What a Nasty Trick
"...What is this?"
Two figures stood upon scorched, ruined earth — a stretch of dead ground where it seemed nothing could ever live again.
Lily, spear in hand. And behind her, the one who had watched it all unfold.
He walked forward, gazing down at the land she had shattered. The ground split open beneath his every step, and the pure-white power dwelling in his body made his strength plain for anyone to see.
When he finally reached her, his twin blue eyes met a pair identical to his own.
"What do you think, little saint?"
"...Must you use that name?"
"What do you think."
Lily looked upon what she had done. The spear that had begun as a small trickle of power had gathered up everything scattered across the battlefield and transformed it into a colossal storm of spears. Rock and earth had been shredded like paper. Would anyone believe a single spear had accomplished this?
"...It's like the Spear's Roar, and yet completely different."
"That's the Spear of Judgment. A technique that turns the power of the lowly back upon them."
The crime of daring to block the path of the great Celestials by wielding base power. A magnificent judgment that repaid that crime in full.
In a word...
"Talk about a cheap trick."
"My thoughts exactly."
"When will you teach me your ultimate technique?"
"What, in a hurry to get out of here?"
"You're a Celestial, after all."
"You're one too."
No. I'm not.
I'm human. And the fact that the Celestials are a race that tears humans limb from limb — that will never change.
Her anger passed through her without needing to be spoken. He gave an awkward smile.
"...Well, the same goes for me, actually."
A storm of fire swept across the Duel Stadium. Dozens — hundreds — of blade-paths, all drawn together into a single conflagration, large enough and powerful enough to swallow more than half the arena whole.
The magic swordsman did everything he could to wall off the flaming mana with his spells, but the Spear of Judgment didn't simply recycle an opponent's power. At its heart, the storm of fire was driven by the wind of a spirit — and not just any spirit, but that of a high-grade one. If the technique ran on the caster's power alone, it might have been countered to some degree. It wasn't. What began as the mana of the Blade Path ended as the force of something else entirely.
In the end, the magic swordsman couldn't endure the storm of fire for even three seconds before dissolving into blue particles.
RED WINS!
Gold 500 Points → Gold 528 Points
Twenty-eight points. Since rankers supposedly sat at a thousand or above, a gain like that didn't seem bad at all.
"How many points do I need for the next tier?"
One thing was certain: the Spear of Judgment strained her far less than the Spear's Roar did. Since it borrowed the opponent's power, the cost was lower too. At this rate, a few more matches would be no problem at all.
"Not everything. This one has its limits too."
It wasn't as though she could snatch up any power she pleased and make it her own. If it were really that convenient a technique, the Celestials wouldn't have been the only ones using it. Controlling power that someone else had scattered and molding it into your own strength was an extremely dangerous business — lose your grip for even a moment, and you could be caught in a mana rampage or an outright explosion. She might manage to imitate the Spear's Roar with some effort, but the Spear of Judgment was something no one else would ever be able to use.
"Don't try to copy this one. It can be a little dangerous."
What kind of person was she, anyway...
Come to think of it — what kind of person had she really been?
"Wow, that's insane. Seriously."
At that very moment, Haneul — ranged dealer for Team CO, one of the four semifinalist teams of the DCK, the Deo En Champions Korea — lay sprawled on the plush sofa of the team house, letting out a gasp of admiration. On his screen was Lily, one of the most talked-about streamers of the moment. Her outlandish character customization paired with staggering, disproportionate skill had spawned a running theory that she was secretly a pro player's smurf. A spear-handling ability that seemed almost supernatural, utilization of techniques no one had ever seen before — and on top of that, that absurd power to turn an opponent's own strength against them.
As if to prove the rumors true with his own two eyes, the broadcast rolled on.
Kra-kang! Fsss-shhh—
Barely a minute into a fresh new match, another opponent dissolved into particles. That made seven consecutive wins. Gold tier or not, a flawless match with zero damage taken was something even Haneul couldn't pull off easily. And unlike ranged dealers, who came wrapped in shields, evasion, and long-range attacks, Lily was a melee dealer. Dodging every strike from a ranged dealer armed with exotic skills and attacks was near-impossible for anyone short of an assassin — let alone another melee class.
"She really is something, man."
"What is?"
Behind him, someone had appeared — someone chewing on a stick of melon-flavored, green ice cream. Black-and-white uniform. The core member and ace of the team, and the only pro player in the league who wielded dual spears.
"Oh, Lily. Big-name streamer these days. She's crazy good."
Haneul tilted his head back against the sofa. In his line of sight stood Chotochokachukachip, brows knitted in a frown.
"Choco. Think you could pull this off?"
"Lily? Please. Anything that girl can do with a spear, I can do. I've been handling spears for years."
"But she's not even using a skill there, is she?"
"You think skills are all I've got? Who can't chain techniques together?"
Chukachip plucked the phone out of Haneul's hand. On the screen, Lily was facing down a warrior wielding a two-handed greatsword. The warrior threw everything he had at her, but the sheer weight behind her spear existed on another plane. With every clash he was pushed further back, until at last he took a thrust and retired from the match.
A somewhat anticlimactic bout.
"Doesn't look like much."
"Not that one. Watch this match."
Haneul played a clip titled Lily SPITTING FIRE from her spear (?!). In the footage, Lily simply lets the magic swordsman generate the Blade Path to his heart's content. To Chukachip — a spear main through and through — it looked like nothing short of idiocy. She barely attacked at all, just weaving and dodging on repeat.
"What exactly am I supposed to be looking at..."
Then it happened. Lily's parting words — let me show you something fun — had barely faded when the purple flames of the Blade Path began streaming toward a single point. In an instant, a storm of fire had coalesced on her spear. The storm crashed down over the magic swordsman and filled the entire arena.
"......"
"So? Pretty wild, right? Honestly, my first reaction was, how does that even work? I tried it on my alt — she's a Spearmaster — and it just didn't happen. But maybe you could manage it?"
"......"
"Think about it — if that actually works, wouldn't it be useful in the Spring split too? Those elementalist guys on NOP are getting on my nerves."
"...I don't know."
"If it works, then— huh?"
Chukachip handed the phone back. Haneul accepted it in a daze and pushed himself up off the sofa.
"This kind of thing doesn't mean much. One look and you can tell she's just forcing the fire over with wind — more trouble than it's worth."
"Really...? Looked pretty good to me."
"Ha! Haneul, how many times do I have to say it? At the pro level, everything comes down to 0.1 seconds."
Crunch. The ice cream stick — finished at some point without him noticing — snapped between Chukachip's teeth.
"In a scene where everyone's stretched to the limit just reacting to each individual exchange, when exactly are you finding the time to gather all that? Maybe it flies in low-tier lobbies, but it's useless at the pro level."
"...Well, if you say so. Anyway, the coach was grumbling about the Mock Siege Battle again."
"That's all that man ever goes on about. What now — same as when he told me to change my nickname?"
"So are you changing it?"
"Nope."
Chukachip waved a dismissive hand, left the lounge, and headed for the capsule room, where the newest-model access capsules sat in a neat row. She exchanged a greeting with the staffer at the desk, then slipped into a capsule and murmured to herself:
"...How on earth did she do it?"
She wanted to ask. If the girl were standing right in front of her, she'd ask her point-blank.
How on earth did she do that?
RED WINS!
Gold 681 Points → Gold 699 Points
"Ah."
"Can't believe I missed the cutoff."
She'd planned to promote to Platinum and call it a day. But if this was how it ended, didn't that mean one more match was in order?
"Then I'll really, truly make this the last match."