The Night Demon's Stand
The match had begun, and in the center of the canyon, light was raging.
“I’ll admit it. You got me clean.”
“Hup!!”
“This is ridiculous. Using an unproven substitute in the opening match, first game, first set? Is this some new kind of provocation?”
“It’s a strategy!!”
Jong-yu swung his sword with a hardened expression. True to his epithet Light Sword, fragmented beams of light scattered wildly in every direction. Amid that storm of radiance, Lee Hye-jung endured, exhaling green smoke.
Jong-yu spoke as he swung his blade without a hint of emotion.
“Lee Hye-jung. Mir’s second-team leader. She wears the mask of an assassin, yet she’s a poison master. She looks like a poison master, yet she’s a commander. She looks like a commander, yet she’s a manager and cheerleader all in one.”
“The cheerleader part is going too far…… khh!”
“Her debut in the league was last season. When the big three were called up to the national team. She won, but the opponent was a mid-tier guild. Even then, she was pushed back and had to rely on roaming.”
“I’ve done 3rd and 2nd Division matches too, khh!…… Roaming was the plan!”
“I don’t count 3rd or 2nd Division. And twisting your body because you can’t win 1v1 isn’t roaming.”
“Khh! You sure talk a lot for someone who hasn’t even watched me that closely!”
“I’m surprising myself. I don’t think I’ve been this angry in years.”
“It was a strategy!”
“Whether it was a strategy or an operation……”
In that instant, Light Sword’s face twisted.
“You’ve soured my mood.”
“!!”
Neglect. Mockery. Ridicule. Self-loathing……
Every unpleasant emotion flashed across Light Sword’s face as his presence shifted.
The man who had only moved his arms until now finally stepped forward and brought his sword down. From above to below. The blade born from pristine horsemanship was, quite literally, light itself.
Descending light.
This cannot be dodged!
Lee Hye-jung clenched her teeth and stopped moving. She raised the dagger held in reverse grip above her head.
Immediately after, the judgment of light crashed down upon her!
BOOM―――!!
A shockwave erupted alongside the clash.
Minions disintegrated. Foliage scattered.
Within the rising cloud of dust, Light Sword tilted his head slightly, as if surprised.
“……You weren’t without reason.”
Indeed.
Lee Hye-jung had withstood Light Sword’s strike.
With the aid of poison-smoke clones.
“Was that a ‘clone’?”
“Haa…… They’re poison shadows.”
“Poison shadows. Interesting.”
It was a technique of the Aminokake-ryu, the ninja clan that wielded poison and shadow.
“How many times do I have to say it? It wasn’t neglect. It was a strategy.”
Did Lee Hye-jung not know that facing Light Sword was reckless? She knew. Better than anyone.
Last season’s 14th-ranked player. The blindingly fast swordsman who had dominated the league with his extraordinary mobility and offensive power.
Furthermore, Light Sword was an assassin-type Awakener. For assassins, superiority in raw power was the decisive matchup advantage.
No matter how miraculously Lee Hye-jung had grown, under normal circumstances, simply enduring would have been difficult.
That was the kind of opponent Light Sword was.
However……
“The item build Light Sword is wearing right now. You tailored it for Park Su-bin.”
“!!”
Exactly.
From the very start, this game had never followed a normal matchup.
Park Su-bin, the Colossus who crushed opponents with overwhelming mass and destructive force, and Lee Hye-jung, who relied on poison and stealth, were styles separated by millions of light-years.
Naturally, their equipment builds were completely different as well.
“I’ve spent all this time analyzing only you, Light Sword. I finished my build specifically for you. All for this single moment.”
Specs. Speed. Attack patterns. Even the smallest habits.
She had analyzed everything and stepped forward convinced she could endure.
She had seen the possibility, and because it existed, she had come out.
Therefore.
“Don’t look down on me.”
The one whose pride was wounded was her.
“!!”
In an instant, the scattered poison shadows were sucked back into Lee Hye-jung’s body.
Startled by the tremendous aura, Light Sword scattered sword energy, but the blades of light only sliced through smoke that resembled her.
Lee Hye-jung had already completed the ninjutsu she had been preparing while speaking.
Her lips moved as her form dissolved into smoke.
