LIL had three modes: Siege, Survival, and Escort. If someone asked which one was the true LIL, the answer would obviously be Siege.

[Isn’t Survival mode just for old dudes? LOL]

[Why are they even using that for the Platform War?]

[Ah... I don’t wanna get old...]

However, Siege mode was hard and exhausting. As players grew older, they couldn’t handle the fatigue of Siege the same way anymore. Therefore, LIL introduced lighter alternatives, such as Survival and Escort. These modes had shorter playtime, easier rotations, and cleaner pacing.

It went exactly as intended. The players who mainly enjoyed those modes were working adults in their thirties. It was for busy people with real lives who didn’t have much time to play and even less time for the community.

They scrolled through posts, but rarely wrote anything themselves. When twenty-year-olds mocked the modes they enjoyed, they usually just let it slide.

Today was different.

[Honestly, Survival is just as sweaty as Siege.]

[A Survival Challenger would beat a Siege Grandmaster into the dirt LOL]

[Siege = unemployed mode.]

[There is no greatest mode. Only great players.]

They hadn’t stayed quiet because they forgot the disrespect, but because they didn’t have the time. When the moment finally came, they launched a full counterattack. Why today, specifically?

[Omelet]

[Why is this happening? I’m playing Survival...]

[Current Viewers: 231,000]

Omelet, one of the last big Siege purists among influencers, was playing Survival for the first time.

Sure, they were busy working adults now. Once upon a time, they were the kind of people everyone called goblins. On a day with a huge event like this, they wouldn’t just sit there and take it. They unfurled the black wings they’d hidden for years and started gliding.

[Omelet “Anti-Siege” declaration LOL]

[So Omelet plays Survival too, huh? LOL hey your streamer’s viewers are insane]

[Kyaaa, Survival is booming~]

That made Siege players bristle. They could feel ancient weapons stirring awake. That fear, as always, turned into heightened aggression across the community.

[Big: Survival? If a “real talent” from Siege goes there, they’ll wipe everyone. Agree?]

[Big: “Survival is for talentless washed boomers” is what Police said, apparently]

[Big: Omelet: Survival is easy as hell]

[Big: Omelet: “Survival is just RNG trash LOL”]

Like bots mass-posting, they pumped out endless Big threads. Their core argument was always the same.

==== ====

Survival mode?

It’s a retirement home kickboxing league. Watching someone do well there and going “Wow, talented” is hilarious LOL

It’s where talentless people gather in the first place. Hit Challenger there a hundred times, then come to Siege?

Straight to Bronze.

==== ====

— “Straight to Bronze” LOL

— OP’s probably Silver

— Facts

— Talentless is true, but Bronze is crazy

— Survival = old men trying to “survive” their last days

└ What the fuck LOL

└ “Last days” is insane

└ Today or tomorrow LMAO

└ Holy shit

To them, Survival and Escort were just substitutes for Siege. Real skill lived in Siege. Wasn’t Omelet demonstrating this as proof right now?

[Big: Omelet just got two triple-kills LOL]

Barely knowing the rules in the first game, Omelet still bulldozed through Survival.

[Big: If Omelet gets first place in his first match, this’ll be hilarious LOL]

The more Omelet dominated, the happier they got. They insisted that Omelet’s victory meant Siege’s victory. Their victory looked close at hand.

[Breaking: Omelet double-kill again LOL]

[There’s no way a Siege GM loses, right?]

[Omelet is actually talented, damn]

However, one problem arose.

[Big: Wait, isn’t Almond in the same queue as Omelet?]

Omelet and Almond had matched into the same game.

— No way

— Holy shit LOL

— Omelet emergencYYYYY

— Almond is cooked, rip

— What’s Almond’s Siege rank again?

└ He hit Diamond once, but stopped so he dropped; he’s unranked now

└ Yeah I think he used to be Diamond

It was absurdly funny because Almond had only dabbled in Siege.

[Big: Breaking! Almond pentakill HOLY SHIT LOL]

[Big: What is Almond doing solo??]

[Big: Omelet emergencYYYYY LOL]

[Big: Siege fanboys crying]

[Big: Almond is actually insane LOL]

Almond winning started to look like a Survival victory. Why?

[Big: If Omelet’s “Survival is trash” take is right, shouldn’t he at least win first?]

