Chapter Text
The dim, ambient glow of two mismatched monitors illuminated Kim Dokja’s cramped bedroom, casting long shadows across cluttered stacks of gaming magazines, empty mug rings, and loose sticky notes covered in hand-written strategy annotations. Outside his window, Seoul was buried under a quiet midnight drizzle, but inside the tiny studio apartment, the air hummed with the soft whir of a strained computer fan and the faint click-clack of a cheap mechanical keyboard.
Dokja rubbed his tired eyes, adjusting his worn headset. His day job at Minosoft’s QA department had dragged on for ten grueling hours, leaving his neck stiff and his eyes dry. Most people in his position would have crashed onto a futon the moment they walked through the door. But for Dokja, the night was just beginning.
He moved his cursor over the green Go Live button on his streaming software.
His channel name, Demon King of Salvation, wasn’t flashy. He didn’t wear neon-lit headphones, he didn’t stream with a facecam, and he certainly didn’t scream into a hyper-sensitive microphone whenever something exciting happened on screen. His stream setup was simple: a capture card, a clean display layout, a dark background with a minimalist chat box on the left, and a soft, quiet voice that walked viewers through the granular mechanics of competitive gaming.
He clicked the button.
Within seconds, the viewer counter spiked from zero to its usual modest baseline.
[Viewer Count: 42]
[Chat - Reader_001: evening streamer]
[Chat - GrassEater: dokja-ssi you're late by six minutes]
[Chat - LemonTea: helloooo]
A subtle smile touched Dokja’s lips. He adjusted his microphone boom arm, leaning back in his creaking office chair.
"Good evening, everyone," Dokja said, his voice smooth, low, and even. "Sorry for the late start. Overtime at the office ran long today. Hope everyone had a decent Tuesday."
The chat moved at a gentle, readable pace—a rare luxury on a platform dominated by hyperactive mega-streams where messages blurred past in an unreadable stream of emote spam. Dokja’s regular viewers were mostly tactical enthusiasts, casual gamers looking to improve their rank, or night owls who used his calm commentary as background noise to fall asleep.
[Moderator - InsectCollector joined the channel]
[Moderator - ChimeraMaster joined the channel]
[Chat - InsectCollector: Ahjeossi! Did you see the new patch notes for Star Stream?]
[Chat - ChimeraMaster: Ahjeossi did you eat dinner yet??? Don't skip meals again!!]
Dokja chuckled softly, opening his moderation dashboard to give a quick mental nod to his two most reliable moderators. Off-stream, they were Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung—two middle-school kids who had somehow stumbled onto his stream months ago and appointed themselves as his fierce digital guardians.
"I ate a convenience store rice ball on the subway home, Yoosung-ah, don't worry," Dokja replied into the mic. "And yes, Gilyoung, I saw the patch notes. The nerf to the Agility scaling on shadow-type builds is going to completely shake up the high-tier rankings this season. Which actually brings us to what we're looking at tonight."
Dokja dragged a browser window over to his main screen, capturing the live feed of the top-ranked player on the Asia-East server for Star Stream, the hyper-competitive arena game that currently dominated the global gaming scene.
The player handle at the top of the leaderboards was iconic, written in bold, stark lettering: SupremeKing.
[Chat - SwordMaster99: WOAH Supreme King live??]
[Chat - GrassEater: wait he never streams with audio though]
[Chat - LemonTea: classic SupremeKing, zero commentary, 100% violence]
"As usual, Joonghyuk-ssi—I mean, SupremeKing—isn't broadcasting audio or a camera," Dokja explained, pulling up a secondary window on his right monitor to track live game data, player position coordinates, and skill cooldown meters in real-time. "He’s currently queued in a High-Radiant solo-rank match. He’s running a high-risk, high-reward Heavy Blade build. It's quarter past midnight, so he's likely testing structural limitations before the regional qualifiers next month."
On screen, the gameplay was dizzying. Star Stream was notorious for its unforgiving mechanics, where a single miscalculated micro-step or a millisecond delay in skill execution meant instant death. SupremeKing’s character—a towering warrior clad in midnight-black armor wielding a massive dark broadsword—moved through the complex, ruin-filled map with terrifying, methodical precision.
Dokja took a sip of lukewarm barley tea from his mug, his eyes narrowing slightly as he analyzed the screen. To the average viewer, SupremeKing was an unstoppable force of nature, a legendary prodigy who won through pure, unadulterated mechanics and overwhelming reaction time.
But Dokja knew better.
Dokja had watched every single archived match, every tournament vod, and every high-tier ladder replay featuring SupremeKing over the last three years. He knew the player’s habits better than he knew his own coworkers. He knew that when SupremeKing was stressed, his mouse cursor twitched twice toward the bottom-left map corner. He knew that SupremeKing preferred a 0.2-second delay before triggering a parry to bait attacks. He knew the exact rhythm of how the man thought.
"Notice his spacing," Dokja murmured, leaning forward so his face was inches from the monitor glass. "Most top-tier players in this situation would back off toward the high-ground objective to reset their cooldowns. But look at his stamina bar. He’s deliberately letting it drop below twenty percent."
[Chat - Reader_001: wait why would he do that? isn't that throwing?]
