Chapter 124: Nightmare, 9th Floor (2)

The flash made me squint.

I stopped time.

Unlike the other rocks, this one wasn’t a monster.

Two objects rested within the light.

One was a scroll. The other was a round golden band.

In other words... it was unmistakably a Golden Headband.

I let time flow again.

And the instant I did, the Golden Headband in front of me vanished.

Gone in the blink of an eye.

“...?”

Something felt strange on my head.

I reached up to my forehead and found a metal band clamped around it.

The hell...

I didn’t need a mirror to know exactly what had happened.

‘The Golden Headband put itself on me?’

Half disbelieving, half wary, I turned my attention to the other object—the scroll.

I unrolled it, and...

ink-brush characters ran down the white paper.

[Mortal, if you would earn the Golden Headband’s recognition, swallow the Golden Essence.

Earn its recognition, and the Stone Monkeys will raise you up as their king.

Fail to earn it, and the Golden Headband will claim your life as the price of your greed.

And should the Golden Headband be destroyed, all one million Stone Monkeys will wake.]

...What is this now.

I read it through once more and mulled it over.

So earning the Golden Headband’s recognition was the condition for clearing this floor?

And to do that, I had to swallow this “Golden Essence.”

Grrrk-

Just then, the band around my forehead tightened.

I grimaced and grabbed at it.

Was this thing going to keep squeezing tighter?

When the scroll said the headband would claim my life if I failed... it couldn’t possibly mean it would crush my skull, could it?

“Shit.”

I tried wrenching it off.

No luck, obviously.

And it wasn’t merely clamped on tightly. Some inexplicable force held it firmly in place.

I read the scroll again.

For now, playing along was my only option.

But what the hell was the Golden Essence?

And where was I even supposed to find it... huh?

A faint sound drew my gaze toward the foot of the mountain.

The rocks were splitting open on their own, one after another, and monkeys were pouring out of them.

Skree- skreek-

Dozens began scrambling up the slope.

I prepared for a fight.

I hurled Flame Strikes into the swarm.

KABOOOOOM!

Off to one side, I laid down a Scorching Zone and Frost Mist.

Then I summoned the Sword of Light and carved my way through them, weaving between bodies.

There were plenty of them, but not so many that I couldn’t handle them.

I left the long-cooldown Destruction Ray and Hellfire untouched and swept through the mob with everything else.

Fighting the monkeys was easy enough...

but the real problem was the headband, and I still had no answer for it.

Killing them didn’t solve anything, either. Fresh dozens kept pouring out.

There was no end to the rocks, so there was no end to the monkeys spawning from them.

“...?”

That was when I noticed an odd one out in the crowd.

Every other monkey was silver.

This one was gold.

Huh.

Was that it?

The connection clicked immediately.

That thing had to be related to the Golden Essence somehow.

While the others hurled themselves at me like rabid beasts, the Golden Monkey simply sat off to one side, perfectly still.

‘Diul.’

I stopped swinging, called Diul, and vanished into Concealment.

The moment I disappeared, every monkey charging at me stopped dead.

I slipped past them as they whipped their heads around in search of me and made my way down the mountain.

The Golden Monkey was perched atop a shattered rock, scratching its head.

I crept closer.

But the moment I came within roughly thirty meters...

Skree-!

the Goldmonkey suddenly spun toward me, startled, and bolted.

...What?

It sensed me?

‘Sharp little thing.’

I’d been detected through Concealment before, back on the Floor 4 hidden stage, so it didn’t particularly shake me.

And since it chose to run instead of fight, catching it really was the answer, wasn’t it?

I took off after it.

My Concealment vanished the instant I pushed myself to full speed.

‘Fast little bastard.’

It was faster than I’d expected.

A completely different animal from the rest of them.

I still had the edge, but barely... damn, this was irritating.

And now the other monkeys were throwing themselves into my path, getting in the way of the chase.

I didn’t have time for this.

I activated Leap and launched myself upward.

With Air Walk, I sprinted through open sky and quickly closed in on it.

The distance narrowed.

I fired a Flame Strike at its back, but...

BOOM! BABOOM!

the Goldmonkey darted from side to side, slipping past every fireball with astonishing reflexes.

