The Return Of The Genius Ranker Of All Times [EN]: Chapter 50

50.

A towering figure, easily reaching 240cm, with a build rivaling an Orc.

Its skin was a unique blend, predominantly blue with patches of red scattered across it.

Larger than even the massive Chieftain or the Mutant Goblin Warrior, it wielded a massive double-edged axe taller than a man, resembling a butcher’s tool stained with blood.

[You have encountered the Hidden Field Boss ‘Goblin Great Warrior Karuk.’]

[You have completed the Warrior’s Trial ‘Invasion’ with great success.]

[The ‘Warrior’s Trial’ is linked to the ‘Great Warrior’s Trial.’]

[The Goblin Great Warrior’s trial is ‘Bloodshed.’ The outcome of the rewards will vary depending on the performance.]

[Goblin Great Warrior Karuk]

-Title: Elite Named Hidden Field Boss

-Type: Goblin

-Traits: Great Warrior, Enhanced Physique, Berserker

-Description: Goblin Warrior, a title only the strongest warrior in the tribe can obtain. Among those warriors, only the strongest can earn the title of Great Warrior.

Born as a hybrid of the Red and Blue tribes, Karuk is a great warrior possessing the strengths of both.

‘An Elite Field Boss, huh….’

It was always tricky to gauge the strength of Elite bosses.

They *should* have clear ranks like Rare or Heroic, but most of them just had the ‘Elite’ modifier.

Still, it wasn’t impossible to predict.

‘He’s definitely stronger than the Chieftain.’

Probably on a completely different level.

He was a Field Boss, after all, with the Elite and Named modifiers attached.

The fact that he possessed the strengths of both the Red and Blue tribes, along with his traits and descriptions specializing in close combat, proved it.

‘Is he stronger than the Forest Field Boss?’

Do-hyun’s prediction was spot on.

Jihad, who had been silent the whole time, showed a rare sign of tension and spoke up.

-Be careful, Master. That guy is unbelievably strong, to say the least.

“Stronger than you?”

-Ahem! Of course, he’s weaker than me, but the Great Warrior is the strongest among the strongest warriors. And he was already a Great Warrior when I first met him 150 years ago.

In other words, no warrior stronger than him has appeared in over 150 years.

That’s what Jihad was trying to say.

Judging by Jihad’s reaction, it seemed like he had clashed with him before and had a hard time.

It was somewhat intriguing that Named entities had clashed.

‘This is going to be fun.’

A strongman acknowledged by the one who was the ruler of the forest.

How could I *not* be interested? Coincidentally, the theme of this trial is ‘Bloodshed.’ Feeling my blood pumping for the first time in a while, Do-hyun gripped his greatsword.

[Warrior Set is in effect.]

[7% additional damage is applied to Goblin-type enemies.]

[The ‘Intimidation’ effect is nullified due to the boss’s high rank.]

As I listened to the now-familiar notifications, our eyes met.

The hand holding the double-edged axe twitched.

Bang!

Both of us shot forward simultaneously, as if we had agreed to it.

Jihad shouted involuntarily.

-No! Direct confrontation is dangerous, Master!

I could feel the urgency in Jihad’s trembling voice.

That’s because Jihad had fought this Great Warrior before.

It wasn’t a proper fight, just a brief skirmish, but that was enough for him to feel Karuk’s strength.

Kieeeing-.

[Hidden Field Boss ‘Goblin Great Warrior Karuk’ is using ‘Merciless Strike.’]

Red energy gathered like dots and settled on the double-edged axe, instantly dyeing it red.

The double-edged axe was glowing red-hot, as if it had been thrown into a furnace.

*That’s* it.

-The sword will break the moment it touches! Evade!

Merciless Strike. A skill used by Berserker-type classes.

It’s just a skill that increases damage, a simple and straightforward skill that’s no different from a Strong Blow, but this strike was the core technique of Berserkers.

The Great Explosion of the Orc was in the same position as this Merciless Strike.

Although it was inferior to the Great Explosion in terms of pure destructive power, the true horror of this skill lay in ‘weapon destruction.’

A cheat-like effect that temporarily destroys weapons below Heroic grade.

Thanks to that, Berserkers demonstrated tremendous power in close combat.

‘My children were sliced apart in an instant by that!’