They turned that logic into a shield, then sharpened it into a spear.

[Big: Real good players play Civil Empire and Kingdom Age anyway, agree?]

— LOOOOOOL

— True

— Holy shit LOL

— Yeah honestly

— King~ you can’t beat me~

└ <ㅇ>

└ That emoji, I thought it was something else LOL

└ LMAO

— By their logic, if Almond wins, then real skill means you don’t play some broken psycho game like LIL anyway LOL

└ Exactly

It was half a kamikaze argument, but the current situation favored them. Siege diehards took LIL way more seriously, so the Siege diehards lost more when they attacked LIL itself.

— What a garbage argument

└ It’s literally your argument, just flipped LOL

Siege supporters had used the same logic, just reversed. Community wars often worked like this. Logical precision didn’t matter. Only who represented what and who won on the surface mattered in the end.

‘I am Siege.’

Omelet understood the industry’s ecosystem better than anyone.

He screamed at the top of his lungs, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!” He bounced in place as a rune champion. “Please! Please, somebody kill her! Kill that Raina!”

Boing, boing.

He hopped as a rune champion. “It’s not over yet!!”

Almond had already achieved another pentakill. Only he had reached level eighteen with combo damage that couldn’t be measured.

However, it wasn’t close to over because the enemies still outnumbered him. Three in total remained.

“Group up and kill Raina!”

They couldn’t hear the rune champion Omelet, but maybe his desperation from bouncing like that got through somehow.

“Raina! Attack Raina!”

“Raina first!? O-Okay!”

At least Omelet’s team tried to pressure Raina. Brutal skills flew in from every direction.

Boom!

[Roll]

Pah!

Almond rolled back and retreated.

“Huh!? What the hell!? How does he have stealth!?”

“A legendary rune?”

Legendary runes sometimes enhanced or altered skills.

“O-Okay, then fall back and revive the others...”

“Where do you think you’re going!”

The last surviving member from the other team absolutely wouldn’t side with Omelet’s crew.

[Divine Descent — Sandstorm]

Kuuwoong!

The Desert Warrior Murak’s ultimate was a charge skill that erupted into a sandstorm around the caster. It dealt continuous damage, applied the slow debuff, and also obscured vision.

“Hey, you crazy...!”

Wheeeeeee!

“Murak first!”

“R-Raina!?”

“We can’t even see Raina!”

With everyone blinded, their priorities instantly changed. For the solo survivor, the two-man team was the immediate threat. Raina could wait.

The sandstorm swallowed the three of them. They swung wildly in a chaotic brawl while trapped in the storm.

Raina had already pulled far away. From the outside, it looked like Omelet’s team was finished.

“Oh. If this happens...?” Omelet could see it. “She’s gonna die to the Shadow damage, isn’t she?”

[The Abyssal Shadow descends.]

Kuuwoong.

The Shadow’s damage kept ramping up. Near the end, even brushing it was lethal. Raina didn’t just brush it. It completely swallowed her.

“WAAAAAAAH! W-We won!!”

— Huh

— Wait

— No way

— Holy shit

— That worked!? LOL

— The sandstorm did it, what the fuck

Omelet bounced like crazy as a rune champion and cheered.

“Now it’s two versus one! If we just kill that sand bastard...!”

Without Raina, Omelet’s team could win.

“We’re first place!!”

He would win while dead, but this was still better than losing.

— Gg gg gg

— Kya

— Insane

— He actually wins

— Mission cleared~

— Boring win, ew

— Almond, that sucks

Then, someone said, “I will fulfill the contract forged in blood.”

Whoosh!

‘Huh?’

Inside the dark Shadow where Raina should’ve died long ago, her signature blue mana flared up.

[Divine Descent — Demian’s Unbound Arrow]

Girik...

Almond drew back the bow, blazing with an intense blue light. He fired all of that power straight ahead.

KWAAAAAAANG!

“Ugh...!”

Omelet’s vision instantly burned pure white.

Beeeeee!

[Match Ended]

Just like that, the match ended.

— ?

— DAMN

— He had the gills buff LOL

— Huh?

— Why is she alive?

— He ate the Abyss Shark buff, holy shit

— Wow LOL

— Is it over?

By the time the white glare faded from Omelet’s vision, the match had already ended.

