Master Swordsman’s Stream - Chapter 256

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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 256

The final phase.
Time limit: one minute.
If the instruction were to clear it within sixty seconds, it would be absolutely impossible on a beginner’s damage output—but the timer read that this was the time remaining before the Berserk state.
So then.
Endure.
As long as he didn’t die and kept stacking damage bit by bit, it would be possible.
The map stabilized, and Pane closed in on Seo Jun from somewhere, swinging his arm.
At the same moment, the sword fragments circling the edge snapped back together in an instant, reforming into a blade.
The attack speed was faster than before.
“Evasion won’t work here.”
Seo Jun’s eyes tracked the Death Knight’s sword.
Same pattern as before, or would it change?
With superhuman concentration stretched to its absolute limit, Seo Jun watched and moved his body at the last possible moment to dodge.
Boom!
Energy erupted around the sword that struck the ground.
Seo Jun, who had slipped slightly to the side, was safe. Same pattern as last time.
He dealt damage.
Double Strike.
The blade swung left to right, right to left, and the moment the boss’s health dropped slightly, Seo Jun moved again to avoid the next attack.
Followed by a Single Slash.
The timing wasn’t right yet for a Triple Slash.
“You can do it!”
“Let’s finish it here!”
“Yeah, you did it alone!”
The dead sure had a lot to say.
“But man, the damage is way too low. Is this seriously a beginner?”
“Tae-woo, quiet.”
Double Strike again.

[Mart-Siksik Corner Making a Living: So Geomsin was riding our bus the whole time?]

-???
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Suddenly passengers are attacking the bus driver?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Bang!
Bang!
Whoosh!
Seo Jun dodged the attack toward the nine o’clock position.
And in that instant, clones spawned at twelve, two, four, six, eight, and ten o’clock.
Just like the first gimmick, he’d need to land a Counter. Obviously.
‘Hmm.’
“Is it over?”

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ If you come alone, you deserve it ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Three of them though
-The ones who broke the statues could’ve survived? And the remaining three would do 10 bars of damage
-Then isn’t a full-party First Clear impossible?
-Even if they nerf it later, it’ll change ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-So what’s the boss doing about it?

“Hehe, that’s the price for leaving us behind!”
“But both Tae-woo and 119 kept making mistakes, so officially it wouldn’t work…….”
“Siksik Corner, be quiet!”
That’s right.
Both of them were loud.
Seo Jun couldn’t block the six clones stabbing their swords downward from the edge of the map.
However, when he checked with the Observer just for a moment, there was only a red circle at the map’s edge, and he survived by avoiding just that zone.
He only barely survived.
Thud-thud-thud-boom.
As Pane attacked from behind, the map’s edge crumbled and the diameter shrank.
Fitting for a Sudden Match.
Remaining health: nine bars.
A map that would shrink to an unknown degree.
Time remaining until Berserk: 40 seconds.
“This is fun.”
Seo Jun broke into a bright smile.

* * *

[So if we reason it out]
==
Originally, the ones who came back after destroying the statues would’ve distributed that aura—the red shield—to the inside team who had already knocked it down to about 15 bars.
Then everyone would survive the total-wipe attack with the weakened shields before breaking the last 10 bars in a minute.
But the team’s proficiency was rusty from coming and going, so I’ll just do it solo ㅋ That’s what happened?
And in the fight that comes after, he chose not to save one more person, just in case they’d get in the way?
==

-That’s accurate!
-Makes sense since there’s only one chance
-At the final moment… showing that you can only trust yourself every timeㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└If I had that face I’d trust myself so muchㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└The face showing up here too ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
└Imagine teammates getting hit three times with clones hitting them or attacks landing on floor patterns. Solo might actually be better?

[A different party reached 10 bars!]
==
Got hit by space debris, three people dead immediately!ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
Is it that hard?
==

-Their minds are too impatient, that’s the thing
-Is there really no way to stay calm and collected like the boss?!!

[But the damage isn’t going in at all, is this right?]
==
1. Beginners are absolute trash ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
2. We needed at least one teammate.
3. What happens if the Berserk mode activates
==

-Number 2 is nursing home logic
└Why ㅋㅋㅋ
└They died anyway sooner or laterㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Mak-gora.
A one-on-one fight that doesn’t end until one side dies.
And Mak-gora is often a gamer’s fantasy.

[Both of them are fighting insanely well]
==
Is Pane really at that level? Holding out for nearly a minute against Geomsin!
==

-Hang in there, Pane!
-Even though Pane didn’t land a single hit! Still, making it this far is something!
-You crazy people ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ She’s just a beginner so the damage is so terrible she can’t kill him, how is that Pane holding out?ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

[How much smaller will the map get]
==
It’s already shrunk for the third time.
If they fall over, they’d be kissing each otherㅋㅋ
==

[Berserk on!]
==
Mak-gora confirmed!
The tempo’s picking up!
Keep up!

Red Knight Pane, sir!
==

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Seven bars remaining!

