I Gave Up Being Stronger

Chapter 250

Emperor looked at the scene unfolding before him, confused. Even though a tremendous barrage of firepower was raining down on them, the Players at the Korean base were too peaceful.

‘Are they just casually chatting with each other? And sitting down at that?’

Emperor used a Skill to enhance his hearing and eavesdropped on them.

“Is it really okay for us to just rest like this?”

“Didn’t IntenseMan tell us to do just that?”

“The American Players are attacking with such fervor.”

“It’s like watching fireworks.”

“I can’t believe we can just sit here and chat.”

Emperor bit his lip. He wondered if the Korean side had gained a new barrier Mage of incredible talent. From his knowledge, the Korean Region did not have such a skilled Player.

‘Swampland No.2 might know something about this.’

He attempted to use a Ruler’s exclusive Skill, Whisper, to communicate with Swampland No.2, but the connection was not smooth.

‘Why can’t I get through?!’

Undoubtedly, an unexpected variable had entered the All-Out War. The moment Emperor thought of the word ‘variable’, only one person came to mind.

‘Could it be Chul-Soo again?’

Emperor opened his Eltube window to check. As unlikely as it seemed, Kim Chul-Soo was livestreaming everything going on.

⌜My viewers, I am delighted to present to you the enhanced Absolute Barrier, which I upgraded when I was in the Haeundae Dungeon.⌟

‘Enhanced Absolute Barrier?’

Emperor was aware that Chul-Soo’s barrier had been strengthened. However, he had not imagined it would have become this strong. The onslaught of attacks from the American Players and Chul-Soo repelling them created an intense battle scene.

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Emperor watched the livestream, still biting his lip.

[-The Achievement significantly enhances all of the Achievement bearer’s defensive abilities.

┗The Achievement bearer is immune to attacks lower in level than those of the monsters in the Haeundae Dungeon.]

⌜If I set the barrier range to about twenty meters around the Korean flag, I can easily withstand my opponents’ attacks. From twenty-five meters onward, it starts to get a bit hard to breathe.⌟

Once defensive capabilities reached a certain level, minor attacks would become meaningless before them. A strong single attack was more threatening than numerous weak ones. However, no Player present had the attack power to challenge Chul-Soo’s Absolute Barrier.

Cha Jin-Hyeok was quite pleased. ‘At this rate, I can last about twenty-four hours.’

Emperor clenched his fist. Chul-Soo’s unbelievable defensive capability was shocking, but not entirely unexpected. After all, Chul-Soo had always shown capabilities beyond common sense, and Emperor had considered that something like this could happen.

‘Your barrier Skill fundamentally evolves from Broadcaster’s Barrier. It only becomes powerful through livestreaming!’ Emperor thought.

He was well aware of the characteristics of a Streamer’s barrier. He just needed to stop the livestreaming.

‘Did you think I had not prepared for something like that?’

He pulled out a small bomb-shaped artifact from his pocket. It was a kind of EMP bomb, which could cause radio interference and cut off nearby livestreams for about five minutes.

‘This is your end, Chul-Soo.’

Emperor threw the artifact toward Chul-Soo, and the next moment, the artifact indeed cut off Chul-Soo’s livestream.

Egan Paul—who had been watching the livestream from outside, without participating in the war—sighed deeply. “Ah...!”

He could not believe that Emperor had just cut off Chul-Soo’s livestream. Emperor had crossed the final line.

‘You should have known when to stop...!’

***

Jin-Hyeok was not livestreaming by himself. He was getting help from Storyteller Wang Yu-Mi, who provided real-time analysis of elements beneficial to the Play and relayed them to him.

[Emperor has entered the livestream.]

Jin-Hyeok could not help but laugh in disbelief. ‘Wow, he rigged the map, used the map hack, and is stream sniping too now?’

Stream sniping referred to the act of spying on the opponent’s livestream to gather information during a competition. Globally and especially among the Korean Players, this was seen as a low and cowardly form of Play.

While Miri raged, ready to smash heads at any moment, Jin-Hyeok decided to endure a bit longer.

‘Well, it looks quite spectacular from the outside,’ Jin-Hyeok thought.

The scene of hundreds of damage-dealing Players unleashing attacks toward him and him repelling them alone was, even by his own admission, a satisfying spectacle. He was about to let it continue and proceed with the livestream when...