[Chat - GrassEater: if he gets hit once with low stamina he gets stunned for 3 seconds]
"Because he knows his opponents are tracking his status indicators," Dokja said calmly, clicking his mouse to highlight a quadrant of the minimap for his viewers. "He's baiting them. In about five seconds, the enemy team’s vanguard is going to round that corner, expecting an easy punishment. Watch."
Dokja leaned back, resting his chin in his palm as he watched the digital arena unfold. His modest room was silent except for his calm voice talking through the micro-interactions.
"You see, most streamers on this platform rely on high-energy reactions to keep people watching," Dokja continued softly, noticing a few new names trickling into the viewer list. "They yell when a big hit lands or play heavy music in the background. But Star Stream at this level isn't about hype. It's chess played at two hundred miles an hour."
[Chat - InsectCollector: Ahjeossi, explain his gear stats again!]
[Chat - ChimeraMaster: Yeah, why did he pick the Obsidian Edge instead of the Dragon Slayer blade?]
"Good question, Yoosung," Dokja said, bringing up a side-by-side stat comparison graphic he had made earlier that week. "The Dragon Slayer blade gives a raw fifteen percent boost to attack power, which looks great on paper. But the Obsidian Edge has a hidden passive scaling mechanic that interacts directly with his class tree. SupremeKing sacrifices early-game damage for late-game cooldown reductions."
He gestured with his cursor over the stat trees, highlighting the exact numerical thresholds.
"In a five-on-five team fight, that extra cooldown reduction allows him to cycle his primary defensive skill twice in a single engagement. That’s the difference between wiping an enemy team and getting eliminated instantly. He doesn't pick weapons because they look cool or hit hard once; he picks them because they optimize his action frames per second."
[Chat - SwordMaster99: man knows the entire game code by heart]
[Chat - GrassEater: I've learned more in 15 mins here than watching official esports broadcasts for 2 years]
"It's just observation," Dokja said, taking another quiet sip of his tea. "If you pay attention to the patterns, everything makes sense. SupremeKing doesn't make random choices. Every click of his mouse, every position adjustment, and every skill usage is calculated."
On screen, SupremeKing’s character continued to navigate the hazardous terrain, entirely unaware that in a tiny apartment on the other side of the city, an obscure streamer with forty viewers was dissecting his mind frame-by-frame.
"Let's monitor his health bar carefully as he approaches the middle lane," Dokja added, pulling up his overlay to prepare for the upcoming clash. "This next skirmish will prove exactly what I'm talking about."
The electronic map overlay on Dokja’s right monitor shifted from a dull gray to a stark, warning crimson. On the official broadcast feed for Star Stream, the main caster’s voice—faintly audible through Dokja’s second audio channel—had spiked into a frantic, high-pitched register.
"—and that’s the collapse! SupremeKing is completely cut off from the northern retreat route! His team’s support was picked off in the river basin ten seconds ago, leaving him stranded in the Narrow Ruins with zero backup!"
Dokja adjusted his headset, his gaze fixed on the mini-map. The dark, atmospheric ruins of the game’s central arena were a death trap for a heavy-armored class. Narrow stone corridors, broken pillars, and tight choke points favored ambushes, making rapid retreats impossible.
[Viewer Count: 48]
[Chat - GrassEater: oh man he's totally trapped]
[Chat - Reader_001: 1v3 at High-Radiant rank is basically impossible though]
[Chat - LemonTea: yeah even SupremeKing can't survive this one, look at the enemy team composition]
The enemy players surrounding SupremeKing were not random ladder players. They were three seasoned professionals from competing regional teams: a High-Tier Shadow Assassin, a Frost Elementalist, and a Shield Vanguard. It was a textbook lockdown team. The Vanguard would absorb initial damage, the Elementalist would apply crowd-control freezes from safety, and the Assassin would execute from behind once the target was immobilized.
On screen, SupremeKing’s character— clad in midnight-black armor, wielding the colossal Obsidian Edge—stood motionless near the center of a sunken stone courtyard. His health bar sat at a modest sixty percent, while his stamina bar was sitting dangerously low at under twenty percent.
[Moderator - InsectCollector: Ahjeossi, can SupremeKing use his ultimate skill to jump over the wall?]
"No, Gilyoung-ah," Dokja said into his microphone, his voice remaining quiet, measured, and entirely devoid of the panic echoing through the official broadcast channels. "His ultimate skill, Stygian Cleave, has a forty-five second cooldown remaining. Even if it were up, the wall geometry in the Narrow Ruins exceeds the vertical leap trajectory by three meters. Jumping would just pin him against the collision mesh, making him an easy target for the Frost Elementalist's root spell."
[Moderator - ChimeraMaster: Then he has to run backward toward the health shrine, right?]
"If he turns his back to run toward the shrine, the Shadow Assassin gets a guaranteed hundred-percent critical strike multiplier on backstab damage," Dokja explained smoothly, zooming in his camera capture tool onto SupremeKing’s character model. "He won't run. In fact, if you watch his character's stance, he isn't preparing to defend at all."
[Chat - SwordMaster99: wait, if he isn't running and isn't defending, what is he doing?]
"He's setting up a trap," Dokja said simply. He took a slow sip from his mug of lukewarm barley tea, resting his elbow on the desk as his eyes darted across the secondary status-tracking monitor. "Most commentators right now are looking at his low stamina bar and assuming he made a mistake during the previous skirmish. The mainstream casters are literally calling this an unwinnable situation."
