Chapter 266

Tanto knew better than anyone that even Do-Jin’s so-called “basic” spells hit like a truck. He also knew that the moment he tried to sneak in close under stealth, Do-Jin would answer with wide-area magic. He had already activated a damage mitigation skill to reduce the impact of any area attacks before closing the distance, yet the moment the blue lightning exploded outward from Do-Jin’s body, Tanto realized he had still underestimated him.

The blue lightning radiating from Do-Jin surged outward with far greater force than Tanto had calculated. The output was overwhelming, violent enough to make even a seasoned fighter reconsider pressing forward.

If I get greedy, I’m dead here, Tanto thought.

His original plan had been to tank it and drive the dagger straight down into Do-Jin, even if it meant bleeding for it. That plan lasted all of half a heartbeat, and the instant the lightning touched him, his HP dropped like it had fallen off a cliff.

Grinding his teeth, Tanto forced his half-numb body to move and dragged himself out of the spell radius. The moment he cleared it, a violent burst of lightning swallowed the area around Do-Jin and tore through it like an angry storm ripping the arena apart.

「That chain of area spells is unbelievably clean! If Tanto had stayed inside that range, he would have been crushed by the follow-up! But he escapes at the last possible second!」

Tanto held his breath for a split second as the lightning faded.

Now!

If he waited until the sparks died out completely, Do-Jin would already be setting up the next play. Tanto dove straight back into the danger zone while the electricity still lingered in the air. The moment he moved, his relic weapon, Cruel Executioner, flew back into his hand as if dragged by an invisible string.

Do-Jin saw him coming and immediately tried to create distance. He unleashed Psychokinetic Release to fling himself backward, but his body jerked and stopped dead in midair.

Shit...!

The abrupt halt snapped his head forward and back. When he looked down, he saw Tanto’s dagger embedded directly into his shadow.

Fuck, that is a hidden skill.

「Tanto launches a counterattack with Shadow Pin while Do-Jin tries to disengage! But Do-Jin suddenly freezes in place! Has he been caught by a skill? This is a life or death moment!」

The edge of Tanto’s axe flashed as it swung toward him.

Calling Anemone is not an option. Do-Jin knew that if he summoned her now, both of them would get carved up together. He is going all in this round. Then... I’ll do the same.

Golden mana erupted from Do-Jin like an explosion as he activated Transcendence. Next, he used Giant’s Fist, causing the ground beneath his feet to burst upward with a thunderous crack, surging into the air as if the arena itself had decided to throw a punch on his behalf.

If the shadow was pinned, then all he had to do was move the ground the shadow was attached to. Do-Jin blasted himself backward using a sustained attack spell, firing his own body in reverse like a projectile.

He really is insane.

That had been a move Tanto had saved as a precious trump card, something he had held back and polished for the perfect moment. The response he had just seen was so reckless and so outrageously bold that it almost pissed him off. However, Tanto didn’t give up. He immediately chased after Do-Jin.

As the earth flipped and debris shot skyward, Tanto snatched a dagger out of the rising rubble and bolted in a straight line toward Do-Jin, who was still flying backward.

Don’t give him casting time. Don’t let him set up some bullshit spell and flip this around.

There would be time to think later. Right now, the only thing that mattered was swinging the axe. Tanto’s axe carved through the air, going straight for the neck.

At least let a dude catch his breath... Do-Jin grumbled inwardly.

He hit the ground and rolled several times before barely regaining his balance. The instant his feet stabilized, Do-Jin fired off Tier 1 offensive spells that required almost no casting time, spraying them out like suppressive fire just to keep Tanto from bulldozing him.

「In the end, Tanto closes the distance completely! He is relentlessly attacking to deny Do-Jin any chance to cast! But Do-Jin is absolutely insane! He is enduring this assault head-on!」

「Is Do-Jin even a mage?! He looks like a street brawler with Elemental Affinities wrapped around his fists!」

└ Holy shit, what the fuck are we even watching right now?

└ Did they rehearse this shit together or something? Who the hell fights like that?

└ Their damage is high enough to leave someone half dead from a single graze, and they are still going at it this long?

└ Look closer. They are fighting like maniacs and neither one is landing a clean hit, what the fuck.

└ Did he just parry an axe handle with a magic gauntlet? That is supposed to be a mage?

