Chapter 436

2.

Just like the viewers expected after Seong’s “alpha male” moment, the rankers were holding a meeting while watching that screen.

And Seong’s remark made them show outright displeasure.

“That cocky little punk.......”

“Still, the fact we’re actually paying money to watch his broadcast just to observe his full strength—yeah, that’s a blow to the pride.”

“It can’t be helped.”

“First, let’s make a plan.”

Some of them did feel provoked by Seong.

But they also thought it couldn’t be helped.

That didn’t mean a countermeasure would come easily, though.

Because the Seong shown on the broadcast clearly had power above a Double Ranker.

This absolutely required a Single Ranker to step in.

And he’d probably spill out his vassals in a swarm, too.

“That vassal called Helena is especially the problem.”

At some point, Seong’s broadcast and the scene of Helena training the backup team were being split and channeled side by side.

A structure where you could swap to the channel you wanted while watching.

So the rankers had no choice but to focus on Helena.

They’d been aware of her, but Helena’s might was considerable.

To be blunt, the Double Rankers weren’t confident they could handle that Helena.

So—

“There won’t be a vassal on Helena’s level, but even so, the very top vassals will need Single Rankers to step up.”

When the one who could be called the meeting’s host said that, everyone had no choice but to accept it.

And then—

“And I think the backup team’s three team leaders will need Single Rankers as well.”

It was a statement that trampled the Double Rankers’ pride.

But no one stepped up to object.

They couldn’t.

Because it really did look that way.

Maybe—

“I thought we had the edge in overall power, but when you factor in the vassals... that’s not true either.”

“Exactly.”

“If we assume Helena plus about two more top-tier vassals, then including the Demon King, we’ll need at least seven Single Rankers. That’s basically impossible.”

“For the team leaders, we’ll need at least two Double Rankers on each of them, or else we’ll have to stack two or more Double Rankers onto each top-tier vassal.”

As the conversation flowed, the plan gradually became clearer.

And then—

“We’ll strike when they’re exhausted.”

“If we hit them once, the next time will be easier.”

“Then, with a guild alliance, we hit Rapid too.”

“We’re basically the vanguard, so we hit them first, then we hit Rapid, and we raise the alliance up.”

At those words, people’s hearts started pounding hard.

Even though they were rankers, they’d received a strangely small amount of attention all this time.

So they couldn’t help getting even more fired up.

Beating Rapid—the guild that was currently drawing all eyes in Eternal World?

Sure, they’d get branded as the villains and that kind of public opinion would form.

So what?

Even in scripted WWE, there are villains, and there were times the villains were even more popular.

"Rapid has a lot of enemies right now. And since they’re such obvious ‘heroes,’ there are also people saying it’s gotten boring.”

So if they hit Rapid and build an evil empire?

They could definitely secure a demand base.

There was only one major prerequisite.

“We, the vanguard, must win no matter what. If we lose, we’ll be nothing but a laughingstock.”

At that serious, cautious voice, everyone nodded.

And among them, in one of the seats reserved for Double Rankers, Kim Jinwoo—who was secretly hiding his identity—nodded along and grinned.

‘I can’t tell if these guys are thorough, or just stupid.’

Of course, it was because Kim Jinwoo’s own skills at hiding his identity were outstanding.

But either way, what mattered was that he had secured a seat as one of the Double Rankers.

Besides, this plan had already reached Rapid’s ears.

And it would have reached Seong, who was broadcasting right now, too.

So Kim Jinwoo wondered what direction things would take.

He was genuinely curious.

Honestly, the best course is to prevent stuff like this in advance.

But looking at how things were going, it didn’t seem like it would go that way, which made him even more curious.

Still, Kim Jinwoo wasn’t worried.

‘Seong will handle it just fine.’

Up until now, there had only been one person in Rapid who got called a monster.

Yuna—meaning Yu Mina—alone.

But now everyone said it in unison.

That Rapid’s monster belonged to her younger brother, Seong.

No one refuted it or offered a different opinion.

Because the monster who surpassed Yu Mina—no, who transcended her—was Seong.

The one who suited the nickname Demon King best was Seong.

So what would happen?

Smiling, Kim Jinwoo stayed in the meeting, still listening to what kind of plan they were putting together.

‘Instead of doing this, they should just go hunt.’

With that basic thought, too.

3.

While broadcasting, Seong began focusing on the power of the three lords—Abyss, Destruction, and Despair.

At first, aside from Destruction, he’d thought Abyss and Despair had similar effects, but they were completely different.

