Chapter 144: Thunderous Rebuke (1)

[Zone 10 boss slaying reward obtained.]

[Zone 10 boss first-kill reward obtained.]

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[Contract Terms]

– The Tower shall, the instant the contract is formed, open every zone of Floor 5 up to Zone 10 and cause the bosses of Zones 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to appear

– ‘Person123’ shall slay all of the bosses of Zones 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 within one hour of the moment the ‘Joint Battle’ ends

[Time Remaining Until Contract Fulfillment: 40 minutes 51 seconds]

[The Contract has been fulfilled.]

Beyond the messages floating before my eyes,

Seri’s collapsed corpse soon scattered away and disappeared.

Just like the bosses from the other zones.

...A sense of loss that was difficult to put into words washed over me.

I looked up at the sky.

The Contract had been fulfilled without incident.

Once again, the Tower had failed to finish me off.

It was all thanks to Seri’s help.

I thanked her once more in my heart.

“What the hell are you?”

I threw the question into empty space.

What exactly was this thing?

What was its purpose?

Why did it bring tragedy to countless worlds?

Of course, no answer came.

I dismissed the sword of light.

If there was at least one thing I wanted to consider fortunate...

it was that this hadn’t been a floor clear.

Unless the Zone 10 boss gauge was filled again, she shouldn’t be summoned another time.

I had no idea how the Tower’s system actually worked, but I wanted to believe that Seri had finally found the rest she wanted.

Everything was over.

It was time to go back.

No, before that.

Maybe because I had spent so much time in the Mental World, reality felt strangely unfamiliar as I stepped onto the air with Air Walk.

I flew across the vast expanse of Zone 10, searching my memories as I headed in one direction.

I think it was somewhere over there...

It took quite a while, but eventually I found the scenery I had been looking for.

The ruined imperial castle.

And the hill overlooking the entire place.

The spot where Seri, in the real world, had met her final death.

I landed on the hill.

I tried to retrieve Seri’s sword, the one I had stolen using Subspace...

‘It’s gone.’

It wasn’t there.

Apparently, it had disappeared from inside Subspace along with her corpse.

Zone Bosses vanished completely when they died, leaving nothing behind.

I looked around, found a suitably sized stone, and planted it upright on the hill like a gravestone.

Then I carved words into it with my sword of light.

– Seri rests here.

It probably meant nothing inside this world within the Tower.

I just wanted to do it.

After finishing everything I had to do in Zone 10, I took out the Warp Device.

[0:01]

I warped back to Zone 0.

I was about to leave the Tower immediately when...

“Ah.”

Right.

I needed to check the rewards.

I had defeated every boss from Zone 6 through Zone 10.

When I moved to the Reward Room, rewards were piled up waiting for me.

Five Epic-grade Skill Stones and Skill Enhancement Stones lay scattered across the floor...

And there were five items that must have been the first-kill rewards.

I checked the items first.

[Item: Organic Destroyer’s Superpowered Photon Cannon]

A photon cannon created using the Organic Destroyer’s core component. Upon use, fires a superpowered photon cannon in a straight line. Once used, it can be used again after 1 hour.

Was this the Zone 6 boss reward?

It looked like some kind of futuristic bazooka.

Photon cannon.

It probably referred to that red beam that had seemed like the Zone 6 boss’s finishing move...

Its power had been about the same as Destruction Ray, so I could basically think of it as a Destruction Ray I could fire once every hour.

Not bad.

Next.

[Item: Slime King’s Essence Jelly]

Jelly containing the condensed power of the Slime King. Upon consumption, resistance to all types of poison increases greatly. The body’s regenerative ability and all regeneration effects received by the body are increased.

The Zone 7 boss reward.

Purple jelly.

It increased poison resistance and regeneration.

‘It’s a consumable, like Frozen Hydra Blood.’

The regeneration increase was similar to Frozen Hydra Blood too.

Since it said poison resistance would increase greatly, that must be the main effect.

Would this make me practically immune to all poisons or something?

Gulp.

[‘Item: Slime King’s Essence Jelly’ has been consumed.]