└ Chat is sweating harder than I am right now. Cyber hyperhidrosis is fucking real, man.

Even for Do-Jin, the exchange was incredibly exhausting. The pressure left him with almost no room to load new spells into his Magic Circuits.

If this keeps up, I’m fucked.

The drain from Transcendence was heavier than he had expected, so he decided to gamble. Do-Jin thrust forward a hand coated in Ignition. The attack came immediately after a dodge, angled in such a way that Tanto should have been forced to evade.

But if he decides to take the hit instead...

From Tanto’s perspective, that meant an opportunity to trade flesh for bone. Taking a Tier 1 spell to the body in exchange for carving out Do-Jin’s heart was a gamble worth making.

Yeah, that is exactly what you would do, Tanto.

Tanto reacted instantly to the opening Do-Jin offered and charged in. He let the Tier 1 spell tear into him, aiming to carve out Do-Jin’s life in exchange. At that exact moment, the flames gathered in Do-Jin’s hand shifted color, turning into something darker and far more destructive. He had invoked the power of the Destruction Rune.

The power stored in the rune gauntlet detonated through the medium of the spell’s fire. The explosion that followed was violent enough to split the flow of the fight clean in two, and in that single, savage clash, the winner was decided.

***

「Aaaagh! Tanto goes down!」

「Do-Jin drops to one knee as well! It looks like Tanto’s final strike dealt serious damage to him too!」

「But in the end, Do-Jin is the one still standing! After that brutal exchange, the victory goes to Do-Jin!」

The commentator and the caster screamed the result like they were coughing up blood.

Do-Jin pulled the shallowly embedded dagger out of his body and tossed it onto the ground. He tried to stand, staggered, and nearly lost his balance. The poison coursing through him had already started eating away at his system. A moment later, the PvP zone recognized that the match was over and wiped away all the damage he had taken.

└ Holy shit, I almost suffocated holding my breath while watching that.

└ Breathe, dumbass. You are allowed to breathe again now.

└ I still can’t believe those people are playing the same game as me.

└ To all the idiots who said the Kraus match was the real final and this would be boring, smash your heads into a wall.

└ No, don’t smash your heads. Just turn off the stream. You don’t deserve to watch this shit.

└ Do-Jin was insane, but Tanto was fucking crazy too. That was literally a razor-thin loss.

The chat, which had gone eerily quiet during the fight, exploded back into chaos. Everyone who had been holding their breath finally snapped back to reality and started dumping every thought they had into the chat window at once.

└ But is it just me or was something weird? He was spamming magic like a maniac against Kraus, but this time he barely used anything. If he was going easy because they are teammates, that is kinda bullshit.

└ Are your fucking eyes for decoration? Look at Do-Jin’s face. That’s the face of someone who almost fucking died.

└ Tanto forced that situation, dumbass. He stayed glued to Do-Jin at knife range and kept slashing nonstop. When the hell was Do-Jin supposed to throw out big spells? The fact that he managed to cast anything at all in that mess proves how insane he is.

└ Exactly. Any other mage would have panicked and been chopped into pieces in under a second.

└ Is it just me or was this fight even more intense than the Kraus match?

└ Same here. Do-Jin versus Kraus felt like a giant blockbuster explosion fest, but this was a fucking thriller. I was sweating the whole time.

└ Aaaaaaaah! If Do-Jin wins the next round, it’s over, right? Fuck that, I am rooting for Tanto now. I want to see Game Three.

└ Temporarily quitting the Do-Jin fan club for the sake of a third match... yeah, that totally makes sense.

The insane match blew away all the noise about nationality and rivalry. Nobody cared about Korea or Japan anymore. What filled that space instead was anticipation. Both fighters had pushed each other to the brink, and nobody could say who would win next. At this point, everyone was waiting to see what kind of insane stunts they would pull out in the next round.

└ Highlight from Game One coming up.

└ Wow... watching it again and I still don’t understand a single fucking thing that happened.

└ Holy shit, even in slow motion this makes zero sense.

└ Just thinking about all the analysis videos that are about to drop is giving me goosebumps in places I didn’t know I could have.

└ Why the fuck are you getting goosebumps down there, you fucking perverted bastard.

