New Patch (2)
In the midst of the tense standoff, the enemy team's hero made the first move.
It was the Mira beastkin.
The Mira beastkin closed in on our team's rune archmage in an instant with her bandage-throwing skill.
Before anyone could even type in chat, the bandage shot in like a beam of light and wrapped around the rune archmage.
As the Mira beastkin unleashed her ultimate right in the heart of our base, our entire team's feet were suddenly bound. While our heroes panicked and couldn't move a muscle, the enemies unleashed a barrage of merciless AoE skills.
Boom! Kaboom!
Gorgeous magic effects flooded the screen, and in a flash, one of our teammates got deleted.
But while that happened, our unbound allies seized the chance—enemy cooldowns were turning—and struck back hard.
Doom Pressure's Immortal Berserker was no exception. With a mighty roar, it charged into the enemy lines, unleashing a storm of auto-attacks.
Mid-game crit items bumped the chance to 60%, but Doom Pressure's Immortal Berserker was pulling off a miraculous 'prayer meta'—nine crits out of every ten hits.
A brutal teamfight erupted. Seeing all enemy fire focused on him, Doom Pressure—HP scraping bottom—popped his ult just in time.
'Unstoppable Rage'.
The Immortal Berserker's ultimate activated: for 5 seconds, HP wouldn't drop below 1. An invincible god for five seconds, no matter how many hits—ten thousand even!
But thanks to the Immortal Berserker soaking damage and wasting enemy DPS, our team pulled off the teamfight win despite the rough conditions.
Our survivors were ragged, bloodied messes, but it was a clean victory.
Doom Pressure smacked his lips at the enemies' scream-filled chat.
'Time to claim the spoils. Grr.'
The dragon had given decent gold earlier, so this massive Count Rohan had to drop something huge.
The surviving allies charged at Count Rohan with high spirits. But these noobs overlooked one fatal detail.
Count Rohan has slain an ally.
Count Rohan has slain an ally.
Unlike the dragon that melted away, Count Rohan wasn't some pushover for a few ragged allies to gang up on. It wasn't until the whole team got wiped by his acid spray in the nest that Doom Pressure realized.
'Oh... this guy's way stronger than I thought.'
But maybe the enemy team had lost all will after that teamfight—they all disconnected before respawning.
"Grr, no honor at all!!"
Doom Pressure raged at their cowardice, but the win stood firm.
'Truly a god patch.'
People call their rare life-changing games 'life games,' and this one more than earned it.
Back in the lobby, Doom Pressure fired up his crystal orb and queued for another round to chase that rush.
"One more!"
Arena of Special was buzzing daily with the new patches.
The general chat overflowed with praise. But as always, the balance channel was a shitstorm of debates.
"......"
Something felt off. 26 win streak? Déjà vu hitting hard.
A chill ran through me as I opened the crystal orb messenger and DM'd Hafne.
One minute, two. No reply.
I sent it and checked the Arena of Special balance channel again.
"......"
I hung my head. My DM grilling her lined up perfectly with AnonH's "Argh! Pissing me off!" Caught the sound director red-handed arguing in balance chat instead of working.
I rubbed my forehead and typed back.
No remorse, just snapping back. I glared at the orb with half-lidded eyes. Face twisting on its own.
'Sound slave through and through.'
Polys and code are predictable, but these music nuts? Total wild cards every day.
"If A.S. didn't exist, how the hell would this woman survive?"
Curious, but not that curious.
While tweaking balance numbers, items, and champ stats, an email pinged.
"Hm?"
Early access reply? Nope—unexpected contents.
"Tomorrow, huh."
The Cloud Inc. branch chief for platforms seemed pretty antsy.
"Guess I'll prep for the meeting."
Wrapped up my planning quota sloppily, then dumped tomorrow's workload on the group chat mercilessly.
"...What a circus."
Lewd artist, game addict, top-student firebrand. I ignored the slaves' wails from the orb and crashed hard to wash away days of fatigue.
Next morning dawned.
Meeting spot: cafe in front of uni.
Not sure if they considered we're students or just coincidence with a nearby office, but it was convenient.
'Gotta swing by quick and check they're not slacking...'
The two artsy slaves slack off if you blink.
'Whining again...'
A great planner squeezes devs' souls to delight (or torture) players. So I'm top-tier.
Sipping iced Americano at the cafe, I waited quietly for Cloud Inc.
"Why so late?"
Wrap this fast, back to dorm to babysit the slaves.
Grumbling at my watch, I spotted a woman with blue horns approaching—sharp suit, elegant dragonkin.
'Blue dragon?'
Not common. This ain't Earth—real fantasy with elves, orcs, dwarves. Dragons, apex race, exist too.
'Most dragons are hikikomori trash who hate leaving nests.'
But glued to mana nets from nests? Perfect for online platforms.
Overwhelming magic network skills plus hoard wealth made them fantasy-world chaebols.
Some run corps or celeb, but rare outliers.
'...Why's she heading here?'
Unrelated to me, yet she pulled out the chair opposite and sat smoothly.
"You're the lead dev on Arena of Special, right?"
"Yeah, but who...?"
Email said 'branch chief.' Staring puzzled, the blue-horned woman smiled and dropped a bomb.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Linia, global president of Cloud Inc."
"......Pardon?"
For an indie game meeting, the platform overlord herself showed up.