124. Finals (3)
- At last, the world’s biggest festival, the World League, is down to the very end! Only the final match remains.
- South Korea vs. England, England vs. South Korea! The final, decisive showdown unfolding in London! Ahh, I’m excited!
- Really...... Life is full of twists and turns, and I guess the same goes for nations. Who would’ve thought we’d meet England in the finals?
- It is said that just making it to the finals grants each player enormous rewards. And not only that, there are even rumors that it brings tremendous benefits to the national interest as well, right?
- That’s right. Well, not that we would know. Haha.
Buzz, buzz.
In South Korea, and in London too, massive crowds had gathered in the streets.
“Woooooooah!”
“Baek Jinwoo! You have to win!”
“No, I like everyone, but winning would be even better!”
“HunGyo, I love you!”
Cheering sticks, pickets with Baek Jinwoo’s photo on them, masks with the Taegeuk emblem, and more......
There were even mini-character versions of Lamba, the Explosive Dragon, and HunGyo on display.
- Baek Jinwoo’s proposal, and Rachel’s acceptance! At present, both nations have agreed to a 1-on-1 duel between representatives.
- According to Yoobaek representative Yoo Jia, in exchange, Sky and Red Rose have agreed to form a blood alliance for the next ten years?
- Yes, truly incredible.
People marveled.
To accept such an absurd proposal for only that much in return.
No, could that even really be called a price?
Wouldn’t this actually be better for SKY?
The Red Rose is the strongest in the world!
- It’s also clear evidence of just how highly Rachel thinks of our Baek Jinwoo! Now then, anyway! The match is about to begin! Players from both sides! They’re all entering now!
Step, step.
It was just like every other match.
The captain stood at the very front, and the rest of the national representatives entered in a straight line behind them.
“Jinwoo.”
Rachel, now close enough, spoke to Baek Jinwoo.
By instinct, he summoned the Interpreter Bird.
“Yeah.”
“We’re about to fight. Are you ready?”
“I am.”
To be honest, he had stayed up all night.
Forget condition and everything else, he had practiced controlling Gale Slayer like mad until HunGyo finally gave his approval.
And in the end.
—You pass, my lord.
He had even managed to get that bastard’s approval.
“Baek Jinwoo, I know you’re good, and I know you’ll become much stronger than me in the future.”
“All of a sudden?”
“Yeah. But just this once, you’d better brace yourself.”
“.......”
“I have no intention of losing.”
Huh.
She was provoking him like this right before the duel?
Baek Jinwoo tilted his head and stared straight at her.
Her expression was tense, like a general about to face a head-on battle on the battlefield, and her eyes were resolute.
Far from being careless, she looked like she had come fully prepared.
“Anyway, thanks.”
Baek Jinwoo offered his thanks first.
‘She probably got a lot of backlash because of me.’
If he didn’t at least thank her, then he’d really be trash as a person.
“.....Thanks?”
“Yeah, for accepting this proposal.”
At Baek Jinwoo’s answer, Rachel grinned.
“Then, you know.”
“Hm?”
“That time you saved me during the casino incident. Can we call it even with this?”
“If you do that, I’d be grateful.”
Right.
That happened too, didn’t it?
Baek Jinwoo smiled softly at Rachel’s hearty response.
“Anyway. Jinwoo.”
Before they knew it, they were standing in front of the entrance to the arena.
The moment they stepped inside, system messages would appear and the dice would roll.
“When the league is over, the Masters of our blood alliance guilds should have a dinner together before you go back to your homeland.”
“Sounds good.”
Heh.
Right before a head-on clash, and they were even making plans to meet up afterward!
Clunk!
Baek Jinwoo pushed open the arena doors with force.
And then.
“Hey, Rachel.”
He too threw out one last remark.
“You’d better brace yourself too.”
“......”
“Because I have no intention of losing either.”
Both of them bit down hard on their lips.
Their gazes, which had been fixed on each other, turned forward once more.
‘All right, focus now.’
Swallowing dryly, Baek Jinwoo unsummoned the Interpreter Bird.