Through Dokja’s secondary audio feed, the official caster shouted: "—SupremeKing is caught with under twenty percent stamina! He can't even cast a basic dodge roll! This match is as good as over, folks!"
Dokja shook his head slightly, a small, quiet smile touching the corner of his lips.
"They're reading the HUD, but they aren't reading the player," Dokja murmured to his chat. "SupremeKing didn't accidentally drain his stamina. He deliberately let his stamina drop below twenty percent three seconds ago by holding a charged stance against an empty corridor."
[Chat - GrassEater: wait WHY would anyone deliberately drop their stamina in front of three pros???]
[Chat - Reader_001: isn't low stamina a guaranteed stun if he gets hit?]
"Normally, yes," Dokja replied, moving his cursor to highlight the boot icon in SupremeKing’s inventory panel. "Because lower-tier players see stamina purely as a resource for movement. But SupremeKing is wearing the Abyssal Strider Boots. Their passive ability, Desperate Footwork, triggers only when the user's stamina drops below twenty percent. It grants a hidden, unlisted fifteen percent burst to movement speed and animation recovery frames."
Dokja clicked his mouse, bringing up a custom spreadsheet he had built months ago to track item interaction formulas.
"The enemy team knows SupremeKing's skill cooldowns, but they are tracking his standard movement speed," Dokja continued, his voice calm and rhythmic, as if he were reading an entry from an old instruction manual. "They see a low-stamina, slow-moving heavy-warrior isolated in a choke point. They think they have a guaranteed kill. Because of that confidence, they are about to make three consecutive micro-errors, and SupremeKing is going to punish every single one of them."
[Chat - LemonTea: ok dokja-ssi call the play then! what happens first?]
[Chat - SwordMaster99: yeah prove it! call the play before it happens!]
Dokja leaned closer to his monitor, his dark eyes reflecting the sharp neon lights of the game interface. His expression focused intently, stripping away the chaotic visual effects of the game until only the raw, logical underlying structure remained.
"All right," Dokja said softly. "Let's break down the next twelve seconds step-by-step."
He pointed his cursor at the left side of the screen, where the enemy Shield Vanguard was rounding the stone pillar.
"First: The Shield Vanguard will enter the courtyard first, using Shield Bash to initiate the stun chain. He thinks SupremeKing will attempt to block or dodge. But SupremeKing won't dodge. Dodging consumes stamina, which would reset his Abyssal Strider passive speed boost. Instead, SupremeKing will stand completely still and absorb the initial strike directly onto his passive armor barrier."
[Chat - InsectCollector: Won't that take his health down to critical???]
"Yes," Dokja answered without hesitation. "It will drop his health bar into the red zone—somewhere around eight to ten percent. And that is precisely where he wants it."
Dokja clicked his mouse to highlight the second enemy player on the minimap—the Frost Elementalist hovering near the back entrance.
"Second: The moment the Vanguard's attack lands, the Frost Elementalist will begin casting Glacial Chains to lock SupremeKing in place while his armor is down. The cast time for Glacial Chains is exactly 0.8 seconds. Watch SupremeKing's character model. He won't cast his counter-parry immediately when the spell animation starts. Most players panic and parry in the first frame, which allows experienced casters to delay their spell release and bait the shield out."
Dokja took a breath, lowering his voice slightly as his cursor hovered over the center of the arena.
"SupremeKing won't fall for a bait. He knows the exact audio latency on this server map. He will wait for the precise frame of the third frost pulse—0.6 seconds into the casting animation—then trigger his broadsword's Reflective Frame skill. The spell will reflect directly back onto the Elementalist, freezing the caster instead."
[Chat - Reader_001: wait wait wait... reflecting a spell off an audio cue on a 0.6 second delay???]
[Chat - GrassEater: that timing window is literally 2 frames wide bro that's humanly impossible]
"It's not impossible for him," Dokja corrected mildly. "He's practiced that exact counter-timing in over six hundred ladder matches this season alone. His muscle memory executes it automatically."
Dokja shifted his focus to the upper right corner of the courtyard display.
"Third: The Shadow Assassin is currently hiding in stealth behind the northern pillar, waiting to execute SupremeKing as soon as the freeze lands. When the Elementalist gets frozen by the reflected spell instead, the Assassin's plan breaks down. The Assassin will be forced to attack immediately to finish off SupremeKing's remaining eight percent health before the freeze wears off."
Dokja tapped his desk with a fingernail, keeping time with an invisible metronome.
"The Assassin will attempt a high-speed Shadow Step behind SupremeKing's back. But because SupremeKing's health is below ten percent, his weapon’s secondary passive effect—Vengeful Retribution—activates. It allows him to cancel his basic attack animation using a weapon swap command."
Dokja leaned back in his chair, taking a slow, quiet breath into the microphone.
"So here is the final sequence," Dokja declared softly, speaking as if he were simply recounting an event that had already occurred in the past. "SupremeKing will absorb the Vanguard's strike to drop his health into the red. He will wait for the third frost pulse to reflect the Elementalist's spell. The moment the spell reflects, he will turn 180 degrees, execute a basic attack, instantly cancel the attack animation using a weapon-swap macro, and strike the Assassin coming out of stealth before the Assassin's blade even connects."
[Chat - ChimeraMaster: AND THEN WHAT ABOUT THE VANGUARD???]
