Gwanjongcheonma’s Game Broadcast - Chapter 184

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 184
“Hae, Hae-rang!”
As Sandro, having activated Blood Burst, pressed Hae-rang harder, Joint found himself raising his voice without thinking.
The momentum was so fierce that Joint couldn’t help but cry out.
“Wait a moment.”
Da-hong reached out and steadied Joint.
“We need to watch a bit longer.”
“Huh? But even anyone watching would see this is a crisis right now…….”
“He’s taking a few hits, but they aren’t major techniques. Once time passes, Hae-rang might actually have the advantage.”
“Even with the momentum so completely one-sided?”
“Do you know what ‘Gleam Before Dusk’ means?”
“What?”
“Ugh. It seems I’m becoming influenced by Hae-rang too. The fact that no other words come to mind but that one tells me so.”
Gleam Before Dusk.
A phrase often seen in the Murim tales,
it describes the phenomenon of the sun brightening briefly just before it sets.
A term used when a master approaching death wrings out their final strength.
It was famous enough that Joint knew it too.
“Are you saying Sandro’s current state is like that — a gleam before dusk?”
“Yes. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to use Blood Burst at this timing. He’s already on his fourth round, isn’t he? Even if he doesn’t show it, this must be absolutely grueling. Running consecutive matches in a tournament is truly…….”
Impossibly taxing.
Da-hong didn’t finish the sentence, but the implication came through clearly.
“So, so then. The fact that he came out of the Capsule before this match to draw crowd responses……?”
“Put harshly, it’s bluster. Put kindly, it’s injecting energy into himself through the crowd’s support as a medium.”
“Ah…….”
Only then did everything make sense.
Sandro’s decision to settle it early wasn’t a choice—it was a necessity.
‘Then why is Hae-rang……?’
Joint found himself curious.
Hae-rang was the type who, whether his opponent pressed forward aggressively or held back,
would always seek out an opening and strike back.
Yet this time, for some reason, he’d fought pure defense the entire duration of Blood Burst.
Even knowing that sustaining defense prolonged Blood Burst’s duration.
‘Wait. Prolonged the duration, you say?’
When Joint’s thoughts reached that point, he asked urgently.
“Did you deliberately extend Blood Burst’s duration? To drain Sandro’s stamina further?”
“I’m not entirely certain, but…….”
Da-hong’s gaze shifted to the Large Screen.
The Sandro on screen was pouring sweat in a way that was painful to watch.
Even forcing someone to sprint at full power for a hundred meters and then throwing them into a steam sauna would’ve seemed kinder than this.
“Haaa! Haaa! Haaa!”
Sandro made no attempt to hide his ragged breathing.
No.
‘Unable to hide it’ seemed the more fitting description.
A far heavier weight than the exhaustion Da-hong had felt the previous day now crushed down on his entire body.
Meanwhile, Hae-rang’s condition was pristine.
‘Damn it. I overdid it.’
There was a famous clip from the fighting community back in the day.
A burly man who hardly looked like a fighter,
relentlessly repeating attacks that didn’t seem particularly strong in an animated gif.
He was definitely attacking, but the person defending was taking zero damage.
People watching that scene had mocked it as ‘hundred rapid strikes without breathing’ or ‘the attacker suffers more than the defender,’
Sandro had seen that famous clip before.
Who could have known.
That one day, he’d be performing the exact same action as that amateur.
“Now it’s my turn.”
As if pronouncing a death sentence,
Hae-rang muttered quietly and loaded an enormous shell.
“Ohhh-aaah!”
The hot, specially-loaded bomb hurtled toward Sandro’s face.
I have to stop it.
If I take even one hit from that, my body will shatter into pieces.
But,
‘My arm—!’
It won’t come up.
They say even a dried squid will yield water if you squeeze it hard enough,
but that Blood Burst from a moment ago was like putting the squid in an industrial dryer for ten straight hours.
His consciousness screams at him to block that grotesque Bungta.
Yet in his exhausted state, Sandro no longer had the strength to guard.
Crash!
The kind of truck collision that feels like it’s sending me straight into another world.
Sandro flies backward like someone struck by a massive truck.
A huge exclamation mark rises above his head.
