Normally you’d think they were out of their minds, chomping at the bit to bite without fear, but…
“Mmm.”
Right on cue, spears of light ripped in and slammed into the spot where Haesal had been. This was Dohaesal, the so-called shamelessly slick god-tier who somehow never took a single hit thanks to miracle movement.
[Party/Dohaesal: Burn their startup (*startup delay: the brief period you can’t act just before a skill fires) beforehand]
[Party/Dohaesal: I’m bringing them in]
At Hae-in’s quick call, PleasePunishThem cast a long-cast, non-targeted skill. And at that exact moment, the enemy team’s Striker revealed himself to land a clean hit on Haesal.
Like any mobile melee DPS, he snapped in fast, grabbed Haesal by the collar, and tried to drag him toward their base—when Haesal, as if bugging out, slid behind the enemy Striker.
What just happened? The instant the Striker swung his camera to find the Haesal who’d been right in front of him, Haesal had already opened up distance and applied DoT.
[System: <Blown Shower> ]
A small whirlwind spun up about five steps from Haesal and snagged the enemy Striker’s ankles. Naturally, the Striker wasn’t an idiot; he immediately used a back-step jump to escape the move-slow, but—
[System: <Eye of Typhoon> ]
—right where he’d land if he backpedaled, Haesal had planted a trap skill. A little tug forward, then a step back—exactly the movement Haesal wanted.
The Striker flailed his long lance as he was popped into the air. And at that same moment, PleasePunishThem carpet-bombed the in-game coordinate recognized as the Striker’s position.
[System: <Meteo Pluvia> ]
While you’re airborne and incapacitated, you can’t flee or counter until you hit the ground again.
[System: Dohaesal praises PleasePunishThem.]
Haesal tapped the default “praise” ping once, then dropped another persistent-damage field right where the Striker, whose HP bar was bottomed out, would land.
The snare itself didn’t deal much damage, but because Meteo had connected cleanly, the target was now under the Burn status, causing Wind-line skill damage to be applied at 150%.
Confirming the enemy Quartermaster was sprinting in, Hae-in quickly planted a mine-type skill near the enemy tower, then peeled back toward home base.
The enemy QM saw the Striker was unsalvageable and withdrew again.
[1 Assist! <PleasePunishThem> ▷ <SafeInstinct>]
Hae-in read the ticker at the top of the UI, then pushed forward toward enemy lines again. The enemy QM wouldn’t be back if he valued his life.
A melee had already gotten mauled; the next to come would be a ranged trying to use long reach to snare and rush Haesal down, or a tank. Either way was fine.
[Party/MidlifeHunter: Chipping enemy No. 3]
[Party/MidlifeHunter: Stage 1 will break soon]
Hae-in checked Mid-hun’s update and pressed even more boldly into the enemy’s middle. In normal circumstances, it would be a bat-crazy stunt that’d make you question his sanity, but that confidence came from absolute certainty he wouldn’t get hit.
He loitered right on the edge of the mine he’d planted earlier, and—StH is StH, even if it’s Dohaesal—apparently deciding they could just nab him and kill him before unseen backup arrived, the enemy team’s Berserker opened with an engage. But Hae-in’s movement was faster, and the swing glanced past.
You think he’s going to stand still for something that slow? Even if a Berserker’s a two-handed greatsword class with low move and attack speed, this was a simple matter of reaction time. Compared to a solo-climb tower boss, this was like getting told “dodge here” before the hit even came.
Hae-in feinted back and circled the tower; the Berserker, maybe thinking landing just one hit would be enough, lunged in long-striding. It was a duel between a greatsword that halves your HP in one swipe and a quick paper-thin target that dodges everything.
When Hae-in drifted behind him, the ranged, who’d linked up while the Berserker tried to pin Haesal’s feet, fired off multiple Lightning Bolts that skimmed Haesal’s flank—bzzzz.