“Have you ever heard this saying?”
Sinner, beware the night without a moon……
“……For the night demon who carries poison will come for you.”
In the wild era before the league, the secret technique of Doksahu, one of the world’s three greatest poison masters known as the Slayer of Evildoers, Yama, was unfolding at Lee Hye-jung’s fingertips.
Night had arrived.
Her master, Doksahu, had always said the same thing to Lee Hye-jung.
— ‘You’re one lucky girl.’
She had said it while puffing away at her pipe, the smoke of which would knock out any ordinary person, her tone dripping with venom.
You were supposed to break. There were over a hundred reasons why you should have broken.
— ‘A body with pitiful durability and talent so pathetic the only things you have are dexterity and agility. You’re the textbook example of a broken Awakener whose flaws and talents overlap.’
A glass-like talent that would rust far too easily without effort, yet would inevitably shatter the moment she tried to push herself.
A talent whose only path to growth was to throw her body into battle, a road already predetermined to end in ruin.
That, Doksahu had said, was Lee Hye-jung’s fate.
— ‘Your first blessing was encountering poison before that pathetic talent and body were completely spent.’
She supplemented her lacking durability with poison. She replaced her insufficient physical abilities with poison.
Thus, she had ultimately secured both survival and growth.
Doksahu had emphasized that this choice had been more than excellent—it had been the only way she could even pretend to be an Awakener.
— ‘Your second blessing was obtaining a poison with proper lineage from the very beginning.’
Poison was an extremely delicate substance.
The slightest modification could change its effects dramatically. Formulas altered its form, efficacy, the method of application, and even its antidote.
If she had begun poison arts with a poison that had no lineage? When Lee Hye-jung asked, Doksahu had answered nonchalantly.
— ‘Naturally, you would have slowly melted and rotted away from the very poison you used. Your body was already fragile enough. There’s no way it could have withstood an unrefined poison.’
Lee Hye-jung’s body was as delicate as poison itself.
Even if poison had been the right choice, learning it haphazardly with a poison that had no lineage?
Either the poison would have killed her, or she would have killed it. One of them would have ended in disaster.
Doksahu had chuckled, saying that in her ninety years, she had never once seen a poison die.
— ‘Your third blessing was training poison systematically.’
— ‘Your fourth blessing was that your poison and body grew in impossible balance.’
— ‘Your fifth blessing was that you were foolish during the period when you needed to grow.’
— ‘Your sixth blessing was that your lacking brain finally opened up when you needed enlightenment.’
Lee Hye-jung’s talent was as fragile as her body.
A single failure would have sent her plummeting into ruin.
Yet in this situation, Lee Hye-jung had always chosen the correct answer among countless paths that led to failure.
Thus, with her insufficient talent, she had desperately survived and now stood before Doksahu.
— ‘I’ve seen plenty of talented people. Plenty who were born at the right time, and plenty whose luck was absurdly good. But I’ve never seen a girl as blessed as you.’
That was why, at the airport where they parted, Doksahu had pulled her crooked back into her wheelchair and given her this final advice, worried that her late-blooming disciple might lose heart.
— ‘Don’t go anywhere and cower. You’re a precious girl.’
Traits (8/9): 「Yama」, 「Collective Intelligence」, 「Delicate Hands」, 「Throwing Mastery」, 「Aminokake-ryu」, 「Insight」, 「Rookie Commander」, 「Nimble Movement」
【 「Yama」 inheritance progress: ‘42%’ 】
【 「Poison Dance」 and 「Poison Step」 have merged into 「Aminokake-ryu」. 】
【 Effect of ‘Cheonhyangsok Myeongdan (Dang Family)’ is active. Poison-related skill learning…… 】
【 Effect of ‘Saengsa Hyeonsinhwan (Choi Family Pharmacy)’ is active. Poison-related skill…… 】
【 Effect of ‘Warani’s Seed (Warani Tribe)’ is active. Poison-related…… 】
【 Potential has increased. 】
— “Haa……”
— “Whoa……”
No words came out.
The casters had lost their voices.
The two of them could confidently say that the over ten million viewers watching this match felt the same.