[Crushed! Cheon Hae-rang’s signature move! Bungta detonates!]
—Yeah! That’s the stuff!
—Finally!
—Let’s go for a counterattack!
—So satisfying!
“Ugh…….”
People usually say a hard hit clears your head.
Sandro learned today that was a bald-faced lie.
Taking a Bungta in this exhausted state only loosens his grip on consciousness.
Stagger.
Even getting to his feet required gritting his teeth.
And every time he does, a merciless Bungta drives deep into Sandro’s abdomen.
“Hoo-ah!”
“Hoo-ah!”
Crash!
Hae-rang’s relentless Bungta erupts against Sandro in succession.
And every single Bungta triggers a Hyper Motion hit detection.
Hae-rang’s Bungta amplified by Hyper Motion dealt damage far heavier than usual.
As a result,

Until Sandro’s health dropped to zero,
three Bungtaes were all that was needed.
—Triple Bungta Curry! HAHA!
—Gwanjong’s got that heat!
—See that? That’s curry with kimchi spice!
—Even a master chef would flee from Triple Bungta Curry!
—Yeah HAHA, running’s the smart play against Triple Bungta Curry
—The scorching bite of Triple Bungta Curry!! (physical damage)
—The Bungta’s perfectly cooked throughout. (smug satisfaction)
“Nice!”
“Great work, Hae-rang!”
The mood among the waiting team members shifted in an instant.
Two straight wins followed by three consecutive losses.
If Hae-rang lost even this opening match, the situation could spiral beyond recovery.
“Perhaps…….”
Da-hong watches Full Phoenix on the screen.
Her voice brimmed with admiration.
“I think Hae-rang’s most terrifying asset isn’t physical ability—it’s his mind.”
“His mind?”
“Yes. The moment Sandro triggered Blood Burst, everyone—not just us—thought the same thing, didn’t we? That we’d lose the momentum fight completely. That we were in real trouble. Those kinds of thoughts.”
Joint nodded at Da-hong’s words.
“That’s true. If I’d been on-site, I’d have just kept repeating, ‘What do we do?'”
“His estimates are razor-sharp no matter the situation. Only seasoned veterans with mountains of battle experience could do something like that—”
Veterans who’ve built up countless matches.
Even they couldn’t guarantee they could read a situation like Hae-rang does.
“Hae-rang hasn’t even been training in Iron Fist that long, and he’s not particularly old. How is he managing all this?”
“I’m curious about that too.”
On the large screen, Full Phoenix’s broad back came into view.
It was a steadfast, imposing back—the kind that seemed unmoved by any variable.
* * *
[Got him! Lightning Strike! One! Two! Three! Three Lightning Strikes land perfectly, and Sandro’s health vanishes entirely! K.O.! Cheon Hae-rang takes the second set with clean precision!]
-Absolutely brutal lmao
-One-sided slaughter ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Did the attention seeker lose 10% health? ㅋㅋ
-This is an international competition?
-This is so boring I want to die
-Is this really Korea’s national team that went winless all last year? My heart swells with pride
He staggered.
As Sandro stepped out of the capsule and walked toward the waiting room, one knee buckled beneath him.
Four consecutive matches back-to-back would wear anyone down.
Especially using Blood Burst for thirty seconds when facing Hae-rang—that had been fatal.
In the second round, he was essentially just a walking sandbag.

Iron Fist Nine Team Battle Quarterfinals.
The match between Korea and Italy now came down to one final bout.
A one-decisive-blow match where everything hung on a single game.
The final match.
A sharp sound.
Italy’s last gamer emerged from the waiting room.
Normally, there would be tension—a nervous swallow, trembling hands.
But today felt different.
[The Italian gamer taking the stage for the final match is Rabio!]
Rabio.
He had already faced Hae-rang before.
Under the nickname “Thousand Horse.”
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Here comes the sucker!
-Rabio in the final match ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Isn’t he the guy who already lost to him once?
-I’ve played this game before!
-You getting PTSD just from seeing the Full Phoenix uniform? ㅋㅋ
-Ohhhhh! Ohhhhh! Ohhhhh!
-Of all people, he meets Thousand Horse in the final match ㅋㅋㅋ
Hae-rang’s viewers weren’t nervous at all.
