The Return of the Genius Ranker of All Times - Chapter 50

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 50

Chapter 50.

A massive height that seemed to reach 240cm and a build that rivaled an orc.

An unusual skin color with a blue body overall and red blotches scattered throughout.

With a body much larger than even that massive chieftain or the Mutant Goblin Warrior, holding a giant double-bladed axe taller than a person, it looked exactly like a blood-stained butcher.

[You have encountered the Hidden Field boss ‘Karuk the Goblin Warlord.’]

[You have completed the Warrior’s trial ‘Invasion’ very successfully.]

[‘Warriors’ Trial’ has been linked to ‘Warlord’s Trial.’]

[The Goblin Warlord’s trial is ‘Blood Battle.’ Rewards will vary based on performance.]

[Karuk the Goblin Warlord]

-Title: Elite Named Hidden Field Boss

-Type: Goblin

-Traits: Warlord, Physical Enhancement, Berserker

-Description: Goblin Warrior, a title only the strongest warrior in the tribe can obtain. Among those warriors, only the strongest warrior can earn the title of Warlord.

Born as a hybrid of the Red Tribe and Blue Tribe, Karuk is a great warrior who possesses the advantages of both tribes.

‘Elite field boss…’

Elite bosses were really ambiguous when it came to predicting their strength.

There should be clear grades like rare for rare, hero for hero, but most of them just had the modifier ‘elite’ attached.

Still, it wasn’t completely unpredictable.

‘He’ll be much stronger than the chieftain.’

Probably incomparably so.

After all, he was a field boss with both elite and named modifiers attached.

The fact that he possessed the strengths of both the Red Tribe and Blue Tribe, and his traits and descriptions specialized in close combat, proved that.

‘At that level, wouldn’t he be stronger than the forest field boss?’

Dohyun’s prediction was exactly right.

Jihad, who had been quietly staying put, showed a tense expression for the first time and spoke to him.

-Be careful, master. That guy may not be much in other areas, but his strength is ridiculously strong.

“Stronger than you?”

-Ahem! He’s naturally weaker than me, but among the warriors who are the strongest fighters, the most powerful one is the warlord. And that guy was already a warlord 150 years ago when I first met him.

In other words, for over 150 years, no warrior stronger than that guy had appeared.

That’s what Jihad was trying to say.

From Jihad’s reaction, it seemed like he had clashed with that guy before and had quite a hard time.

The fact that named monsters had fought each other was somewhat interesting.

‘This should be fun.’

A strong opponent acknowledged by the guy who was the ruler of the forest.

It was impossible not to be interested. Coincidentally, this trial’s event was also ‘Blood Battle.’ Feeling his blood boil for the first time in a while, Dohyun gripped his greatsword.

[Warrior Set is currently applied.]

[7% additional damage is applied to Goblin-type enemies.]

[The boss’s rank is high, so the ‘Intimidation’ effect is nullified.]

The moment their eyes met while hearing the now-familiar notification.

The hands of the guy holding the double-bladed axe twitched,

Bang!

Both of them launched forward simultaneously without either going first.

Jihad involuntarily shouted at this.

-No! Clashing head-on is dangerous, master!

Urgency could be felt in Jihad’s trembling voice.

That made sense since Jihad had fought that warlord before.

It wasn’t a proper match and was just a brief trouble at most, but even that was enough to feel Karuk’s strength.

Kiiing-.

[Hidden Field boss ‘Karuk the Goblin Warlord’ uses ‘Merciless Strike.’]

Red energy gathered like dots and settled into the double-bladed axe, instantly dyeing the axe red.

The double-bladed axe was glowing bright red as if it had been put into a furnace.

That’s it.

-The moment it touches, your sword will break! Dodge!

Merciless Strike. A skill used by berserker-type classes.

It was just a simple brute skill that increased damage, no different from a power strike in some ways, but that strike was the core technique of berserkers.

That Merciless Strike was in the same position as Volk’s Great Explosion.

While it fell short of Great Explosion in pure destructive power, the true terror of that skill lay in ‘weapon destruction.’

The overpowered effect of temporarily destroying weapons below hero grade.

Thanks to this, berserkers displayed tremendous power in close combat.

‘My children were sliced apart in an instant by that!’

Jihad’s undead had been crushed like tofu by that strike.

Even that wasn’t enough, and Jihad still couldn’t forget the roar when Karuk’s double-bladed axe struck the ground, splitting it in two.