Then he stepped into the arena.
* * *
The finals began.
The players would be selected at random!
However, any player who had not registered a summon team would be automatically eliminated.
[The first match participant is player ‘Song Yeonhee’!]
[Player ‘Song Yeonhee’ has not registered any summons and is therefore automatically eliminated!]
South Korea too.
[The first match participant is player ‘Olivia Abernathy’!]
[Player ‘Olivia Abernathy’ has not registered any summons and is therefore automatically eliminated!]
England too.
And then.
It kept getting pushed along until Baek Jinwoo and Rachel, the two who had actually registered summons, were called up.
[The participant for the fifth match is player ‘Baek Jinwoo’!]
[The participant for the seventh match is player ‘Rachel Rose’!]
Before long, the two players were summoned onto the stage.
Swoosh.
The moment he appeared, Baek Jinwoo raised his hand.
There was no need for conversation. They had already said enough before coming in.
The first thing he summoned was an A-grade Tree Spirit.
Swaaaaaa.
The green spiritual body began to emit player-paralyzing poison.
But at that very moment.
Bang!
A single bullet came flying from far away.
‘A sniper.....!’
Judging by the gunshot, just as expected, it was a B-grade Combat Sheriff.
Its damage was weak, but its range was long and its accuracy nearly reached 99.99%, so there was no better summon for eliminating variables.
“Everyone, come out.”
Sssst!
Explosive Dragon, Lamba, HunGyo and Gale Slayer.
The four summons appeared one after another, but they could not block the sniper’s precision round.
Pssshk!
With its HP reduced to 0, the Tree Spirit was helplessly unsummoned.
‘She probably used the First Strike rune.’
It was a PVP-exclusive rune, one that gave its user the initiative in player battles.
If you used that rune, you could unleash an unavoidable blow at the start.
“Explosive Dragon.”
—....!
The Explosive Dragon spun its dragon-headed staff around in a wide arc.
Fwoooooosh!
Flames enveloped the entire space.
Explosive Dragon Art, Secret Technique - Transformation (Earth).
The transformation spread the Explosive Dragon Wave extremely thin and wide.
At the same time, it shaped it into a dome and enclosed Rachel’s surroundings.
“HunGyo, I’m counting on you.”
—Yes, my lord!
HunGyo bowed his head and sprang forward.
At the same time, Lamba, the Explosive Dragon, and Gale Slayer turned their backs and began to flee.
Whirrrrrrrrr!
Of course, Lamba didn’t forget to keep building stacks.
The target was Gale Slayer.
‘From here on.’
He intended to focus solely on turning Gale Slayer into an unstoppable late-game carry.
‘Ha, just as I thought.’
Rachel, who had precisely sniped the Tree Spirit with her Combat Sheriff the moment the match began, let out a sigh of relief.
‘If I hadn’t prepared for this, I’d have been in serious trouble.’
From Baek Jinwoo’s perspective, there really was no reason not to use the Tree Spirit.
The trade value against an S-grade Yellow Dragon was this good, so he’d be a fool not to use it.
Swoosh.
She too brought out two more summons for the time being.
The Yellow Dragon, and the White Tiger.
She wrapped the Yellow Dragon around her own body, and placed the White Tiger up front.
And at that moment.
Fwoooosh!
The faintly spread blaze began to cover her entire field of vision.
‘What kind of attack is that?’
It doesn’t look very strong.
If so, is it to block vision?
“White Tiger.”
-Grrrr…..
“Go.”
-Krrrgh!
White Tiger leapt to the left, and Rachel ran to the right.
Had it seen that movement?
Fwoooosh!
The spread-out flames suddenly began to narrow toward Rachel.
White Tiger slashed with its claws, trying to sweep away the energy itself, but—
Fwoosh!
“Hm?”
The narrowing fire avoided White Tiger, gathered together, and turned into a stream of flame.
Then, as if taking revenge for that precision shot from earlier, it dropped right over the Combat Sheriff’s head.
“.....Huh.”
Rachel made a dumbfounded expression.
