The Newbie Crusher's Trap

Sword Demon Dragon Blade.

FINAL STAGE.

A full month of grinding had brought him to the very last stage, with nothing left between him and the finish line.

It wasn't just the grudge of being beaten down by the Sword Demon that kept him chained to this maze for a month. Two things had caught Ryu Hwi's attention.

One: Sword Demon Dragon Blade could be cleared quickly. Two: there were almost certainly clear achievements for game labyrinths as well.

127 tickets and 3 SR guarantees from Sword Demon Dragon Blade alone. Setting the RP aside, it was a respectable haul — and yet Ryu Hwi's face was gloomy.

And for good reason.

"No SR... Not a single one..."

He had already burned through every one of the 127 normal tickets earned in the labyrinth, spinning the Random Box the moment each ticket hit his inventory.

"You said it was a PICK-UP banner! How is a pick-up banner not dropping anything from Sword Demon Dragon Blade?!"

Right — things had dropped, all right. A low-grade warrior's longsword (N), the Three Calamities Sword Art (R), and a mountain of other junk nobody needed. Watching the endless parade of N and R trash scroll by, Ryu Hwi felt the tears coming.

Three years of rotten luck came flooding back, and there was nothing funny about it.

It was tempting — almost too tempting, the kind of impulse that ends with everything spent in one reckless go. But Ryu Hwi held firm.

"I'm rolling just the 3 guaranteed SR tickets. That's it."

Either way, it was SR — something usable was bound to come out of it. Before facing the Sword Demon, Ryu Hwi fed the three guaranteed tickets into the Random Box. Three golden, glittering meteors fell from above.

He hadn't dared hope for SSR from the start. What he wanted was simple: a secret manual. A secret manual. A secret manual.

Throughout his run of Sword Demon Dragon Blade, he had watched the Sword Demon's irregular, unorthodox footwork and technique again and again. Master that unpredictable movement, he'd reasoned, and it would carry him through any other game labyrinth too. But the Random Box simply refused to spit one out.

A manual. A manual. A manual. A manual. A manual. A manual. A manual.

But this time they were SR-guaranteed tickets, so the possibility was real. Praying for at least some foundational martial art skill, Ryu Hwi waited for the results.

And then—

Ryu Hwi's fist clenched before he even realized it. After torching 127 tickets, the guaranteed pulls had finally delivered!! He immediately pulled up the skill details.

The Yongjin Qi Art was a cultivation method for building 'internal energy' — the wuxia equivalent of MP. The Plum Blossom Sword Art and Fist Art were attacking skills that unleashed that internal energy in combat. Sword Demon Dragon Blade was built around combining exactly these kinds of techniques, with players layering skill upon skill as they progressed.

In other words—

"They were a SET?!"

To unleash their true power, each technique needed its paired cultivation method.

"Ghh... Let's, let's look on the bright side. I've already got Sword Saint, so the Plum Blossom Sword Art is redundant anyway...? And the Fist Art can be my backup for when I can't use a weapon. Emergency use."

For all that they were SR pulls, the two Plum Blossom arts didn't excite him much. But the Yongjin Qi Art — that was the internal cultivation method he'd been desperate for. The strategy guides all recommended mastering it, no exceptions. Getting it now was at least some consolation—

Ryu Hwi gritted his teeth. He'd tried to play it cool, to act satisfied at finally having internal energy — and YggON had slashed the bandage right off the wound without hesitation.

YggON was right. The Yongjin Qi Art was the very first skill obtainable in Sword Demon Dragon Blade. Every other gamer got it the moment they started. Ryu Hwi had only just scraped it together now.

That was the curse of the Random Box pull system.

"Fine. Upgrades! UPGRADES!!"

The 48,760 RP earned in Sword Demon Dragon Blade — he decided to sink all of it into the Yongjin Qi Art.

Skill enhancement. Yongjin Qi Art Lv1→Lv2 (700 RP). Lv2→Lv3 (1,400 RP). Lv3→Lv4 (2,100 RP). Lv4→Lv5 (8,400 RP). Yongjin Qi Art Lv5 → Yongjin Qi Art (ygg).

Of the RP earned in the labyrinth, 36,160 points remained! Even skills obtained late could be maxed out in one go if you banked the points. That was the Random Box system's one saving grace.

YggON grumbled something under its breath, but Ryu Hwi ignored it and checked the enhanced skill's effects.

The attribute had changed — from Fire to Dragon.

"I get Fire, but what the hell is Dragon?"

He wanted to believe it was good luck — he'd pulled the very skill the guide had flagged as essential. Experimentally, Ryu Hwi slotted the Yongjin Qi Art into his skill bar.

"...?"

Why wasn't any internal energy appearing? Wasn't it supposed to show up as a blue MP gauge?

As Ryu Hwi frowned and re-checked the skill description, YggON called to him in an unusually quiet voice.

The standard approach was to accumulate internal energy in the dantian and spend it like MP. For Ryu Hwi, it had been converted into a consumable buff instead.

It wasn't a useless skill. Not at all, in fact—

But it's just... it's not what I imagined.

The authority of the UR system had taken the original skill and implemented it in a completely different way. Void-walking. Qi blasts. All the staples of every wuxia novel ever written.

A pipe dream. Nothing more.

Ryu Hwi turned his gaze toward the massive door standing before him.