I ate it immediately.

It tasted fucking awful.

Next.

[Item: Sea Dragon’s Orb]

An orb containing the power of a Sea Dragon. Upon use, Willpower can be consumed to control water currents. While in contact with the item, physical abilities are increased underwater, and underwater breathing becomes possible.

The Zone 8 boss reward.

A blue orb.

It allowed me to control water currents, increased my physical abilities underwater, and let me breathe underwater.

Controlling water currents consumed Willpower, but since there was no duration or cooldown listed, it looked like there simply wasn’t one.

I’d have to test the actual power, but for someone like me with infinite Willpower, it seemed like a pretty damn good item...

Except all of its effects were underwater.

So far, I hadn’t encountered a single Nightmare floor with an aquatic field.

Well, if one appeared in the future, this would probably be extremely useful.

Next.

[Item: Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper]

A sword wielded by the Gatekeeper of Heaven. When the Aura Blade skill is applied to this item, the Aura Blade evolves into ‘Heavenly Aura Blade.’ Heavenly Aura Blade possesses ten times the power of Aura Blade.

The Zone 9 boss reward.

It was a completely white sword without a single ornament.

I was a little shocked when I read the description.

‘Ten times the power of Aura Blade?’

A tenfold power boost was kind of insane.

I immediately tried it.

Hwaaaa!

The moment I applied Aura Blade to the sword, the aura that should normally have been blue instead shone with dazzling five-colored light.

“Oh...”

More importantly, if it was ten times as powerful as Aura Blade, was there anything it couldn’t cut?

Wouldn’t most things just get sliced apart like bundles of straw?

This is nice.

I could maintain Aura Blade indefinitely anyway.

It felt like I had finally gotten a proper weapon.

And next...

The final Zone 10 boss reward.

[Item: Blessing Seal of Corrupted Hero Beldihard]

A seal containing the blessing ‘Armor of Karma,’ one of the blessings possessed by Hero Beldihard. Stamp it onto a part of the body to obtain the blessing. The seal disappears after one use. Armor of Karma blocks all external damage and harmful effects, and its backlash is reduced in proportion to the user’s good karma. Accumulated backlash slowly dissipates while Armor of Karma is deactivated.

It was a golden seal.

The stamping surface was engraved with the image of a shield.

This was...

That thing.

The defensive skill Seri had used while fighting the Demon King.

That pure white armor.

I stared at the seal for a moment, then decided to use it immediately.

I pressed it firmly against the back of my left hand...

Flash!

Light burst out, and a shield-shaped mark was engraved directly onto my skin.

According to the description, I could now use a technique called Armor of Karma.

But I had no idea what it meant when it said the backlash decreased based on good karma.

For now, I activated Armor of Karma.

Flaaash!

Armor made of light covered my entire body.

“...!”

The moment I activated it, I dropped to one knee.

Wh-what the hell is this?

I can’t move.

An absurd pressure crushed down on my entire body.

So much that I couldn’t even stand back up.

I remembered how Seri had also dropped to one knee and remained completely motionless when she used this ability.

So apparently, this was simply a skill that prevented you from moving while it was active.

And the pressure was steadily increasing.

I deactivated Armor of Karma again.

Ah...

Now I understood what the description meant by backlash.

So the greater your good karma, the weaker that pressure was?

Which meant you could maintain the armor for longer.

Wondering how long I could keep it active, I activated Armor of Karma again.

“Ghh...”

About twenty minutes?

Around then, the pressure had grown so intense that I genuinely felt like I was about to die, just like with that tightening headband back on Floor 9.

Sixth Sense was sounding the alarm too.

This wasn’t something I could endure through sheer mental strength.

I could actually fucking die from using this skill.

I deactivated Armor of Karma again.

“Phew!”

The description said accumulated backlash slowly disappeared while the armor was inactive, so it seemed like after enough time passed, the pressure would return to its initial level.

Still, I would’ve thought my good karma was pretty high.

And I could maintain it for about twenty minutes.

“If the Demon King used this, wouldn’t you die instantly?”

– We have no need for such a thing.