"The Vanguard will be isolated with all his defensive cooldowns spent," Dokja concluded smoothly. "SupremeKing will catch the Vanguard's retreat roll using the fifteen percent movement speed burst from his Abyssal Strider Boots, complete an unblockable heavy sweep, and clear the room. Total time elapsed: less than ten seconds."
[Chat - SwordMaster99: bro made up a whole movie script in his head lol]
[Chat - GrassEater: if even 10% of this happens I will donate 50,000 bits]
[Chat - Reader_001: watching the main broadcast... the enemy team is moving in RIGHT NOW]
On screen, the action exploded into motion.
The Shield Vanguard rounded the stone pillar, his massive iron kite shield glowing with blue energy as he activated Shield Bash, lunging directly at SupremeKing.
The main stream casters screamed into their microphones: "THERE'S THE ENGAGE! THE VANGUARD LANDS THE BAS—WAIT!"
Just as Dokja had said, SupremeKing did not move. He did not dodge. He did not raise his blade to block. He stood completely still, taking the full impact of the massive iron shield directly to his chest armor. A bright red damage number burst across the screen.
[SupremeKing HP: 9%]
"HE TOOK THE FULL HIT! HIS HEALTH IS IN THE RED!" the official caster yelled, his voice cracking with excitement. "THE FROST ELEMENTALIST IS CASTING GLACIAL CHAINS TO FINISH HIM!"
In the sunken courtyard, icy particles began to swirl around the Frost Elementalist's hands as the casting circle appeared beneath SupremeKing's feet.
Pulse one... Pulse two...
SupremeKing remained motionless, his dark broadsword lowered.
[Chat - LemonTea: DOKJA-SSI HE'S NOT PARRYING]
[Chat - InsectCollector: AHJEOSSI WAS WRONG???]
Pulse three—
In a fraction of a second so fast it barely registered on the broadcast render, SupremeKing’s character executed a micro-pivot. The black steel of the Obsidian Edge flashed with a pale gray aura as he triggered Reflective Frame on the exact frame Dokja had predicted.
CLANG!
A sharp, crystalline shatter echoed through the audio feed. The frost spell instantly ricocheted backward across the courtyard, encasing the enemy Frost Elementalist in a solid block of blue ice.
"WHAT A PARRY!" the official caster roared. "SUPREMEKING REFLECTS THE SPELL! BUT THE SHADOW ASSASSIN IS RIGHT BEHIND HIM—"
From the shadows of the northern pillar, the enemy Assassin materialized, his twin daggers glowing with dark poison as he executed a high-speed Shadow Step aimed directly at SupremeKing's exposed back.
SupremeKing did not turn around using a standard turn command.
Instead, his character model twitched violently—an animation cancel triggered by swapping his primary weapon slot to his off-hand focus and back within a single frame. The broadsword swept around in a blinding, instantaneous 180-degree arc before the Assassin's daggers could travel two inches.
SLASH!
The heavy black blade caught the Assassin mid-dash, carving through his low-armor class in a single, devastating critical strike.
[ENEMY ELIMINATED - Shadow Assassin]
"HE CANCELED THE ANIMATION!" the caster screamed, completely losing his composure. "HOW DID HE TURN AROUND THAT FAST?! THE ASSASSIN IS DOWN!"
The remaining Shield Vanguard, realizing his entire team had collapsed in the span of three seconds, immediately initiated a backward dodge roll to create distance and escape toward the high-ground corridor.
SupremeKing did not chase on foot.
The moment the Vanguard's roll animation began, SupremeKing’s character accelerated with an unnatural, fifteen percent speed surge—the passive effect of the Abyssal Strider Boots triggering off his low stamina bar. He closed the gap in a fraction of a second, raising his massive broadsword overhead and executing an unblockable heavy sweep that shattered the Vanguard's remaining armor.
CRACK!
[ENEMY ELIMINATED - Shield Vanguard]
[ENEMY ELIMINATED - Frost Elementalist]
[TRIPLE KILL]
[VICTORY]
The massive crimson banner flashed across the top of SupremeKing's feed, announcing the end of the match. The entire 1v3 engagement had taken precisely eight point six seconds.
For several seconds, Dokja’s stream chat was completely dead silent. Not a single viewer typed a message.
Then, the chatbox exploded into an unreadable, chaotic stampede of scrolling text.
[Chat - GrassEater: WHAT THE ACTUAL FECK]
[Chat - Reader_001: EVERY SINGLE MOVE]
[Chat - Reader_001: HE PREDICTED EVERY SINGLE MOVE FRAME BY FRAME]
[Chat - SwordMaster99: THE STANDING STILL, THE PARRY TIMING, THE ANIMATION CANCEL, THE BOOT PASSIVE]
[Chat - LemonTea: ARE YOU A TIME TRAVELER????]
[Chat - InsectCollector: AHJEOSSI IS A GOD]
[Chat - ChimeraMaster: AHJEOSSI WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!]
[Chat - GrassEater: I AM DONATING RIGHT NOW HOLY SHIT]
[User 'GrassEater' has gifted 50,000 Bits!]
[User 'Reader_001' has subscribed for 12 months!]
[User 'SwordMaster99' has gifted 5 Subscriptions!]
Alert bells and celebration notifications began chiming softly through Dokja’s audio setup as his small viewer base went wild.
Dokja quietly picked up his glass of barley tea, taking another slow, composed sip as he watched the official broadcast casters on his secondary monitor practically tearing their hair out in confusion over how SupremeKing had pulled off the turn-around.