The fight ended when the guy, who had taken damage from the corpse explosion that Jihad had quickly reacted with, retreated after a brief standoff, but if they had continued fighting, Jihad would have suffered considerable damage too.

‘That’s suicide…!’

No matter how strong his demon-like master was, this wasn’t right.

How could a head-on confrontation between his master, whose advantage was ghost-like elusive movements, and that destruction tank-like guy possibly work!

He couldn’t understand why his master, who couldn’t possibly not know this, was being stubborn.

But the deed was already done, and it was too late to take it back now.

Whoosh-!

The greatsword and double-bladed axe swung toward each other were about to clash with metallic sounds at any moment.

The size difference between the two weapons was already 2 to 1.

Jihad, who believed without doubt that the greatsword would shatter to pieces the moment they touched, covered his eyes with both hands.

He could still see everything through the gaps between his fingers, but he couldn’t bear to watch properly without doing this.

-Oh no…

It was the moment he squeezed one eye shut and braced for impact.

An unbelievable scene was caught in his vision through the gaps between his fingers. The moment the two swords clashed fiercely as if they would tear each other apart.

Swoosh-.

The feeling of the greatsword changed.

The sword path that had been charging fiercely as if to tear everything apart changed in an instant to a gentle energy as if embracing everything.

The greatsword smoothly absorbed the double-bladed axe like watching Tai Chi and naturally let the impact flow away.

-Huh…?

It was neither fast nor slow.

The two chunks of metal flowed like water as if they had been coordinated from the beginning, moving in harmony, and by the time he came to his senses, the situation was over.

Thud-!

The double-bladed axe, drained of all its power, struck the ground helplessly.

…Kuruk?

Karuk tilted his head at the sight of the axe that should have crushed a human skull like tofu striking the ground powerlessly.

The skill had definitely activated, so why?

He couldn’t understand the situation.

But Karuk didn’t just panic and swung his double-bladed axe again.

Then the human stepped back to dodge. After repeating this a few times, Karuk nodded.

Kuruk.

He was convinced that the incomprehensible situation from before was a coincidence.

If it wasn’t a coincidence, there was no way he would dodge around like that against much weaker attacks.

So Karuk prepared another powerful strike.

[Hidden Field boss ‘Goblin Warlord’ uses ‘Great Strike.’]

While not as much as Merciless Strike, it was a skill that displayed quite powerful force among Karuk’s techniques.

This time he believed without doubt that he would burst that human’s head.

But the moment it touched the greatsword extended once again.

Swoosh-.

The same situation as before played out.

Like a river swept away by a vast ocean, it scattered naturally without any sense of incongruity, yet utterly helpless.

-…Huh? What did I just see?

Grrrr…?

Not only Karuk but even Jihad blinked blankly, unable to comprehend what happened.

Dohyun slightly raised the corners of his mouth at the two pairs of eyes staring at him as if demanding an explanation.

‘I was a bit worried since it’s been a while, but I haven’t lost my touch yet.’

Dohyun’s eyes were directed toward the air.

More precisely, toward the skill window floating in the air.

[Parrying]

-Grade: Common

-Restriction: Swordsman class

-Description: Deflects attacks that come into contact with the sword.

Activates when used at precise timing, but may fail if timing is off.

-Effect: Deflects attacks when used at precise timing.

Skills cannot be used during parrying motion, and attacks with untouchable judgment or unparryable judgment cannot be deflected.

-Cooldown: 4 seconds

‘I didn’t expect this to come in handy.’

The secret and key to all this magic.

Its true identity was the Swordsman’s only guard skill and the skill called beyond-common grade – Parrying.

* * *

Parrying.

As the word suggests, it’s a skill that deflects attacks, possessed only by Swordsman class jobs.

Even if it’s a legendary-grade skill, as long as conditions are met, it can deflect it – a cheat-level guard skill with short cooldown that’s called beyond-common grade.

There’s a saying that if Tanks have ‘Royal Guard’, then Swordsmen have Parrying.

‘The problem is that nobody uses it though.’

But despite having such cheat-level performance, Parrying was a skill that nobody used.

The reason was simple.

Because succeeding at Parrying was ridiculously difficult.

It absolutely had to make contact with the sword and be activated at precise timing for Parrying to work, but this ‘precise timing’ was absurdly strict.

“Does this thing even activate? It’s not just a decorative skill, right?”

