contribution of dealing good damage in the midst of it though. In a world first clear, no less!”
‘So he’s not just happy about top damage, but about being first in a world first clear.’
Seojun let it slide.
“Alright. We’ve taken Phase 1 down first and have a bit of leeway, but you know there’s still more left, right?”
“Yes, Seojun.”
“You’re right.”
“Yeah, Seojun. Let’s get the full first clear like this!”
“Agreed.”
Seojun nodded, smiled as he glanced around, and headed to where the airship had landed.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
As everyone moved near the airship, a cutscene played.
They ascended high into the sky.
An NPC began an explanation.
They voiced a premonition that they would soon fight a great evil.
It was time to board the enemy airship and take out trash mobs again.
They cleared the mobs and moved where the map guided them.
The black airship floating in the sky had a unique appearance.
First, the hull was similar to a standard ship’s shape.
Its structure consisted of countless shining minerals, like black crystals, protruding like icicles.
It was perforated in places, giving the feeling of looking down through a glass floor in a high-rise building.
“How on earth is it floating in the sky?”
-Don’t look for historical accuracy, party leader lol lol lol lol lol lol lol
-But the atmosphere is insane, right?
-It’s nice, dark lol it feels cozy like my curtain-drawn room I’ve lived in for 13 years lol lol lol lol
-lol lol lol lol lol
The trash mobs that appeared after going up were skeleton soldiers.
They dealt with them leisurely at a normal pace, pushing forward.
“Is the Red Knight a Death Knight?”
“That’s highly likely.”
Tasting Corner answered Ppoppi Appa’s question as they took down the skeleton soldiers.
They didn’t say more and moved on.
The excited mood was gone. Everyone was tense again.
The dark background atmosphere likely played a part.
Then, a central map that looked like it would become a battleground appeared, and in the distance, a knight in black armor was seen sitting on a chair made of bones.
The name above his head was Red Knight Pain.
His face under the helmet was a skull.
“He is a Death Knight. Prepare for battle.”
As they cautiously approached,
The final boss, a Four Heavenly King expected to be of unprecedented difficulty, rose from his seat.
He reached out his hand, telekinetically summoned the fragments of the greatsword that had previously shattered, reforming it, and grabbed the restored blade.
* * *
The result of the first try was shocking.
They died before even shaving off 10 bars.
They hadn’t even figured out the proper patterns, so they had tried to play as safe as possible.
The reason they died so easily was simple.
It was because their attacks suddenly turned on their teammates arbitrarily, dealing damage.
“We have an observer again, so let’s check through that.”
“Okay.”
They tried again to figure out the anomaly.
-Even then, the party leader dodged all the teammates’ attacks lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol
-Still maintaining 0 hits taken lol lol lol lol lol lol
-They say he never dies except from failed cooperative mechanics lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol
-Let’s go! It looks hard!
And the result of identifying the anomaly was shocking.
Because during the raid, every 10 seconds, four small circular red zones visible only to the observer would erupt on the floor, and if you were standing in a zone when it burst, at that moment your body moved on its own and attacked your teammates.
In other words, this raid was based on the fundamental premise of constantly identifying and dodging these zones every 10 seconds while fighting.
Thankfully, the zones appeared 5 seconds before they burst, but it was an extremely cumbersome and difficult constant pattern.
After confirming this, two more died and they reset, returning to vent their frustrations.
“Wow, this is unprecedented. And we haven’t even seen the main mechanics yet.”
Ppoppi Appa agreed with Taewoo’s words.
“It’s definitely hard.”
“Seojun, how about you job change now? If you just job change, you just need to reset the skill enhancement ticket you already used anyway. And with gear inheritance, it’s really no problem.”
-Oh come on lol lol lol lol lol lol lol he’s basically asking you to even do all the damage
-Party leader, do it!
“Well, let’s try a bit more first. If it really doesn’t work, I’ll switch jobs too.”
-What’s with the party leader talking so sweetly?
-Original party leader: Shut up, my friend. If I’m doing it as a beginner, then I’m doing it. Why aren’t you memorizing the patterns faster?
-Looks like the party leader really wants this first clear lol lol lol lol lol lol lol
-He seems relaxed for now, but after about a day he’ll probably switch jobs immediately lol lol lol lol
From Seojun’s perspective, the difficulty of the attack patterns themselves was really high.
Far more than Phase 1, which was already called hard.
It was to the point where he doubted if anyone besides himself could become fully proficient within a week.
‘Hmm.’
A lack of damage could become an issue.
‘I’ll keep it in mind for now.’
“Let’s try again. It’s been 1 hour now. Fighting!”
“Yes!”
“Fighting!”
“Let’s go full DPS!”
* * *
But time truly flies in the blink of an eye.
Especially in a raid try party, where over 10 minutes are erased with each attempt, time vanishes even faster.
As they checked the first mechanic appearing at 80 bars, they concluded that all raid members had to survive to resolve it. Until all members became completely accustomed to the patterns, Seojun refrained from parrying.
Everyone, including the viewers, sensed that this would be a long-term battle. They all realized it was best to thoroughly learn the patterns rather than just scraping by.
And in the meantime, 2 hours and 30 minutes passed in an instant, and news of other parties clearing Phase 1 began popping up on Raaven as a second party took down the Phase 1 boss.
Seojun’s party’s achievements were relayed directly to the next contenders.
The party of a smaller streamer that achieved first clear, excluding Seojun’s party.
However, thanks to being second, the streamer, whose viewer count had surged to tens of thousands and was no longer a smaller streamer, thought:
‘Pain’s structure is one you can’t solo carry. And in terms of skill besides that one person, we have a slight edge. They just brought their close friends, while we are strictly the top players. A gap of about 2 hours 30 minutes is reversible.’
Weighing various factors, they declared full of confidence.
“We’ll beat them and get the first clear. Comebacks are always the most thrilling, after all.”