Jihad could still not forget how Karuk’s double-edged axe crushed his Undead like tofu with that strike.

Even after that, the ground split in two when Karuk struck the ground with his double-edged axe, and Jihad could still not forget the roar.

The fight ended when the one who had been damaged by the corpse explosion that he had reacted to quickly retreated after a brief staring contest, but if they had continued to fight, Jihad would have suffered considerable damage.

‘That’s suicide…!’

No matter how strong his devilish master was, this was not it.

There was no way a head-on fight between his master, whose strength was ghost-like elusive movements, and that destruction tank would work!

He couldn’t understand why his master, who couldn’t possibly not know that, was being stubborn.

But the deed was already done, and it was too late to back down now.

Whoong-!

The greatsword and the double-edged axe, swung at each other, were roaring as if they were about to make a metallic sound any moment.

The size of the two weapons alone was already twice as different.

Jihad, who had no doubt that the greatsword would shatter into pieces the moment they touched, covered his eyes with both hands.

He could see everything through the gaps between his fingers, but he couldn’t bear to watch properly without doing this.

-Aigo…….

It was the moment he squeezed one eye shut and prepared for the impact.

An unbelievable sight was caught in the field of vision seen through the gaps between his fingers. The moment the two swords clashed fiercely, as if to tear each other apart.

Sreuk-.

The feeling of the greatsword changed.

The sword path, which had been rushing in fiercely as if to tear everything apart, changed in an instant to a gentle energy as if to embrace everything.

The greatsword, which had absorbed the double-edged axe as softly as if watching Tai Chi [a Chinese martial art and form of exercise], naturally released the impact.

-Huh……?

Neither fast nor slow.

The two metal lumps, which had moved in harmony as if they had been matched from the beginning, flowed like water, and when he came to his senses, the situation was over.

Tung-!

The double-edged axe, with all its power drained, tapped the ground futilely.

……Kuluk?

Karuk tilted his head at the sight of the axe, which should have crushed human skulls like tofu, hitting the ground powerlessly.

Clearly, the skill was activated, but why?

He couldn’t understand the situation.

But Karuk didn’t stop at being flustered and swung the double-edged axe again.

Then the human stepped back to avoid it. Karuk nodded at the sight of it repeating a couple of times.

Kuluk.

He was convinced that the situation he couldn’t understand earlier was a coincidence.

If it wasn’t a coincidence, there was no way he would avoid a much weaker attack like that.

With that, Karuk prepared another powerful strike.

[Hidden Field Boss ‘Goblin Great Warrior’ is using ‘Great Strike.’]

Not as much as Merciless Strike, but a skill that exerts quite a strong power among the skills Karuk has.

This time, he had no doubt that he would blow that human’s head off.

But the moment it touched the greatsword that was extended once again.

Hwirik-.

The same situation as before was reproduced.

It scattered naturally without any sense of incongruity, as if it were a river swept away by a vast sea.

-……Huh? What did I just see?

Kuluk……?

Not only Karuk but even Jihad blinked blankly as if they couldn’t understand.

Do-hyun slightly raised the corners of his lips at the two pairs of eyes staring at him as if demanding an answer.

‘I was a little worried because it’s been a while, but I haven’t lost my touch yet.’

Do-hyun’s eyes were directed towards the empty air.

To be exact, to the skill window floating in the air.

[Parry]

-Rank: Common

-Restriction: Swordsman Class

-Description: Deflects attacks that come into contact with the sword.

Activated when used at the correct timing, and may fail if the timing is off.

-Effect: Deflects attacks when used at the correct timing.

Skills cannot be used during the parry motion, and attacks that cannot be touched or cannot be parried cannot be deflected.

-Cooldown: 4 seconds

‘I didn’t expect this to come out.’

The secret and key to all this magic.

Its identity was the swordsman’s only guard skill and a skill called a god-tier skill, Parry.

* * *

Parry.

A skill that deflects attacks as the word suggests, and a skill that only swordsman-type classes have.

Even if it is a legendary skill, it is a god-tier guard skill that can be deflected if the conditions are met, and it is called a god-tier skill with a short cooldown.

It is said that if tankers have ‘Royal Guard,’ swordsmen have Parry.

‘The problem is that no one uses it.’

But despite having such god-tier performance, Parry was a skill that no one used.

The reason was simple.

