54. League of Spirit (10)
Although two members of Ga Yurin’s team had died early on because of Baek Yuseol, she did not lose her composure.
‘Idiots.’
As members of Emerald Stella Team, they were talented players too, but in Ga Yurin’s eyes, they were unsatisfactory.
Compared to her, they looked infinitely shabby.
‘They came out with a slightly unusual strategy, sure, but to get taken down by something that pathetic?’
To die not to anything else, but to a sub-item like a sticky grenade, would earn ridicule for a long time.
‘I need to win even harder.’
Ga Yurin calmly continued the lane phase. Her lane was the middle one, which meant she had no choice but to clash with Ma Yuseong.
‘I’m different from those fools.’
She would not let her guard down.
She had heard to the point of exhaustion that Ma Yuseong was a gifted genius mage whose one-on-one combat ability was exceptional.
Inside a League of Spirit arena, Ga Yurin had more mastery and know-how, but that did not mean she could ignore Ma Yuseong’s innate sense.
‘I won’t engage him head-on alone.’
But—
this was a team game.
And yet Ma Yuseong, no matter what match he had played so far, had never once expected proper backup from his allies.
Which meant one thing: his teamwork was nonexistent.
If she prepared calmly and pressured Ma Yuseong, then creating a one-versus-two situation and breaking him down step by step would be very easy.
‘Though it worries me that I have to rely on that idiot who got taken down by Baek Yuseol…’
Still, with her ability, she could win more than comfortably even dragging along players that inadequate.
‘Play it safe.’
She could admit that Ma Yuseong’s skill in one-on-one combat was worthy of respect.
But League of Spirit was, at the end of the day, a team game.
Trying to face everything alone was itself the wrong approach.
Rather, Ga Yurin’s own style—using allied backup to efficiently suppress the opponent—was the one that understood the true nature of the game.
‘Now!’
Right at that moment, Ma Yuseong drifted off to the right, and in the narrow side path behind him, the alley-laner was creeping in.
If Ga Yurin jumped on him from the front now, the only route Ma Yuseong would have to run would be that path. And if an ally appeared from that very spot and ambushed him while he fled, he would have no way to deal with it.
Boom!
Her judgment was fast, and her actions were swift.
Ga Yurin, who until now had only been carefully harassing at range, suddenly fired off a large spell, and Ma Yuseong quickly fell back.
He took a bit of damage, but more importantly, the terrain itself was unfavorable to him.
‘Just as expected!’
Ma Yuseong hurriedly fled into the exact side path Ga Yurin had predicted, and there her teammate was waiting, mana gathered, ready to spring the ambush.
‘At this rate…!’
Thinking she would end it here, Ga Yurin stopped the spells she had been spamming up until now in order to cast a one-second spell.
It was only one second.
And yet, the instant Ga Yurin briefly stopped casting, Ma Yuseong used a spell.
‘…Huh?’
The spell Ma Yuseong used was Power Smasher.
A spell that hurled the caster’s body forward and delivered a massive impact ahead, but because its cast time was long, it was notoriously hard to land, so almost nobody used it.
‘W-wait.’
Ga Yurin’s spell took one second.
If she simply cast for one second, she could hit Ma Yuseong.
But the exact moment she began casting, as if they had somehow synchronized minds, he began casting a 0.8-second spell.
Crash—BOOM!!
“Kyaaaagh!!”
[An ally has died.]
Ma Yuseong broke out of the side path, rushed straight at the student trying to ambush him, and secured the kill in one strike.
‘This fucking lunatic…!’
There had not been a single radar there.
In other words, there was no way Ma Yuseong could have known Ga Yurin’s teammate was coming through that path.
And yet he had cast a spell straight at that spot and killed him with a perfect single blow.
As though he had seen through everything.
‘Don’t tell me… that’s what happened?’
Ga Yurin leapt backward, her face pale.
‘He saw my attack timing and realized there was another player waiting in that side path, then deliberately waited for the moment my own attacks paused and launched an offensive spell at that spot…?’
It had all happened in less than three seconds—
but in judgment and execution alike, Ma Yuseong had outclassed Ga Yurin in every possible way.