"See?" Dokja said mildly, his tone entirely relaxed, as if he had just explained how to boil an egg. "It looks chaotic on the surface, but like I said earlier, SupremeKing is an entirely logical player. He doesn't act on emotion or luck. Every input he makes is designed to yield the highest statistical probability of success based on the mechanics available to him."
[Chat - GrassEater: "LOGICAL PLAYER" DOKJA YOU LITERALLY CALLED OUT HIS ANIMATION CANCEL THREE SECONDS BEFORE HE PRESSED THE BUTTON]
[Chat - Reader_001: bro explained a legendary 1v3 play like it was a grocery list]
"It's just basic pattern recognition, guys," Dokja said with a faint chuckle, shrugging his shoulders as he leaned back into the worn fabric of his office chair. "If you watch enough of his match vods, you start to see the framework behind his playstyle. Anyone could do it if they took the time to study his frame data."
[Chat - LemonTea: literally nobody else in the world does this???]
[Chat - SwordMaster99: the main esports casters with 200k viewers didn't even realize he had the boot passive active!]
"That's just because the main broadcast focuses on hype rather than analysis," Dokja said smoothly, moving his cursor over to minimize SupremeKing's stream capture window. "Anyway, now that his match is over, let's take a look at the tactical map changes for the upcoming Season 4 patch..."
Dokja continued talking, his quiet, calm voice filling the small, dark room, entirely oblivious to the fact that a user in his chat had quietly clipped the last four minutes of his stream, saved it to their desktop, and began uploading it to social media with a title that was about to shatter his quiet life forever.
The harsh, incessant buzzing of a smartphone against a bare wooden nightstand was a sound Kim Dokja inherently despised.
It was 6:15 AM. Outside his apartment window, the early morning sun was barely peeking through the smoggy horizon of Seoul, painting his small, cluttered bedroom in a cold, muted gray. Dokja groaned, untangling his legs from his thin summer blanket and burying his face deeper into his flat pillow, hoping if he ignored the vibration long enough, the universe would show mercy and let him sleep for another twenty minutes.
BZZZZ. BZZZZ. BZZZZ.
The phone didn't stop. In fact, the vibrations sped up—the distinct, aggressive rhythm of back-to-back KakaoTalk notification alerts interspersed with direct incoming calls.
With a heavy, long-suffering sigh, Dokja blindly reached out from beneath the covers, his fingers groping around the messy surface of his nightstand past empty mugs and loose pens until his palm slapped against the warm glass of his phone. He dragged the device to his face, wincing at the harsh white screen glare that pierced through his bleary, half-closed eyes.
There were forty-two missed calls and over three hundred unread messages.
Every single one of them was from a single contact name saved in his phone as Han Sooyoung (Do Not Answer).
Before Dokja’s sleepy brain could fully process the absurd number of notifications, the screen shifted to an incoming call layout. The contact picture—a cropped photo of Han Sooyoung aggressively chewing a lollipop while wearing oversized sunglasses—flashed rhythmically.
Dokja swiped the green icon and brought the phone to his ear, keeping his eyes shut. "Sooyoung-ah... do you have any idea what time—"
"Dokja," Han Sooyoung’s voice blasted through the speaker, so sharp, loud, and thoroughly awake that Dokja reflexively pulled the phone three inches away from his ear. "Tell me you're looking at your computer screen right now. Tell me you aren't sitting there like an idiot sleeping through the biggest digital explosion of the year."
"I am sitting here like an idiot trying to sleep before my ten-hour shift at Minosoft," Dokja rasped, his voice rough and raspy from lack of rest. "What are you talking about?"
"Look at the link I just sent you!" she barked, the sound of rapid, aggressive keyboard clacking audible in her background. "Forget your stupid day job for five minutes and open your KakaoTalk! Do it now, or I swear I’m ordering twenty boxes of unflavored protein powder to your apartment address and making you pay cash on delivery."
Dokja groaned again, sitting up on the edge of his futon. He rubbed the back of his stiff neck, opening his messaging app with his thumb. Right at the top of their chat thread, past dozens of frantic single-word texts reading WAKE UP, DOKJA, ANSWER, and YOU IDIOT, was a single URL link.
"What is this?" Dokja asked, tapping the link.
"It’s your funeral, or your coronation, depending on how fast you can adapt," Sooyoung replied, her tone a chaotic mix of cackling amusement and genuine disbelief. "Just watch the video."
The link redirected directly to StarTube, the primary global video-sharing platform. The moment the page loaded, Dokja’s thumb froze over the glass.
The video had been uploaded at roughly 2:30 AM by a prominent clip-aggregation channel called Esports Highlights Central. In less than four hours, the video had racked up an astounding 3.8 million views, over 200,000 likes, and had climbed to the absolute #1 trending spot across the entire nation.
The thumbnail featured a split graphic: on the right was a heavily edited, dramatic screenshot of Yoo Joonghyuk’s dark, brooding game avatar standing amidst the ruins of the arena; on the left was a stylized, dark silhouette of a headphone-wearing streamer with a giant red question mark over the face.
Across the top of the thumbnail in bright, neon-yellow font were the words:
THE ONLY PERSON WHO KNOWS THE SUPREME KING’S MIND
Dokja stared at the screen, his stomach taking a sudden, uncomfortable plunge toward his shoes. "Sooyoung... what is this?"
