Chapter 189 Barbarian King (6)

18.

Ggoo-roong, ggoo-roong!

Dark clouds appeared in the sky.  The dark clouds looked to be thunderclouds as it overtly displayed its might.

Gulp!

At this sight, everyone gulped.

“Wow.  The Hahoe Mask really reached the 2nd Phase by himself.”

“The other teams were only able to do it after losing 300 Users….”

At that moment….

Zzuh-juh-juhk!

There was no warning. A bolt of thunder fell towards the ground.  Everything stopped when the sound of the thunder was heard.  It was as if someone had pressed the pause button.  All the several thousand small battles going on in the battlefield stopped for a brief moment.

Then the battle started again.

‘What happened?’

‘Was the Hahoe Mask able to dodge it?’

‘Did he succeed?’

However, at that moment, the Users in battle only had one thought.

Did the Hahoe Mask dodge the Storm Judgement?

If it had occurred as planned, he would have dodged the Judgement.

At the same time, was he able to plant the Storm Judgement on the Barbarian King?

The answer came.

– Hahoe Mask succeeded on the first one!

It came out through Voice Talk.

“Hell yeah!”

“Wow.  I got goosebumps right now.”

“Bullshit.  You don’t have goosebumps.  We are within the game.”

“It is a figure of speech.”

“Ok.  Let’s do this! ”

“The Hahoe Mask succeeded!”

A shout akin to a thunder exploded forth from the battlefield.  Everyone started shouting for the Hahoe Mask.

At that moment, Hyrkan had barely avoided the thunder, and he walked near the Barbarian King’s heel.  Hyrkan swallowed the sigh of relief from coming out of his mouth.

‘……wow.’

When the alert announcing him being the target of the Storm Judgement popped up, the three second countdown had started.

Three seconds.

It was a short amount of time where one could let out a long sigh once, and the time would be up.  He had only a brief amount of time.  The enemy could stomp him, beat him to death with its trunk or squeeze him to death with its grip.  However, he had to charge forward towards his enemy despite the danger.

No explanation was needed.  Even if one was able to give a detailed explanation, it was something that wouldn’t be believed unless one saw it.

The bolt of thunder fell, and at that moment, the thunder struck the Barbarian King.  Hyrkan slipped to the side, and for a moment, the world became yellow and white.

He had goosebumps.

His body shuddered.

‘This is awesome.’

Moreover, he had a smile on his face.

‘If my timing was off by one second…  No, if it was off by .5 second, I would have been sent to heaven.  It wouldn’t have matter what setting I had on.’

At that moment, Hahoe Mask was wearing fabric clothes.

The full set was worth 500,000 gold, and it was called the Thunder Mage set.  Moreover, he was wearing the Circlet of Purification.

He had ignored physical defense.  This setting was solely put on to increase his resistance against the thunder as much as possible.  The Circlet of Purification was chosen to sidestep the inevitable Stun effect that would arise when hit with the Storm Judgement.  He didn’t know if it’ll work against the Storm Judgement, but he decided to equip it.

His combined outfit was incredibly pricey, and this set would give him one chance.

Theoretically, It meant he could survive one hit from the Storm Judgement.

However, when he witnessed the Storm Judgement, Hyrkan’s intuition gave a different assessment.

‘There won’t be a next time.’

He had spent an enormous amount of money as a precaution, yet he realized it wouldn’t play a role in this battle.

He couldn’t rely on it.

He had to think of it as him fighting the battle with his bare body.

He had to think of this as his last and only chance at this.

‘Storm……  I really have a bad relationship with anything that starts with Storm.’

The funny part was the fact that useless thoughts filled his mind at his most desperate situation.

The Barbarian King extended its hands towards Hyrkan.  Hyrkan dodged a hand.  Then he kept dodging.

Hweek hweek!

The Barbarian King’s attack was akin to a boxer jabbing with his fists.

Hyrkan dodged them all.

The Barbarian King became frustrated at the nimble Hyrkan, so it brought up its trunk up high before it swung the trunk downward like a whip.

Gwah-ahng!

Hyrkan threw his body to avoid the Barbarian King’s elephant-like trunk.  It had come down like a bolt of lightning.

However, he didn’t run away too far.  He had to maintain a certain distance.  If he was too far away, he wouldn’t be able to get close to the Barbarian King when the Judgement starts.

[The Storm Judgement is heading towards you.]