└ Yeah, go ahead and analyze it all you want. What the hell are you gonna do after watching it anyway? You aren’t suddenly gonna play like them.

During the short break before the next match, the broadcast rolled a highlight reel from Game One.

「As a commentator, I will say this proudly and without shame. I have absolutely no idea what I just witnessed. Not a clue. The mental warfare hidden in that exchange is completely beyond me.」

「You sound way too confident about not knowing anything... To be honest, though, I get it. That match was on such a ridiculous level that it will take time to even begin breaking down the details buried inside it.」

「If possible, I would love to hear directly from Do-Jin and Tanto about what they were thinking, but that is obviously impossible right now. They are busy preparing to blow our minds again in Game Two.」

「Just hearing that makes me excited. As a fan, I want to scream my lungs out, forget analysis, and just enjoy another insane match!」

「Same here. The players are already back on stage for Game Two, so let’s stop talking and watch.」

Do-Jin and Tanto stood in the exact same positions as before, looking as though the first match hadn’t just beaten the absolute shit out of both of them. Neither of them showed any obvious fatigue, and neither of them gave the other even a flicker of weakness to latch onto.

Game Two began, and the tension snapped tight immediately. Right from the opening second, the two of them locked into a minute battle of nerves. Every breath, every half-step, even the slightest flick of their eyes carried meaning. The air between them tightened with layered calculations and silent mind games.

The flow of the match resembled the first game, yet something felt different. Both of them were less reckless now, and neither was willing to overextend for the sake of flashy aggression. They were guarding their throats and hearts like one wrong move would get them carved open, because that was exactly what would happen.

So you are gonna wait for the perfect opening this time, huh. Do-Jin studied Tanto carefully, watching for the faintest shift in intent.

What kind of angle was he building toward this time, and which vital point would he gamble on when he finally committed? Was he planning to go for the throat again, or was he lining up something even nastier?

If he already learned Shadow Pin, then there is no way that is the only hidden skill he is sitting on.

With that possibility in mind, Do-Jin began preparing in silence, feeding mana into select pathways in his Magic Circuits while keeping his outward movements restrained and disciplined.

At first, they circled and tested each other cautiously, trading short bursts of steel and mana before disengaging. As the seconds ticked by, the tension thickened, and the distance between them collapsed until they were fighting at suffocatingly close range.

Then, in the middle of that tight exchange, Tanto threw a dagger. Do-Jin slipped aside smoothly, but the timing made his instincts flare.

At this fucking distance?

There was no way that throw was meant to score a simple hit. Nobody at this level wasted a blade for nothing. And as he expected, the dagger wasn’t aimed at his body but the shadow behind him.

With a sharp crack, the blade embedded itself into the shadow at his feet. There was no time to turn and confirm what it had done, because Tanto was already charging from the front like he meant to end this battle immediately. Turning his head even slightly would have meant getting his neck opened up on the spot.

Do-Jin felt it in his bones that this exchange was going to decide everything. However, if that backward throw was meant to lock down his movement the same way as before, then it was suspiciously similar to the move that had already failed once.

He is not sloppy enough to reuse a busted play.

There was no reason to assume Tanto could just spam the same Shadow Pin again without consequences. He wouldn’t burn a valuable card on something that obvious unless he had completely lost his mind, and that wasn’t the case. Do-Jin was certain of it.

Still, I should pretend I bought it.

Without panicking and without making a big show of it, Do-Jin flipped the ground beneath his feet in one clean motion, as if he was countering Shadow Pin he fully believed had already taken hold.

The instant Tanto saw that reaction, something flashed in his eyes. Tanto vanished and reappeared directly behind Do-Jin, perfectly positioned to finish the job.

“I got you this time.”

A chill ran down Do-Jin’s spine. He felt the slicing edge closing in, the whistle of steel tearing through the air toward his neck. Instead of panicking, he welcomed the cold sensation spreading through his body.

Nah, this round’s mine too.

The spell he had been quietly carving into his Magic Circuits since the start of Game Two finally activated. Do-Jin disappeared, leaving Tanto’s axe to tear through empty air. Behind him, a wave of heat bloomed suddenly and violently. Tanto let out a dry, breathless sound that was half laugh and half disbelief.

“Oh my...”

The moment that breath left his mouth, his vision went completely black, and the fight was decided in a single, ruthless instant.