One Man Army

Chapter 79 <[episode 41]Hall of Gladiators (2)>

Kyaaaaaa!

‘oh no!’

As soon as the critical strike burst, the damage was amplified to a nonsense level, and the visuals from the tremendous hit flashed on Red Sun’s body.

Even though Red Sun saw the Lone King’s sword was stabbing his heart, he did not think he would fall.

No matter how accurate the sword of his enemy, he can not die from a single strike. No matter the opponent, he has never been taken out in one hit even while fighting named monsters.

Red Sun’s level is 53.

The higher the level, the the higher the defense and vitality.

Until now, ​​Red Sun had faith in his attributes. Lone King’s very ‘first’ hit is drastically amplified due to Sanghyuk’s many titles, AND it struck Red Sun’s heart very accurately.

In EL, the damage was increased by 10% if it accurately hit a vital spot.  There is a deadly synergistic explosion of damage, with the stacked titles, each effect further increased by the 10% from targeting and hitting Red Sun’s heart.

++++++••••••.

As a result, although it was limited to the first attack but the damage amplification level was extreme.

(sfx crushed sound)

Red Sun felt like all over his heart and ribs were crushed. Although, there was no pain. But the very uncomfortable feeling shook inside his head.

‘Is it possible?’

Red Sun thought it was absolutely nonsense. It was just only one hit. No more than one hit….. however, 90% of his health, which was full at 100%, disappeared in an instant.

in EL system there is a thing called ‘shock system’. It was a system where the body become paralyzed when some conditions were met. One of the conditions was when the player’s health got reduced too much in a short time.

Especially like now when 90% of the health was lost in a second, the player suffers from a complete paralysis for at least 4 – 5 seconds.

At the time when Red Sun’s body paralyzed like a statue……

Lone King is wielding another small dagger.

It swings! Slash!

The dagger dug in Red Sun’s head and at the same time Red Sun’s health fell to 0. Of course, because it was the Way of Proof, so it was not the end.

Red Sun still had 4 lives left.

If lost all 4 lives, he would lose the match, but he wouldn’t lose that much karma.

It was not a big burden because it is the amount of karma that can be restored if he goes out to grind about 20 monsters of a moderate level.

But…… He felt very bad. Because if he lost another 4 lives like that, he would obviously be defeated and lose his ranking, he obviously can’t be feeling good.

Whoosshhh!! flash!

Red Sun resurrected inside a shield in an instant.

‘Fuck…. I feel bad!’

Although he hasn’t lost the match, he had to feel the miserable and unpleasant feeling when he got killed.

Is that so? Red sun stared at the front with slightly excited face.

‘Alright, you….are strong. But I’m not that easy!’

Red Sun went out of the shield with burning spirit. He had no intention to be defeated in vain.

Baamm!

A powerful explosion from behind smashed Red Sun’s body.

Somehow, Red Sun, who was trying to hold on to it, realized that he underestimated Gladiator Hall at the moment he was caught up in the explosion.

This was not a skill used by his opponent, the Lone King. Lone King has skillfully used one of the debuff traps present in each arena in the Way of Proof.

Red Sun not only lost in pure PvP skills to Lone King, but was perfectly defeated by the Gladiator Hall’s arenas themselves.

The opponent used the environment that exist in Gladiator Hall very skillfully. As a result, Red Sun died 4 consecutive times without ever seeing Lone King’s face.

All 4 lives were not just lost but instanta-killed.

Then now……. Red Sun was feeling the fifth death.

Flash! Slash!

Is it different? ……. When Red Sun was losing focus and trembling after caught in yet another debuff trap explosion, this time again, without exception, Lone King’s sword pierced Red Sun’s head as a critical hit.

‘What, this monster……’

Red Sun slowly moved backwards with the expression that he was very tired after confirming that his life was once again blown away from that one attack.

In fact, Red Sun is a PvP expert. To say it clearly, this was his first defeat against a player.

‘I can’t win. Absolutely can’t’

The word “defeated” was displayed in front of Red Sun who collapsed.

