The Blood King logged out in a rush. Messages had started flooding in from guild members who were locked out of the game with death penalties. LOST only allowed for limited message checks, so to get a clear picture, he had no choice but to disconnect.

He burst out of the capsule and scrambled for his tablet. The moment he tapped the link one of his guildmates had sent, the screen connected him straight to Do-Jin’s live stream.

「Aaaaghhh!」

The first thing he heard was a scream that sounded like someone being fried alive. The problem was that both the voice and the face were all too familiar.

└ Lol what the hell is wrong with these Bloodshed Guild clowns?

└ What good’s money and gear if you get stomped this hard? Y’all can’t even bring down one mage.

└ And what the hell is Rōnin anyway? Are they some no-name guild? I heard they’re Japanese.

└ It looks like Bloodshed teamed up with them. I just searched on Lotranet and they’ve both been called out for PK and griefing before.

└ They’re a perfect match for each other. Or I guess it’s more like they’re dying side by side.

The chat was drowning in ridicule aimed at the Bloodshed Guild.

└ The fuck is this, how’s a mage wiping five dudes like they’re mobs?

└ Mage ain’t busted, this dude’s just built different. His spacing’s clean, cover usage’s insane, and he’s microing that summon like a god.

└ Nah the real cheat is how he always sets up the opener. Every fight he snipes the classes that counter mages right out the gate. Shit looks rehearsed.

└ Okay but come on. Level gap’s real. Do-Jin’s endgame tier easy, and these jokers look mid as hell. Still, pulling this off on a squishy mage is just fucked.

Eventually, the chat moved on from roasting the mediocre Bloodshed players to worshipping the untouchable Do-Jin. Viewers were gawking at his finesse, tossing praise like he was some kind of deity.

And honestly, how else were they supposed to react? No matter how much anyone tried to excuse it with level gaps, stacked gear, or some nonsense about summons, no one had ever seen a mage tearing through full four or five-man parties like it was nothing.

“Fuck... Fuck. Fucking hell!” With a loud crack, the Blood King hurled his tablet against the floor.

The brand-new screen split apart, spiderwebbing into a fucked-up mess of jagged lines and dead pixels. “I can’t end it like this. I won’t let it fucking end here!”

He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white and his brain burned as he tried to scrape together any kind of plan to turn this disaster around.

He was supposed to get his revenge on Do-Jin. He was supposed to use that win to polish his guild’s mage. Instead of the big comeback he’d been expecting, everything went straight to shit. He hadn’t even managed to get his revenge, and the guild’s reputation wasn’t just ruined; it was ground into the dirt, stomped flat, and dragged through the mud until there was nothing left to salvage.

└ Fucking idiots, lol.

That single line from some commenter flashed across the shattered, mosaic-looking screen. It hit like a knife through his chest.

Fucking retards. All of you useless fucks couldn’t even take down one guy, and now look at the shitstorm I’m stuck with.

He was suffocating with rage. Between the bastard who had started all this, the Rōnin Guild, and even his own guildmates, he hated every last one of them.

Do you fuckers even know how much money I’ve sunk into you? he thought, grinding his teeth.

At this point, the only answer left was to hunt that bastard down and kill him.

He’s streaming. That means his position and movements are out there for everyone to see. If anything, that should make tracking him even easier.

With a plan in mind, he flopped down into his capsule, only to freeze as the commentary drifted in from the stream left open.

「That’s it for me tonight, everyone. Two big fights back-to-back kind of wore me out. And honestly, this feels like the perfect time for Bloodshed or Rōnin to lose their shit and come charging at me after watching the stream.」

“What?!” The Blood King jerked upright, snatching up his broken tablet as Do-Jin’s noisy, static-filled voice continued crackling out.

「Whatever you guys say, I’m done for now. If you want me to keep streaming in this state, that’d be the same as asking me to die out here.」

To the viewers spamming the chat and begging for more, Do-Jin just smiled, waved, and gave his farewell.

「I’m off to grab dinner. Hope you all eat well too.」

With that, the stream cut short, and the Blood King was left standing there like a dumb mutt chasing chickens.

