195. Grim Reaper - (2)
195. Grim Reaper - (2)
***
The things Serin had been careful about when fighting the Grim Reaper in Black Ark still applied in Another World.
The Grim Reaper had three instant-death patterns in total.
The first was Mark of Death, an instant-death pattern it used when its HP gauge dropped below 50%.
After marking a skull above its target's head, it lashed out indiscriminately with its massive scythe, sending out countless lines. If even one of the pitch-black lines that doggedly pursued the mark touched you, it was over.
So normally, people stopped attacking for a moment and focused on evasion. Then the pitch-black lines dissipated on their own.
But because of her Troll Blood trait, Serin didn't have time for that.
Most people wouldn't even consider trying to parry, since a single failed parry meant instant death, but Serin's thoughts leaned toward parrying as if it were the obvious choice. Just thinking about how much HP the Grim Reaper would recover while she evaded irritated her.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!!
Serin met the countless pitch-black lines head-on, swinging her Crescent-Moon Weight like mad, and the moment she succeeded in parrying, she immediately moved. She kicked off the ground and thrust the Crescent-Moon Weight toward the Grim Reaper.
"Ah. It's going to be a bit brutal from here on."
She suddenly spoke as she did so.
She was saying it in advance because the skill she was about to use was extremely brutal.
Since the Grim Reaper had used an instant-death skill, she knew its HP was below 50%, so the skill's activation condition had just been met.
Thunk!
The Crescent-Moon Weight, trailing a single line of blood-red light, embedded itself in the Grim Reaper's arm.
"You repeat useless actions."
Even the Grim Reaper took Serin's attack in stride.
It had briefly exposed itself after using an instant-death skill, but the Grim Reaper didn't particularly care.
Damage to its arms and legs, which weren't vital points, could be regenerated as much as needed.
Watching the monster, Serin twisted the corner of her mouth.
The arms and legs she had already shattered and wrecked multiple times kept regenerating. But that didn't mean the damage had been perfectly restored.
—Wail of the Dead.
From the Crescent-Moon Weight embedded in its forearm, blood-red energy burst forth like an explosion.
Screeeeeech!!
The cord connected to the Crescent-Moon Weight was yanked taut, and Serin once again played the cord with her pale fingers as if performing an instrument.
The Crescent-Moon Weight, its cord pulled taut through her hands, vibrated eerily.
"Grrrk!!"
The Grim Reaper let out an untimely scream and quickly swung its arm, trying to pull out the embedded Crescent-Moon Weight.
But the more it tried, the more firmly the Crescent-Moon Weight stayed lodged in its arm, wrapped in ghostly energy.
Slash, slash!
The Grim Reaper swung its massive scythe rapidly, trying to eliminate Serin.
Serin stepped forward and twisted her hips, casually letting the attack slide past.
"You'll be begging me to kill you quickly."
Serin spoke flatly and kept vibrating the cord of the Crescent-Moon Weight lodged in its forearm as if playing an instrument.
As she did, the sharp blade of the embedded Crescent-Moon Weight burrowed endlessly into the wound.
The direct damage was quite powerful, but more than anything, it was an incredibly efficient skill in the sense that it inflicted pain on the opponent.
Since the game presented itself as virtual reality, there weren't many monsters that were insensitive to pain.
Most monsters reacted at least slightly when they took damage. That was true even for high-ranking named monsters or raid monsters.
Unless it was a monster like a golem with no senses at all, even a skeleton with nothing but bones—even the dead—could not calmly endure the Wail of the Dead, which made them writhe in agony.
The ghostly energy gradually coiling around the Crescent-Moon Weight was condensing itself to the limit, as if accumulating the Grim Reaper's pain.
—Spatial Distortion.
Ghostly light burst from the skull's eye sockets. In an instant, Serin's form appeared in the air of the cave.
Serin yanked the cord with all her strength and detonated the energy condensed in the Crescent-Moon Weight.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!
With a massive explosion, the Grim Reaper's arm burst apart and came away with the Crescent-Moon Weight.
Tap!
Serin twisted her body naturally and landed on the ground, then immediately pulled her right hand back to retrieve the Crescent-Moon Weight.
"...You vicious wretch."
The Grim Reaper stared at its shoulder joint, shredded by the aftermath of the explosion, then fixed Serin with a baleful glare.
"Thanks for the compliment?"
Serin answered with a light laugh and spun the Crescent-Moon Weight, preparing to continue her attack.
The Grim Reaper raised the hand holding its scythe and slammed it into the ground.
BOOM!
The massive scythe, driven into the earth, erupted with a bleak energy like an explosion.
—Domain of Despair.
The pitch-black mist pouring from the massive scythe dyed the entire cave in deepest black.
The Grim Reaper's form began to waver and blur, as if being absorbed into the mist.
As the Grim Reaper's form vanished like smoke, even the massive scythe stuck in the ground slowly blurred and disappeared.
As the domain phase began, Serin realized that one of the three instant-death patterns had been skipped.
"Viewers, from here on... you should watch carefully?"
Serin smiled faintly and slowly wrapped the cord connected to the Crescent-Moon Weight around her entire right arm.
Rustle.
The red cord wound tightly around her right hand, as if refusing to show even a glimpse of skin. Once her entire right hand was wrapped in the red cord, the blade of the Crescent-Moon Weight fit neatly into her right hand.
This was like a preparation period. Now that the final pattern had begun, it granted a moment of respite to prepare.
The Grim Reaper, having entered its domain phase, would attack in a completely different style than before.
Suddenly, she remembered one of the G1 players she had scrimmed against last week.