If anything, the mood was welcoming toward Rabio.
They had already witnessed it.
Hae-rang’s European server nickname,
“Thousand Horse,” thoroughly crushing Rabio.
Crack.
Inside the capsule, Rabio gnashed his teeth hard enough to shatter them.
Then he fixed Hae-rang with a glare of pure hostility.
“Finally we meet. Thousand Horse.”
The one who beat me and climbed to Gold Rank.
The one who won one match and vanished.
The one who came to the Italian server claiming he didn’t speak English!
In Rabio’s memory, Hae-rang was stress incarnate.
“A final match, then. Even better.”
It was the perfect stage.
There was no better condition for returning that bitter taste he’d suffered that day.
Always.
Just as it had always been.
Get knocked out quick and disappear back to your own country.
With that thought, Rabio selected “Nini.”

Rabio’s brown eyes bored into Full Phoenix standing before him.
That defeat on the Italian server?
The server response lag from another country?
None of that mattered.
After all, he hadn’t fought at full strength either.
Only a fool would burn a hundred percent during a game broadcast.
What truly mattered was real combat.
Which was why, in a match like this one,
“actual skill is what counts!”
Rabio roared the words and drove his fist forward.
His target: Full Phoenix’s nose bridge.
His punch shot in fast enough that Hae-rang could feel the warmth of breath against his knuckles—
Rabio’s fist closing the distance in a blur.
It was the moment Rabio thought ‘Got him’ and flashed a triumphant smile.
Thud.
Rabio’s fist stopped dead an inch short of Full Phoenix’s nose.
He hadn’t pulled the punch.
“What—?”
His attack range simply ended there.
Without eating a rubber fruit, there was no way to stretch an arm’s length.
‘That should’ve been close enough…’
Crack!
When an attack failed, a counterattack was the natural response.
Rabio’s head snapped back, his throat laid bare.
“Ugh—!”
Recovering quickly from the impact, Rabio pivoted his body and lashed out with a kick.
The foot of Nini, the machine he piloted, looked poised to carve a clean footprint across Full Phoenix’s chest.
Whoosh.
But again, the scene he expected never materialized.
It did make contact with the chest.
Yet it was less an ‘attack’ than a gentle brush.
A fraction of an inch.
Just another fraction deeper and it would surely have registered as a hit.
But Rabio’s attack had failed the range check once more.
‘Failed?’
Rabio couldn’t accept it.
He’d played Iron Fist how many times now,
and yet he’d miscalculated a skill’s attack range?
It wasn’t that Rabio had misjudged the distance.
That damned Thousand Horse in front of him—
had made it look like a misjudgment.
“Nothing’s changed since then.”
Crack! Bang!
Even without understanding Korean, the tone carried plenty of weight.
It was as if he were saying—exactly like when they’d met on the Italian Server,
nothing had changed about this worthless fool.
Sometimes a rival’s tone stung more than words ever could.
And that was precisely where Rabio stood now.
“Stronzo!”
Nini’s arms and legs moved without rest.
A dazzling cascade of skills poured forth, one after another, as though the machine were possessed.
Yet every single attack came to nothing.
If he’d simply blocked or dodged, the blood wouldn’t boil like this.
Every attack from Nini now
Thud!
stopped cold inches from Hae-rang’s body.
With each skill unleashed, the Thousand Horse withdrew with extreme precision—distance control perfected.
It was visible before his eyes,
looked like the blow was connecting,
yet never quite touched.
Full Phoenix before him seemed like nothing more than a hologram.
‘This can’t be. Back then, I was…’
He hadn’t given a hundred percent.
It was during a game broadcast, after all.
But there was one fact he had overlooked.
Full Phoenix, who had ventured overseas to challenge the foreign servers, was also broadcasting.
The name of that broadcast was none other than,
‘Gwanjong Cheonma’s Game Broadcast’.
“Oooh-ah!”
Unlike Nini’s hands and feet, which hadn’t landed despite countless swings,
Hae-rang’s Bung-ta connected squarely.
Or rather, ‘crushed’ was the more fitting word for what happened.
<K.O.!>
<Full Phoenix WIN!>
A precious first-round victory claimed after three consecutive losses.
It was the moment Hae-rang turned the tide.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————