Chapter 345

The final, third game was in progress.

The journey to confront the owner of the Abyss went smoothly.

-Jack betrayed them yet again in the third game, lol

-A spy for China, really shocking.

-Now, everyone is digging through Jack's SNS, but they found zero connections to China in his past.

-Was he seduced in the future, then?

-Jack is currently protesting in real-time on SNS, saying the game's just a game and he feels wronged, lol

As this game captured global attention...

After Barren's reputation plummeted, Jack, accused of being a spy, suffered significant damage.

While he was busy defending himself, Seong Jihan had arrived in front of the Abyss's owner once more, from Shanghai across the West Sea.

A giant with red eyes embedded all over its purple body.

And the head of the giant, veiled in dense void mist, was impossible to discern with the naked eye from afar.

'First off, I need to check its head, the supposed weakness.'

Swoosh!

Seong Jihan soared up to a height parallel to the Abyss's owner.

Even then, the head remained obscured by the void.

'Where is it.'

Attempting to locate the head, Seong Jihan cautiously entered into the mist.

Initially, the void's energy swarmed to erase his existence.

However, thanks to his half-mask, becoming familiar with the void, Seong Jihan could carefully approach the head using Ice Sword Rain.

[Your Void stat increases by 1.]

The message about his increase in the Void stat as Seong Jihan became part of it.

'Staying here for long will be difficult.'

Now that increasing Void wasn't a welcome situation, Seong Jihan decided to quickly identify the head and leave.

As he carefully approached and focused his eyesight,

'...A wooden head?'

The head of the Abyss's owner, like the rest of the body, had red eyes embedded, but

Unlike the purple body, it was made of wood.

Wood, then.

In BattleNet, mentioning wood material only brings to mind the World Tree Alliance.

[Your Void stat increases by 1.]

Seeing the message about his increase in Void again, Seong Jihan retreated.

'What kind of creature is this, seriously.'

The owner of the Abyss.

A bizarre blend of elements, utterly grotesque.

While Seong Jihan was deep in thought after checking the head.

-Confirmed, the head of a traitor Tree Spirit (1)

-Confirmed, the head of a traitor Tree Spirit (2)

Suddenly, in the alien chat...

Messages about confirming the Tree Spirit's head started flooding in from 1 to quickly reaching 1000.

-The World Tree elves suddenly started to spam, what's going on?

-The Abyss's owner's wooden head... does it have something to do with them?

-What's a Tree Spirit exactly?

-Don't know, something about a traitor from the World Tree.

-As if there aren't a bunch of those, lol

The World Tree elves invaded Seong Jihan's channel and spammed the chat, while the alien viewers were puzzled over their comments.

As the World Tree elves continued spamming another chain of messages.

-We condemn the void for sparing the Tree Spirits, officially lodging a protest (1)

-We condemn the void for sparing the Tree Spirits, officially lodging a protest (2)

While continuing to spam up to 1000 again.

Seong Jihan frowned.

If they wanted to condemn, why did they have to invade someone else's channel to do it?

'Always unhelpful, these guys.'

Even if occasionally useful information popped up in the chat from alien viewers, this wave made it hard to check.

While Seong Jihan was thinking,

[The overall viewership threshold has been breached.]

[The 'Star' buff is activated.]

[The overall viewership rating reaches 'Barely escaping obscurity'.]

[All stats are boosted by 20 percent.]

'It triggers now, of all times...'

Seong Jihan's eyes slightly widened.

* * *

The Star buff.

This was an effect that came along with the 'Spotlight,' which Seong Jihan chose after acquiring the VIP membership.

-When broadcasting on BattleTube, breaching a certain overall viewership number activates the 'Star' buff. The effects of the Star buff strengthen as the overall viewership numbers increase.

Thanks to this viewership threshold criterion, didn't he try to attract alien viewers by any means possible?

Although he managed to gather quite the audience through betting content that aliens loved, he hadn't met that criteria, making him think getting the Star buff would be tough.

'The World Tree guys are somewhat useful in times like these.'

Seong Jihan's gaze warmed as he looked at the chat.

