Tower - Silver Divinity (Part 3)
I pushed the stone slab with all my might, creating an opening just large enough for a person to slip through. This time, before I could even speak, Lee Suyoung sent Bitpung-i ahead.
“There’s a wide space. It looks like some kind of laboratory? There’s a coffin-like object and a crystal behind it.”
“Any traps or monsters?”
At my question, Lee Suyoung focused for a moment as if scanning the area.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“Then let’s head down immediately.”
Once again, Diana and I took the lead while Lee Suyoung followed. The second basement level was far more spacious than I had expected. In one corner stood a wooden desk and a bookshelf crammed with volumes, while the desk itself was neatly arranged with beakers and various laboratory tools.
“There’s a light layer of dust, but everything is so well organized. The owner doesn’t seem to have been away long,” Diana observed.
Her words gave me pause. The books on that shelf looked like grimoires. Would it really be all right to simply take them? Yet the presence of those mole monsters and bats upstairs suggested this place wasn’t designed for casual human access. Since it wasn’t as if someone in the Tower had wished us here, farming the items should be fine. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if there was an owner.
Was this the difference between grave-robbing and excavation? One was a crime, the other… not so much. Still, as Diana said, the tidy arrangement made it feel ambiguous. Taking everything would be convenient, but perhaps copying the texts would be enough?
With that thought in mind, I pulled a book from the shelf. Suddenly, the large stone coffin began to move.
“What did you touch?!” Lee Suyoung cried.
Diana and I froze. A grimoire rested in my hand; a red stone lay in hers.
“I didn’t touch anything special,” I began, but from within the coffin a pale, hideous figure rose.
The creature stood nearly two meters tall, its entire body wrinkled as if badly burned. It had no nose or lips, resembling a mummy stripped of its bandages. Exposed fangs were unnaturally long and sharp, its ears pointed, and its head completely bald. Despite its monstrous appearance, it wore an elegant black suit of fine silk—exactly like the vampires depicted in classic films. Modern vampires usually defaulted to beautiful men and women flaunting “Super Ultra White Teeth (shining white fangs beneath moonlight).”
“The smell of blood. You foolish, greedy livestock who dare intrude upon my domain. To think you would slaughter my emergency provisions and come here.”
Ah. So the mole monsters upstairs had been his emergency rations. That explained why they had been eating moss. As expected, livestock feed should use eco-friendly plant-based options to avoid any gamey aftertaste.
“I shall turn you all into my emergency rations!”
The enraged, old-fashioned vampire drew a dagger across his forearm. Blood surged forth, forming thorns that shot toward us.
“Oh, since we’ve been attacked, it’s fine to take everything now, right?”
“Is that really what matters right now?! Hurry up and fight!”
At my words, Lee Suyoung shouted back. She blocked the blood thorns with a barrier, then counterattacked using Mulpung-i and her Fire Slime. Diana charged straight in, trusting her defensive power and ignoring the thorns entirely. I did the same, deflecting what I could while channeling internal energy into my combat suit to block the rest.
After taking a direct hit, the difference between reinforcing objects with qi and not doing so became viscerally clear. When the harpy’s leg had cut me, it felt like wearing thick leather. Now it felt like solid plate armor. The impact was still there, but it wasn’t enough to cause real damage. As expected of fiftieth-century galactic murim technology. Of course, my internal energy reserves prevented constant use. Had I tried, I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Using it in short bursts every few seconds made sustained deployment possible.
When Diana and I closed the distance, the vampire took to the air and scattered blood thorns concentrated entirely on us. I guarded my head with the gauntlet on my left arm, used light footwork to leap high, and slashed at him.
“Tch!”
The vampire clicked his tongue and twisted away, narrowly avoiding my blade. My sword only grazed his arm, but his regeneration was monstrous—wounds visibly closing in real time. Since he willingly cut himself to fight, it could hardly be called a proper injury.
But then—
Thud!
“Urk!”
Along the path he had dodged, our expert marksman Lee Suyoung fired a flame bullet. The vampire’s flank exploded and burned, halting regeneration. This was a serious wound.
I activated the Double Jump Anklet to create a mid-air foothold and charged straight at him.
“How dare these insignificant creatures!”
The vampire fired dozens of blood thorns at me from point-blank range. I shielded my head with my left arm, trusted my combat suit, and swung my sword.
Swishswishswish! Slash!
“Aaaagh!”
“Ugh!”
The vampire lost his right arm. I was struck by dozens of blood thorns, sent flying, and tumbled across the floor.
“Oppa!”
“Jiwoo!”
At their worried cries, I raised a hand and sprang back to my feet, assuring them I was fine. Fortunately, the falling techniques I had practiced hundreds—thousands—of times kept me from serious injury. Real combat truly was an extension of training. I owed Siwoo my gratitude. Without her regimen, I might have snapped my neck on impact.
Of course, there was still damage. Perhaps cheap goods really were inferior after all. Even though the thorns had struck the combat suit, my abdomen and ribs throbbed. No bones were broken, so movement remained unimpaired, but I would definitely have bruises later. The pain made me itch to absorb a clone for Regeneration, but we were still in combat and I could move, so I postponed it. Overusing my trump-card recovery method was dangerous. Its cooldown was surprisingly long.