[3… 2…]

When the Announcement popped up, Hyrkan dove between the Barbarian King’s legs.

Jjuh-juh-juhk!

The thunderbolt impacted on the Barbarian King’s body.  At that moment, Hyrkan could feel it.

‘It is a lightning rod.  If a thunder strikes near the Barbarian King, the Barbarian King will absorb everything.’

He realized he didn’t need to be too fine with the timing.

As expected, this was the method that had to be used to defeat this monster.  Moreover, this leniency was a little bit of courtesy given by Warlord to the User, who carried out this method.

‘Fuck.  I’m so thankful that tears are coming out.’

Hyrkan was serious.  The courtesy almost brought him to tears, and as if to pay back this courtesy, Hyrkan once again engaged the Barbarian King.  While Hyrkan confronted it, he looked at the status of the Barbarian King.

The Barbarian King’s body looked a bit charred, but it was still imposing.  He didn’t know how many times he would have to repeat this action.  The 31st Raid team had succeeded in this method thrice before they gave up on the Raid.

It could be three, ten or twenty times.  It could also be 31 times to mirror the number of Protection Gems possessed by the Barbarian King.

Hyrkan gritted his teeth.

‘There’s no tree that won’t fall if you strike it 10 times.  It would be great if Warlord’s AI knew this adage….

Zzuh-juhk!

This was the 11th Storm Judgement.  It let out a fierce thunderclap as it fell.

It was as if this sound had been the signal.  The two groups on standby moved at that moment.  They had been far away, but in short order, they came close to the wall of Users protecting the Hahoe Mask.

When the Users saw the two groups approaching, they looked at them with suspicion.  Their glares turned into a look of shock.

“It’s the Stormhunters!”

“It’s the Red Bulls!”

These were two enormous guilds.

The Red Bulls had been the dragon hidden under the water until now.  The Stormhunters guild had been at the forefront of leading this era.

The two guilds didn’t hide their emblems as they charged towards the stage where the Barbarian King was present.

Whistling had been going around taking down Users and monsters trying to approach the Hahoe Mask.  The news was quickly delivered to Whistling’s ears.

‘Of all the….’

He knew disrupters would come.  In truth, there had been couple disrupters here already.  However, he would have never imagined that the Red Bulls and the Stormhunters fell into the same category.  He didn’t know about the other guilds, but he had thought these two guilds had the pride and self respect that came with their position in the 30 great guilds.

‘As expected, they are putting profits above all else?’

Of course, he understood why they were doing this.

The 30 great guilds of Warlord were organizations that were mostly driven by profit.  They were basically companies.  Their goal was to make money through this game.

To them, the Barbarian King Raid was worth….

At the very least, it would be a figure normal people would balk at.  It was probably an enormous amount of money.

Anyways, the worst case scenario had just occurred.

‘How long will they be able to last?’

He was sure of it.  It was impossible to stop them.

However, could they draw out the fight?

The fact that he was having such thoughts was the height of arrogance.  Whistling, Yojori, Joba and all the regular Users could only buy some time.  That was the only thing they could do.

The only thing up in the air was how long they would be able to drag this out.

Gulp!

Whistling unconsciously gulped.   In truth, he didn’t know how to deal with this situation.

‘Shit.’

He felt an indescribable sense of despair.  Then the despair immediately changed in sorriness towards Hyrkan.

In the end, Whistling had precipitated this.

Hyrkan didn’t need this stage.  He could prove his worth, and be treated well elsewhere.  However, Whistling had brought him to this abyss.  The only thing that could comfort Hyrkan was a victory and success.  That was it.

However, everything was about to be ruined.  They were treading water to stay above the abyss.

“Excuse me.  Shouldn’t we tell him?”

Yojori asked the question.  Hahoe Mask still didn’t know about the appearance of the two large guilds.

“No.”

Whistling asked Yojori to keep silent.

He couldn’t tell Hyrkan about this situation.  Hyrkan was currently fighting a life and death battle with the Barbarian King, and his words might cause him to die.  Hyrkan was fighting a battle where 1 second determined his fate.   It was a battle with a razor thin margin.

As a friend, Whistling wanted to help in anyway he could.  He wanted Hyrkan to be left alone, so he could carry out the battle.  This was the only way he could repay his friend.

“We’ll just have to block them.”

Whistling gritted his teeth.

He had already been prepared for death.

