Gwanjongcheonma’s Game Broadcast - Chapter 157

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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 157
“Yesssss!”
Seeing Joint’s victory, Hae-rang clenched both fists tight.
Every victory tastes sweet,
but the one that makes dopamine explode most is an underdog’s triumph.
Joint, who everyone thought was at a disadvantage, had beaten Jo Sang-jin in the first set.
You could gauge how remarkable this was just by looking at the reactions around the venue.
“Wow. He actually pulled it off.”
Da-hong, shocked, staggered in place,
“Uh…….”
and Ma Hyeon-bin spilled the cola he’d been drinking through a straw.
Everyone knew Joint’s skill had improved,
yet this victory still astonished them.
In contrast, Singularity 7 Team across the way looked utterly blindsided.
“Damn……. Did I really see that right?”
“Lost to Joint? Not to those three?”
“Did Joint get better, or did Jo Sang-jin get worse?”
But their shock was short-lived.
They turned their scorn toward Jo Sang-jin.
“Acted all high and mighty, and look at you now.”
“Went on and on about not being National Team material.”
“He better not forfeit this match. Though honestly, losing even one game is already pathetic enough.”
Seeing this, Hae-rang nodded to himself.
“There’s nothing worth watching in this match anymore.”
“Why not, Hae-rang? We’ve already got the momentum, right?”
“That too, but they look less like a team and more like business partners. There’s no real bond holding them together.”
“Haha. True. There’s probably no team in Singularity that genuinely cheers for each other like we do.”
That’s how team games work.
When everyone’s hearts beat as one, even a losing position can be overcome.
Conversely, when people harbor ulterior motives, even the smallest crack can shatter the dam.
From Hae-rang’s perspective, Singularity 7 Team was already fracturing.
<ROUND TWO! FIGHT!>
Unlike solo matches, which run best-of-five,
team competitions are decided when one side wins two out of three rounds first.
If Joint could beat Jo Sang-jin just one more time,
they could confidently speak those two words.
‘Revival.’
Toward those two words shimmering before his eyes, Joint charged at Jo Sang-jin once more.
“Tch……!”
Jo Sang-jin retreated, creating distance.
That alone was a humiliating turn of events.
A Singularity player backing away from an ordinary gamer’s approach.
But beneath the bitter feeling,
his response was actually quite rational.
‘There’s nothing good about close-range exchanges.’
Joint’s ‘Do-seom’ was most frightening
when he had his back to the wall.
‘The best way to handle the Taunt skill is to maintain distance,
but if you’re pinned against a wall, you can’t back away.’
‘Damn it—I forgot something so basic……!’
Exchanging blows at close range.
It was barely different from being pressed against a wall and trading shots.
Without realizing he was in a disadvantageous position, he’d eagerly fought through the first round.
‘How did things come to this……!’
Was this what it felt like to be driven to the edge of a cliff?
Not to Ma Hyeon-bin and Da-hong,
and not even to the Attention-Seeking Heavenly Demon at this point!
If he lost to Joint in the National Team Selection Tournament, the aftermath would be catastrophic.
Whoosh!
Jo Sang-jin’s Gaiachi suddenly bent at the waist.
Then he extended his front leg and spun like a top.
A Low Attack that no Iron Fist gamer could fail to recognize.
A skill called Narok.
Bang!
Joint calmly dropped to one knee and defended against the Narok.
A deep furrow carved itself between Jo Sang-jin’s brows.
‘He blocked that too?’
Close-range brawling was one thing,
but right now they were trading offense and defense at distance.
A few years back.
The Joint in his memory couldn’t follow his movements at all.
But today he was a completely different person.
Ever since that guy announced his retirement and became a clown, he’d never fought him once,
and yet now it was as though…….
‘He’s responding like he’s fought countless times……!’
That was what confounded Jo Sang-jin most of all.
They’d barely met.
Yet his opponent treated him with such familiarity.
Like someone who’d created a dummy called ‘Jo Sang-jin’ and run special training against it.
‘That can’t possibly be……!’
It was something that made no sense to his understanding.