“Why won’t it activate?”

“No, I died twice trying to use Parrying. Is this right?”

Even decent experts would succeed maybe once out of five attempts at that ‘precise timing’.

And that was only against simple attacks with obvious trajectories.

When thinking about using it in boss raids with crazy movements or PvP with psychological warfare, successfully pulling it off was basically just good luck.

So naturally, there were countless people who died getting hit by attacks they could have dodged while fooling around trying to use Parrying once.

“Never party with someone who uses Parrying. That’s sincere advice.”

“Shit… Parrying is fucking trash. Why are you copying some half-assed video you saw in a raid party?”

“There’s a reason it’s called a troll maker, you know?”

Thanks to this, players couldn’t help but extremely avoid, even hate Parrying.

There was a good reason why players disliked low-level Swordsmen with poor control.

A low-level Swordsman with shit control using Parrying?

It was better for mental health to just think that day’s try failed and escape.

Then were high-ranker Swordsmen’s positions different?

“Yeah, I don’t use it.”

“There’s no need to take unnecessary risks. It’s not like it deflects with certainty…”

“Do Swordsmen even have situations where they need to use Parrying? If such situations arise, that’s already a problem.”

The answer was no.

Skill slots were already limited to 13.

Unlike low levels when each skill was precious, at high levels you had to seriously consider your skill tree.

In such situations, there was no reason to fill slot numbers with Parrying when there were other good skills available.

And aside from that, there was also the issue with the Swordsman position itself.

A close-range dealer who wasn’t a Tank or Sub-tank.

There weren’t really situations where they’d need to take aggro, so situations to use Parrying didn’t come up often.

“Maybe if it was guaranteed, but why bother?”

“Honestly, it’s a poorly made skill. There’s a reason it’s not a common skill.”

“If you don’t want to get beaten to death after adopting it based on description alone, getting death penalty, and then getting beaten by party members, just abandon it. That’s sincere advice.”

“There are occasional geniuses, but… it’s still not guaranteed so it’s ambiguous to use.”

Especially if it was a skill where succeeding once out of five attempts was considered good.

Anyway, for these reasons, Parrying could only be possessed by Swordsmen and was the Swordsman’s only guard skill, but it was treated like leftovers.

Of course, there were exceptions.

“Of course, if you’re Kaiser, it’s acceptable.”

“That guy isn’t human. That’s why he’s tanking as a dealer. How does he succeed at Parrying like it’s a guaranteed skill?”

“Human? How impudent. How dare you speak such blasphemy to a god!”

“Kaiser, he is god! Kaiser, he is god!”

The reason Kaiser could take on a full Tank role and engage in duels despite being a dealer.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was thanks to ‘Parrying’.

Simply dodging well and stabbing well to break patterns had its limits.

The higher the boss difficulty, the more unavoidable limits existed.

What filled that gap was precisely Parrying.

[Hidden Field boss ‘Karuk the Goblin Warlord’ uses ‘Heavy Strike’.]

[Skill ‘Parrying’ succeeded!]

[Attack deflected.]

‘Yeah, this is the feeling.’

Originally impossible to counter skill patterns with no preliminary motions.

Even attacks that could only be dodged or blocked could be completely negated without taking any damage if ‘Parrying’ succeeded!

[Hidden Field boss ‘Karuk the Goblin Warlord’ uses ‘Berserker Rampage’.]

[Skill ‘Parrying’ succeeded!]

[Attack deflected.]

-This is impossible…

This ‘Parrying’ could even deflect combo skills.

The principle was that if you timed your sword contact precisely when the skill first activated and deflected it, the entire skill would be negated.

Of course, it required absurd technique, and would be hard to succeed even if told in advance that a skill was coming.

Bang- Swoosh-.

[‘Parrying’ succeeded!]

[Attack deflected.]

-No way, deflecting that? Master, are you really human!? I’m starting to think you’re not someone with demonic talent but an actual demon?

Actually, it wasn’t just combo skills like this.

The principle of Parrying itself was to deflect force in another direction while in contact with an attack.

For that to be possible, contact was absolutely necessary first, and Parrying had to be activated at precise timing.

And that timing was different for every skill and pattern.

That’s why even veteran players would stick out their tongues and give up completely…

‘Why can’t they do this?’

Dohyun genuinely couldn’t understand whenever he heard such things.

For Kaiser, ‘Parrying’ was all too easy.

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