There's No Such Thing as 'Of Course'
And once again, suspicion began to creep in.
‘……No way.’
Was she really trying to drag this out to all five rounds…… on purpose?
CloudySky replayed the two victories in his mind.
‘…No, she was probably going easy on me during the early laning phase, but she genuinely outplayed me in the final fights.
Every time it came down to the last moment, HairyWheelSlayer was fully committed to crushing me. Same in the previous round, and the one before that.
Her movements weren’t those of someone deliberately throwing.’
……That much, he could be certain of.
Which meant—
In that short span of time, she had observed every single one of his unorthodox patterns, turned them all into data, and finished analyzing them in real time.
And now that analysis had reached the point where it could predict and control every possible unorthodox move he might make.
—If that was the case.
‘……I can’t afford to drag this out any longer.’
CloudySky’s assessment was correct.
The longer the game went on, the more data he would feed to that monster named Ha Yunseo.
He had to seize victory with an action she hadn’t yet analyzed, something she couldn’t predict, and he had to do it as quickly as possible.
The Spellblade—Raine was about to hit level 3.
Ruru had barely scraped together enough experience to reach level 2.
CloudySky immediately cast a magic circle on the ground.
Mana Release Barrier, spreading outward with Ruru at its center.
Right after, he used—
Flow of Mana.
In an instant his figure vanished, reappearing right beside Ruru.
At the same time, the mind game began.
The Spellblade gripped her long blade with both hands, ready to swing horizontally from the right.
She held the stance without actually swinging, fully aware of Ruru’s parry timing.
A half-beat stop-motion that lasted less than 0.3 seconds.
Ruru didn’t fall for it. She simply stared at the Spellblade.
No—she was waiting for the exact moment the blade would swing.
She probably thought she could react in time.
‘If that’s how you want to play it, I’m not about to swing my sword for you.’
CloudySky stepped forward with his right foot, closing the distance.
While moving, he kept his bent right arm tight against his body, twisted in the opposite direction, and pulled the blade across to prepare a swing from the left instead.
Another half-beat pause. Another psychological standoff.
Then the blade, brimming with mana, came slashing down.
Ruru failed to react and took the hit.
—Swish.
The moment the attack landed, she used the momentum to spin once and swung her guandao toward him.
—Whoosh!
She was using the fact that mana blades had no stun on hit, swinging a basic attack even while being struck.
CloudySky had no intention of eating even mosquito-level damage from Ruru’s basic attacks.
He immediately activated his basic defense skill.
—Zing.
A magic shield materialized.
—Bang!
The circular defensive magic circle blocked the guandao completely.
Immediately after came the Spellblade’s counter.
Mana Release Discharge.
—Zzzzzing.
The trigger activated, gathering power into the defensive circle.
Electricity crackled across the ground, forming a wide, long casting range.
—KRAKOOOOOM!!
A massive bolt of lightning erupted from the defensive magic circle.
Its power was further amplified by the Mana Release circle on the ground.
If it struck Ruru, whose base health was as low as a ranged champion’s, it could easily take out at least a third of her HP.
Since it was a magic attack, parrying was impossible.
The only way for Ruru—who had learned both parry and Annihilation Spear—to dodge was to use her basic evasion skill.
But she couldn’t use it to move away from the Spellblade. The counter’s range was longer than Ruru’s basic dodge distance. And trying to dodge over the Spellblade’s head would be suicide.
Her only options were left or right.
And while using the basic evasion skill, she couldn’t parry.
The dodge skill’s terrible structure—its invincibility frames ended while the character was still airborne.
CloudySky intended to exploit exactly that.
With Flow of Mana extending his range, the Spellblade could plant her spear into the ground and stack damage on the airborne Ruru.
Then, once Flow of Mana came off cooldown, he could close in again and land another point-blank mana lightning strike for a one-sided trade.
The theory was flawless.
It would have worked—if every assumption CloudySky had made about the current game state had been correct.
Unfortunately, CloudySky had overlooked something critical.
From the very beginning, the fundamental premise in his head had been completely wrong.
An experiment with uncontrolled variables produces massive errors from the start.
Ruru didn’t use her basic evasion skill.
She simply stood there.
And she didn’t take a single point of damage.