Thinking it over, thanks to these guys, he had gained many residual points, acquired the half-mask, and even obtained the stat of Eternity.

Leaving past grievances aside, objectively, isn't the World Tree kind of a generous giver?

'20 percent boost is not a huge number, but it's quite helpful.'

In situations like the current one, where the lack of power is acutely felt, even this is something.

Thinking so, Seong Jihan, just like in the second attempt, took out both the Phoenix Flag and the Divine Spear.

The attack method of neutralizing the enemy's defense with Dragon Thunder and inserting the Code of Destruction was still the best offensive strategy Seong Jihan could employ.

And.

'Since the head might have stronger protections, I'll go in directly.'

Entering the Destruction code.

Risky as it was, this approach remained effective even in close quarters.

Seong Jihan prepared for combat.

[The level needed to become a Constellation is reduced to 767.]

Having died less than 5 minutes ago, with only a level drop, Seong Jihan turned on Constellation traits again and wore the half-mask,

Power surged immediately.

Feeling his power amplify, Seong Jihan's eyes gleamed.

'With power already amplified by Constellation mode and the half-mask, adding another 20 percent on top. Isn't this great?'

The Star buff boosted by another 20 percent on the final power figures after all enhancements were already applied.

Feeling it was worth the effort to attract alien viewers,

Seong Jihan infused power into the Phoenix Flag.

Fundamental Divine Arts,

Heavenly Dragon Thunder Fire:

Dragon Thunder

The Phoenix Flag shone brilliantly white.

Seong Jihan, having written the Code of Destruction on the spear of the Blood clan,

Swoosh!

Threw both spears consecutively, just like before.

And.

'Immediately following with the next attack.'

He drew his sword right away.

Fundamental Divine Arts,

Annihilation God's Secret:

Myriad Ghost Sealing Gods.

Myriad Ghost Sealing Gods, which temporarily thwarts the opponent's regeneration.

Using it would focus the Abyss's owner's attention, albeit reluctantly.

'A counterattack is inevitable when targeting the head, anyway.'

The gap in power was absolute.

It was essential to score as many effective hits as possible when the enemy was unguarded.

The flames of the dragon thunder contained in the Phoenix Flag cut through the air, but

Swoosh...

Before even touching the enemy's head, the flame lost its strength.

And then,

Thunk.

The spear of the Blood clan, just before touching the enemy's head, got intercepted by a barrier, nullifying it and vanishing.

Clearly, the head had more robust defenses.

-I thought it would be similar to attacking the arm ...

-Even distracted elsewhere, defense is assured.

-Knowing the weakness yet finding it impenetrable...

Despite receiving the Star buff, viewers thought it was all over as the attack on the Abyss's owner proved ineffective. However,

Seong Jihan charged towards where the Blood clan's spear broke through the barrier.

[The Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams...]

Meanwhile,

The Abyss's owner, who had murmured upon seeing Seong Jihan's Myriad Ghost Sealing Gods,

Flash!

Twisting its eyes again, distorted the world anew.

'I can block this, up to the spinning eyeballs turning into Taiji.'

The enemy's attack that can be defended against until the eyeballs form the Taiji.

Swoosh.

Seong Jihan, having retrieved the Blood clan's spear back to his hand, entered the Destruction code again and threw it.

Thunk!

There, the spear lodged into the cheek of the wooden head.

[This is...!]

Flash! Flash! Flash!

Starting from the cheek to the temple, cracks appeared and instantly began to disintegrate.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

As the eyeballs spun even faster, about to form a Taiji pattern,

Before then,

Seong Jihan was the closest to the head.

'This is my last chance...'

Seong Jihan peered closely at the head from a short distance.

Perhaps because the cheek was torn open,

The wooden head, which didn't reveal its seams before, now showed lines where fragments fitting each cheek, where eyes should have been, parts of flesh around the nose, and mouth region came together.

Like a mosaic.

Looking at it now, even if hit by the Destruction code, only a piece of the mosaic vanished.

'I need to choose where to hit among the head parts.'

Seong Jihan focused his eyes on the part that remarkably stood out for not having any eyeballs where eyes should have been.