Omelet’s rune champion looked around in a daze. “Uh...? Who died first!? What happened!?”

The dust made it impossible to tell what had transpired. A moment later, as the dust settled, only one person still stood with a fluttering blue cloak.

‘I’m screwed.’

It was Almond.

[2nd Place]

[So close. Still, well played.]

That humiliating message appeared on Omelet’s screen as he slumped.

“Ah...”

— LMAOOOOOOOO

— LOL second place

— “Good try” LOL

— Holy shit

— Legendary

— ??? Just change it to first place please

— Siege mode has fallen, congrats

— Thanks for the Almond debut stream, great content

It would have been better if it had ended there.

‘I’m screwed. If it’s come to this, I might as well go all in.’

Omelet let his streamer instincts get the better of him. “Okay, but seriously, isn’t something off here? Isn’t that a bug?”

— ?

— ???

— Your skill is the bug

— You fed Raina combos and died instantly, that’s the bug LOL

— The shadow thing is kinda weird though

“I know Almond is good with Raina. I know. Respect. I ADMIT. But seriously, surviving inside the Shadow? What is that? Is Raina Bart? Crave? That makes no sense.”

— Fair

— Autopsy time

— Let’s watch the replay

“Yeah. Let’s break it down a bit. I’m not accusing anyone! Okay? Show and prove. You know? You gotta show it and prove it. That’s the hip-hop way.”

— That’s not what that means LOL

— Why are you show and proving someone else?

— LMAO

***

Omelet closed his game and went straight to Almond’s stream.

— Paprika cheese stream sniping LOL

— Kinda wanna see Almond’s POV

— Cheese infiltration wtf LOL

— LMAO

— This will be fun

“As a courtesy, I’ll send a donation...”

Ba-bam!

[Omelet has donated a whopping 100,000 won!]

[Hello, Mr. Almond. This is Paprika streamer Omelet. That was a fun game. Would it be okay if I looked over the footage? You played insanely well haha.]

Almond seemed more flustered than expected. “Huh? Fun game? Uh... um... Yeah, I guess that’s fine.”

‘Huh? Wasn’t he usually pretty calm?’

Scrrk.

Once he got permission, Omelet immediately rewound the live footage, not really paying attention to Almond’s reaction.

[30 seconds ago]

...

“Let’s see. Where’s the Shadow... Ah. Here.”

It was the final scene.

“Huh? His HP really isn’t going down? What is this?”

— It’s a buff

— Abyssal Gills << check the buff

— Almond killed the Abyss Shark too, holy shit

The buff icon was clearly visible on Almond’s UI.

[Abyssal Gills]

Players could get this from killing the Abyss Shark.

“So it’s real? But wait, he killed the Abyss Shark? Look at this kill count! What the hell is this!?”

The truly shocking part was Almond’s number of kills. He had over twenty by the end of the match.

“Yo. Anyway. Whatever. A loss is a loss. It’s fine. I played well. You know what I mean? I did well. Just unlucky, that’s all.”

— Bullshit LOL

— Huh?

— It’s a tutorial and you’re blaming luck?

“Tch. These guys, seriously. Hey. Real recognize real. Heroes recognize heroes. You know what I’m saying? Skilled players can tell. When I ran into him, even though I lost, I noticed. Like, ‘Oh, this guy isn’t normal.’ Right? Let’s check.”

— Bullshit

— LOL okay

— LOL

In Omelet’s memory, he and Almond had fought an intense back-and-forth duel.

‘There had to be some kind of comment.’

Fwrrk.

The footage rolled forward. The scene where Almond killed Omelet appeared.

“See...!”

Omelet watched with expectation.

Boom!

Almond said the same line as always, “Bug out.”

— Bug out LMAOOOO

— LMAOOOO

— “Bug” LOL

— Holy shit LOL

— He said bug out

“No, no. I mean, the situation was hectic there. He’ll evaluate it later, right? After it’s all over.”

That part was technically fair. After killing Omelet, Almond immediately killed four more players to complete the pentakill. The real evaluation would come after, but Omelet never should’ve opened this Pandora’s box.

“Wow. Since they’re bots, this is doable even solo.”

— ?

— Bots?

— Huh?

— ...?

— Bots??? LMAOOOO

— “Bots” my ass LOL

‘Bots?’

Omelet just blinked for a long while.