Jo Sang-jin input the Narok command again.
Boom!
Again.
Boom!
And again.
His Narok wasn’t landing.
‘This is insane…….’
Jo Sang-jin felt like he was possessed by a ghost.
Narok’s activation was so fast that even overseas pro gamers couldn’t defend against it one hundred percent.
So how could Joint, who’d never even been picked up by Singularity, let alone an overseas national team,
be countering every single move?
Worse still, Joint went beyond mere defense and pulled off something far more impressive.
Whoosh!
‘Parrying?’
A skill that anticipated the opponent’s attack and flowed the technique away.
Joint had anticipated that Jo Sang-jin would use Narok and employed a Low Parry.
Spin!
Geyachi, beautifully thrown off balance by the Flowing, staggered in place.
A perfect opening laid bare!
Joint seized the moment and unleashed a Flash Upper.
Whoosh!
This was no ordinary Flash Upper.
He’d trained this technique more than even Hae-rang’s Bung-ta, and he could swear to it.
Joint was the very embodiment of Iron Fist, carrying the game forward from its very first iteration.
As if answering all that effort, the system planted an exclamation mark above Jo Sang-jin’s head.
“A Hyper Motion?”
Da-hong, watching the screen, gasped.
It was a judgment that rarely appeared in such tense matches.
Even Singularity, whom they’d faced yesterday, had scarcely triggered a Hyper Motion.
“Ahhhhh!”
Joint poured in his combo like a man possessed.
The Flash Upper with Hyper Motion applied sent the opponent airborne much higher than usual.
Boom! Crash!
As a result, a single air combo shaved nearly half of Jo Sang-jin’s health away.
Jo Sang-jin rolled across the ground after taking the final kick.
Watching him, Joint felt genuine admiration.
Not because the rolling looked good—
but because of Hae-rang’s final piece of advice.
[If you block Narok even once, keep sitting. That guy has a habit of throwing pointless pride around.]
Joint understood Hae-rang’s meaning at once.
He’d met countless fighters with that particular temperament while playing fighting games.
If a pitcher throws a fastball, gets hit for a home run, and faces the batter again,
the pitcher’s choice splits into two types.
One type throws a breaking pitch after taking a fastball, changing up the strategy.
The other type—go ahead and try again, throwing fastballs until he wins.
Jo Sang-jin, as Hae-rang analyzed him, was unmistakably the latter type.
So Joint made his bet.
‘The odds are fifty-fifty anyway.’
Stand or crouch.
He’d chosen to crouch preemptively, betting on that fifty-percent chance.
If he could properly block that Low Attack even once,
Jo Sang-jin would likely stick to his guns out of stubbornness.
Just like now.
Whoosh!
Another Low Attack Flowing.
Jo Sang-jin was staring at Joint like he’d seen a ghost.
But Joint was no ghost, nothing of the sort.
He was simply a player who understood Jo Sang-jin’s obstinacy all too well.
Armed with Hae-rang’s support, Joint had read Jo Sang-jin down to the bone,
while Jo Sang-jin only remembered the Joint from years ago.
Having successfully flowed the Low Attack, Joint unleashed a Flash Upper without hesitation.
Boom!
Unfortunately, the Hyper Motion didn’t trigger.
Only someone like Hae-rang with his Bung-ta could activate a Hyper Motion with every skill use.
But that was fine.
There were other ways to increase damage besides a Hyper Motion.
Crack-boom!
A crimson lightning bolt descended from the sky.
In an instant, a crimson aura rippled around Joint’s Briar.
He’d activated Blood Burst, which granted the player tremendous power for ten seconds.
“Ha!”
Joint drove home an Air Combo with precision.
Jo Sang-jin, meanwhile, couldn’t make sense of the situation.
Even his vision, shaken side to side from the blows, wasn’t as muddled as his mind.
Was he really going to lose like this?
To someone he’d already crushed years ago,
some clown streamer?
“Damn it!”
Crack-boom!
Jo Sang-jin activated Blood Burst as well.
He’d been saving it for if they reached a third set.
