The Heavenly Demon Takes the Stage (2)

The community boards were on fire again. The moment Hwaryeong stepped into the arena, the internet exploded with clips, highlights, and heated debates. It was the same story every day now—new legendary moments from the Heavenly Demon flooding every forum and gallery.

* PyeonSaLove. Shortened to PyeonLover by the community, the one-champ Whip Master player Kim Do-hyun logged into Apis the moment he finished work, just like always.

These days he barely slept four hours a night, caught between his job and the game. His body was exhausted beyond measure, yet his mind had never been clearer. All the effort he had poured in over nearly a decade was finally bearing fruit.

“Just one more win and I’m in the pro league!”

The pro league. That unreachable dream that had always seemed just out of grasp was now right in front of him. How many years had he sacrificed to Apis just to stand at this threshold? Those years didn’t belong to Do-hyun alone. They belonged to every remaining Whip Master player in the game.

The Whip Master class had existed since Apis first launched. Back when no one truly understood the game, its beautiful aesthetics and flashy whip skills drew in tons of players. But as the meta developed, everything changed. The class’s terrible performance was exposed.

Of course, even the Whip Master was still superhuman compared to ordinary people. Its power was overwhelming by normal standards. But performance was always relative. Every other class was simply stronger. They delivered far better results with the same amount of effort. Even assuming perfect execution, dozens of other classes outperformed it.

Whether you were skilled or not, the only real reason to play Whip Master was pure affection. Several patches came and went. Countless new characters were released and the game went through massive changes. None of it helped the Whip Master. It remained the worst class in the game. The dark age that had begun never ended.

The affection of those who had chosen the class wasn’t infinite. Emotions couldn’t last forever. The players who had started the journey with him disappeared one by one. Those who had researched the class together, swearing to make it viable, eventually left. Even the other so-called Whip Master specialists moved on to different characters.

Before long, Do-hyun had become the sole remaining Whip Master specialist in all of Apis.

That was why he couldn’t abandon it. If even he gave up, there would be no one left who truly loved the class. The Whip Master would vanish from everyone’s memory entirely.

He continued playing, believing that the dark age would one day end. He waited for the moment he would end the long night with his own hands and usher in a golden age. Do-hyun believed that dawn came equally for everyone.

Years passed. He remained stuck in Challenger, a ghost bound to the rank, while the Whip Master stayed a trash-tier class that had never once appeared in an official tournament.

Then one day, Do-hyun—who should have logged in as usual—found himself too exhausted to even launch the game. After falling all the way from Challenger to Master, he had hit rock bottom. This was the limit. His limit, and by extension, the limit of the Whip Master class itself.

Why am I putting myself through this suffering? The question consumed him. The words of a certain pro team coach kept echoing in his ears: If you had played any other character, you would have succeeded as a pro.

Depressed beyond measure, he ordered beer and chicken and turned on internet streams. That was how he found DeKay’s broadcast. There were many reasons. The massive viewer count. The recent buzz around a player named Hwaryeong that had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠caught his interest. The fact that he knew DeKay personally.

Whatever the case, he subconsciously clicked into the stream.

And witnessed a miracle.

Hwaryeong had chosen the Whip Master to face DeKay. Speculation ran wild, but since she never explained her reasons, the truth never came out. What everyone agreed on was that she had shown the world exactly why she picked the class.

The Whip Master gameplay she displayed was everything Do-hyun had ever dreamed of. The fluid movement that showcased the weapon’s lightness. The way a seemingly weak lash could generate massive explosive force. The perfect control and precision in every flick of the wrist.

Even the smallest motions revealed that she had surpassed what Do-hyun had always considered the theoretical peak. The emotion he felt watching her wasn’t amazement, awe, or reverence.

It was self-loathing.

He had believed he was drawing out the class’s full potential. He had thought the reason he couldn’t reach the pro league wasn’t lack of understanding but simply the class’s inherent weakness. Deep down, he had even convinced himself that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if he had chosen any other character, he would have gone much further.

But he was wrong. It was arrogance. Laziness. Ignorance. Delusion.

He had never even reached the halfway point of the class’s true potential, yet he had believed he stood above the clouds. Was I even imitating the tip of Hwaryeong-nim’s toes? No. Did I put in the effort to reach that realm? No. Did I try to improve in any other way? No.

At some point, Do-hyun had given up on researching the Whip Master. He had stopped moving forward, declared that this was the end, and blamed the class itself. He had never once suspected his own faults. He had pinned every failure on the Whip Master. He had even grown to hate it.

It was shameful. The man who had taken pride in being called Apis’s last true Whip Master specialist had actually hated the class. It wasn’t even a tragedy—it was a pathetic farce.

Even as self-loathing swallowed him, he could not look away from the screen. No, he must not look away. He had a duty to watch this. Not as someone who had abandoned the class, but as a witness to its perfection in another person’s hands. He needed to burn that completed form into his eyes.

Do-hyun watched DeKay and Hwaryeong’s ten-round match as if possessed. He studied every single thing she did. He tried to decipher the meaning behind each gesture, every movement. Yet even after the match ended, he had failed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to understand a single fragment of the enlightenment she possessed.

It wasn’t his fault. Her level was simply on another plane entirely. Still, the fact that he couldn’t even follow in her footsteps filled him with shame. The shame of having called himself a specialist.

So he decided to do whatever it took to wash that shame away. The method he chose was simple: time. If the giant named Hwaryeong took one step forward, the dwarf named Do-hyun would follow with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of steps.

He simply kept watching her move. Her enlightenment was so high that understanding everything was impossible, but he desperately tried to grasp even a fragment, a piece, the smallest hint of it.

He only snapped out of it when his boss called.

“Hey! Why aren’t you at the office? Why won’t you pick up your phone? Is something wrong?”

“...Yes?”

His voice was hoarse. He turned to check the time. It was already morning. The chicken he had ordered the night before had gone cold, and the beer had gone completely flat. His boss hadn’t called just once—there were dozens of missed calls.

After taking in the situation, Do-hyun didn’t hesitate. He told his boss he was feeling sick and would use a sick day. Then he turned back to Hwaryeong’s videos.

He looked like a madman.

The next day, when he logged into Apis ranked games, he managed to climb his account—which had fallen to Master in a single day—all the way back to Challenger. It wasn’t luck. During that climb he faced pro players’ smurf accounts, famous Apis streamers, and veterans he had fought countless times before. He crushed every single one of them overwhelmingly.

After returning to his original rank, he didn’t stop there. He had conviction now. The conviction that he could go higher. The conviction that he could finally step into the pro league he had only been able to watch from afar for years. The conviction that the things he had learned from Hwaryeong would carry him there.

And now, that conviction was only one more victory away from becoming reality.