[The livestream transmission is not smooth.]

Flash!

The livestream was cut off. The livestreaming screen suddenly turned black.

“Ah.” Jin-Hyeok smirked. “This bastard is testing my limits.”

He lifted Miri. At this moment, he did not care about his performance or the narrative. He was too angry to think of anything else.

“Activate defensive Mystery Phantom Swordswoman.”

The Phantom Swordswoman, in the form of a fallen angel, appeared in front of Jin-Hyeok, wielding a giant hammer. As this was not the first time the Phantom Swordswoman had appeared on a battlefield, the viewers cheered.

-Wow, he just activated the defensive Mystery, LOL!

-Why is the hammer so huge? Haha!

-I can feel the bloodlust in the Phantom Swordswoman’s eyes, LOL. So scary!

Some viewers even predicted the Phantom Swordswoman’s lines.

-Grasp the hammer of vengeance!

-Let them know what the end of the fools are like. What is the target of annihilation, my master?

However, this time, the Phantom Swordswoman said none of that. Despite her somewhat haggard appearance, the normally beautiful lady muttered in a slightly different tone, “I’m gonna kill these fucking bastards...”

The Phantom Swordswoman, who had a deep spiritual bond with Chul-Soo, exploded in rage. She lost her dignity and went berserk. She soared high into the sky, and golden clusters gathered at the end of her hammer.

Mok Jae-Hyeon had a bad premonition. “All Tanks, forward!”

The Tanks Jae-Hyeon led quickly set up their emergency defensive formation. Soon after, the Phantom Swordswoman swung her giant hammer. As always, this defensive Mystery was combined with the Babylon Cannon, which exerted tremendous destructive power in large-scale battles. The hammer shot out a fierce beam of light.

Jae-Hyeon tensely watched the beam of light. ‘We have to block it!’

This beam of light did not differentiate between friend and foe. Its destructive power was so immense that it was bound to engulf the Korean Players as well.

‘What?’

However, the outcome was slightly different from what Jae-Hyeon anticipated. The single, massive beam of golden light split into thousands of strands.

‘What is going on?’

The thousands of strands of the Babylon Cannon rained down on the American Players like precision-guided missiles. It was like a meteor shower. Dumbfounded, the Korean Tanks looked up at the sky, witnessing the wide-area destruction of the precision-guided defensive Mystery for the first time, and so was Shin Yu-Ri, the original user of the Babylon Cannon.

‘Yes! As expected from my master!’ She chastised herself for doubting her master. ‘Normal Players lash out blindly when angry, but...’

Real Players seemed to use precision strikes when they were angry.

Yu-Ri shivered. ‘This technique is quite similar to the one that blew the heads off the Sand Worms.’

Of course, each stand of the beam of light was weaker than the one Jin-Hyeok had killed the Sand Worms with, but there were thousands of these light beams.

‘I was proud of my efforts before seeing Master's new technique, but...’ Her master had reached another realm. ‘Master has taught me a lesson once again.’

Originally, the Babylon Cannon was not meant to be used like this, nor had anyone operated it this way. Nonetheless, Yu-Ri gained a lot of inspiration from this attack.

By the time Jin-Hyeok’s attack nearly ceased, about ninety percent of the American Players at the Korean base had been annihilated. Although the morale of the Korean Players soared, Jin-Hyeok personally did not like how things were panning out.

‘Ah, I’ve made another mistake.’

He had lost his reason in anger over his livestream being cut off and gone too far. He was out of breath. Handling too much output at once had taken a significant physical toll on him.

‘This is the perfect setup to be counterattacked.’

Jin-Hyeok had failed to manage his stamina this time. If he had a universe-level ranker as his opponent, he could have been the one to die.

‘I still have much to learn.’

His journey was far from over.

***

-His Play is so contradictory, yet it works.

-The ‘Streamer’ Kim Chul-Soo’s overwhelming ‘defensive’ Mystery with ‘wide-area’ and ‘precision-guided’ attack was astonishing.

-His Play is full of contradictions that I don’t know where to start!

The fact that a Streamer executed such an amazing attack was a contradiction in itself. Yet, on top of that, it was actually a defensive Mystery that executed the attack. Also, the idea that this defensive Mystery had performed a wide-area attack was yet another contradiction.