After dealing with Ga Yurin’s alley-laner, Ma Yuseong tried to go after her too, but seeing that she had already retreated far back, he returned to base.
If she had chosen, even belatedly, to fight him one-on-one then…
would she have won?
‘…No. Not yet.’
Her team had already accumulated three deaths, but a difference that small in the early game could be made up in any number of ways.
‘I can’t lose here.’
Ga Yurin acknowledged the enemy’s strength.
As elite magic warriors, they possessed innate one-on-one combat ability superior to her own team’s.
At the same time, Ga Yurin also clearly recognized the enemy’s weakness.
“From now on, avoid one-on-one situations in lane as much as possible. Just trade harassment. If the enemy pushes in, it’s fine to fall back.”
When Ga Yurin gave the order remotely, her teammates cautiously voiced their doubts.
—If we lose lane control, we’ll be at a resource disadvantage.
—I don’t think that’ll be good for setting up a late game…
“It’s fine. Rather than forcing lane fights right now and continuing to hand them kills, it’s better to give up a little ground.”
Any lack in strategy could be corrected soon enough through midgame alley-lane operations.
—…Understood.
Following Ga Yurin’s orders, her teammates avoided one-on-one situations as much as possible.
Whenever Baek Yuseol or Ma Yuseong suddenly dove in with Blink or Power Jump, they fled immediately.
And even in Hae Wonryang and Eizel’s lane, when situations like two-versus-three came up, they did not fight and merely tested each other’s pressure, refusing to forcibly create battle situations.
Watching this, the players around them nodded at Ga Yurin’s quick judgment while clicking their tongues.
“That must have hurt her pride.”
For Ga Yurin, having to admit she was losing in one-on-one ability to magic-warrior players who had started League of Spirit less than two weeks ago and having to shift to a management battle instead meant giving up a great deal.
“I thought she was just a prideful amateur… but her judgment is still cold.”
“So who do you think wins?”
“Well… my head says Ga Yurin’s team should win, but my gut says otherwise.”
“Exactly, right? Because we still don’t know what Flame Team is going to pull.”
Until now, Flame Team had never once won through a normal strategy.
They had crushed opponents by bewildering them with unique tactics never once seen in ordinary League of Spirit matches.
But Ga Yurin’s Emerald Stella Team was a professional team cultivated within the academy under the best training available.
Would that still work against them?
The game had now reached the mid-to-late stage.
Using her quick judgment and the mountain of experience she had built up, Ga Yurin played around map control and operation, steadily pressuring Flame Team.
Sometimes four of her players would gather in the alley lane and instantly kill Hae Wonryang and Eizel in the descending lane, and other times they would surround Ma Yuseong with three people and kill him. They were getting a decent number of kills that way.
In the process, Ga Yurin’s team still lost one or two players at a time too, so the fact that they could not achieve perfect victories even when they set ambushes was painful, but…
‘No problem.’
In the meantime, Ga Yurin’s team was steadily using macro play to suppress the enemy’s growth while gathering resources for themselves.
Just as Ga Yurin had predicted, Flame Team might be strong in one-on-one situations, but they were weak in large-scale fights and in map control.
In the end, by the late game, Ga Yurin’s team had overtaken Flame Team in resources, and because the enemy could no longer secure proper kills, their growth slowed more and more.
‘Now all we need is to open one big five-versus-five teamfight!’
They would definitely win a full five-versus-five.
And now that the match had reached the late game, the enemy would not be able to avoid such a situation even if they wanted to.
Because in the late game, a monster called the Final Guardian appeared in the middle of the map, and killing it granted an enormous buff.
If they took that and pushed straight through, the enemy would not be able to defend and would be helplessly crushed.
“Attack now!”
[Final Guardian has spawned]
The moment the monster spawned along with Ga Yurin’s shout, they began trying to take it down.
She had predicted the exact timing of its appearance and had her spells preloaded in advance.
A rain of magical bombardment came pouring down, and just as the Final Guardian staggered, on the verge of collapse, Ma Yuseong appeared from the opposite side with a terrifying look on his face.
Boom!!
Ma Yuseong slammed down onto the ground with Power Jump, raised his head, and pointed his staff, and Ga Yurin’s teammates all flinched and stepped backward.