"Read the title, you illiterate fool," Sooyoung snapped lightly. "Someone in your chat last night captured your entire stream segment during Joonghyuk’s 1v3 play. They did a side-by-side edit. They synced your voice commentary down to the exact millisecond he executed every single move."
Dokja clicked play on the video with a trembling hand.
The editing was terrifyingly high quality. On the left side of the frame was Dokja’s clean, minimal stream capture—his quiet, low-key voice talking calmly into his microphone. On the right side was Joonghyuk’s high-definition tournament POV feed.
As Dokja watched, his own voice echoed softly from the phone speaker:
”—SupremeKing won't dodge. Dodging consumes stamina... He will stand completely still and absorb the initial strike directly onto his passive armor barrier...”
On the right side of the screen, Joonghyuk’s character stood still, taking the massive hit from the Shield Vanguard. A dramatic DING! sound effect played in the video edit, highlighting the word PREDICTED in green text over the screen.
”—He will wait for the precise frame of the third frost pulse—0.6 seconds into the casting animation—then trigger his broadsword's Reflective Frame skill...”
DING! The video editor flashed another green marker: EXACT FRAME TIMING.
”—...turn 180 degrees, execute a basic attack, instantly cancel the attack animation using a weapon-swap macro, and strike the Assassin coming out of stealth...”
DING! DING! DING!
The video concluded with Dokja’s calm, almost bored declaration: "It's just basic pattern recognition, guys. If you study his playstyle long enough, his next move becomes as obvious as reading a book."
The video cut to black, ending with a dramatic bass drop and text asking viewers to like, subscribe, and check out the analyst’s channel: @DemonKingOfSalvation.
Dokja sat in complete, dead silence on the edge of his bed. His room suddenly felt very cold.
"Are you still breathing over there, Kim Dokja?" Sooyoung asked through the line.
"I..." Dokja swallowed hard, his throat dry. "I was just doing a routine mechanical breakdown for forty people, Sooyoung. I wasn't trying to..."
"You weren't trying to go viral, but you did," Sooyoung interrupted, a wicked grin evident in her voice. "And it isn't just that one clip. Do you have any idea what’s happening on social media right now? Search your channel handle."
Dokja dragged himself up off his futon, walking over to his desk with his phone pressed to his ear. He clicked his computer monitor awake and opened his browser.
The social media platform X (formerly Twitter) was practically melting down under the trending gaming section.
#1 Trending in South Korea: DemonKingOfSalvation
#2 Trending in South Korea: SupremeKing mind reader
#3 Trending in South Korea: StarStream Animation Cancel
Dokja opened his streaming platform dashboard, and his heart nearly stopped.
Yesterday morning, his channel, Demon King of Salvation, had a modest total of 1,240 followers—a small community built over two years of late-night streams.
Right now, the follower counter was spinning like a slot machine reel.
[Total Followers: 78,410]
[Total Followers: 78,425]
[Total Followers: 78,460]
"Eighty thousand..." Dokja whispered, staring blankly at the rising digit count. "It's almost at eighty thousand followers..."
"It’s going to hit one hundred thousand before noon," Sooyoung stated matter-of-factly. "Every major esports outlet in the country has written an article about your broadcast. Gamer Korea, Esports Daily, The Radiant Herald—they all posted write-ups calling you 'The Mysterious Prophet of Star Stream.' People are losing their minds trying to figure out who you are."
"This is bad," Dokja said, pitching his head back and staring at his peeling ceiling wallpaper. "This is very, very bad."
"Bad? Are you insane?!" Sooyoung yelled. "You're a nameless QA cog at a mid-tier game company! You could monetize this! You could get actual sponsorships! You could quit your job and stream full-time!"
"Sooyoung, you don't understand how these fanbases work," Dokja said, his tone shifting from shock to deep, logical apprehension. He scrolled down his stream page, opening his public comment section and message board. "I didn't just analyze a random high-ranking player. I analyzed Yoo Joonghyuk."
"So what? He’s the top player, people analyze him all the time."
"No, they analyze his builds after he wins," Dokja corrected sharply, his eyes scanning the fast-scrolling comments beneath his latest vod. "Nobody calls out his exact inputs before he makes them. Look at these comments."
He didn't even have to scroll far to see the tide turning. While casual gamers and tactical nerds were celebrating the clip, a massive, vocal, and deeply protective wall of Yoo Joonghyuk’s hardcore fanbase—collectively known online as the Supreme King Corps—was mounting an absolute counter-campaign.
[@YJH_Shield_Maiden: Who the hell is this @DemonKingOfSalvation guy? He sounds so arrogant saying Joonghyuk-nim's playstyle is "easy to read like a book."]
[@ProGamer_Tactics: There's no way this isn't fake. He must have had access to a low-latency spectator feed or an internal API delay hack. No human can predict a frame-perfect parry 0.6 seconds in advance.]
[@SupremeKing_Official_FanClub: This random streamer is clout-farming using Joonghyuk-ssi's name. Report his channel for stream-sniping and analytical defamation.]
[@User_908823: He doesn't even show his face or use a mic camera. Coward hiding behind a dark screen talking down on the #1 ranked player in the world. Drop your main rank account tag, let's see how good YOU are.]
