Chapter 72

The heat of the World Stadium.

Jung Yunseul and Shin Aram, facing it for the first time, couldn’t say a word and just kept looking around.

“Wow…”

All they could do was let out a sound of awe.

Everyone who comes here for the first time feels overwhelmed.

Think about it. It was only natural.

It was an Arena with a capacity of 500,000, something that didn’t exist in reality.

The sight of this massive structure filled with people cheering for someone, their roars pouring down like a waterfall, was nothing short of spectacular.

Just as I was thinking that I had been swept up in this massive current without realizing it, the cheers exploded.

The players had entered the Arena.

The first to enter the Arena was the Japanese team, Kamui.

The roar that erupted then was so loud that it gave even us goosebumps.

Kamui, called the strongest in Asia.

Beyond simply being the team representing Japan, they had the skill to aim for the world’s top spot, and fans cheering for them could be found all over the world.

As the players entered in a single file line, Kato Mikane stood at the head of the team, waving to the Spectators.

Kato Mikane waved here and there as if every spectator gathered in the Arena was her fan.

It was then.

Kato Mikane’s gaze turned precisely to where we were sitting.

I couldn’t help but be startled for a moment.

Could she have recognized us and looked this way?

It’s not like she has eagle eyes.

And besides having good Vision, how could she possibly pick someone out in an Arena filled with hundreds of thousands of people?

But seeing her tilt her head as she looked this way, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kato Mikane hadn’t just glanced over by chance, but had recognized me.

Her expression seemed to say, ‘What are you doing in there?’

As I was thinking what a strange person she was, Kato Mikane turned her gaze away again.

From the opposite side of the Arena, the Artemis Team was coming up.

Kato Mikane looked at Kim Seunga.

In that instant, Kato Mikane’s expression turned frightening.

Her mouth was smiling, but the corners of her eyes were not.

I felt her expression was scary at that moment, and the reason was not hard to guess.

Revenge for Jeju Island.

Right now, Kato Mikane was filled with the desire to avenge her defeat on Jeju Island.

On the other hand, Kim Seunga did not avoid her opponent’s gaze and met it head-on.

As if to say, bring it on if you dare!

And so, the match began.

Truly overwhelming violence.

A match that could only be described as utterly one-sided unfolded before my eyes.

A 2-0 defeat.

The Score was common in the League, but the feeling the fans who watched the match live, and the fans all over the world who must have been watching, received was completely different.

-Is this for real?

-Kim Seunga got steamrolled without being able to do anything?

-It’s not Seunga’s fault…

-Those guys are on a whole other level.

The shock among the Korean fans who had been cheering for Artemis was immense.

At first, Artemis employed a Strategy to mark Kato Mikane to face Kamui.

The plan was to assign Team Leader Kim Seunga and veteran player Oh Nara to Kato, while the other players created opportunities.

But this plan ended in complete failure.

To get straight to the point, the pair of Kim Seunga and Oh Nara failed to mark Kato Mikane, and the game was over just like that.

Kato Mikane was not an opponent who could be suppressed by Strategy in the first place.

The situation was different from Jeju Island.

On Jeju Island, Kim Seunga and Seo Dami had been able to work together to suppress their opponent, but the Kato Mikane running wild as part of the team Kamui was a monster of a completely different class.

Though overshadowed by Kato Mikane, the players of team Kamui had the wide Vision and skill to back up Kato Mikane from anywhere on the Battlefield.

When I coolly assessed their skills, I felt that each and every player was no less skilled than Seo Dami.

No, in fact, they felt even superior.

<Isn’t this team completely insane…>

‘Huh? Oppa, what did you say?’

<It’s nothing. Nothing at all.>

I held my tongue because I didn’t want to plant an image of an insurmountable wall in Yunseuli’s mind, but that was the truth.

A team of five Seo Damis?

No, it was worse than that.

Kato Mikane’s skill was not in a realm that Seo Dami could handle one-on-one.

What kind of ridiculous team is this?

No matter how much I wracked my brain, I couldn’t think of a way to beat a team like this.

Something was wrong.

Until my accident, I had consistently watched the World Championship, but I had never seen a team this dominant in history.

Could there ever be another team like this?

I felt like a team like this wouldn’t appear even by the time UA’s lifespan was over.

While I and everyone on our team who had come to watch live were in shock, Kato Mikane waved to the Spectator Seats.

It was accompanied by a confident smile, as if announcing the beginning of her era.

“Should we just wait for her to get old and pass her prime?”

“She’s twenty-two. Next year she’ll be twenty-three. We’ll have to see her until we retire.”

“Why is she so young? Isn’t having that skill at that age a Foul?”

After the shocking match ended, the world was still talking about Kato Mikane.

Our team was no different.

While balancing training and In-Game Training, we discussed how we could defeat Kamui.

It was a rather funny sight if anyone saw it.

A team that had just been promoted to the First Division League, a team that had never even won a domestic League, was debating whether they could take down the world’s strongest team.

But it wasn’t a particularly strange scene.

No matter which team you went to, Pro Gamers were bound to blossom into conversations on this topic.

What would it take to beat the world’s strongest team?

And in reality, these discussions were often helpful.

This entire process was part of the work of crafting tactics and Strategy.

Strategies or ideas that came up during conversations often proved to be genuinely helpful in the League.

“How about this?”

Hwang Jua said, looking at internet articles and comments.

It’s better to smash Kato Mikane’s head with a hammer and win than to train to beat Kamui.

At the joke, Kim Dain nodded, saying, “Yeah, please do that~.”

“Thanks to Jua, we’ll be able to win. I’ll send you plenty of commissary goods, so I’m counting on you.”

“Why pick on me…”

She wasn’t wrong.