The discharged magic passed straight through Ruru’s body.
At the same time, the massive guandao came swinging toward his waist.
—Thud!
The Spellblade took the hit.
‘……What—’
Ruru’s skill.
Ruru-style Flying Heaven Strike.
She extended one leg straight back at a 90-degree angle, leaned her upper body forward like a ballet pose, spun gracefully in place, and lightly leaped while swinging her long guandao in a full circular attack.
The signature motion was the quick switch of her pivot foot, making it look like she bounced off the ground.
It dealt decent damage and granted evasion frames while spinning—Ruru’s signature technique.
Most players learned it at level 3.
At level 1 they usually took the parry skill Ruru-style Flowing Mirror, and at level 2 they took Annihilation Spear to detonate pressure points.
Some players did pick this skill at level 1, but they were almost always unskilled players who lacked confidence in their parry and pressure-point execution, using it as a crutch to survive the weak early levels.
And right now, HairyWheelSlayer was using that very skill.
In every previous round, Ruru had taken parry and Annihilation Spear.
The sudden change left CloudySky completely flustered.
‘…That means the skills she learned this round are Flying Heaven Strike and the parry, Flowing Mirror.’
She didn’t have the skill to detonate pressure points.
—Hmph.
……Then there was no way he could lose.
Thinking that, CloudySky swung his mana-charged blade without even bothering to set up another mind game.
Ruru took the hit again.
At the same time, her long guandao came flying toward him.
—Thud!
Her basic attack connected.
Even though Ruru’s basic attacks were pitifully weak, a sliver of his health disappeared.
CloudySky raised his arm without a care.
He cast mana lightning at point-blank range.
But Ruru timed it perfectly, spinning her guandao once more and leaping into the air.
The wide horizontal slash caught the Spellblade.
Using the momentum of the spin, she followed up with another basic attack—this time slamming the guandao down from above.
In that single instant, the Spellblade was hit twice more.
Flying Heaven Strike could be used two more times within 15 seconds. Ha Yunseo was pushing that cooldown to its absolute limit.
But this much was still within CloudySky’s expectations.
She would probably save the last Flying Heaven Strike for the next mana lightning he cast within five seconds.
Thinking that, he swung his mana blade—
—Whoosh.
The blade passed straight through Ruru.
She had leaped into the air again, swinging her guandao in a wide arc and entering evasion frames for that instant.
‘…She’s planning to just eat the next mana lightning? Is she out of her mind?’
CloudySky took damage from the spinning guandao once more.
She used the momentum to follow up with another basic attack—this time a horizontal slash aimed straight at his side.
—Thud!
Red blood splattered.
The Spellblade’s basic defense skill was still on cooldown. He had no way to dodge at that timing.
Even a light rain could soak clothes, after all.
No matter how weak Ruru’s basic attacks were, combined with the solid damage from Flying Heaven Strike, the accumulated health loss was no longer negligible.
The Spellblade’s health dropped to half in an instant.
Meanwhile, Ruru still had roughly 80 percent.
The health bars had flipped completely in the blink of an eye.
But now Ruru was completely vulnerable.
The Spellblade immediately cast the empowered mana lightning that could be reused within five seconds.
—Zzt, zzt!
Current rippled across the ground.
The sound of crackling sparks was chilling.
With only parry left, Ruru had no way to dodge.
Even if she used her basic evasion skill, she couldn’t escape the mana lightning whose range had been extended by the Mana Release Barrier.
The invincibility frames would end before she cleared the area, leaving her wide open.
And if she took heavy damage and entered a stunned state, he could land two mana blade hits.
That would close the health gap for certain.
‘This is the only chance I’ll get.’
—But what CloudySky hadn’t accounted for wasn’t just Flying Heaven Strike.
He had been wrong from the very starting assumption.
It was something so natural that he had never even thought to question it.
Like how, at the start of a soccer match, the striker passes to a teammate.
Or how, at the start of a baseball game, the pitcher throws to the catcher.
Like serving the ball into the opponent’s court in volleyball.
Like how water naturally flows from top to bottom—something everyone accepted as obvious.
「Ruru always starts by learning the parry skill Ruru-style Flowing Mirror at level 1.」
Because that was the only way to properly play Ruru.