Chapter 4
Chapter 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Chapter 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The knight's sword spear came thrusting in like lightning.
At the terminus of the charge, possibilities branched out like tree limbs spreading from a trunk.
Thrust. Uppercut. Slam down, then push again.
Sweep. Swing wide. Spin once more while retreating.
The knight never yielded control for even a moment.
A barrage of strikes that filled every gap between attacks.
Organic linkages between strikes and delay cancels, dashes and movement.
Like a striking serpent, he'd lunge in intimidation, then flow away like water to create distance and reverse the advantage.
Throughout, he forced his opponent into backsteps and backdashes while striding forward himself.
Brief lulls emerged amid the psychological warfare, but whenever the halted dwarf moved to seize a favorable position, the knight wouldn't stand idly by—he countered with a thrust in hot pursuit.
Every time the dwarf tried a subtle forward step, the sword spear shot out like a bolt of lightning.
The dwarf ran again, rolled, dashed, desperately weaving through attack gaps, but to no avail.
Because the knight wasn't letting him.
He drove the dwarf back out of range even as he unleashed a relentless barrage that left no room to breathe.
The sword spear's motions were all mid-to-long range. It held the high ground in reach battles, but options dwindled in ultra-close quarters.
They both knew full well that letting him slip inside would flip the flow.
Stepping into the delays between attacks, his legs danced like they were treading steps.
A fierce psychological tug-of-war unfolded over reach and range.
Pattern combinations overflowed, chaining tail to tail.
Blindly repeating familiar patterns would invite immediate counterpunches as a warning, and failure to close distance led to one-sided beatdowns.
-Kaang!
Yet the dwarf maintained his precarious tightrope walk without conceding a single hit.
When unavoidable, he blocked solidly with the shield strapped to his shoulder, skillfully deflecting the easy mixups that chased the guard's delay.
High then low. Low this time. Correct.
On-beat then off-beat. On-beat this time. Correct.
Normal attack or heavy. Stamina low, so go all-in heavy. Correct.
Any average player would've burned through their stamina ages ago, but the knight's blade dance showed no signs of stopping.
In the story, it was described as the imagery of afterimages trailing the feats of a master warrior.
In system terms, a timing action with a brief judgment window at the start and end of attacks.
Odin's Son's unique system—the pinnacle of Odin's Son-likes: afterimage.
On its own, it was just another timing gimmick common to action games.
A brief special judgment at the onset and close of actions, granting bonus effects if you input follow-up commands in that window.
But here, it applied to nearly every motion—not just attacks, but dashes, guards, even emotes.
The difficulty brought diverse returns: delay cancels, stamina regains, guard buffs. Depending on the weapon, stacking damage amps, crit rates, guard breaks.
Of course, its power made it a tough technique to master.
Judgments were razor-tight, timings varied wildly per pattern.
That's right.
Bluntly put, afterimage was public enemy number one in turning Odin's Son into a flop.
Such systems inevitably built insurmountable walls between veterans and newcomers.
The sword spear was a weapon that maximized reach superiority to unleash combos.
It gladly shouldered all risks to never cede that reach advantage.
Even yielding first strike, just landing a thrust secured stiffness advantage.
The massive weight gap between them, the momentum like splitting logs, and combos that wasted no force—sturdiness reigned supreme.
Land a hit, and you'd force an unconditional trade in your favor.
The dwarf saw through his intentions completely.
Half his size, but with a pug nose twice as big.
Without attacking once, the dwarf prowled in and out of the sword spear's range.
No stamina to waste on running. Even perfect blocks pushed stamina to its limit.
Striding forward with pure movement, a single dagger in one hand eyed opportunities like a viper's fang.
The dwarf slipped past the thrust's narrow range by a hair, while the knight whirled in broad arcs to block approaches.
The turning point arrived abruptly.
The knight, constantly twisting his view to poke between combos, faced a sudden dash from the dwarf.
The sword spear grazed by precariously.
The knight strode forward toward his meticulously aimed trajectory, hugging close to dodge.
A late dash would've eaten stiffness. Slight angle deviation would've meant clean hit.
Safe backstep? No contact.
Sailing past every possibility, the dwarf gripped his dagger reverse-handed.
The knight, forced to yield distance, switched his soaring overhead weapon to low grip.
Precise follow-up command at the attack's end judgment.
Posture shift as if skipping intermediates.
Delay cancel dropped the sword spear low in an instant, heralding the next assault.
From here, it was pure mind games.
Facing the sword spear's diagonal upper slash, the dwarf thrust his dagger head-on.
The dwarf's opposing high light thrust command hit exact end timing.
The knight's sword spear met the afterimage-judging dagger.
-Tung!!!!
Impactful sound effect as the sword spear slammed into the ground.
Meticulously managed stamina plummeted.
Into the knight's exposed midsection plunged the dwarf's poison thorn dagger.
-Puk!!
HP bars still had plenty left, but both knight and dwarf had already released keys, frozen in place.
They'd been dead silent in voice chat, as if glitched, but soon Jicheol's voice trembled out.
"...Settlement... let's settle."
"Eh, final round though."
"Please!! Real final!!"
"...Ah, hold on! Doorbell rang!"
-Ding-dong
"Uncle for real!!"
"...What kinda bullshit dream is this."
He'd vaguely hoped waking up would return him to the original world.
But greeting him upon stirring was an unfamiliar one-room and a hangover collab that amped his headache worse.
"Aaaah... ugh. My head."
The bed's matrix thrashed familiarly yet still felt alienly comfy.
```