“GRARGH!” Blinded by rage, he slammed his tablet into the wall. The thing shattered so badly that it would cost less to buy a new one than try to fix it.

A few moments later, he logged into the game, his voice boiling with fury as he barked his orders. “Find him. I don’t care how. Hunt him down and tear him to fucking pieces!”

“B-but Guildmaster, searching right now won’t do anything. The scouts outside say he logged off. He said he went to grab dinner—”

At that, Blood King grabbed the idiot by the collar and yanked him close, eyes blazing. “I saw the same shit you did. I watched him spew that bullshit in real time. And do you actually believe that crap? You really think he just logged off to eat dinner? You fucking believe him?”

And he was right. Do-Jin, the smug bastard, had fed his audience that little bedtime story, then immediately went out and wiped another couple of parties from both guilds before finally calling it a night.

“Lock the place down. Sweep it like a goddamn net. Close the gaps and scour every inch until we flush him out. He’s not getting away. Not this time.”

Do-Jin might have logged off as he had said, or he might just be lying low somewhere. Either way, none of Blood King’s men were getting any rest tonight.

***

Do-Jin hounded them like a demon. He would log in just long enough to wipe out an entire party, then vanish again. Sometimes he turned on his stream right before a raid, just to make them look like clowns, then disappeared without a trace. Other times he poked at them every three hours, keeping the chase alive just long enough to shred their nerves. At this point, the two guilds couldn’t even tell if they were chasing Do-Jin or if he was chasing them.

“Guildmaster, the members are completely exhausted. We should call this off before it gets any worse.”

It was inevitable that talk of pulling out would start bubbling up among the guild members. But the Blood King, already past the point of reason, wasn’t listening.

“Shut the fuck up! You think we can pull out now after all this? If we turn tail and run here, that’s it. The guild’s finished for good!”

One man nearly shouted back, “What the fuck do you think is even left of this guild, you dumb bastard?” However, he swallowed those words. He needed Blood King to pay out compensation for the gear, experience, and other losses they’d already racked up during this disaster of an operation.

“Any equipment, XP, or other losses from dying during this operation will be covered by me, the guildmaster. Don’t worry about that shit and focus on hunting the bastard down,” the Blood King had reassured them.

No one could say whether he would actually keep that promise with the damage already this bad, but for the guild members who had lost more than they could stomach, that promise was the only rope they had left to cling to.

Meanwhile, members who had been lucky enough not to run into Do-Jin or get sent inside the valley were already bailing. To make things worse, the Rōnin Guild announced they were pulling out too.

“We’re done here. Forcing our people to keep bleeding like this isn’t something we can back anymore.”

The Blood King snapped, “If you pull out now, who the hell is supposed to hold the blockade? What happens to the ones still combing the gorge?”

“That isn’t our problem,” they answered coldly.

With Rōnin gone, the valley blockade was about to collapse. Blood King wanted to throw money at them to make them stay, but even that wasn’t possible anymore.

The plan’s fucked. If things had gone smoothly, I could’ve juggled the funds. Now I can barely cover the compensation we already owe.

The truth was, the Blood King had poured every last piece of gold into this relentless pursuit.

“Then we’ll wish you luck.”

With that, the Rōnin Guild walked away from the fight. They felt they had no choice. Since Do-Jin had started streaming, their guild had been dragged through the mud as well.

└ How can they be this pathetic? Typical Japanese.

└ Y’all are a disgrace. Just kill yourselves already. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

└ Just because they role-play as samurai doesn’t mean they’re even Japanese.

└ Die.

With shit like that flying around, it was only a matter of time before the Rōnin Guild collapsed.

By the time both Bloodshed and Rōnin had bled themselves dry and were staggering under the weight of their own humiliation, Do-Jin finally spoke up on stream.

「You lot look about as tired as I am. Maybe it’s time we end this dragged-out fight in a way that works for both sides. You send out your rep, and I’ll step forward on my side. We can settle this one-on-one.」

It was the kind of call-out that everyone loved to see, a straight-up throwdown.