In other words, he’d held back and now the situation was falling apart.
Bang!
Jo Sang-jin’s heavy Mid Attack drove into Joint’s solar plexus.
Joint flinched from the blow, yet pressed forward another step regardless.
A close-range brawl—Jo Sang-jin found it infuriating.
Especially after taking two combos in succession; the wall was already at his back.
‘It’s gotta be Do-seom, no question.’
Jo Sang-jin’s menacing eyes fixed on Joint’s shoulder.
The wall behind him.
Distance compressed.
This was, by his reckoning, the perfect setup to use Taunt-Flash Upper.
But Do-seom wasn’t a flawless technique.
It was popular because it could neutralize the opponent’s defense,
yet when you initiate an Attack yourself, it’s a skill that leaves you taking damage one-sidedly.
Flinch!
“Now…!”
Joint’s shoulders trembled as if he were about to use the Taunt skill.
Jo Sang-jin extended both arms with a cat-like expression.
Grab Command.
Among Gaiachi’s grappling skills, there’s one that can swap their positions on the stage.
If that happens, he can escape the wall and instead drive Joint into a corner.
Bang!
“Ugh!”
A heavy impact reverberates through Jo Sang-jin’s lower abdomen.
The groan came from Jo Sang-jin.
Joint’s attack landed before Jo Sang-jin could execute his grab.
His spine folded like a shrimp’s tail.
‘What—how…?’
Eyes wide with whites stare toward Joint.
But the sunglasses obscure any chance of reading his gaze.
In truth, this was a common pattern in Taunt-Flash Upper.
Act as though the taunt will lower the guard, then immediately follow with the fastest instant skill.
When executed this way, the opponent who rashly commits, thinking it’s just a Taunt-Flash Upper, gets caught by the counter instead.
Just like Jo Sang-jin now.
Wobble.
Jo Sang-jin’s body staggers from the counter hit.
Inside the capsule, Jo Sang-jin thrashed his limbs desperately.
“Move! Damn it, move!”
But Gaiachi’s body, caught in the counter, wouldn’t respond to his will.
A large shadow formed in front of his body.
Joint, who had closed the distance in a heartbeat,
hooked his chin over Jo Sang-jin’s shoulder.
Then he whispered softly.
“Now, it’s your turn.”
The experience Joint had endured.
The sensation of floating in the sky before being dragged down into the depths.
Now that wound was about to become Jo Sang-jin’s burden.
Bang!
Joint’s uppercut launches Jo Sang-jin skyward.
Gaiachi’s body grew smaller and smaller before vanishing with a glimmer like a distant star.
Joint gazed up at the heavens and roared.
“Rooooaarrr!”

Whoosh!
Jo Sang-jin bursts through the glass door as though shattering it.
Then he strides swiftly out of the event venue.
He doesn’t bother briefing his teammates about Joint’s techniques,
nor does he even mutter an apology.
The sad truth was that Singularity 7’s own team members offered him no words of consolation either.
Hae-rang’s gaze drifts toward Singularity 7 Team, detached and clinical.
‘Scattered seeds. Scattered indeed.’
The scent of red bean powder cake seems to drift all the way here.
Meanwhile, the Heavenly Demon Cult’s teammates
“Joint! You were amazing! Rooarrr!”
“Don’t copy weird stuff, Hyeon-bin. Anyway, all that training paid off. Congratulations!”
The two of them celebrated Joint’s victory as though it were their own.
Choi Gang-sik, who was outside, was probably wearing a similar expression.
“I’ll go tell Joint he did well!”
Ma Hyeon-bin moved to approach the capsule,
but Hae-rang stretched out his hand to stop him.
“That won’t work right now.”
“Oh. Is it because of the rules?”
“The rules aren’t a problem, but…”
Hae-rang’s gaze turned toward the Capsule.
A calm yet tender voice spilled from his lips.
“Let him have some time alone.”
Joint remained inside the Capsule for a long while.
Or rather, he couldn’t come out.
Crack.
His trembling hands clenched into fists,
and beneath the small sunglasses, hot tears streamed down his face.

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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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