Looking at the Combat Sheriff, which was going up in flames in an instant, she muttered,
“You can control it like that?”
She had encountered countless fire-element summons, including Phoenix, but she could say with certainty that she had never seen anyone manipulate flames that freely.
‘As expected of God Ji-nu.’
Fwoosh, fwoooosh!
The stream of fire that swallowed up the Combat Sheriff now lunged at Rachel.
But she was not someone who would be taken down by an attack like that.
-Krrrraaaaa!
The afterimage of the Yellow Dragon rising from her body swallowed up the stream of fire.
Psssh!
The fire stream was suppressed in an instant!
‘Where is God Ji-nu?’
Narrowing her eyes, she looked around, and saw Baek Jinwoo running outside the stage over there.
‘What the hell?’
What is he doing right now?
Is he running away?
The stage for player battles was quite wide.
But since it was a barren field without even a single bush, even if he ran like that, he could only be caught quickly.
To begin with, escaping outside their field of vision was impossible, and as far as she knew, if someone fled beyond a certain distance, the system would stop them.
Besides.
‘He left HunGyo alone?’
Shing!
She could see the man slowly drawing his sword and sweeping it to the right as he took his stance.
It looked like he was trying to stall because of the Wind Fairy, but that was not a very good choice.
The very idea of trying to buy time with just HunGyo alone did not hold up in the first place.
“Hello, we meet again?”
Rachel smiled faintly.
There were still things left unresolved between her and HunGyo. Because in the battle royale, that HunGyo had cost her first place.
“Tear him apart, White Tiger!”
-Krrrraaaargh!
In an instant, the giant tiger charged straight at HunGyo.
The moment HunGyo raised his sword and aimed for the creature’s eyes—
—….
Swaaaash!
With an afterimage trailing behind it, White Tiger dodged the attack, and its claw slashed toward HunGyo’s side.
‘Huh.’
HunGyo was impressed.
So this was an S-grade summon?
He withdrew the sword he had been thrusting and forcibly twisted his waist to evade for now.
Swaaaash!
But that had only been the left claw, and already the right claw, coming one after another, dug in even deeper.
Hup!
In the end, with his sword held in front of his abdomen—
Kaaaang!
—he had no choice but to take the hit.
With a heavy impact, HunGyo’s body was thrown up into the air.
‘This is insane.’
Now that he had actually clashed with it, he understood.
He might be able to stall against that White Tiger, but he could not defeat it.
And if Rachel’s Yellow Dragon joined in as well?
‘It’ll become even harder.’
“We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”
Kwadudududuk!
The Yellow Dragon also began charging toward the airborne HunGyo.
Kkaang!
He reflexively swung and knocked it away, but once again the impact felt overwhelming.
A joint attack from two S-grade summons…..!
‘It’s enough to make my mind go blank.’
As the pressure from the two spiritual beasts began weighing down on his whole body, his chest felt tight, as though he had sunk into the deep sea.
But his lord had spoken.
Hold out for as long as possible.
The longer Lamba had to build stacks, the higher their chance of winning would become.
But—
Kkaang, kkaang, kkaaang!
White Tiger and the Yellow Dragon’s consecutive attacks were so fierce that he was barely managing to defend.
And that wasn’t all.
Whoooong!
After striking with full force, the Yellow Dragon spread wide and covered the surrounding area.
Krrrraaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Then it let out an enormous roar and glared down at HunGyo.
‘What tremendous pressure!’
Just hearing it made it feel as though every nerve in his body was freezing solid.
“To think you’d try to fight the Yellow Dragon and White Tiger with a mere E-grade summon….. Even for God Ji-nu, that’s a bit arrogant.”
The Training Instructor Rachel knew was E-grade.
No matter how much of a miraculous encounter he had, no matter how much his latent potential had been unlocked, no matter how good the runes equipped on him were—the limits of what he was born with could not be helped.
“Let’s end this.”
Toward HunGyo, who was still floating helplessly in the air—
White Tiger from the front, and the Yellow Dragon from above, began bringing down their attacks.
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