When I charged again, the vampire was trying to retrieve his severed right arm from the floor to reattach it. But Diana swung her mace, now wreathed in silver mana that carried a distinctly holy feeling, and smashed the limb.
“Kyaaaaaaaagh—!! You cursed vermin bastard!”
The vampire screamed in agony as if the nerves were still connected. It was far more desperate than when I had cut off the arm or when Lee Suyoung had blown open his side. More surprising than his reaction was the fact that a simple mace strike had caused the severed limb to burst into silver flames and disintegrate into ash instantly.
“How dare you! How dare you! How dare you touch my arm! I will never forgive this!”
The vampire’s eyes rolled back, turning demonic. An ominous power radiated from him as he flew at Diana.
She swung her mace enveloped in silver divinity, but the vampire wrapped his arm in dark-crimson blood and countered. The blood limb burned on contact with her silver divinity, yet because it was not his main body, the damage seemed limited.
“Using such a detestable power! I’ll kill you and make you my servant!”
Diana failed to block the strike in time. Sharp blood claws tore her sleeve, revealing her arm. A scratch appeared on skin that had withstood mace blows without a mark.
“Die—ugh! Cough!”
While the vampire was distracted by Diana, I swiftly circled behind him and drove my sword into his chest.
“You shouldn’t forget about us, you mosquito bastard!”
Stabbed precisely through the heart, the vampire thrashed in pain, trying to shake me off. Lee Suyoung followed up with successive flame bullets to his head. Even after his skull exploded, the heart remained the source of power; his regeneration had weakened dramatically, yet he still regenerated his head instead of dying outright.
To end this, we would need to dismember him until regeneration failed or use an opposing force—Diana’s power.
“I’ll finish it in one strike! Please wait just a moment!”
Diana gathered her silver divinity. I drew my hand axe and chopped the struggling vampire’s limbs to immobilize him. Even dismembered, he continued writhing desperately to survive.
“Is this a vampire or a cockroach?”
No—even cockroaches and planarians would have died long ago if chopped up like this.
Soon a heavy layer of silver divinity coated Diana’s mace.
“It’s over!”
When she brought the mace down hard on the vampire’s head, it shattered and erupted in silver flames. I leaped back in surprise, but the fire felt refreshingly cool rather than hot. Starting from the ruined head, the flames spread to every severed piece, reducing the entire vampire to ash in seconds.
“Whew. It’s finished.”
Exhausted from using her power, Diana sat down on the spot.
“Thank you. I survived thanks to you.”
At her gratitude I smiled lightly.
“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? Without you, I don’t know how we would have handled that vampire. It’s chilling to imagine.”
Diana shook her head.
“My defense is more than adequate, but my offensive power was lacking. If I had been alone, I would have died eventually.”
She examined the scratch on her arm. Even after the vampire’s death, dark-crimson mana clung to the wound, seeping deeper and widening it. Diana calmly raised her silver divinity, expelled the foreign energy, and regenerated the injury smoothly without leaving so much as a scar.
“Is that power holy power?”
“Yes. I was fortunate enough to obtain it. It’s still weak compared to my hardening ability, though.”
A healer who also served as a tanker—the perfect paladin. It didn’t quite suit the delicate Diana, but if she became a companion she would be more reliable than anyone. Above all, when the vampire died, the mana divided among us was greater for Diana than for Lee Suyoung. If Lee Suyoung absorbed roughly fifty percent, Diana took in about eighty. Considering William and Le Thi Hoa had absorbed only ten to twenty percent each, her talent was astonishing.
“Ah, oppa. Isn’t that an Ability Stone by your foot?”
◈ Grants the ability to manipulate blood as a weapon and for regeneration
◈ High compatibility with dark-attribute users
Lee Suyoung pointed at the red stone that had fallen near my feet.
“Oh, it really is one. How should we divide this? Since Diana contributed the most…”
“No thank you.”
Before I could finish, Diana refused with genuine revulsion. She stared at the Ability Stone in my hand as if it were something filthy.
“I have no desire to possess the ability of such a disgusting vampire.”
“Uh, but this would sell for quite a lot.”
“Money is enough as long as I can live comfortably.”
I glanced at Lee Suyoung. She already seemed to consider it not hers.
“I decided to hand over my share of the Ability Stone in exchange for learning martial arts from you, oppa.”
“Really? Then I’ll hold onto it for now. When I sell it later, I’ll compensate Diana with Shop Points or credits.”
Ability Stones were expensive items; simply taking it for free felt wrong. Besides, I wanted to maintain a good relationship with Diana.
At my words, Diana seemed to hesitate over something.
“Is something wrong?”
She shook her head.
“No. Now that I think about it, people we meet while climbing the Tower all arrive at the same city on the 20th floor, correct?”
I nodded. William had said as much, and after checking, the community information appeared accurate. The city on the 20th floor was supposedly much larger in scale than the one on the 10th floor.
“Then we’ll see each other again. That’s good enough for me.”
Diana brushed herself off, stood up, and smiled.
“Will you continue upward, or return to the 10th floor?”
To her question, I smiled and answered.
“We should farm first, of course.”
(To be continued in the next chapter)