"Well, with the Yongjin Qi Art, at least I won't get steamrolled like last time."

The final stage of Sword Demon Dragon Blade: the Sword Demon's Secret Grotto. Here dwelled the final boss — the Sword Demon himself.

Ryu Hwi pushed the door open and strode inside, each step heavy with irritation and fury.

Whatever YggON was saying, Ryu Hwi pretended not to hear.

Inside the cavern, the figure of an old man with a magnificent mane of white hair came into view.

"So ye've come at last. I thought I'd killed ye, and yet here ye are..."

"Shut up."

He had zero intention of leisurely savoring the story cutscene. That humiliating defeat — one loss on his record. For an entire month, he'd sharpened the blade waiting for this moment.

Of course it was. You get hit, you pay it back. That was Ryu Hwi's code.

"Insolent wretch! Ye died and clawed yer way back, and now ye dare insult this venerable one?!"

"I don't just take a beating and walk away. I'm going to make you feel, bone-deep, exactly who you messed with."

The Sword Demon drew his blade.

"Then come, heir of the Yongjin Sword! Show me what ye've got!"

Just shut UP, you pile of scrap metal!

Ryu Hwi hurled YggON over his shoulder and advanced on the Sword Demon.

"You're going to be the final boss of the first game labyrinth I ever clear."

There was a reason every strategy writer cursed the Sword Demon in unison. The artificial difficulty patterns were pure garbage. He spammed AoE skills indiscriminately. No matter how hard you hit, the Protective Gangqi wouldn't break. Ryu Hwi had tasted one of those cheap-shot patterns himself, back in the prologue's forced-defeat event.

But this time there was no forced defeat event. No reason he couldn't dodge.

"Every generation coveted the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, and every one of them knelt before this venerable one's blade. Ye may be the heir of the Yongjin Sword, but ye'll be no different!"

The Sword Demon's blade carved through the air, spitting ceaseless arcs of azure light that shredded everything around them.

"If you're the Sword Demon, why are you using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art?! If this is how it's going to be, at least call yourself the Heavenly Demon!"

Without Parrying, supercharged by Sword Saint, and without his Sword Gang, Ryu Hwi couldn't have lasted a second against this opponent.

Pressed onto the back foot by the Sword Demon's dazzling assault, Ryu Hwi finally had no choice but to call on the Yongjin Qi Art.

The white radiance of Ryu Hwi's Sword Gang flushed crimson, and the strikes came out fiercer than before.

Okay — it IS stronger! But something's... something's off!

The recovery was far too slow. Each skill and physical enhancement cost 1 or 2 charges, while only 1 charge regenerated per minute. It was nothing but a cooldown wearing a fancy disguise.

The effect was undeniably powerful. It just wasn't what Ryu Hwi had wanted.

"Damn it!"

Letting his fury drive the blade, Ryu Hwi swung. When his sword met the Sword Demon's, the old man's eyes went wide.

"This power — the power of the Dragon! Have ye reached the truth of the Yongjin?!"

"What kind of nonsense is that?!"

Ryu Hwi had no idea what the Sword Demon was suddenly on about.

Apparently, without realizing it, Ryu Hwi had satisfied an event trigger condition.

"So THAT'S why the guide said to max out the Yongjin Qi Art?"

The guide had been explicit: the Yongjin Qi Art was mandatory. Which meant a boss-weakening event had to be about to fire. It always did in situations like this.

'?'

...Why did his spine suddenly go cold?

As ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if something were warning him that, from this moment on, the event was about to turn very badly against him.

"HAHAHAHAHA!! At last — an opponent worthy of my full strength!"

A strange energy swallowed the Sword Demon's entire body. He had grown several times more ferocious than he'd been mere moments ago.

I did NOT sign up for this kind of hidden event!

"Behold! The pinnacle this venerable one has attained — the power of the Heavenly Demon Dragon Suppression!"

Why was the final boss name-dropping the Yongjin Sword — the HERO'S power?! And would somebody please stop slapping "Heavenly Demon" on everything?!

I did NOT sign up for this kind of hidden lore either!

The difficulty went UP because he mastered the Yongjin Qi Art?! Unbelievable!

"It was a TRAP guide, wasn't it?!"

He'd been played. Without a doubt, the players who leveled the Yongjin Qi Art first, got wrecked for it, and then posted those guides with a smug come try it yourself attitude — they'd set the whole thing up on purpose.

"You dog-water newbie crushers..."

Ryu Hwi spat curses at the nameless gamers who'd written those guides.

He could not — would not — log a second humiliating defeat here.

Ryu Hwi threw everything he had at the Sword Demon: Intuition, Sword Saint, the Yongjin Qi Art, the Gunsword — every card in his hand, all at once.

Blades crossed in an endless storm. Every clash ripped the air apart, shockwaves of terrifying force tearing out in every direction.

"Heir of this generation! Is that truly all ye have? Then allow me to show ye — the true power of the Heavenly Demon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dragon Suppression Sword!"

A fierce aura gathered around the Sword Demon's blade — and took shape. The shape of a dragon.

There's STILL more?! What happened to the balance in this game?!

Even now, at the moment of truth, YggON was calmly delivering lore commentary without a shred of tension.

"Damn it, if this is how it has to be...!!"

Ryu Hwi clenched his teeth.