Moreover, at that moment, Whistling was thinking of different ways he could threaten the two guilds.

Was there anyway he could file a lawsuit against the Stormhunters and Redbulls for using such tactics?

Could he use this threat to scare them off?

His mind mulled over the problem.

However, he didn’t have much time to ponder over this problem.

Whistling could see the Stormhunters guild close the distance with the Hahoe Mask and the Barbarian King.  They were turning aside the wall of Users easily.  Moreover, Whistling could see, who was in the front.

‘My god.’

Storm Queen Shir!

She was leading from the front.  Aside from the Hahoe Mask, she was called the strongest in Warlord.  Moreover, it would be useless to bring lawyers, the justice system and a lawsuit against her.  It wouldn’t work on her.

Whistling was about to lose his fighting spirit.  His face looked like the face of a fighting dog, but the fight was about drain out of him.

‘Wow.  It’s the Storm Queen.’

“Even if I die here, I can boast about this to everyone.”

Everyone else pretty much assumed they were all going to die early on.  At that moment, Whistling sheathed his sword.

“You shall not pass!”

Then he yelled out.

He used all his strength to do so.

In his lifetime, Whistling had never yelled this loud before.  It was as if he was barfing out everything within him into this shout.

At the shout, the Stormhunters and the Storm Queen came to a stop.

“If you have pride in yourself as the 30 great guilds, you should leave this to the Hahoe Mask.  You should think about the etiquette within Warlord!”

They stopped, but Whistling kept shouting.

“At the very least, you should keep the gamer’s code of conduct!”

At Whistling’s shout, Shirt glared at Whistling.  Shir, who was looking straight at Whistling, was beautiful.  However, her expression was indescribably cold.  Whistling didn’t avoid her gaze.  He glared at her like a fighting dog.

While this terrifying war of gazes was occurring, a third person spoke up.

“We are here to make a deal with the Hahoe Mask.”

Ballista Hatch.

He had been at the back of the group.  He ran forward as he shouted.

“We started the Barbarian King event.  Of course, we also possess the key that will allow us to finish off the Barbarian King.  If we let things be, the Barbarian King will start up its activities again.”

Hatch gave an explanation.

When he ended the explanation, Shir added her words.

“Even if I do fight with the Hahoe Mask, there is no way I’ll fight him here.  So get out of my way.”

Whistling gritted his teeth.

19.

When the thunder fell another 10 times, the Barbarian King froze in place.

He stood erect.

It was like a statue.

However, the Barbarian King was still alive.

‘Ah！’

Hyrkan watched this sight, and for the first time, he let out a sigh of relief inside his head.

The clear method was effective.

[The Barbarian King Nesha has fallen asleep.]

[The Barbarian King Nesha will awaken in 24 hours.]

However, the next System Announcement knocked down all his achievements in one fell swoop.

‘This fucking game!’

It was the worst possible situation.

He was well aware of the possibility of a 3rd Phase.  He had expected the Barbarian King to go nuts, so he had prepared accordingly.  However, he hadn’t been prepared for this scenario.

At the same time, he had no idea how he should deal with this scenario.

[Barbarian King Nessa will awaken from his sleep in 23 hours 50 seconds.]

In front of Hyrkan, the Warlord started its cold, heartless and cruel countdown.

‘I…… I have to kill this bastard.’

At that moment, Hyrkan thought about all the Users, who had given up their lives for him.

Losses?

That didn’t matter.

It hadn’t been important in the first place.  He didn’t play this game for the money.  He had needed the money to become the best in Warlord.

He was afraid of the disappointment.

These Users had put their lives on the line for him.  They had fought for his victory, and even the dead Users were cheering from outside the game.  He was afraid of the sense of disappointment that’ll be felt by those people.

“I have to kill it!”

Eventually, he shouted at the top of his lungs towards the Barbarian King Nessa.

-Hyrkan.  The Stormhunters guild and Red Bulls guild is heading your way.

At that moment, he heard Whistling’s voice.

-They want to propose a deal.

Hyrkan turned his head.  He could see a large group heading towards the center of the plain.

He could see her.

Storm Queen Shir!

She wasn’t wearing her helmet, and her hair was whipping around her.  She brought her group towards him.

Hyrkan looked at them.

As time passed, Shir and Hyrkan stared at each other.

“This will be my final proposal.”

Shir opened her mouth.