[Party/Dohaesal: I’m going to hook the two of them at once]
[Party/Dohaesal: Wait]
At Haesal’s order, PleasePunishThem patiently held, waiting for the window. Dodging the vertical strikes of lightning from above, slipping through terrain so the melee couldn’t grab him, Hae-in kited them round and round the same patch until the enemy team was so tilted they couldn’t see straight—then suddenly cut toward the tower.
His round, fluffy tail bobbed with every step; his sweeping cape, all fairy-tale White Rabbit. With a character model whose perky rabbit ears drew aggro even standing still, the sudden move made the chasing Berserker use a dash to land melee damage on Haesal cornered at a dead end. And just as that cold blade was about to come down on Haesal’s head—
[System: Challenger’s Tower No. 3 alert has risen to Stage 2.]
A system message announced Mid-hun had scored; as the stars dropped from 3 to 2, the defense weakened and the tower would break faster. The Berserker chasing Haesal snapped to and back-stepped. Guard the tower, or gamble on the uncertain throat of a ranged? At that fork, the enemy Archmage turned first and retreated.
Then—boom. The mine Hae-in had planted detonated, its AoE popping both Berserker and Archmage into the air.
[System: <Lava Flow> ]
Where they lifted off, a river of flame surged in an instant and roared to life.
[System: <Hurricane Blast> ]
As Hae-in used an AoE that stacked the Burn state, PleasePunishThem’s DoT damage ballooned to 1.5x.
[2 Assists! <PleasePunishThem>▷<GamgyulSkin><SogunSogun>]
Having snatched up 30 points in a flash, PleasePunishThem, afraid it’d look like teabagging, didn’t dance and just zipped left and right, expressing joy with busy footwork.
Hae-in watched with a slightly displeased look. He’d set the whole table, and that guy just sat down and ate, yet the kills went to him—a very annoying situation, but it couldn’t be helped.
Storm Haste, depending on how you run it, is incredibly useful in both PvP and raids, and among support-line roles there’s nothing to match it. But solo, it’s not just paper—its damage is a mere spoon-scrape: a fatal flaw.
Why had Haesal become so used to that godly movement that drove the enemy team up the wall? Because he’d trained himself climbing the Tower of Pain, determined to chase Ignis’s achievements with this garbage class.
With a frail HP bar that went cold on the floor from a single mistake—whether mid-boss or floor boss—Hae-in, from the first year of high school, put a plan into action to clear to Floor 50 without taking a single hit.
Back then, Hae-in was just a dime-a-dozen, ordinary high-school gamer. He shut himself in the Tower of Pain and trained there like a madman. Die, and you start from Floor 1. Die again, back to the beginning.
Since the Tower fixed your gear to base stats, there was no angle to cheese it by leveling or gear upgrades. The only weapons available were Hae-in’s own physical growth and mental game.
People around him wondered, “Why on earth are you playing that game solo like a console title?” but Hae-in stubbornly kept climbing. If he thought Ignis-nim had climbed this road too, he could endure anything.
Even when, on an official live Q&A, a GM gave a roundabout “Probably difficult?”—basically “impossible”—to rumors of a madman attempting a solo Tower climb as StH, Hae-in didn’t bend.
The mechanism was simple anyway: never take a single hit, and scrape away with spoons and climb-items until it dies. To beat bosses not designed for 1v1 with a hard-counter class, he embraced every last bit of cheese—and at last, after a year, he succeeded. It was only natural that a Hae-in forged like that flew in PvP.
It’s the same now. Hae-in had just finished spoon-beating boss mobs whose reactions were creepily precise thanks to algorithms authored by OpenGames’ top AI experts. Any strategy a normal human brain could devise, he could predict at will. If I fall back here, they’ll chase there. If I retreat this much, they’ll give up. If I rub on this line, they’ll pounce. After a few clashes, it was obvious. Compared to AI whose thinking you couldn’t read at all, humans were easier.
[System: Challenger’s Tower No. 3 alert has risen to Stage 3.]
[System: Challenger’s Tower No. 1 alert has risen to Stage 2.]
While he and PleasePunishThem extended the enemy’s respawn timers, Hae-in scrolled through the messages showing guildmates steadily breaking towers, then gazed at the screen, unimpressed.
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