[Wait, how fast did the speed get?]
==
But Pane, can’t you get any faster?
Can’t even catch him?
==

Such a fantasy.
The map growing steadily narrower.
Speed accelerating insanely in the final stage of the raid—it was unfolding right now, this very moment that could become a First Clear.

[What’s the difficulty?!]
[Is he really First Clearing like this, are you crazy ㅋㅋㅋㅋ]
[My money……]

* * *

The boss’s speed on screen kept accelerating.
The map, once the size of half a soccer court, had shrunk so much that if it got any smaller, one of them would definitely fall off.
The rate at which the boss’s health depleted was already slow, and it was getting even slower.
Five bars remained.
Each swing of the boss’s blade left only a single point to dodge into—the situation was impossibly tight.
The attack chain speed was brutal.
Slash downward.
Then drag the blade upward while spinning it in a sweeping motion.
Seo Jun stepped outside the arc of the rotation.
One more step backward and he’d have fallen off and died.
And in the Berserk state, the boss truly gave him no window to attack.
Even if he dodged perfectly.
The slash spread in three directions.
If he dodged diagonally, another slash appeared there.
Attack opportunities came only in those rare moments between repeated patterns.
And the damage dealt then
was merely a beginner’s Double Strike.
Yet there was no room to laugh.
“One hit and he’s dead. Heh.”
The developers were amazed even more than the users.
You see as much as you know.
“If he’d dodged that last pattern to the left, there’s absolutely no way he could’ve avoided the next pattern and he’d be dead.”
“Did he dodge right purely by instinct? Or…….”
“I think all those possibilities exist in his calculations. He’s sensing and dodging things we can’t even fathom.”
“Raid Team Leader. Why the sudden reverent worship…….”
They’d designed the Berserk phase on the principle that it should never be impossible to clear. So the boss’s accelerated speed had reached its limit.
Yet still, there was no moment to breathe—he had to keep dodging.
At each instant, there was only one escape route.
And yet he found that single route each time, enduring and pushing through, gradually accumulating damage.
“How long has he been surviving in the Berserk state?”
The Raid Team Leader asked.
“Over fourteen minutes already!”
“Insane…….”
It had to be admitted.
In the tight space, he pinpointed each and every escape route with precision and processed all his plays like a machine.
‘That’s right. Like a machine.’
TAS.
An acronym for Tool-Assisted Speedrun.
It meant using external tools like programs to realize the dream play of clearing a game with perfect execution and in the shortest time.
Wasn’t it true that machines could perform flawlessly what humans could never do—the perfect jump at the perfect moment, the perfect block, the perfect run—without margin for error?
And yet.
There was a play like a machine.
If he wasn’t a cyborg.
The words of his colleague, whom he called Geomsin, echoed in his mind.
‘Even in Berserk, clearing should never be impossible?’
Honestly, he’d only said it that way, but he’d never thought anyone would actually clear it.
They’d raised the difficulty only to the point where it was physically possible.
That’s right. To a level only a machine could clear.

[Wow. He’s catching all of them. 3 bars left.]

* * *

The map had shrunk three times, the edges disappearing each time.
The health bar wasn’t shrinking much because attack opportunities were so few.
“…….”
“…….”
The teammates had gone quiet too, concentrating as intently as Seo Jun.
And yet the chat remained.

-ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Crazy bus driver doing inertial drifts off a cliff ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-How is he even staying alive
-Seriously! Why does this bastard not get hit even once!!!!!
-First Clear raid leader: Geomsin (0 hits taken) Wow nice ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 0 hits!!!!!!!!
-Is there anyone better than him in Korea?
-You rural RPG folks, even pros get stomped and stripped by the boss ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Always the same.
Even while dodging, Seo Jun glanced at the chat and burst into laughter.

-You know what? If this bastard wasn’t a beginner, First Clear would’ve come out yesterday at noon
-This is true
-Double Strike ㅅㅍ so damn weak!!!ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-Cooldown’s short so each hit’s weaker, and it’s impossible to fit damage into every cooldown, so it’s super frustrating
-Not frustrated. Terrified about dying

The end was in sight.
There wouldn’t be some absurd health-recovery gimmick here, would there.
Or some hidden third trial called a “Showtime” that would deliver the ultimate plot twist?
One bar.
Two-thirds.
One-third.
The final strike.
The moment the Death Knight’s Greatsword gleamed red and lifted high.
Normally Seo Jun would have to move to the side to avoid the attack that would follow, but instead he stepped forward and spoke.
“First Clear goes to us.”
Single Slash connected.
11:10 AM.

-Kyaaaaa!!!!
-He just overpowered it with pure mechanics ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-If other parties saw that last moment they’d have to admit it ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-When will second place even clear this ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

At the moment the raid was cleared.

[Achievement Unlocked: First of All]
[You have obtained the title ‘Four Heavenly Kings Slayer’.]

A system message appeared.

* * *

[Hello, this is Lim Gangsan, Director of Last Chronicle.]
[The star of the First Clear has just appeared.]
[Not only are we grateful to the raid team that achieved it and to everyone who challenged it and watched it,]
[but as long as our game endures, the achievement that can never fade from the record]
[is to be celebrated.]

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