Gwanjongcheonma’s Game Broadcast - Chapter 152
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 152
‘Finally…….’
He’d made it this far.
Hae-rang drew a deep breath before stepping into the Capsule.
Perfect record through the winner’s bracket semifinals.
One more victory, and the prize would be his.
‘National Representative.’
A sect.
A nation.
Or a teaching.
It didn’t matter which.
To represent an organization meant that everyone in it acknowledged you.
Acknowledgment.
In other words, praise.
Shiver.
The fingertips of Hae-rang’s hand, gripping the glass door, trembled faintly.
It wasn’t from nervousness.
It was the thought of countless voices acknowledging him as a National Representative.
He could already hear them, ringing in his ears.
‘I have to win here…….’
Only then could he enter the Capsule Cup.
Only then could he face the strongest fighters from other nations.
And if he defeated them, even greater praise awaited.
How could he possibly lose?
Across from him stood a figure with jet-black hair cascading to the shoulders.
A female character with a lean frame.
Hae-rang knew this character well.
She was the one he’d faced most frequently while climbing through the ranks to reach Gold Rank through individual training.
‘Joon.’
As he’d ascended through the higher tiers, encounters with Joon had become increasingly common.
It was a sign that every skilled player favored her.
Why?
Obviously, because of her overwhelming performance.
“Bad luck, Attention-Seeking Heavenly Demon.”
Kang Chae-chung, who’d selected Joon and played for Singularity,
wore an easy smile.
“If you hadn’t met me in the semifinals, you might’ve stumbled into the National Team on sheer fortune.”
Stop thinking you can win through matchup luck.
That’s what Kang Chae-chung was saying.
“The unlucky one is you.”
“Hm?”
“Because Hyeon-bin and Da-hong both advanced from the opposite bracket.”
“So what?”
“Their skill has improved dramatically of late. And I’ll be passing them the data from this match, so just imagine how difficult your finals will be.”
“What are you…….”
Kang Chae-chung didn’t follow.
He was saying he’d pass on the data and bow out,
which meant one of those two would face Hae-rang in the finals?
Twitch.
A thick vein rose across Kang Chae-chung’s forehead.
Because underlying every word was the assumption that ‘Hae-rang will win.’
“Ha! Talk about arrogance! I’ve heard you’re good at running your mouth, but will your actual skill match all that chatter?”
“Still, it’s nice of you to wish me well in the finals. I’m grateful.”
“…What?”
“Didn’t you just say I’m good at running my mouth?”
“No, hold on…….”
He’d taken it as a compliment?
Kang Chae-chung realized Hae-rang had mocked him.
Yet his eyes were too clear and transparent to harbor such malice.
‘This guy is completely out of his mind, isn’t he?’
It made no sense.
Why would Hyeon-bin and Ye Da-hong follow someone like this?
And hand over Singularity in the process?
‘I’ll find out once we fight. Whether he’s just a crazy type or if there’s something actually there.’
Kang Chae-chung had also reached the semi-finals without a single loss.
As the only gamer who’d fought Ye Da-hong to a draw in the internal evaluation match,
his skill level was beyond reproach.
Most of all, he knew how to read the trends.
The moment he’d noticed that Joon’s performance had shot up dramatically this season,
he was the first to overhaul his character.
Some called him a trend-chaser, moving from one strong character to the next,
but Kang Chae-chung just snorted at that.
Quickly identifying and mastering strong characters was a genuine skill in its own right.
Kang Chae-chung held an unshakeable faith in his own method.
Whoosh!
The moment it began, Kang Chae-chung closed the distance.
The range where basic attacks—jabs and one-twos—could connect.
This distance was commonly known as “Joon’s Domain.”
Bang-bang!
Joon’s one-two landed with lightning speed.
Joon’s one-two had the fastest activation of any character in Iron Fist.
Hae-rang calmly blocked Joon’s opening attack.
But the real problem started here.
“One-Two-Two!”
“One-Two-Flying Kick!”
“One-Two-Low Attack!”
“One-Two-Grab!”
Four derivative attacks stemming from the one-two.
With the already-fast one-two spawning multiple follow-ups, blocking them all with precision was necessary,
and from the opponent’s perspective, it felt brutally unfair.
There was a counter method, of course.
The One-Two-Two was unblockable, but the other three required a few frames to execute.
But easier said than done—
the moment you tried to switch to a different approach, you’d get caught by the One-Two-Two and lose health.
“Ha! You’re blocking pretty well. Let’s see how long you can hold out.”
Joon’s infamy in Iron Fist stemmed from
the fact that these combinations could chain almost infinitely.
Even blocking with extreme concentration yielded almost no frame advantage.
No matter how well you defended, there was no character whose follow-up skill could match Joon’s one-two in speed.
Especially for Full Phoenix, where most moves were slow, it was a matchup from hell.
‘Even the greatest dam crumbles from the smallest crack.’
Being human, concentration faltered eventually.
Once damage accumulated, it wore on both health and mental state.
On his way up to here, he’d faced many opponents who were skilled at defense.
But they’d all crumbled in the end.
Broken by the crack known as ‘Joon’s Domain.’
Boom-bang-bang!
Let’s see how much longer he can hold.
With that resolve, Kang Chae-chung unleashed countless one-twos.
Was he fighting the Attention-Seeking Heavenly Demon right now?
Or was he just pounding a sandbag?
Doubt crept in.
The longer he threw punches, the more he felt himself slipping into a trance.
Perhaps that was why.
“What?! Why aren’t you moving!”
Kang Chae-chung didn’t realize.
That the first round had already ended.
A tremor rippled through Kang Chae-chung’s eyes as he watched the notification window.
“What…….”
A large bead of sweat rolled down Kang Chae-chung’s temple.