It was a very gruesome end. Red Sun could hardly accept his overwhelming defeat.

Red Sun honestly thought about camping inside the shield just for 7 minutes to let the clock run out after he was killed 4 consecutive times. But because his pride is hurt he didn’t want to do it. He wanted to face his foe like a man.

And the result was exactly that.

For a while, Red Sun who was lying on the ground and staring blankly, lifted his hand to the blinking characters spelling out “Defeated” and moved it aside. And then he was able to come back to where he was summoned to the Way of Proof.

In this way he could access the Gladiator Hall whenever and wherever he was not in a battle.  Of course, items or titles that can be purchased using ranking points must be done at the Gladiator Hall, but the matches themselves could be applied for and scheduled anywhere.

When Red Sun appear in only 10 minutes, the Red Line Guild’s users turned their heads to look at Red Sun.

“Is it already ended? This didn’t take as long as I thought, right? Was Terriculum side too weak?

Ludmila asked.

“It’s not Terriculum.”

“What? Then what…..”

“One guild’s Lone King. I lost to him.”

“What?!”

“What the…..”

Red Sun talked without missed anything and all Red Line guild’s member who listened to his words are surprised and could not say anything.

“Now let’s hold on the Way of Proof. It’s too strong…… There is nothing at all that i can do. Have you applied for Shadow Forest yet?”

“Yes, he said check what happens in Way of Proof first and decide the final team after you arrive.”

“Alright, then Ludmila and I. And Steel Heart. The 3 of us go. I really underestimated One guild. I think it’s a team that cannot be predicted.”

The 3 composition by Red Sun is the best combination that can be composed among Red Line now, in terms of skill and of course class balance.

‘ Shadow Forest has to be eaten by us.’

Red Sun decided that the best answer was to push the One guild like this. Although he was ridiculously defeated in a 1:1 battle, he was sure to win in a 3:3, 7:7 battle.

‘Individual and team are different.’

What Red Sun believes is the strong teamwork that has been worked together for so long until now. He was going to catch up to the One guild based on this.

* * * *

(sfx breathing heavily)

Ludmila was running like crazy. She was running toward the southern end of Shadow Forest, more specifically escaping.

The Shadow Forest had a rectangular shape with a width of 1 km and a length of 2.5 km. Unlike the way of proof, the terrain was always fixed in forest form. Instead, the weather changed continuously in real time, after heavy rain stop suddenly the temperature rose to 40 degrees celsius and then again suddenly there was heavy snowfall as the temperature dropped.

Unpredictable weather was one of the biggest variables in the Shadow Forest. And in the Shadow Forest, powerful monsters called “roamers” moved around randomly and its type also changed randomly.

Although the type was changed, the level was always fixed at 70. Even so, it was fortunate that it was a generic monster, not a named monster.

And unlike roamers, there was a place that a named monster always appeared.

In a cave deep in the Shadow Forest, there was Geumgang Blackwoong called ‘Shadow Tyrant’ who live in it. Geumgang Blackwoong is a special named monster because it adjusted its level according to the average level of the users entering the Shadow Forest.

Roamers and the Shadow Tyrant didn’t drop items when defeated. But because they provided lots of points when defeated, they were very influential in winning or losing in the game.

The first condition of winning in the Shadow Forest were similar to the Way of Proof.

First of all, when the red crystal that remain in the headquarter was destroyed, a crystal which was protected by a strong shield. The difference with Way of Proof was that if you fought around your shield, you could get a powerful buff that rise up all ability by 10%.

The second condition of winning also quite similar to the Way of Proof, by winning 20 kills on the opposing players first.

However, there was a third condition of winning in the Shadow Forest. It was to hunt the Shadow Tyrant 3 times in a row that summoned every 10 minutes.

it wasn’t just defeating the Shadow Tyrant 3 times, but defeating it 3 times consecutively.

In other words, it means that you cannot win simply by staying in the game.

The maximum game time of Shadow Forest was 45 minutes. If in 45 minutes there was no winning or losing decided, a judgement was made according to various standard and the winner was decided by that judgement.

