The Rising Super Rookie Streamer (4)

Missiles came screaming in on a thunderous roar. He was probably using them to feel me out — to see how I'd answer.

Funny. When he was playing that smurf, zlzonchongjabi, he charged in with no plan at all, yet the moment he queued on his main, his brain seemed to have leveled up. Not that saying so changes anything. A goldfish brain is still a goldfish brain.

The attempt itself wasn't bad. The intent, at least — crush the opening with overwhelming firepower and seize the initiative. In the Heavenly Realm, one fighter taking on many was as ordinary as drawing breath. What Fighter would flinch at a scene like this? Thinking that, I began to gather power into my fist.

Heat bloomed across my knuckles. White smoke soon curled up from them in thin wisps, and the fist itself started to tremble — but I stilled the tremor at once and drew in a long, deep breath. Every preparatory motion of the technique was complete. I drove my fist forward and let the shockwave go.

The blast tore away with a deafening boom, spreading in a wedge until it met the missiles head-on. Every one of them detonated in midair and vanished without a trace. The viewers went quiet — and so, for an instant, did Soldier. I could tell the hit had stunned him.

After a brief lull, the chat came flooding in. Most of them clearly hadn't expected me to throw a technique like that. Fair enough, I supposed. In any game, the word Fighter comes welded to one fixed idea: you close the distance and you brawl. I was one of the few who'd stepped outside that frame, which was why I'd cooked up all sorts of techniques back in the Heavenly Realm.

Put it all together, and the picture was simple. The ranked players who actually stuck with Fighter never even thought of ranged techniques, and the ordinary players who did think of them never tried — the class's entry difficulty was simply too high. Either way, watching the viewers react left me in an excellent mood. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and people were already starting to look at Fighters a little differently.

Then a sharp whoosh cut the air. Soldier had launched another volley — and this time the howitzers and fixed guns joined in.

"Wow, he fired so many this time I can barely count them. Aigoo, you really shouldn't do that..."

The fool had made another foolish choice. More precisely, I'd already found the weakness in an attack like that. A glance at chat showed plenty of people saying they didn't understand what I meant, so I started toward him, ready to show them.

The first missile came straight at me. I simply picked up speed, and it slid past its mark. What followed was stranger. The missiles and shells weren't aimed at me at all — they scattered outward, spreading across the ground around me like a net.

"Ah, so you want the blast to swallow me up? If I'm careless, I might actually get hit~?"

I cut through them in a zigzag. At that density, it might as well have been a sky dumping hail the size of boulders. Missiles and shells hammered the earth, and black smoke boiled up in their wake. Dozens of impacts later, the haze sealed off his sight and mine alike.

"There, you see? That's what happens when you fire without thinking. Now I just take the smoke as a shield and dive in."

The towering smoke had turned into an ally. In short, a road had opened straight to his multiple rocket launchers. And for the record, cutting through that smoke was no trouble for me — I'd memorized the terrain and every drone's placement before the fight began. I sprinted through the haze, and at last the launchers he'd deployed came into view. I swung at once and caved in a hull. The vehicle rang like a bell and went flying.

Hmm. There were quite a few of them, though. Picking them off one by one would take too long, so I'd need another way. The judgment was instant. I began gathering power in my fist again.

Chat was trying to stop me. I didn't stop gathering power. Seeing once beats hearing a hundred times — better to show them than explain. When the power was fully gathered, I drove my fist straight ahead.

The shockwave lanced toward the rocket launchers and began to connect. The only difference from the skill I'd used moments ago was that it didn't fan out. It flew in a straight line. Because of that, the launchers standing in a row looked as if a single skewer had run them all through. A clean chain of impacts rang out, one after another. I lifted my gaze toward the distance and watched the very last one come apart for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠certain. I'd turned his own gambit against him and flipped the fight.

"Anything past the limit is too much of a good thing. He'd have been better off luring me into a trap like in round one... Ah, not that I would've walked into it, of course."

One of his three defensive lines was broken, which left me free to pick apart his mistakes and talk with the viewers at my leisure. Set aside the rocket launchers in the front row, and there simply hadn't been that many of them. Far off, though, Soldier's expression didn't change — not even after I'd wiped out every launcher. As if he'd expected exactly this. Or as if the next plan was already drawn up.

"Hmm... playing it cool, are we. Still better than flinching at every little thing."

I meant it as a plain impression. Watching someone overreact to every move I made was deeply unpleasant. And unless he truly believed the plan he'd set in motion couldn't fail, a face like that could never show itself. I drove deeper into his lines to deal with the howitzers.

Lost the will to fight, they said. With the gap in skill I'd shown so far, that was possible. Even so, I had no intention of ending this even if he surrendered nicely. Tally his karma and there would be no end to it — the crime of looking down on Fighters, the crime of trying to farm weaker players, the crime of showing two faces on Nutube. That was only what I already knew. Fold in everything I didn't, and how much more would there be?

With that resolve set, I reached the howitzers. Unlike the rocket launchers, there were far fewer of them, so there was no need to spend extra power here. This time I used the technique lightly and finished by snapping those slender barrels.

One after another, the howitzers lost every function of war the moment their barrels broke. A few repetitions cleared them, and a path opened toward Soldier. The fixed guns were still there, but they wouldn't be able to bring much force to bear — I was closing the distance in real time, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and aiming at me would only get harder. A sprint ate up the ground between us, and I called out.

"I'm only asking just in case, but this isn't the end, right? You've got a hidden trump card, don't you?"

I'd said it in all sincerity. I'd opened the second round and even given him room to breathe, and this pathetic little plan was the end of it? He didn't answer with so much as a word. A zipper might as well have been drawn across his mouth; he didn't twitch. No matter. I closed in and swung my right fist, and sent him flying.

He crashed into a tree with a boom, dropped to one knee, and touched his cheek with a faintly suspicious look. He'd taken the blow square on the face and felt no pain — that had to be it. The only hurt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would be from hitting the tree. With that, the foundation of my finishing move was set.

The form of it was simple. On certain attacks, I dealt no damage at all, and stored the damage I withheld inside my fist. Put plainly: a hit worth ten, banked instead of paid out on the spot. Stack that again and again, then detonate it whenever I pleased. That was the finishing move I'd made.

To make it clearer still — say an ordinary blow deals ten damage. Don't pay it out. Store a hundred of those blows. Then unleash a single strike worth a staggering thousand, and you can imagine how absurd it is. The weakness, of course, was just as clear. In a fight where every clean hit matters, failing to convert right now means investing in an uncertain future. In short, you could call it playing for the bigger picture. There might be nothing to show in the moment, but land all that stored damage in one blow and the aftermath would be enormous.

"Then shall we wrap this up?"

He hadn't caught on. Feeling only the shock of the tree, he rose with a look of relief. How could a sparrow understand the will of a phoenix? The fool was surely comforted by how little damage he'd taken. And so I broke into a charge toward the forest spread across the wasteland.