No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t see a path to victory against that team without literally smashing Kato’s head with a hammer.

Like that, without a single loss.

Without even giving up a single Round, Kamui lifted the World Championship trophy with a flawless Game Performance.

Japan’s, which no one could dispute.

The era of Kato Mikane had dawned.

People talked about the Kamui team, which had won with the strongest Performance in UA history.

The player composition of this team.

And considering their ages, they said that for the next several years, the only owner of the UA Women’s World Championship throne would be Kamui.

Not a few insiders offered the observation that they could win consecutive championships for several years or more.

Who would dare to defeat this team with skill?

At a time when the Community was plastered with talk of Kamui all day long.

A major bombshell that would change the atmosphere in an instant popped out of the UA patch notes.

「Universe Arena. Announcement of a Large-Scale Update.」

November 27th.

Not long after the World Championship ended, the announcement drew the attention of Users all over the world.

「UA, ahead of the new Season next year, announces the appearance of the Skill Custom System.」

「Skill Advanced Effect Enhancement. Increased efficiency of Offensive Type, Defensive Type, and Support Type Skills suitable for each position.」

Looking over the patch notes, they contained truly interesting content.

The new system being introduced was, surprisingly, a system where Users could create and add Skills themselves.

Let’s take an example.

For instance, the weather.

Until now, the weather was one of the things players couldn’t interfere with.

Whether it rained or snowed inside the Arena was managed in conjunction with the actual weather of the continent.

But with the Skill Custom System, it was possible to tamper with this, at least partially.

If a player thought of creating a Skill that makes it rain and gave the command, the system would register a suitable Skill in the Server database.

Of course, it couldn’t create an amazing Effect like a downpour over the entire Arena.

The basic concept of a Skill.

The premise that one had to pay a corresponding amount of Mana for causing an Effect had to be maintained.

Making it rain over a huge Arena more than a kilometer wide was not an Effect that could be handled with an individual’s Mana.

But what about temporarily wetting an area of about 10 meters?

Couldn’t this much be handled with the Mana a User possessed?

When such an opinion was provided through the system, the Server would make an immediate judgment.

If it was deemed suitable, it could be registered as a new Skill immediately.

Whether it was actually helpful in play or not was a separate matter.

According to the announcement, all these functions would be applied to the game starting in December.

Many Users continued to debate this.

-Hmm. Isn’t it an overreaction to call it a Great Cataclysm? UA always had a lot of Skills.

-I know, right. There are tons of unused Skills even now, so I don’t see the need to create a system like this.

-It would be better to create a new Battlefield than this.

-Aren’t you tired of playing on the same Battlefield for 10 years?

-Not tired of it.

-FR, not tired of it.

-All the guys saying they’re not tired of it are old-timers.

-What? Apologize!!!

The majority of Users reacted as if not much would change.

They argued that since there were already many unused Skills, they would only use the ones they always used, regardless of whether free Skill creation was possible.

-What does it matter? No matter what Skill you create, it won’t be better than Acceleration.

-I agree.

-UA is a one-trick pony game with Acceleration.

The prevailing view was that at most, it would affect the Pro teams, but it would have no impact on regular Users like themselves.

But the reality was different.

December 1st.

When the patch was implemented and the Server with the updated data opened, Users were horrified.

It was because the system had a much higher degree of freedom than expected.

The ability to realize any Skill imaginable with Mana.

Countless Users began to tinker with this Skill Custom System and soon realized a tremendous fact.

-What’s with the compatibility on this?

-Why? What’s the problem?

-I play Gaia more… Most of the Skills can be ripped off.

-???

-What are you talking about right now?

-Our game has become a dog-bowl jjamtong game?

-Holy shit…

It was true.

The Effects might be slightly different, but the effect of the Skill itself was not.

It was natural.

The significance of this custom system was in realizing the Skills the User wanted, exactly as they were.

So, the more a User tried to replicate a Skill from another game they enjoyed as closely as possible, the closer the result was bound to be.

And at midnight on December 1st.

According to an article, news spread that over 1.2 million new Skills were registered on that day alone.

In just one day, a single day, it was 1.2 million.

<This is seriously dizzying…>

After playing Rank Matches with Yunseuli for about a day, I couldn’t help but shake my head.

This was no longer the game I knew.

Playing a Rank Match now, the Battlefields were filled with crazy people flying around.

Both allies and enemies alike.

Was that all?

There were also plenty of guys who breathed fire and cast lightning instead of shooting guns.

It had reached a point where Universe Arena could be called a game of wizards holding guns instead of staffs, rather than an FPS Game.

Faced with such a drastic, overly drastic change, long-time officials of the UA Pro League voiced their concerns one after another.

They said that such an extreme change would only cause confusion for existing Users, and that it would be better to revise the update and Rollback immediately.

But the developers remained silent, indicating they had no intention of reversing the changes.

-You fucking bastard, Jake. Aren’t you going to change it back? Are you only going to come to your senses when all the Users quit?

-Why did you turn a perfectly good game into a rootless jjamtong game!!!

Veteran Players who had played UA for a long time sought out the head developer, Jake Browning, with feelings of spitting blood.

However, the development side stuck to its guns until the end.

Due to the lack of communication, Users even voluntarily stopped logging into the game, saying they would protest.

But despite the protests, exactly one week later.

An article summarizing the current situation appeared in huge letters on the internet.

「UA, facing the Cataclysm Patch, saw a 23 million increase in active users worldwide in one week.」

A 23 million increase in just one week.

New Users equivalent to 46 times the number of Users on the Korean Server had flowed into UA.

I didn’t know how it would be evaluated later, but for now, the result seemed clear.

It was a Dominant Victory for the Jjamtong Patch.