Because it was unbelievably difficult to succeed in parrying.

Parry is activated only when it comes into contact with the sword and must be activated at the correct timing, and this ‘correct timing’ was unbelievably picky.

“This…… is it even activated? Isn’t it just a decorative skill?”

“Why isn’t it activated?”

“No, I died twice trying to use Parry. Is this right?”

Even a skilled player would only succeed once out of five times, and that was the ‘correct timing.’

Moreover, that was when it was a simple attack with an obvious trajectory.

If you think about using it in a boss raid that is jumping around like crazy or in a player battle that involves psychological warfare, it was virtually lucky if you succeeded.

So, there were bound to be people who got hit by attacks that they could have avoided and died because they were messing around trying to use Parry once.

“Never party with a guy who uses Parry. That’s my sincere advice.”

“Fucking…… Parry is so annoying. Why are you copying it in a raid party after watching some amateur video?”

“It’s not called a troll generator for nothing, right?”

Thanks to that, users had no choice but to extremely avoid and even hate Parry.

It wasn’t for nothing that users hated low-level swordsmen with bad control.

Is a low-level swordsman with bad control using Parry?

It was better for your mental health to just leave, thinking that the try was a failure that day.

Then, is the position of high-ranking swordsmen different?

“Yeah, I don’t use it.”

“There’s no need to take the risk of using it. It doesn’t deflect it for sure…….”

“In the first place, is there even a situation where a swordsman needs to use Parry? I think there’s already a problem at the point where that situation comes out.”

The answer was no.

It is already a situation where the skill slots are limited to 13.

Unlike low levels where each skill is precious, when you reach high levels, you have to seriously consider the skill tree.

In that situation, there was no reason to fill the number of slots with Parry, leaving other good skills behind.

And apart from that, there was also the problem of the swordsman’s position itself.

A close-range dealer who is neither a tanker nor a sub-tanker.

There was not a situation where he had to take on aggro [taking on the responsibility of being attacked], so there were not many situations where he could use Parry.

“If it’s certain, maybe?”

“Honestly, it’s a skill that was made wrong. It’s not a common skill for nothing.”

“If you don’t want to get beaten to death, get a death penalty, and get beaten by party members after adopting it just by looking at the description, just throw it away. That’s my sincere advice.”

“There are occasionally geniuses…… but still, it’s not certain, so it’s ambiguous to use.”

Even more so if it’s a skill that you’re good at even if you succeed once out of five times.

Anyway, for that reason, Parry was a skill that only swordsmen could have, and it was also the only guard skill that swordsmen had, but it had become a neglected skill.

Of course, there were exceptions.

“Of course, if you’re Kaiser, it’s acceptable.”

“That person is not human. That’s why he’s tanking as a dealer. How can he succeed in all parries as if they were certain skills?”

“A person? How dare you say such blasphemous words to a god!”

“Kaiser, he is a god! Kaiser, he is a god!”

The reason why Kaiser can play the role of a complete tanker and engage in one-on-one battles even though he is a dealer.

It was no exaggeration to say that it was thanks to ‘Parry.’

There is a limit to simply dodging well and stabbing well to crush patterns.

As the difficulty of the boss increases, there is an inevitable limit.

It was Parry that filled that deficiency.

[Hidden Field Boss ‘Goblin Great Warrior Karuk’ is using ‘Great Strike.’]

[Successfully used skill ‘Parry’!]

[Deflects the attack.]

‘Yeah, this is the taste.’

Even attacks that are impossible to break through and have no prior action, and can only be avoided or blocked, can be chewed up without taking any damage if you succeed in ‘Parry’!

[Hidden Field Boss ‘Goblin Great Warrior Karuk’ is using ‘Rampage.’]

[Successfully used skill ‘Parry.’]

[Deflects the attack.]

-No way…….

Even this ‘Parry’ was able to deflect even combo skills.

The principle was that if you put the sword against the first skill and deflect it, the skill itself would be canceled.

Of course, it was a technique that required unbelievable skill, and it was difficult to succeed even if you told them to use the skill in advance.

Kwang- Sreuk-.

[Successfully used ‘Parry’!]

[Deflects the attack.]

-No, he’s deflecting *that*? Master, are you really human!? I don’t think it’s the talent of a demon, but a real demon?

In fact, it’s not just about these combo skills.