Dancing on the Cliff's Edge

Infinity Realm didn't always force unfavorable environments on its players.

If the Altar of the War God induced resource depletion, the Great Fairywood Forest did the exact opposite.

In this field, following the lore that the fairy trees exuded mana, mana regeneration was significantly boosted.

On top of that, the GeasLife Shall Overflow was a fixed spawn in the Great Fairywood Forest.

What that Geas meant was a massive increase in health regeneration.

While in-combat regeneration increased, the real game-changer was out-of-combat regeneration.

Once a player managed to survive and disengage from battle, their health would replenish at an incomparably rapid pace.

"The match has begun!"

"SnowWitch's players are spreading out. The search to locate the enemy has begun!"

"Given the nature of the map, both teams have opted for fairly standard compositions."

"It's the classic 1-2-2 setup. A base composition consisting of one support, two ranged damage dealers, and two melee classes."

"To fill the final slot, ACL has brought in an Assassin, while SnowWitch has opted for a Berserker."

It was a battlefield where almost every class could perform at their absolute peak.

However, abundant resources did not translate to an easy battle.

While your own damage dealers spammed their skills, the enemy damage dealers weren't about to sit idly by.

The luxury of plentiful resources applied to both sides.

Because players traded much higher firepower than usual, melee classes were required to play with far greater delicacy here than on any other map.

Meanwhile, the ranged damage dealers couldn't afford to relax either.

If they failed to completely finish off a tank or a bruiser, those frontliners would quickly regenerate their health and return.

In the midst of a fast-paced battle, disengaged enemies would rapidly rejoin the fray.

Naturally, the mental toll was immense.

For this reason, the Great Fairywood Forest was a rather infamous map.

Unless a major blunder occurred, the match was highly likely to drag out.

While it was highly entertaining for the spectators to watch endless clashes of high firepower, for the players, it was a notoriously exhausting battlefield.

"ACL's intention is to maximize their kill-securing potential through their Assassin."

"The core strategy seems to be raining down fire with mages who excel at area-of-effect damage, applying pressure to the backline with the Assassin, and then securing clean kills."

"After all, the penalty for dying is massive in the Great Fairywood Forest. That's why melee classes usually build for high defense, but..."

"Which makes us very curious about Yu Nabi's choice, doesn't it? Ah, the observer is showing us right now."

On a typical map, players didn't greed too aggressively for kills.

Even if they succeeded in taking down one target, consuming too ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠many resources left them vulnerable, leading to a significant loss in overall combat power.

A sudden shift in the balance of power could snowball the game beyond recovery.

But in the Great Fairywood Forest, resources replenished endlessly.

As long as a player didn't die, they could return to the fight in no time.

Consequently, the value of a single kill skyrocketed, and the risk of dying became far more punishing.

Here, the absolute priority was survival.

Surely, then, Yu Nabi would opt for a stable, defensive build this time?

"Wow, of course! She doesn't disappoint. She has gone all-in on Strength and Attack Power!"

"I swear, that player's thought process is just wired differently from normal people."

"It's like she thought, 'What? As long as I don't die, it's fine? Then I should just play even more aggressively and kill them first!'"

"I bet that's exactly what she was thinking. They don't call her a beast for nothing."

"It's like she has no fear. She's practically announced that she's going to dance on the edge of a cliff from her very first debut match!"

As if.

Yu Nabi's playstyle was strictly based on the system's mathematical formulas.

Since she didn't rely on mere gut feelings, this match was no different from any other.

The Great Fairywood Forest only boosted health and mana.

It didn't amplify skill damage, nor did it reduce cooldowns.

In fact, because the enemies spammed their powerful skills without hesitation, it was actually easier to keep track of their cooldowns.

Yet, the commentators weren't entirely wrong.

Yu Nabi's thought process really was a bit different from others.

While everyone else was stressing over the pressure of high-risk play, Nabi's mind was occupied by something else entirely.

'Aaaah... There are so many people watching this match. Just how many are there?'