[@Iron_Blade_99: If he really thinks Joonghyuk-ssi is "predictable," why isn't HE playing in the regional qualifiers? Fraud. Total fraud.]
Dokja felt a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. "You see?" he murmured to Sooyoung. "They think I'm calling him predictable as an insult. They think I'm accusing him of being an AI or a script-user, or that I'm trying to humiliate him."
"Ah," Sooyoung’s tone moderated slightly, though she still sounded mostly amused. "Yeah... Joonghyuk's fans are basically a cult, aren't they? They take every single comment about his gameplay as a personal declaration of war."
"They're filing mass report tickets against my channel," Dokja said, clicking through his notification log. "I have over four thousand flag notifications for 'Stream Sniping' and 'Unfair Exploits.' If the platform automated system flags my account, my channel could get shadow-banned before I even get home from work."
"So clear the air!" Sooyoung insisted. "Post a statement. Tell them you respect the guy."
"If I post a statement, it will look like I'm defensive," Dokja reasoned, his analytical brain instinctively calculating the social optics. "If I say I respect him, his fans will say I'm backtracking out of fear. If I double down, they'll raid my stream with report bots. The best play is to stay quiet, go to my day job, and let the internet find something else to obsess over by tonight."
"Kim Dokja," Sooyoung said, her voice dropping into a stern, almost pitying register. "You really are a naive idiot, aren't you?"
"What?"
"You think Yoo Joonghyuk's orbit just lets things 'blow over'?" she scoffed. "Do you have any idea who Yoo Joonghyuk is? He doesn't just have crazy fans, Dokja. He has an entire professional management team, a multi-million-dollar esports sponsorship with his guild Lycian, and an ego larger than the entire peninsula. You didn't just predict a casual match—you made the most arrogant, untouchable pro player in Asia look like a readable AI script in front of five million people."
Dokja swallowed hard, his eyes dropping to his wristwatch. It was 6:45 AM. He needed to get dressed, grab his coat, and catch the subway, or he was going to be reprimanded by his department supervisor.
"I have to go to work," Dokja said flatly, turning off his computer screen to stop the overwhelming stream of notifications from flashing in his eyes. "I'll deal with this tonight."
"Don't say I didn't warn you!" Sooyoung shouted right before Dokja disconnected the call.
The workday at Minosoft was a blurred haze of misery.
Kim Dokja sat in his small, gray office cubicle in the Quality Assurance department, surrounded by the monotonous hum of fluorescent lights and the rhythmic clicking of forty other underpaid employees testing software for bugs.
Normally, Dokja used his office hours as a quiet sanctuary. He was efficient at his job, finishing his assigned bug-testing queues early so he could secretly read web novels or review Star Stream match replays on his secondary window.
Today, however, sanctuary was impossible.
Every time Dokja checked his phone under his desk, the situation escalated.
By noon, the viral clip had crossed seven million views on StarTube. Major esports news outlets had published full-length opinion pieces analyzing Dokja's commentary. Several famous high-rank streamers—including Han Sooyoung under her creator handle Black Flame Dragon—had hosted live reaction streams reviewing the clip, further fanning the flames of public interest.
Even worse, the toxicity from Joonghyuk's fanbase had reached an absolute boiling point.
Dokja's modest social media accounts—which he had kept strictly separated from his real identity—were overwhelmed with thousands of angry messages. People were demanding he reveal his face, post his personal gaming account tags, or apologize publicly to Yoo Joonghyuk for "disrespecting the Supreme King."
[Message from @YJH_Guard_01: You think you're smart? Meet Joonghyuk-ssi in 1v1 custom lobby if you aren't a coward.]
[Message from @StarStream_Watcher: He’s definitely a disgraced former coach who got fired for illegal analytics software. Nobody knows player habits that well naturally.]
By the time 5:00 PM rolled around and the office clock chimed the end of the shift, Dokja felt completely drained. His eyes burned, his head throbbed with a dull tension headache, and his neck felt like a solid block of concrete.
He packed his leather messenger bag, nodded politely to his indifferent coworkers, and walked out of the corporate building into the cool autumn evening air of Seoul.
The train ride home was miserable. Surrounded by weary commuters packed shoulder-to-shoulder on the Line 2 subway, Dokja stared down at his phone screen.
His channel subscriber count had crossed 92,000.
He opened his moderation chat app, where Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung had been frantically leaving messages all afternoon.
[Moderator - InsectCollector: Ahjeossi! People are leaving thousands of mean comments on your old videos!]
[Moderator - ChimeraMaster: I banned over 500 accounts today Ahjeossi!! They keep calling you a fraud!!]
[Moderator - InsectCollector: Can I fight them Ahjeossi? Give me permission to fight them in the comments!]
Dokja felt a faint, genuine warmth touch his heart despite the chaos. He typed out a quick response to the two middle-schoolers:
[DemonKingOfSalvation: Don't worry, both of you. You don't need to fight anyone or ban every comment. Just ignore them. I'll handle everything when I get home.]
He locked his phone and leaned his head against the cold steel pole of the subway car, closing his eyes.
I just need to clear the air tonight, Dokja reasoned with himself as the train rattled along the tracks. I’ll go live for twenty minutes. I’ll explain that I have immense respect for Yoo Joonghyuk’s skill, that my analysis was purely educational, and that I never meant to insult his playstyle. The fans will get bored, the internet will move on to the next drama, and I can go back to my quiet, normal life.
