The Nine-Tailed Fox
Countless items defying human reason dwell within the Tower. And just as such unimaginable wonders exist, so too do threats that far exceed mortal logic. Those content to linger within the fragile boundaries of their understanding will never set foot upon the next floor. It is a crucible where survival demands relentless ambition, adaptability, and reckless courage—a realm where one must continually advance simply to exist. That is the nature of the Tower.
🏛 Type: Subterranean Chamber
⚔ Difficulty: Low
💀 Boss: Giant Crimson Slime
True to what I had anticipated, the Tower was constructed so that deadlier beasts surfaced the higher one ascended. The first floor crawled with a massive swarm of crimson slimes. Yet with raid data compiled from hundreds and thousands of prior expeditions, the Magic Law Enforcers cleaved through the gelatinous vermin without a flicker of tension, advancing steadily down the stone corridor.
"Vanguard, charge! Rearguard, conserve your mana—refrain from casting spells unless strictly necessary!"
Ella barked her orders with practiced ease, dispatching only the sword-and-shield-bearing enforcers into the fray while preserving the magical reserves of the line behind them.
"Cleave!"
One of the frontline fighters swung his blade, cleanly bisecting a crimson slime in a single stroke. Their martial techniques bore little resemblance to the sorcery I had watched Ella and Yeonwoo wield.
"Flurry!"
A second cut sheared the creature into four. In the next breath, a torrential volley of thrusts too rapid for the naked eye pulverized the slime into a spray of liquid, erasing its form completely.
Clink.
Upon the slime's demise, a crystal glowing with a faint purple luminescence dropped onto the flagstones. Slaughtering some thirty more slimes with identical, effortless precision, we arrived before the entrance to the boss chamber.
I turned toward Ella and asked, "Didn't you claim the Tower overflowed with boundless treasures and items defying all reason? Why haven't I seen a single piece of worthwhile loot on our way through the first floor?"
"Floors that have already been cleared rarely yield decent rewards from common trash mobs, my dear Spirit," Ella replied with a light smile. "However... the boss is an entirely different matter."
Rumble—!
As the colossal stone doors ground open, a gargantuan slime venting scalding plumes of steam stood entrenched within the chamber.
"Vanguard, raise shields! Rearguard, commence fire chant!"
Ella raised her voice, her commands ringing out without a shred of hesitation. The rhythm was second nature to her.
The giant slime vaulted straight toward the cavernous ceiling, then slammed down mercilessly onto the stone floor.
KABOOM—!
The tremor sent boiling, viscous fluid splashing violently in every direction. Sizzle! Pillars and masonry groaned and liquefied under the blistering heat, yet the enforcers' shields held firm without a scorch mark—evidently reinforced with specialized defensive enchantments.
In that opening, the mages in the rear completed their incantation.
Above the boss, a raging vortex coalesced into an enormous sphere of flame that matched the beast's immense bulk.
ROOOAAAR—!
The inferno swallowed the giant slime whole. With a prolonged hiss, the first-floor boss disintegrated into a heap of smoldering cinders. A brilliant radiance burst from the spot where it died, and when the flash faded, several items rested upon the scorched stone.
"Hey. Go check it."
At Ella's cold command, an enforcer cautiously stepped forward and retrieved the spoils.
"Tsk."
Ella clicked her tongue as she inspected the dropped items. "Nothing but B-grade junk. Shove it into the Spatial Pouch."
Another enforcer holding a fist-sized satchel came forward, methodically feeding item after oversized item into its mouth. The interior looked utterly bottomless, an abyss opening into an unfathomable pocket of space.
Without pausing to rest, we stepped into the portal leading to the next floor.
Floor 2, the cavernous warren known as the Goblin's Den.
Floor 8, the Tiger's Lair, where a massive Bengal tiger prowled as the floor boss.
Floor 12, the Acrobats' Dance, where terrifyingly masked humanoid monsters cackled madly while whirling wicked blades.
Floor 20, the Swarm, where repulsive vermin crawled in ceaseless waves, forcing the mages to scorch a path forward with continuous fire magic.
Because optimal strategies had long since been perfected for every floor, our ascent was effortless. I didn't even need to intervene.
And at last, we reached the threshold of the unknown: the 31st floor.
Standing before the massive gates leading to the 32nd floor, Ella approached me with an uncharacteristically solemn expression.
"My dear Spirit, you must exercise absolute caution from the thirty-second floor onward. To leave the Tower, one must reach the boss chamber of the current floor—only upon arriving in the boss room can one choose whether to ascend further or activate the portal back outside. But... the thirty-second floor is uncharted territory. Not our enforcers, not the guild explorers, not even the city's military elite have ever cleared its boss. No one knows its layout, or what manner of beast lies in wait."
Upon stepping onto the 32nd floor, vulpine monsters sporting two or more tails emerged to meet us. Each seemed endowed with distinct elemental affinities corresponding to their tail count, growing progressively more formidable the more tails they possessed. Yet even they were insufficient to halt an elite squad of enforcers armed with centuries of institutional doctrine and state-of-the-art magical gear.