A bleak chill swept in.
Even knowing it was the effect of the Frostbite Robe Ma Yuseong had equipped, why did it make them so tense, why did their hands tremble so much?
“Everyone, prepare!”
Ga Yurin gritted her teeth and looked around.
Sure enough, not far away, Flame was floating a splendid magic circle high into the sky.
It was obvious she intended to strike at the Final Guardian in perfect time with Ma Yuseong’s charge, so Ga Yurin gave the order immediately.
“Take out Flame in the back!”
The moment the order was given, the player handling Ga Yurin’s team’s center lane dashed out, and several spells shot toward Flame.
[Blue Giant’s Footsteps]
Boom!!
But suddenly, a giant blue foot appeared out of thin air and stomped down, blocking both the player’s charge and the incoming spells.
“W-what?”
That spell was one that was used for collapsing enemy formations, but because it no longer fit the current meta, it had long since fallen out of use.
And yet someone was actually using a garbage spell like that?
‘Don’t tell me… Eizel?’
As expected, Eizel was chanting from the side opposite Flame.
‘I already anticipated this much!’
She had not expected a single trash spell like that to block several allied attacks, but at least Eizel’s appearance was already within Ga Yurin’s calculations.
Without panicking, Ga Yurin calmly focused all fire on Flame, and before long, Flame fell.
Dealing with Ma Yuseong, who kept charging across their formation and latching onto them, was the hardest part, but in the end they managed to bring him down too.
And Eizel, who had harassed them the entire time with spells like blasts of cold and curses of icy ground, was also finally taken care of.
At that point, something felt wrong.
‘What the hell? Where are Baek Yuseol and Hae Wonryang?’
Why had they not shown up even though this was the final decisive teamfight?
With that thought, Ga Yurin hurriedly opened the map to check.
[An allied tower is under attack!]
“…These insane bastards!”
Baek Yuseol and Hae Wonryang were happily smashing down her allied towers.
Because Ga Yurin’s team had spent the early phase running instead of playing lane properly, their towers had already been pushed back almost to the Command Center, and since fights had kept failing to happen, Baek Yuseol had apparently sold off all his combat items and bought demolition-only items instead. The speed at which he was destroying towers was absurd.
“G-go back! Go back now!”
In Baek Yuseol’s hands were a chisel and a hammer, and wearing a yellow safety helmet and work clothes, he was happily pounding away at the tower while even singing a little work song.
“Happy Happy G-Mart~”
“…Can’t you demolish things quietly?”
“What’s with you? Want to use the hammer too?”
“My magic is faster.”
Ignoring Baek Yuseol’s offer, Hae Wonryang violently overturned the ground with all his strength.
At once, fangs shot up from the earth, dealing critical damage to the tower, then exploded and brought it down.
A perfect use of the fact that earth-element magic could be highly effective against towers.
“Oh, they’re coming back.”
Ga Yurin’s team still had four people left, but it seemed that even for them, suppressing more than two enemies in a three-versus-five situation had not been easy.
Just then, the durability of the [Legendary Demolition Hammer] was nearly depleted and a red warning light blinked on it. Baek Yuseol rolled his shoulders and asked Hae Wonryang,
“I’ll go hold them off for a bit. How much time do you need?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“That’s plenty.”
Grinning, Baek Yuseol twirled the hammer around a few times and then charged in the opposite direction.
[Blink]
The place where he chose to block Ga Yurin’s team was an incredibly narrow passage.
Upon arriving there, Baek Yuseol essentially went all in with a to-hell-with-it attitude, used Blink straight at the enemy, and swung his hammer.
[You have taken heavy damage!]
[You have dealt heavy damage!]
Blink magic was often avoided because you took heavy damage if you collided with an object.
That was true even in League of Spirit.
But in the entire world, Baek Yuseol was the only person capable of controlling its direction with such precision.
He rammed straight into Ga Yurin with a perfect body slam and killed her instantly.
“N-nooo!!”
[Emerald Stella Team’s Command Center has been destroyed.]
[Flame Team Victory!]
And thus, the much-anticipated clash between the famous students came to an end through the utterly ridiculous strategy of “shut up and terrorize the towers.”