It was a sensible, rational plan. It was the exact response an analytical, conflict-averse man like Kim Dokja would craft.
What Kim Dokja failed to realize, however, was that in the hyper-volatile world of high-stakes competitive gaming, rational plans rarely survived contact with Yoo Joonghyuk.
By 8:00 PM, Dokja was back in his apartment.
He didn't even bother changing out of his work suit. He simply shed his coat, unbuttoned the top collar of his white dress shirt, poured himself a tall glass of ice water, and sat down at his computer desk.
The small room was quiet, save for the hum of his PC tower. Outside, the rain had returned, tapping softly against his glass windowpane.
Dokja took a deep breath, placing his hands on his desk to steady his nerves. "All right," he murmured to himself. "Let's get this over with."
He launched his streaming software. He adjusted his dark layout, made sure his microphone gain was turned down so his voice wouldn't clip, and hovered his mouse cursor over the red button.
He wasn't planning on playing any games tonight. He wasn't even going to bring up Star Stream. He was simply going to speak to his audience for fifteen minutes, publish a brief written statement on his social media accounts, and log off.
He pressed Go Live.
The response was instantaneous—and terrifying.
The moment his status flipped to Online, his stream server's incoming traffic meters spiked violently into the red zone. The viewer counter didn't gradually increment by tens or hundreds like it usually did. It jumped in massive, staggering blocks.
[Viewer Count: 3,400]
[Viewer Count: 14,800]
[Viewer Count: 38,200]
[Viewer Count: 62,500]
Within less than sixty seconds, over sixty thousand people had flooded into Kim Dokja’s humble channel.
The chat room was an incomprehensible blur of motion, rendering the text completely unreadable as thousands of messages flew past per second. Notifications for new followers, gift subscriptions, and system alerts cascaded down his secondary monitor like a broken slot machine.
Dokja leaned closer to his microphone, pulling his headset over his ears. He swallowed the lump in his throat and cleared his throat gently.
"Good evening, everyone," Dokja began, his voice surprisingly calm and controlled despite the digital monsoon occurring on his screens. "I... see there are quite a few new faces here tonight."
[Chat - User_001: HE'S LIVE]
[Chat - YJH_Fan_88: APOLOGIZE TO JOONGHYUK-NIM]
[Chat - ProGamer_99: SHOW US YOUR MAIN ACCOUNT RANK YOU FRAUD]
[Chat - Sooyoung_Official: POPCORN TIME]
[Chat - GrassEater: DOKJA-SSI WE BELIEVE IN YOU]
"I want to address the viral clip from last night's broadcast right away," Dokja continued, speaking slowly and deliberately to ensure his words couldn't be twisted. "I am aware that many people—particularly fans of SupremeKing—were offended by my commentary during his match. I want to state clearly and unequivocally that I hold SupremeKing in the highest possible regard."
Dokja clicked his mouse, opening a fresh, blank text document on screen so viewers could read his points clearly.
"My statement that his playstyle is 'as obvious as reading a book' was not intended as an insult or a claim that he is weak," Dokja explained. "On the contrary. Yoo Joonghyuk plays with such an absolute, overwhelming degree of logical perfection that his choices become predictable precisely because they are the absolute best possible moves available in the game code. He does not make mistakes. That is what makes him the best player in the world."
He leaned back in his chair, taking a slow sip of his ice water. "I am just an analyst who enjoys studying game mechanics. I have no desire for clout, I do not use unauthorized software, and I do not wish to cause drama within the community. I hope this clarifies my position."
For a brief moment, Dokja felt a wave of relief wash over him. He had laid out his points clearly, logically, and respectfully. He had diffused the situation.
Then, a sudden, sharp electronic chime echoed through his headphones.
It wasn't a standard donation alert. It wasn't a subscriber notification.
It was a high-priority system audio cue—a heavy, metallic CLANG that echoed like a war horn through his audio software.
On Dokja's main screen, his entire broadcast overlay flickered. A massive, gold-and-black system banner dropped from the top of the display, locking his chat interface and overriding his stream layout with an official platform alert.
[CRITICAL BROADCAST SYSTEM EVENT]
[User 'SupremeKing' has raided your channel with 112,000 viewers!]
Dokja’s hand froze mid-air, his water glass lingering inches from his lips.
The viewer counter on Dokja’s channel surged into absolute insanity.
[Viewer Count: 175,800]
The chat room went completely, dead silent. The platform’s automated anti-spam algorithms had automatically triggered an emergency slow-mode, freezing the chat for all non-verified accounts.
Over one hundred and seventy-five thousand people were now sitting in Kim Dokja's small, dark stream room, holding their collective breath.
At the very top of the channel's active user list, sitting above all moderators and viewers, was a verified account tagged with a dark golden crown:
SupremeKing
Yoo Joonghyuk—a man who had never interacted with another content creator in his entire career, a man who famously played in complete silence and ignored the entire global gaming scene—was sitting in Dokja’s channel.
The silence hung in the air for five agonizing seconds. Ten seconds.
Then, a single message appeared in the center of Dokja’s screen. It was highlighted in dark crimson, pinned directly to the top of the broadcast by the platform system because it came directly from the raiding streamer.
It was not an apology. It was not a legal threat from his management team.
It was a single, stark sentence from Yoo Joonghyuk himself:
[SupremeKing]: How did you know what I was going to do?