Anyway, I already knew just how ridiculous this armor’s effect was.

It had endured even the Demon King’s finishing magic for quite a while.

Its defensive power was absurd.

– Had We possessed the full power of Our true body, We would have shattered it instantly!

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Anyway, it had also blocked Diul’s Pitch-Black Fog.

Maybe that had been blocked because it counted as a harmful effect too.

I could basically think of it as a twenty-minute invincibility defense skill.

Though it came with the penalty of being unable to move.

I’d have to check later how long it took for all the accumulated backlash to completely dissipate.

With that, I finished checking all of the first-kill rewards...

And moved on to the regular rewards.

Two Skill Stones and three Skill Enhancement Stones.

I checked the skill descriptions.

[Skill: Elemental Arrow Barrage (Epic+)]

Fires ten elemental arrows. Each arrow can individually be assigned one of the following elemental attributes: fire, water, electricity, or wind. Casting requires 2 minutes of Mental Concentration.

Classification: Magic Type

Willpower Cost: 500

Cooldown: 10 seconds

[Skill: Finger Flick (Epic)]

Flicks a finger to fire condensed qi.

Classification: Physical Type

Willpower Cost: 50

Cooldown: 1 second

“Oh.”

The magic skill...

This actually looked pretty damn good.

Ten arrows with only a ten-second cooldown.

Of course, each individual arrow probably wasn’t all that powerful, but it had an overwhelming number of projectiles and an absurdly short cooldown.

It seemed to be the same general type of skill as Fairy Light Bullet.

Except this was the massively, massively, massively superior version.

Skills that hit incredibly hard in a single blow were good, but of course barrage-type skills that could keep chipping away like this were useful too.

And the next one was Finger Flick.

Physical-type skills sure had a lot of martial-arts-like techniques.

This one’s strength was also its short cooldown.

Just one second.

Was it Epic-grade because it was a ranged Physical-type skill with such a short cooldown?

This one seemed safe enough to test inside the Reward Room, so I tried it.

Crack!

A distant section of wall burst apart.

The range seemed pretty decent.

And the power was about this much, huh?

It was the kind of skill that certainly didn’t hurt to have.

[‘Skill: Elemental Arrow Barrage (Epic+)’ has been acquired.]

[‘Skill: Finger Flick (Epic)’ has been acquired.]

As for the Skill Enhancement Stones, two were Epic+ and one was Epic.

So regular rewards still didn’t go all the way up to Legendary, apparently.

I could use the Epic one to enhance Weakness Insight.

I decided to choose what to enhance with the Epic+ ones later.

That finished sorting through all the rewards.

‘Just how much stronger did I get?’

No wonder the increase was ridiculous.

I had collected the rewards from five bosses all at once.

And on top of that, there was the combat skill I had trained to the limit under Seri’s instruction in the Mental World.

They really weren’t kidding when they said a crisis was an opportunity.

The Tower had tried its damnedest to fuck me over, but in the end I had survived again.

And gotten this much stronger.

What are you gonna do about it?

I win again.

“Thanks for all the rewards, you fucking piece of shit.”

[Would you like to exit the Tower?]

At long last, I left the Tower.

The moment I returned to my room, the first thing I saw was my family’s faces.

“...Seo-hyeon!”

I couldn’t even remember how long it had been since I’d seen those welcome faces.

In real-world time, only a few hours should have passed since I entered Floor 5.

I stared blankly at my family for a moment.

Then I smiled and greeted them.

“I’m back.”

***

[The Tower makes an offer to ‘Person123.’]

[If ‘Person123’ accepts the following Contract, the right to immediately participate in the ‘Joint Battle’ will be granted.]

[Contract Terms]

– The Tower shall, the instant the contract is formed, open every zone of Floor 5 up to Zone 10 and cause the bosses of Zones 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to appear

– ‘Person123’ shall slay all of the bosses of Zones 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 within one hour of the moment the ‘Joint Battle’ ends

[Should the Contract go unfulfilled, ‘Person123’ will be permanently barred from entering Nightmare difficulty.]