It was blatantly suspicious.

Approaching that spot, Seong Jihan directly wrote the Destruction code on it.

Then,

[Not Dongbang Sak...!]

From the Abyss's owner, a disheartened voice was heard, and then,

Boom! Boom! Boom!

All eyes on its body explosively detonated.

Along with that, the purple flesh of its skin scattered into void smoke, disintegrating the giant.

Clearly, this must have been the real weakness.

Watching the giant disintegrate in moments, Seong Jihan silently sighed.

'Even when directly fighting the owner of the Abyss, he might not be this off-guard... but at least the weakness is confirmed.'

The 200 million GP hint.

Definitely worth the price.

Seong Jihan pondered while watching the collapse of the giant when,

Wriggle, wriggle...

At the center of the fallen giant's body on the ground, something began to stir.

-Is it still not dead?

-So tenacious; isn't it about time it truly died? ㅠㅠ

-Humanity barely escaped extinction once, let's not go through it again...

-But seriously, such a monster lives on North Korean soil? Ah ffs, Can't even sleep peacefully anymore.

Viewers expressed their disgust at the sight,

Of course, the most perturbed was Seong Jihan.

'How many times does it survive the Destruction code, really?'

Is this what it takes to be just below the Great Constellations?

Regardless, to uncover the identity of the enemy,

Swoosh!

Seong Jihan descended from the sky to the ground.

There, all he saw was,

[NO DATA]

White characters spelling NO DATA atop a purple pillar.

-?? What's this?

-NO DATA?

-BattleNet might have balance issues, but bugs aren't one of them.

-Wow, I've never seen this; what exactly is the Abyss's owner?

Seeing that left the alien viewers more astonished than the humans.

Even they, who had experienced the BattleNet system for a long time, had never witnessed such a phenomenon.

'Is this some kind of joke?'

No data?

Furrowing his brow, Seong Jihan approached the purple pillar.

A pillar almost his size.

Eclipse was still activated in Seong Jihan's hand, maintaining Myriad Ghost Sealing Gods,

And as he approached in that state,

Swoosh...

The NO DATA text faded, and a system message appeared.

[Only you are allowed access by the opponent.]

[Will you turn off BattleTube?]

'...'

What's this?

Was it not actually missing data?

Not turning it off would mean the game ends with NO DATA.

Having come this far, leaving without gaining anything wasn't an option.

[BattleTube is turned off.]

[Star buff is deactivated.]

As Seong Jihan turned off BattleTube,

Swoosh!

The purple pillar swiftly expanded, engulfing Seong Jihan whole.

And the world he was pulled into.

'It's similar to when humanity faced extinction.'

It looked precisely like the world at a halt when humanity was on the brink of extinction due to distortion.

The only difference was.

Faces of numerous beings floated like ghosts in the void.

Most visible were the facial structures of the giant's species and the Tree Spirits with wooden heads.

'It's all giant heads here.'

Seong Jihan mused as he slowly walked forward.

Even going deeper, only the giant heads floated detached.

Entering to gather information, yet encountering a sea of floating heads.

[The owner of the Abyss, '??'s name will be revealed...]

[The name of the owner of the Abyss is 'Taiji's Lost Soul'.]

Then.

As the system message revealed the name of the Abyss's owner.

'Taiji's Lost Soul, huh? Is there a connection to Dongbang Sak?'

At least he had managed to secure a name.

Seong Jihan thought as he continued walking, and as soon as the name was revealed, the giant heads began to vanish.

And what took their place was,

'...A nose? Is that an eye?'

Familiar-sized facial fragments to Seong Jihan.

Some were noses.

Others were eyes.

Facial fragments similar in size to humans.

Looking at them gave Seong Jihan an eerie feeling.

These fragments...

'They seem strangely familiar.'

Click.

As he stopped to take a closer look,

Flash!

Light flashed as the fragments around him started to come together.

And they interlocked, forming a mosaic-like face, similar to the Abyss's owner's face.

Eventually revealing,

"...Me?"

Seong Jihan himself.

His own face emerged.

[PR/N: AYO WTF???]