The most important standard was the killing point and the second was the hunting point obtained by catching the roamers and Shadow Tyrant. And if it were the same, the victory was decided by the durability remaining on the shield.

Because this information was told by all NPCs in Gladiator Hall, so it was the truth known by all Red Line. Therefore, their early strategy was to defend first, while they secured their vision throughout the battlefield through Ludmila’s soul skill “planting seedlings”.

They planned to finish the game by having 3 people walking together through the forest to hunt down the roamers or to attack the enemy.

Their plan itself was not bad. It was Ludmila’s seedling planting and of course with Red Sun’s blood sense, these soul skills that fit well with this strategy.

But as always, theory and practice were so different. First of all, what they did not think was the randomly weather changing every 4 – 7 minutes.

They knew that the weather was continuously changing, but heard about it and experienced it had a big difference. And another thing they mistook was Roamer’s ability.

They thought Roamer was a monster that can be killed easily. Though the level was a little higher, but because it was a regular monster, they thought it was not difficult for the elite team of Read Line to catch it.

It was that mistaken assumption that became the ultimate reason for the nightmare.

Because of the random weather changing that even seedling planting did not give the perfect vision. And Roamer wasn’t low level monster they could handle in a minute like they thought.

The moment they were dealing with a Roamer …. He showed up.

It was not even 3 people.

It was just one person.

Unlike Way of Proof, the Shadow Forest only displayed up with the team name when matching, so we could not know the name of the player.

Is that so? As soon as he entered, Red Sun was so surprised when Lone King attacked from behind as he was hunting the Roamer.

But he could not even be surprised. Because at the same time as Lone King appeared, the first thing that was smashed was Red Sun’s head.

Right after Lone King blasted Red Sun’s head while he was occupied with Roamer, then he splitted Ludmila’s body into two parts. And he effortlessly finished Steel Heart.

Red Sun and Ludmila lost their live in a hit. And even Steel Heart still can hold on 4 hits but it was a meaningless resistance.

Lone King killed them and took almost all Roamers they caught. And after the first battle…… Actually Red Sun, Ludmila, and Steel Heart started to get abused by this one person, Lone King.

Rather than the vision of the 3 Red Line people, somehow the Lone King’s vision was completely better. Although it was unknown which ability was used, but Lone King would never missed the three people in the wide Shadow Forest anyway.

Death, death, ……. more death.

The three people keep on dying. In the end, Red Sun moved quietly as possible and as stealthily as possible, attempting a surprise attack to break his opponent shield and shatter the Lone King’s red crystal.

But even that was too easily blocked.

19 : 0

In just 20 minutes, the kill score has become like this. Of course 19 belonged to One guild team. The more shocking thing was that the only player from One Guild that appeared before Red Line players was solely the Lone King.

In other words, it meant that the three people were actually smashed by one person.

‘ Crazy. This is ridiculous.’

Ludmila was trying hard to run away to keep the last kill point. She knew she was going to lose anyway, but she did not want to end the game with her death.

‘ It’s impossible to win the One Guild. How can we win that guild that has more people like that monster.’

Ludmila was feeling that Red Line’s great plan had been shattered.

Controlling the Gladiators Hall? First title?

All of these has become an empty dream.

‘If only a bit further……’

The moment when Ludmila’s vision has the shield in view, one sword flew straight and dug her back.

Kwadededek, Phuoong!

Ludmila, whose head is crushed like a ripe watermelon then fell. It makes the kill score became 20 : 0 and the winner of the game has been decided.

The overwhelming victory of One guild.

This time too, the defeated Red Sun shook his body while looking at the word “defeat”.

‘The Way of Proof, Shadow Forest…… Can’t win at all. No, I think i can’t even win Temple of Moon too……’

The temple of Moon has not even started yet, but Red Sun already sensed the defeat. It just meant that the shock he got from this double defeat this time was too big.

Red Sun, who was so determined to make this HIS Gladiator Hall, powerlessly knelt down in despair.

<[episode 41]Hall of Gladiators (2)> end