‘Abyss feels like it drags things down, but Despair feels like it adds onto that.’

In other words, Abyss by itself felt like it pulled things down into the abyss, while Despair felt like it stacked onto negative effects, drawing out even stronger curses or power.

Depending on how you used them, you could make Abyss and Despair even stronger—and Destruction too.

That was generally how it was with using concepts, but—

Destruction was especially fascinating.

‘Destruction isn’t limited to destroying just one concept, but if I force it to destroy only one concept, it becomes absurdly powerful.’

If it’s only going to destroy one thing, the effect is maximized and it perfectly destroys it.

But if you increase it to two or more, the effect drops to less than half, so efficiency inevitably tanks.

So Seong thought it would be good to use that—when using other lords, destroy the one element that gets in the way the most.

And even aside from that, when he realized that by maximizing Destruction with Despair, he could even break the vague, abstract concept of “hope”—he realized his applications had expanded to almost infinite.

‘So the “lord-type” skills aren’t always stronger just because they’re abstract.’

It felt like they became stronger the more the concept itself was contained in them, or the more abstract they were.

And how you used that felt like a very important factor as well.

Once Seong considered and accounted for all of that—he could see his skill steadily increasing.

KWAJIIIIII―――!

- ???????

- Doesn’t it feel like it got smoother?

- Right??????

- What even is this????

- I wish someone would at least fight him. There’s no opponent so it’s kinda vague, but the effects are insane;;;;

- I could watch just this all day???

- Feels like people with lord-type classes would get better just from watching this????

- fr lol

- Damn, that control just makes you stare.

Seong tried not to pay too much attention to the viewers even while broadcasting—but every so often, he did speak up.

“Glad you’re enjoying it.”

But every time they heard Seong say something like that, the viewers’ reactions were funny.

- ????????

- No, you just showed something insane and you’re saying you’re glad we enjoyed it;;;;

- If you don’t enjoy this, something’s wrong with you;;;;;

- I’ve got vision problems and I’m still enjoying this just fine;;

- facts facts facts

- Wait ㅋㅋㅋㅋ are you teabagging us????

People thought it was teabagging—it was that funny, the way Seong acted.

The backup team’s broadcast was popular too, but an overwhelming majority were coming into Seong’s broadcast, because what he was showing was just that insane.

Since the backup team was basically training like they were fighting Helena, that side had more raw intensity—but Seong’s broadcast was far more useful, so it drew more people.

Seong, like he didn’t even realize it, smiled faintly and said,

“Hm. To put it simply, lord-type skills become stronger the more you make use of their freedom like this. You could say imagination becomes combat power.”

But—

-  ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- No ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- How many lords do you think are in the audience ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- There aren’t even many among Double Rankers ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- Does this make any sense?

- No, you don’t have to do a lecture stream ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- We won’t understand anyway ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

- Wow! Super helpful! If I ever become a lord later, I’ll definitely keep that in mind!

Since the overwhelming majority of viewers weren’t lords, some of them laughed at how serious Seong was.

Maybe it was that he was serious that made it funnier.

Either way, Seong brought up what could be called tips.

“Hm. Then even if you’re not a lord-type, I’ll tell you some tips for how to use skills.”

As he said that, Seong laid out tips on how to apply skills together.

He told them not to think of skills as “just skills,” but to go a step further and recognize that there were skills that meshed with each other.

For example, if you used a skill where you swing your sword and a sword wave shoots out, together with a charging skill, you could increase its power—and if you used another skill at the same time, it could become even stronger, and so on.

As he shared those tips, the viewers’ reactions changed.

-Oh???

- Yeah, this is actually???

- Don’t think of skills like skills???

- That’s a pretty useful tip.

- Oh, so because I thought “I’m using a skill,” there was delay, so it was hard to use them fused together like that???

- The point is to connect them naturally like it’s your technique, right?

As they typed in chat, everyone watched Seong’s broadcast like they were studying.

Seong also nodded, looking at the chat with satisfied eyes.

“Good. Do it like that. Then that’s it for today’s broadcast.”

But quite a bit of time had passed.

So Seong said that, and everyone was disappointed, but the stream had been packed with substance.

And then—

“I’ll turn the broadcast on again around this time tomorrow.”

When Seong said that and ended the stream, everyone relaxed.

And after the broadcast ended, Helena and Seong said to the backup team,

“Then shall we go into the real training?”

“Now that you’ve been through live combat, want to do it properly?”

At Seong and Helena’s words, everyone’s faces went deathly pale.