[If ‘Person123’ wishes to accept the offer, indicate your intent to accept.]

A message appeared before everyone’s eyes in the middle of the Joint Battle.

The world was turned upside down.

[‘Person123’ has accepted the Tower’s offer, and the Contract has been formed.]

Because the instant the message appeared, Person123 accepted the offer.

[Peter: The fuck? This isn’t even a Nightmare run and the Tower’s making another offer?]

[PotatoChip: Holy shit. Person123 accepted it immediately]

[WhitePaper: No, why the hell did he take that without even thinking about it]

[Universe: Probably because he didn’t want more people to die. If they completely fail, 100 million people die...]

[Loruloruro: Kill the Zone 10 boss within an hour...? Does that even make sense? Is that actually possible?]

The Tower’s absurd Contract terms.

Only up to Zone 6 had currently been opened, yet now it suddenly jumped several stages ahead to Zone 10.

And on top of that, he had to kill the bosses of Zones 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 within a single hour.

A truly ridiculous condition.

[Round 6 result: 99,999,891/100,000,000]

[A total of 0 Non-Climbers will die at random.]

[The ‘Joint Battle’ has ended.]

Fortunately, thanks to Person123’s intervention, the Joint Battle ended without any further deaths.

But the Contract with the Tower still remained. ℯℯ𝑙.

If Person123 failed to uphold the Contract, he would no longer be able to challenge Nightmare difficulty.

That was practically the same as confirming the end of the world.

People waited for news, trembling with fear and anxiety.

But then...

[The Zone 6 boss has been slain.]

[The Zone 7 boss has been slain.]

[The Zone 8 boss has been slain.]

[The Zone 9 boss has been slain.]

Boss defeat notifications appeared one after another.

The Zone 7, 8, and 9 bosses, in particular, died almost instantly, only seconds apart.

[Extreme: ???]

[Grain: Holy... what the hell is this...?]

[Emperor: Is this a bug?]

It was impossible to understand through common sense.

And then, about ten more minutes passed.

[The Zone 10 boss has been slain.]

Even the notification for the final Zone 10 boss appeared.

The total time it had taken to defeat every boss from Zone 6 through Zone 10—

only twenty minutes.

[Congratulations: Holy fucking shitㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[Archmage: Is Person123 a god? Is Person123 a god? Is Person123 a god? Is Person123 a god? Is Person123 a god?...]

[Whistle: How the hell did he even do that...? No, seriously, this makes zero fucking sense]

[Tiri: When has anything he’s done ever made sense? He’s a god!]

[Leaf: This is genuinely astonishing... Just what level is Person123 at now?]

People erupted into cheers, practically trembling with awe.

An incomprehensible level of ability that no one could even begin to guess how he had achieved.

And a man like that was humanity’s savior.

[The reward ‘All Climbers Curse Immunity’ is granted.]

The Climbers were going even crazier now.

Person123 was one thing, but the Joint Battle reward had granted Curse Immunity to all Climbers.

From now on, Climbers would no longer be bound by the Tower’s Time Limit.

A minimum safety net that would let them survive even if the world ended!

Of course they were ecstatic.

[Gluttony: Kya! So now we really won’t die even if the Time Limit runs out?!]

[Daniel: Fucking jackpotㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ]

[Tree: So Climbers don’t really lose anything anymore even if they stop climbing, right?]

[Dice: fr it’s the Climbers’ world now. Honestly, we’ve been sacrificing ourselves for the Non-Climbers this whole time]

[Ruler: Sacrificing my ass. Are you some top-floor Climber or something?ㅋㅋ]

[Mustard: Just enjoy it~ We got ourselves some insurance now~]

[Glass: Honestly the bastards who picked Round 6 were total fucking scum, but I guess it worked out because of themㅋㅋ]

[Lightning: Everything turned out fine in the end, so cheers~]

[Ruwabidseong: You all know this is thanks to our Lord Person123, right? How about we all give him some praise before we go?]

The Communication Channel was running wild.

What suddenly froze it cold was a single post that appeared without warning.

[Person123: This is my first and last warning to all Climbers.]