Dancing on a cliffside?

A high-risk battlefield?

She would have been glad if she actually had the mental ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠capacity to worry about things like that.

It was a relief she had built up at least a tiny bit of tolerance.

With a massive crowd watching the broadcast...

...the old her would have frozen solid, staring blankly at the starting point.

Today, she was lucky.

Truly, incredibly lucky.

Because the enemy team, having spotted her first, focused all their fire on her with murderous intent.

She reacted just in time, right before the first projectile could connect.

Immediately after, a barrage of ice spikes, lightning bolts, and spears of light rained down, striking her body from all angles.

Looking at her depleted health bar, she realized she would have died on the spot without Baldr's Grace.

It seemed the entire enemy team had advanced together in a single group.

While her team had prioritized scouting by spreading out, the opponents had decided to make a decisive, aggressive play in the early game when information was scarce.

If she survived, this would allow her teammates to control the map and gain the upper hand in the long run.

But that was only if she survived.

She needed to buy time for her team to back her up.

Although she hadn't strayed too far in anticipation of such a scenario, she had to overcome this crisis alone for now.

And yet, the reason she considered herself lucky in the face of such danger was...

...because all the anxiety, worry, nervousness, and fear cluttering her mind vanished in an instant!

'The enemy Paladin just used their ranged attack, so 18 seconds until the next spear. I can survive the lightning spells even if they hit.'

Clearing a cluttered mind was incredibly difficult.

But forcing oneself into a corner where there was no room for other thoughts was easy.

By dedicating every ounce of her brainpower to the battle, she could forget almost all of her worries.

She cataloged the skills that had just been unleashed on her.

There was no need to calculate the cooldowns of every single skill in real-time.

Although she was exceptionally fast at mental math, that level of processing power belonged to computers, not humans.

Instead, she simply memorized the sequence and intervals of the skills starting from the moment the first one was cast.

She didn't need to worry about the skills with long cooldowns right now.

They wouldn't be up anytime soon anyway. The short-cooldown poke skills and the ones that hadn't been cast yet were far more important.

She filtered out the non-threatening skills from the enemy mages' arsenals.

Since they would want to secure a clean kill, they were highly likely to throw out crowd control skills like stuns or slows.

Factoring in the distance between her and the enemies, as well as the direction the spells had come from, she narrowed down the possibilities.

'Right now...!'

She snatched a throwing axe from her belt and hurled it.

The flying axe shattered an incoming ice spear and intercepted a lightning bolt mid-air.

She had successfully weathered one critical moment.

Without stopping, she kept moving to regroup with her team.

Using a massive fairy tree as cover, she counted down the cooldown of the enemy's Ice Strike.

Its damage was negligible, but it applied a slow, making it a skill she absolutely had to avoid.

This was why she didn't need to calculate every cooldown in real-time.

The first Ice Strike had been fired 1.2 seconds after the initial engagement.

A total of 7.1 seconds had passed since the start. That meant 5.9 seconds had elapsed since the skill was cast.

Since the skill's cooldown was 6.5 seconds, there was still a fraction of a second left.

Factoring in the projectile's travel ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time, she paused for a beat, then leaped.

She kicked off the ground and ducked behind the tree.

Crack!

The ground she had been standing on just a moment ago froze over with a sharp crack.

It was a successful dodge, but she couldn't afford to stand still.

A magic circle forming on the ground signaled an incoming area-of-effect attack.

She had no intention of getting hit by such a sluggish attack, but forcing her back into their line of fire was exactly what the enemy wanted.

With no other choice, she sprinted out of the zone.

Fortunately, the danger didn't last forever.

Infinity Realm was a team game. She had teammates too.

Even in a real-time game like this, there was a concept of turns.

If the enemy had the initiative until now, it was now her team's turn.

The opponents had expended a significant number of skills, whereas her allies were in perfect condition.

She immediately changed her direction.

It was time to turn her retreat into a counteroffensive.