A draw?
A draw, of all things.
After how many attacks I poured out……!
Just counting the One-Two combinations I threw this round, there must have been close to a hundred.
And yet, all of those attacks…….
‘He blocked them all? Every single one?’
His gaze fixed on the opponent before him.
Heavenly Demon still held the identical stance.
Arms crossed, forming a solid defensive position.
The same tedious stance he’d been seeing throughout the entire round.
‘Does that even make sense……?’
It was a hard thing to accept.
Blocking all four derivative techniques was miraculous in itself,
but what was truly astounding was his mental fortitude.
A single missed defense would bleed his health away,
and if it went to a decision, he’d lose for certain.
Yet Heavenly Demon silently defended against every single strike.
‘Not steel resolve—Vibranium resolve.’
Only an immortal ascended to the ranks of the blessed realm
could match the endurance he displayed now.
As things stood, exhaustion had shifted to Kang Chae-chung instead.
He’d flailed his limbs all round without opening the smallest crack.
All his effort felt like it had come to nothing.
A flash.
Then, beyond the crossed hands, Heavenly Demon’s blue eyes gleamed.
Kang Chae-chung suddenly felt a chill.
“Ugh……!”
Like standing naked in the Siberian wasteland.
Simultaneously, it felt as though cold metal machinery was scanning his entire body.
At the same time, doubt crept in.
Why exactly was he…….
‘Why did he only defend all day?’
Of course, it was possible that Joon’s fundamentals were so fast he had no choice but to play defense.
But to throw no attacks at all in a versus game?
That simply meant he didn’t intend to win.
At best, he’d manage another draw.
That Heavenly Demon,
what on earth was he after?
Kang Chae-chung drew in a breath, collecting his thoughts.
From his perspective.
Did he need to change his fighting style?
‘Not a chance.’
His strategy was solid.
He’d press the offensive regardless of whether his opponent tightened his guard.
For him, he had nothing to lose; for the opponent, it was merely break-even.
“One-Two-Two!”
Bang!
Gwanjong Cheonma’s guard remains steadfast.
But it doesn’t matter.
Mix enough varied attack patterns, and eventually—
Thud!
There.
Damage finally connects.
In the grinding back-and-forth of attack and defense, a solid hit has at last broken through.
“What…?”
But something isn’t as expected.
It wasn’t Hae-rang who took the damage—it was Kang Chae-chung.
Wipe.
Kang Chae-chung, his face blank with shock, rubs the bridge of his nose with his hand.
“…Blood?”
A nosebleed.
Sometimes when you take a solid counter like that, this kind of thing happens.
Only then did Kang Chae-chung grasp it.
That he had opened himself to attack.
‘What was that?’
He’d been so caught up in his own relentless offense that he’d forgotten.
That his opponent could also counterattack.
‘But how?’
That last strike was a low attack flowing from a One-Two combination.
A technique with just enough frame lag that defending should be all you can manage—counterattacking should be out of the question.
In Round One, Gwanjong Cheonma had blocked the low attack but couldn’t land a counter.
‘Something impossible in Round One suddenly became possible in Round Two?’
It was luck.
It had to be luck.
Kang Chae-chung clenched his teeth and stepped forward toward Hae-rang.
The aptly named Joon’s Domain, activated anew.
And yet—
Boom!
Bang!
Thud!
Kang Chae-chung, now in a near-death state, staggers backward in a daze.
Not just One-Two-Low Attack.
One-Two-Flying Kick—countered.
One-Two-Grab—countered.
All of them had come flying before the derivative techniques even triggered from the One-Two.
“This is insane! This is cheating!”
For someone who’d picked the most broken character of all,
Kang Chae-chung roared with a hoarse voice and threw another One-Two.
Hae-rang calmly blocked the One-Two, then extended a Light Punch.
Thud!
Damage lands on both sides simultaneously.
But that was enough.
Kang Chae-chung’s health was already down to a sliver.
<K.O!>
<Gwanjong Cheonma WIN!>
<Current Record: Gwanjong Cheonma 1 Win, 1 Draw>
Round One, where he’d done nothing but defend and landed a draw.
But in just Round Two, everything flipped one hundred eighty degrees.
Every attack pattern Kang Chae-chung threw was completely countered,
and it was Kang Chae-chung himself who suffered the KO defeat.
He simply had to ask.
“H-how did you…?”
“What do you mean?”
“You suddenly started countering all my attacks!”
“Yes. Now I can see them.”
“Now you can…? What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you watch carefully enough in Round One?”
“That is to say…….”
So you were only defending in the first round to read his attack patterns?
Kang Chae-chung’s veins bulged across his forehead.
“Stop talking nonsense! If it were that simple, then Joon wouldn’t……!”
“Joon’s skill activation is undeniably fast. That’s why I adjusted my strategy.”
“What?”
“I wasn’t reading Joon’s patterns. I was reading your habits.”
“!”
Kang Chae-chung’s eyes shot wide open.
“That means……!”
What Hae-rang had dissected wasn’t Joon’s technique.
It was the tiny habits that dwell in every human being.
The way a baseball pitcher’s tics reveal the next pitch,
the way a fighter unconsciously repeats the same patterns,
Hae-rang had simply scanned them.
Not ‘Joon,’ but the behavioral patterns of Kang Chae-chung himself.
A chill ran down his spine.
Kang Chae-chung felt that cold terror once more at Hae-rang’s words.
The same freezing dread he’d felt the moment the first round ended.
That sensation of being scanned from head to toe—
it hadn’t been mere imagination.
“I……I can’t accept this!”
Never before in his career.
Never had anyone countered Joon in this way.
“You’ll accept it whether you like it or not.”
For the first time in this match,
Hae-rang moved first.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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