I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

What, did this little bastard have Sixth Sense too, like me?

And apparently that wasn’t the end of its absurdity.

Wings burst from its back, and the thing took to the sky.

“Wow.”

What was it, some kind of chimera?

A laugh escaped me as I dropped into a crouch.

Think a little altitude is going to save you?

BOOM!

I activated Air Walk and Leap simultaneously and shot into the air.

Chaining another Air Walk, I kicked off with everything my legs had and caught up to it in an instant.

It twisted around to look at me, and its face went slack with horror.

Maybe because it was a monkey, its expressions were almost as easy to read as a person’s.

“Off you go.”

SLASH!

The Sword of Light swept through its neck, severing the Goldmonkey’s head cleanly.

Blood sprayed through the air as its head and body fell in separate directions.

I followed them down.

After landing, I inspected the corpse.

“...”

Anything?

I’d assumed killing it would make the Golden Essence appear, or something along those lines.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The hell...

So what was I supposed to do?

Grrrk-

And there it was again.

The headband tightened around my skull.

Harder than before.

“Ngh.”

This time, the pain had real bite.

I clenched my teeth.

At some point, the monkeys had surrounded me again.

I hacked through several of them, then stopped time so I could think.

‘Are there more Goldmonkeys?’

Maybe the Golden Essence would only appear once I killed every last one.

This was a time attack.

No question about it.

The longer I took, the tighter the headband became.

Find the Golden Essence.

Swallow it.

Do it before my head burst.

Fast.

I let time flow again.

Ignoring the fight entirely, I climbed back into the air.

I tuned out the furious shrieks of the monkeys below and searched for another Goldmonkey.

I circled the mountain again and again, but...

there wasn’t another one anywhere.

My nerves began to fray.

I had no idea what this place wanted from me.

Then, midway through another circle around the rocky peak, something caught my eye.

“...!”

Halfway up the mountainside.

Hidden behind a screen of brush was a cave.

On the off chance it mattered, I dropped straight toward it.

I shook off the monkeys and headed inside.

At the end of a dark passage, light seeped out from somewhere deeper within.

‘...The hell is this?’

A single gourd flask rested atop a large design that looked remarkably similar to a magic circle.

My Sixth Sense gave me no warning.

Still, I approached cautiously.

I picked up the flask and turned it over in my hands.

Empty.

There was nothing inside.

Skreeee-!

Meanwhile, the monkeys outside had followed me all the way into the cave.

God, these things were a pain.

Ignoring the ache hammering through my skull, I prepared to fight again.

And that was when one of the monkeys stepped inside the circle.

FWOOOOSH!

A cloud of black haze ripped itself from the monkey, like its very soul being torn free, and poured straight into the flask in my hand.

“...?!”

The monkey shriveled on the spot and collapsed.

The others saw what happened, recoiled, and refused to come anywhere near the circle.

I stared down into the flask, every bit as stunned as they were.

A dark liquid now sloshed inside.

‘What is this?’

What had just happened?

I was still trying to piece it together when realization struck.

‘The Golden Essence...’

That was it.

I had to bring the Goldmonkey here and feed it to the flask!

SPLOOSH.

I dumped the liquid onto the ground.

Whatever this black sludge was, it looked like something that would destroy anyone’s stomach.

It certainly wasn’t the Golden Essence.

The monkeys were clogging the passage.

One fully charged Destruction Ray erased the entire lot of them, and I rushed back outside.

There was no time.

I had to get the Golden Essence down before my skull caved in.

I knew exactly where I’d left the Goldmonkey’s corpse.

I tore across the sky and scooped it up.

‘Demon King, help!’

– Tch.

The thing was huge.

Dragging it all the way back wasn’t going to be easy.

I handed the corpse over, and the Demon King flash-froze it, levitated it into the air, and flew us back toward the cave.

We returned to the flask with the Goldmonkey in tow.

The Demon King thawed the body and tossed it into the circle.

But...

“...?”

Nothing happened.

The flask didn’t so much as flicker.

What...

Don’t tell me it only worked once?

‘...No. No way.’

Uneasy, I turned toward the monkeys that had once again swarmed the cave.

I summoned Plli and sent it to grab one.

Skreeek-!