Moreover, this wide-area attack actually being a precision-guided attack was the ultimate contradiction. Everything was a bundle of contradictions, yet strangely, it all pieced together like a puzzle.

-Wow, Kim Pyeong-Beom destroyed two turrets while this was happening, LOL.

-The combination of Chul-Soo and Pyeong-Beom is crazy!

Usually, it took several Players working together to break just one turret, similar to the experience of raiding a Dungeon boss monster. However, this rule did not seem to apply to Pyeong-Beom.

-But isn’t Pyeong-Beom actually more powerful than Chul-Soo?

-Maybe that’s why Chul-Soo is on defense and Pyeong-Beom is on offense?

-So, does that mean Pyeong-Beom has been going easy on them?

-Ah, come on... Are you implying that they let the American Region score nine points first...? Wait... Did Pyeong Beom really go easy on them, since his friend, Chul-Soo, is a Streamer?

Streamers tended to like dramatic productions for their livestreams.

-Remember the Haeundae Dungeon? Didn’t the Avengers Army try so hard to create a sense of crisis for his livestream?

-Yeah, it seemed like they set the stage for Chul-Soo’s dramatic entry.

The viewers came to their own conclusions.

-Yeah, I think we’re right! Pyeong-Beom was going easy.

-LOL, so, he purposely let them score nine points first!

The Players who respawned at the American base couldn't move a muscle. Even the Great Ruler Emperor was speechless for a while.

‘My body won’t move, and I can’t even speak.’

This seemed like a side effect of dying at the Korean base. He had never felt such intense bloodlust before. He had died several times but never experienced such a powerless and frightening death.

‘I don’t want to die again...’

Emperor thought he had overcome his fear of death, but this experience made it seem otherwise. Egan’s advice came to his mind. Watching something on screen and experiencing it in person was entirely different.

‘Chul-Soo and Pyeong-Beom... they were going easy on us! For dramatic effect!’

Of course, Chul-Soo was genuinely angry, but nobody even dared to think that. Emperor changed his strategy.

‘Let’s just surrender.’

Surrendering, as opposed to being defeated, incurred few penalties. Plus, since Emperor had initiated the All-Out War and he could manipulate the map and the settings, the damage could be minimized.

‘Yes, that’s the best approach.’

[Do you wish to surrender?]

Emperor chose to surrender; however, it did not go as he planned.

‘Why can’t I surrender?’

Meanwhile, Jin-Hyeok resumed his livestream. “I apologize. The livestream was interrupted. It is my fault for not anticipating such an attack. I will be more careful not to get attacked like this next time.”

Madness still flickered in his eyes. He had tolerated rigged amps and map hacks, but this was unbearable. The original title of his livestream was ‘War’, but he changed it.

[Teaching a Lesson]

“First, I will destroy the Surrender Setting.” This was to not let the opponent go off easy by letting them surrender. “If you have the Rule Breaker, this can be easily done.”

[You have destroyed the map’s ⌜Surrender Setting⌟.]

[Surrendering within the map is not possible.]

“I think I might as well destroy the Resurrection Setting, too. They keep coming back to life, not learning their lesson.”

[You have destroyed the map’s ⌜Resurrection Setting⌟.]

[Resurrection within the map is not possible.]

“Let’s make it a bit more intense.”

Without respawns, the war would become much more intense.

...Or so he thought. It turned out to be quite anticlimactic. Upon reaching the American base, Jin-Hyeok found numerous Players on their knees, hands raised, begging for their lives. Most Players were pleading for mercy, and Jin-Hyeok was disappointed. Even the Great Ruler Emperor was among them.

“I usually don’t kill Players if they’re surrendering.”

However, Emperor had crossed the line too far.

‘How dare you intentionally cut off a Streamer’s livestream?!’

“You, I am not going to spa—”

“Wait!” Emperor desperately cried out. “There is a disseminator among us! He is the one who taught us how to create a rigged amp and forced us to use map hacks!”

Emperor betrayed Swampland No.2.

Jin-Hyeok scowled. “Did that disseminator also give you the artifact that cut off my livestream?”

In truth, Emperor was the one who had designed that bomb. However, right now, his priority was to stay alive. He wouldn’t be able to make excuses for his mistakes if he was dead.

“Y-Yes!” Emperor blurted out, grasping at straws for survival.

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