We reached the entrance to the 32nd floor's boss chamber in short order.
Rumble—!
The ponderous doors parted, revealing the vast expanse beyond.
There, curled in languid majesty, was a colossal Nine-Tailed Fox—a creature easily three stories tall, cloaked in dazzling, snow-silver fur. Behind her, nine massive tails swayed in continuous, fluid arcs. Her gaze held a mesmerizing heterochromia: one eye shimmering in crystal azure, the other glowing with deep, verdant jade.
An A-rank-plus presence... a sublime divine beast, possessing both transcendent intellect and the terrifying grace of a high-ranking calamity.
"Hmph..."
Ella swallowed hard, visibly shaken by the suffocating weight of mana radiating from the Gumiho. Without hesitating, she summoned her contracted spirit.
"Come forth, Tree Blademaster!"
A samurai-shaped spirit sculpted from petrified, ancient timber materialized before her. Drawing the wooden blade at its hip in the blink of an eye, the samurai sprinted toward the fox with blinding speed.
At that exact moment—
KREEEAAARGH—!
The Nine-Tailed Fox unleashed a thunderous, majestic roar that shook the boss chamber down to its foundations.
"Ugh...!"
The acoustic force compelled every one of us to clutch our ears and freeze in place. The space throughout the chamber warped violently.
Wuuuush.
As the spatial distortions settled, every single boss monster we had slain from the 1st floor to the 31st began manifesting out of thin air.
"Th-This is impossible... A monster wielding spirit arts...?"
The muscular goblin boss of the 2nd floor, brandishing a colossal club, stepped out of the void and brought its weapon down flush into the charging samurai spirit's midsection.
CRACK—!
Tumbling across the flagstones, the samurai spirit skidded to a halt in a gruesome state, severed clean in two. Yet true to its botanical composition, thick vines surged from the severed trunk in an attempt to regenerate its lower half in seconds.
The monsters gave it no such reprieve.
The giant slime from the 1st floor crashed over the regenerating spirit, engulfing it whole and dissolving it into liquid nothingness with searing, acidic sludge.
What followed was not a raid, but a one-sided slaughter.
Defying her colossal stature, the Nine-Tailed Fox tore across the chamber at transonic speed. With every swipe of her exquisite silver claws, the vanguard and rearguard ranks of the Magic Law Enforcers shattered into a spray of blood. Neither enchanted shields nor recited wards could withstand the fox's shearing strikes coupled with the coordinated onslaught of thirty-one phantom bosses.
One minute.
In barely sixty seconds, the entire elite division of Magic Law Enforcers lay slaughtered. In that blood-soaked abattoir, the only ones left breathing were Ella and me.
Ella wept in terror and despair, yet even then, she pulled me close and cried out, "N-No matter what happens... I will protect you... I will keep my dear Spirit safe...!"
Pressing a trembling index finger to her brow, she whispered to me with eyes that knew death was upon her: "I love you... my dear Spirit...."
SWISH—!
A crisp silver arc split the air.
The Gumiho's razor-sharp claws flashed, and Ella's right wrist was cleanly lopped off.
"A-Aaaagh! Aaaaargh! M-My hand!!!"
Her severed hand, still bearing the purple ring, thumped onto the blood-slicked stone.
"N-No...! My ring...!" Ella shrieked, desperately lunging toward the severed limb to reclaim it.
WHAM—!
The giant goblin's club slammed directly into Ella's stomach.
"Guh—!"
Spitting a fountain of blood, Ella bounced across the stone floor. With her shoulder and arm joints dislocated and bloody saliva dripping from her lips, she barely managed to prop her ruined torso upright.
Looking down with cold, mismatched eyes, the Nine-Tailed Fox delicately lifted Ella's severed hand with the tip of her claw. She examined the purple ring resting upon the finger with intense scrutiny.
"Give it back...! That's mine! That's my Spirit, you monstrous bitch—!"
Completely unhinged, Ella screamed like a demon while dragging her broken limbs across the floor. "Hey! He's not someone filth like you is allowed to touch!"
Screeching in fury, she charged straight at the giant beast.
The Gumiho peered down at her as if regarding vermin, raising a claw high to sever the woman's thread of life once and for all.
"Captain—!"
An enforcer barely clinging to life amidst the heap of corpses pulled a Spatial Pouch from his coat. Opening the aperture wide, he forcibly engulfed Ella's raving body into the spatial folds, threw himself into the opening, and vanished across the dimensional boundary of the boss room.
Skrrt, krrr... skreeeech—!
A giant centipede among the phantom bosses grated out a sickening screech, akin to nails dragging across a chalkboard, as if asking whether they should pursue the fugitives.
Yet the Nine-Tailed Fox, understanding the creature perfectly, gave a serene shake of her head.
"There is no need to chase them. That human has undoubtedly sealed the aperture on the other side already."
Bringing the severed finger—and me, trapped within that purple ring—up to her eyes, the Gumiho gazed intently upon it. Those mesmerizing, mismatched eyes peered into the ring where I was confined, locked in a gaze that seemed ready to devour me whole.