'His name was Minseong, I'm pretty sure.'
An Assassin Class pro player. He had concealed himself throughout the scrim and attacked by surprise, making him the most troublesome opponent she had faced in a 1v1 duel.
He had even used counter skills to play mind games, making him hard to deal with.
And now, the Grim Reaper's combat style after deploying its domain was far too similar to that player Minseong.
'No, is it a bit different?'
The difference was that now, the opponent coming to take her head in the deep darkness was a real "reaper."
Tap.
In the darkness covering everything, Serin lightly stamped her foot and activated a skill.
—Heavy.
Fwoooosh!
In an instant, red heat haze rose from her right hand, wrapped in the red cord, as if burning. The red energy spread across her entire right hand, seeped into the blade of the Crescent-Moon Weight, and began to emit a blood-red glow.
Unlike her light body, the energy dwelling in her right hand was immensely heavy, so her right arm naturally hung downward.
For the Dancer class, specialized in agility and light movement, this was the one buff skill that granted immense destructive power—and also the skill that created the greatest sense of dissonance while in use.
If the skill Swift added speed to the already fast-moving Dancer, Heavy, in contrast, granted such heavy destructive power that it suppressed even her natural speed. It was also an unusual buff skill that couldn't be chained with other skills while active.
The reason she gripped the blade of the Crescent-Moon Weight directly was that swinging it at range wouldn't let her put proper force into it.
About two minutes of near-total silence passed.
『Death has already come for you』
A bizarre voice rang out, as if shaking the entire space.
As if she had been waiting for it, Serin slowly closed her eyes and extended her right arm, gripping the blade of the Crescent-Moon Weight, forward.
A peculiar stance, like an assassin holding a dagger.
It was a stark contrast to the way she had fought before, dancing flamboyantly with the Crescent-Moon Weight.
[?????]
[What?]
[Why close her eyes?]
[Is it just because she can't see anyway?]
[Isn't that a bit much?]
[People who've never fought the Grim Reaper are so obvious lololol keeping your eyes open doesn't make a difference]
[In that situation keeping your eyes open is the same thing yeah]
[But wait, don't you have to watch and dodge the instant-death patterns?]
[Rin just skipped one of the instant-death patterns entirely and you still don't get it lololol]
[People who don't know are backseat gaming again and chat's a mess lololol]
Naturally, chat went wild at the sight of Serin suddenly closing her eyes.
Even in the screen darkened by the Grim Reaper's domain, Serin's figure as the streamer was clearly visible on the broadcast, so the viewers' confusion was perhaps only natural.
And then, without a sound, a massive scythe emerged from the deep darkness.
The massive scythe darted freely through the darkness like an afterimage, appearing again and again in countless places,
and at the end, the place where the massive scythe appeared was directly behind Serin, who stood with her eyes closed in that peculiar stance.
Swish.
The moment the massive scythe aimed at Serin's neck and swept down to behead her in one stroke.
Clang!
A massive burst of light exploded, brilliantly illuminating the space submerged in darkness.
***
Viewers: 23,711.
Rin, who had surpassed 20,000 viewers just one hour after starting her stream, was nothing short of astonishing.
For a Korean streamer who wasn't a famous foreign streamer to gather this many viewers in such a short time—there were only a handful of broadcasts like that.
In that sense, Rin's stream had drawn the attention of many people.
"Wants a collab. Tch, easy to say."
The SJ Entertainment strategic marketing team leader watched Rin's famous stream with an inscrutable expression.
Her appearance on stream, her way of speaking, even the nature of the broadcast—everything checked out according to the report.
It wasn't excessive, and her broadcast image wasn't bad.
Actually, more than anything, the fact that she had done a collab with Jeanne d'Arc was, in a sense, an astonishing record, so SJ Entertainment couldn't help but take an interest in Rin.
Jeanne d'Arc was a player who rejected any offer with razor-sharp precision unless it was an advertising contract already written into her agreement.
And the broadcast she had voluntarily offered to do last weekend was this streamer Rin's stream.
"Assistant Manager Ha, so you're saying Seo Eunwoo plays this game called Another World?"
The marketing team leader asked the employee who had come to report. The employee nodded awkwardly.
The team leader sighed.
Seo Eunwoo was a celebrity who was already doing well enough within the company, so they clearly had to offer him a carrot. But this out-of-the-blue demand was baffling.
"Fine. Try making contact for now. If it doesn't work, we just say it doesn't work. I mean, he's got to be a pretty big deal to pull this."
The streamer profession had only recently become a subject of divided opinion, but it had always been a world of extremes.
The gap between the top tier and the bottom tier was absurdly wide.
Successful top-tier streamers commanded rates comparable to established celebrities at SJ Entertainment, while lower-tier streamers didn't come close.
The marketing team leader, who was considering an SJ affiliate that ran a NewTube-related MCN, had a headache.
He'd heard they were watching Rin too. He worried that offering a carrot might get them tangled up in something unnecessary.
Viewers: 23,852
Even now, the visible viewer count kept climbing.
An average of over 20,000 viewers meant a price tag on par with a decent star.
—Clang!
On the dark screen, a silver-haired character calmly stood, deflecting something without any fuss.
The team leader couldn't quite understand it.
"Ah, hold on. Assistant Manager Ha."
Clank.
The team leader called out to Assistant Manager Ha, who had been organizing approval documents and about to leave the office, then casually pulled up a hologram and nodded toward him.
"Is this Rin person really that good at the game?"
"Yes."
The employee answered without a moment's hesitation, and the team leader just let out a hollow laugh.
"Well, fine. That's all. You can go."