— “If someone had said before the match that the starting members wouldn’t appear……”
— “We would’ve told them to stop spouting nonsense.”
— “And if they said that instead of those great starters, the second-team members would be sent out……?”
— “We would’ve asked if they drank too much yesterday.”
— “Then finally, if someone said before the match that Lee Hye-jung wouldn’t lose even an inch to Light Sword……”
— “We would’ve slapped them.”
— “(Smack!!)”
— “Ow!!”
This season had begun under unprecedented attention.
Global attention, not just Korea’s. The number of people watching this match alone was equivalent to the entire population of a small nation.
Yet in this globally watched match, Lee Shin and Mir Guild had sent out their substitutes.
It was a choice that went beyond bold into outright insane.
In fact, it had been a long time since Lee Shin had been called a “crazy X” even within Shin itself.
However.
Anyway.
When all was said and done?
— “Currently at top lane, Choi Soo-pil is holding firm. He’s being pushed back little by little, but he’s maintaining the line and keeping the lane balanced.”
— “Just in case anyone’s worried, Choi Soo-pil was still on the second team last year. He might have been even lower than a substitute! This even matchup makes no sense.”
Choi Soo-pil was repeating hit-and-run tactics using the “Desert Mobile Warfare” he had learned from Egypt’s warrior group ‘Sahara Amun,’ brilliantly holding the lane.
The screen showed Royal Sword’s top laner shouting in frustration.
When Choi Soo-pil, who looked like nothing special in a straight 1v1, kept fluttering his spear and stubbornly sticking to mobile warfare, it was enough to drive anyone mad.
— “Supporter Seo Ye-na isn’t to be underestimated either. At first she looked like a typical defensive supporter, but she’s not at all.”
— “You could call her a dual-type. Normally she arms herself with mace and shield and plays the role of a faithful assistant, but the moment those white wings spread, she changes!!”
The instant Seo Ye-na’s alpha and omega, Archangel’s Touch, activated, she became untouchable for a brief moment.
And when the holy grace of God reached the heavens, she drew out the longing buried deep in her chest just as she had been taught by the Vatican’s knight commander and brought down the ‘iron chains’!
“Die, representative!!”
— “Ha, haha, it seems the representative did something very wrong to Princess.”
— “Haha, they must just be close.”
— “Anyway, a duo kill at bot! Seo Ye-na, who snagged the opponent with her chains, chased them down with Blitz all the way and finally secured the kill!”
But even when all these shocks were combined, none of them compared to this.
Lee Hye-jung was engaging in a head-on confrontation against last season’s 14th-ranked player, the blindingly fast swordsman Light Sword!!
— “She’s not losing an inch! Lee Hye-jung is scattering black poison mist, dodging or meeting every one of Light Sword’s attacks.”
— “This isn’t her usual poison mist. How should I put it…… it’s thicker and darker.”
— “It seems certain that she’s weakening the opponent through poisoning. Light Sword’s expression is growing darker as time passes.”
— “Stealth is basic, and she even has speed synergy. At the same time, it looks like attack power has increased as well…… I don’t know. What kind of skill is that?”
In truth, the core of Yama was neither poison nor buffs. It was implanting her own nervous system into that night-like poison mist.
No matter how skilled the opponent, even if they were a swordsman who could unleash strikes as fast as light, once they touched that nocturnal poison mist, they entered Lee Hye-jung’s domain. Their every action became predictable.
“Not easy, is it?”
“You……”
“I told you. It’s a strategy.”
Lee Hye-jung had not lied.
Strategy, equipment build, and even this information—if the opponent didn’t know any of it.
Then even if the opponent was Light Sword, Lee Hye-jung could endure.
CLANG――!!
And.
The terrifying thing about Mir Guild was that when every lane was locked in a stalemate.
They never lost.
All because of this man.
Kim Jong-phil, the Mountain King, had his opponent smashed into the dirt.
“You, judging by the shape of your mouth, you’ve been babbling in Japanese this whole time.”
“Zenzaaaang!!”
“If you’re playing in the Korean league, speak Korean. That’s basic courtesy to the league.”
CRACK.
The Mountain King twisted the head he had driven into the ground.
‘Kim Jong-phil’ has slain ‘Yamada Yoshinobu’.