Plli clamped its jaws around a monkey and dragged it into the circle,

and sure enough, the flask lit up and sucked the creature dry, exactly as it had before.

I stared at the black liquid pooling inside,

and a horrible thought made my throat tighten.

‘No.’

Don’t tell me...

a dead one doesn’t count?

Was I supposed to bring it here alive?

Grrrk-

“Gaah...!”

The headband ratcheted down once more.

Pain exploded through my skull as though the bone itself were splitting apart.

Something warm trickled down my head.

Blood.

I’d had Skin Hardening active this entire time.

It made no difference.

Judging by the sensation, the headband had already torn through the flesh and was grinding against the bone beneath.

I swayed on my feet and stared at the corpse.

I knocked the flask against its head, pressed it to its mouth, tried every ridiculous thing I could think of.

Nothing worked.

...Was I actually screwed?

The first thing I did was stop time.

The pounding pain vanished, and I forced myself to think with a clear head.

It changed nothing.

I was still screwed.

It wasn’t as if I could bring something that was already dead back to life.

Ah, fuck...

I should’ve been more careful...

When a target runs away as though it’s practically begging to be chased down and killed, that alone should have made me suspicious.

Kill a monster, get an item.

That was how games worked, and for one stupid second, instinct had taken over my reasoning.

Kill the Goldmonkey, get the reward.

I couldn’t even bring myself to resent the situation.

When had Nightmare ever not been this petty?

This vicious?

This was my own fault for not being paranoid enough.

And as I’d already confirmed, there were no other Goldmonkeys.

There had probably only ever been one.

Still, I wasn’t about to lie down and die.

I rushed back outside.

Fighting against the crushing pressure in my skull, I swept my gaze across the landscape, eyes burning as I desperately searched for even the slightest glimmer of gold.

There was nothing.

I stopped time again, suspended in midair.

Something deep in my gut told me the truth.

One more tightening of the headband...

and I was finished.

‘...Demon King. What do I do?’

I asked him outright.

– Why are you asking me. You’re screwed.

He’d apparently picked up my favorite piece of refined vocabulary.

Ha.

Fuckfuckfuck.

Frozen Hydra regeneration or not, if my head was destroyed, I would die.

Just as I began to think this really might be the end...

one possibility surfaced in my mind.

‘Radiant Incarnation.’

[Skill: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+)]

Borrows the power of holy radiance to transform the body into light itself. For as long as the skill is maintained, the wielder takes no damage of any kind and can move freely in any direction at the speed of light. Casting requires one hour of Mental Concentration. The skill lasts for up to ten minutes.

Type: Magic Type

Willpower Cost: 5,000 per second

Cooldown: 72 hours

If I activated Radiant Incarnation, my body would become light itself and I’d be immune to all damage.

So the instant the headband tightened again...

what if I activated Radiant Incarnation at that exact moment?

It was a Legendary+ grade skill, after all.

Surely even this thing couldn’t overpower it?

Not that I had any other options.

It was worth trying.

I let time flow again.

Then I waited for the headband’s final squeeze.

It would be a killing blow, so my Sixth Sense was bound to react an instant before it landed.

Time crept forward...

Grrk-

‘...Now!’

The instant my Sixth Sense flared—

I stopped time.

I spent the full hour in Mental Concentration, then activated Radiant Incarnation.

My entire body erupted into blinding light.

And at that exact moment...

CLANG!

Metal shrieked against metal as the headband snapped shut.

And my skull remained perfectly intact.

‘...I made it!’

It actually worked?

This skill was absurdly broken.

I pulled back and looked.

With my forehead transformed into light, the headband had nothing left to grip, and it slipped straight off.

KRRK! KRRRK!

Suspended in midair, it continued tightening around empty space, groaning under its own force.

And then...

KRAK!

Unable to withstand its own pressure, the Golden Headband finally shattered.

I watched the broken fragments tumble toward the ground below.

‘Ah.’

The words written on the scroll returned to me.

Wait.

If the Golden Headband breaks...

[And should the Golden Headband be destroyed, all one million Stone Monkeys will wake.]

RUMMMMBLE-

I looked down.

Every rock across that endless field was splitting open.

Like a vast silver tide, an innumerable horde of monkeys swallowed the ground.