The War God Appears
What mattered most when it came to climbing the Tower?
There were countless factors.
Good items. Powerful skills. Unique traits. Outstanding companions. Cool, precise judgment.
All of them were important without question.
But if one had to choose a single thing, it was level.
Just like in any other game, the higher a player’s level rose, the stronger they became. The status window of the Akasha System never displayed exact numbers, yet with every level gained a player could feel the growth in their own body—physical ability and even the invisible mana. Higher level meant greater strength.
The Tower of Light itself never escaped that absolute truth: level was king.
Of course, beings who displayed power that transcended their level were not entirely absent. Very rarely. An extremely small handful of chosen players boasted skill far beyond the numbers they carried—whether through skills, traits, or some other outstanding talent. They possessed things ordinary players simply did not have.
Eliyah was one of them.
Level 16. Yet the power he wielded was clearly above level 20. Even setting aside the skills he had obtained on the first floor, his own talent was special. That was why he had reached the fifth floor faster than anyone else.
And yet…
“Uwek.”
“…Uwek?”
Eliyah stared at the face of a complete stranger—the bastard who had started dry-heaving the instant their eyes met. A filthy Asian. He wore a long coat black as if it had been cut from the night sky itself, a teddy bear dangling absurdly from his arm. The whole picture was ridiculous.
“Who are you?”
Eliyah had no idea when this one had reached the fifth floor. Judging by the timing of his return, the gap between them did not seem large.
Did he come up right behind Kang Mu-hyun?
The timing was a little off for that. Still, Eliyah could not rule it out. He still did not fully understand the Tower’s systems. All he could do was ask the man with a face that made his dislike plain.
“Why the hell do you need to know? I just get here and the first thing I see is that shitty mug of yours. My stomach’s already turning.”
“What did you just say?”
Eliyah’s expression twisted slightly. Hearing abuse from someone he had never met before was a perfectly natural reaction. The other man, however, could not have cared less. He waved a dismissive hand and kept right on insulting him.
“Ah, get out of the way. You rent this whole place or something?”
He looked for all the world like some neighborhood bum who knew nothing of how the world worked. Even so, Eliyah did not get angry. No—he could not. Far too many eyes were watching. Most belonged to the NPCs of the village called Pine Breeze, but not all of them. There were players as well. In the week Eliyah had spent outside, a considerable number seemed to have reached the fifth floor. Every one of them looked a wreck, their gazes turning this way as if they had only just arrived.
So Eliyah barely managed to smother the killing intent and rage rising like mist.
“…I apologize. It seems I have been rude.”
He switched masks, settling his face into a polite expression anyone could recognize, and stepped aside.
“Please go ahead.”
The filthy Asian made another retching gesture and started walking. As the two of them brushed past each other, a low voice reached Eliyah’s ear.
“There’s no real evidence right now, so I’ll let it slide. But if I ever catch you, I’ll tear your neck off and play foot volleyball with it.”
What was that supposed to mean? The words made no sense, yet one thing was certain.
This bastard…
He was hostile. Even though Eliyah had never once met him before, the man truly carried killing intent. Eliyah’s smile twisted a fraction.
“So watch how you act.”
That was the end of it. The man put distance between them and headed toward Pine Hill. A damp, ominous gaze bored into his back.
“The second I come down I have to look at that face.”
Yujin kept frowning as if his stomach had turned. Eliyah Ventrick. Better known as Zygote. The ability that would later be revealed as his was grotesque even by the standards of a Tower overflowing with the unreal.
He eats life and makes it his own power…
He did not discriminate by species. Monster or beast… or player. Anything could be consumed and turned into strength. Yujin himself had once watched Zygote chew through the forty-third floor’s boss, the Sea Dragon, and walk away with water-attribute skills and traits. That part had not been particularly shocking. Yujin had eaten more than a few monsters while climbing the Tower himself. On floors without cities or villages, floors where one had to spend long stretches of time, one had to find nutrition somehow.
The reason Yujin found Zygote repulsive—and wanted to kill him at every opportunity—was something else entirely.
He was said to eat players too.
It was never confirmed. Only a suspicion. Yet the story had a nasty ring of truth. Companions who traveled with him would suddenly vanish. Zygote would later be seen using the skills or traits of the missing. Naturally, players began to suspect him. Each time, Zygote slipped free with his excellent reputation and silver tongue.
Just you wait until I catch you for real.
Yujin clicked his tongue, feeling the bastard’s gaze scrape across the back of his head. In the first timeline he had left him alone for lack of evidence. But if those rumors turned out to be true? There would be no need to hesitate.
I’ll kill him.
Anyone who ate players to grow stronger was trash on the same level as the Ten Evils—a human piece of garbage of no use whatsoever to climbing the Tower. It did not matter how powerful Zygote became or how diligently he climbed.
I should tear his limbs off and stuff them down his throat.
But not yet. Truthfully he wanted to kill the man right this moment, yet…
The fact remains he’s still useful.
Later, on a higher floor, if it was ever proven that he truly ate players, Yujin would designate him a new member of the Ten Evils and strike without hesitation—exactly as he had beaten The Smiling Man, Jin Taeho, into a bloody pulp on the Tutorial Floor.
Anyway, that’s that.
Yujin looked around Pine Breeze. There were a lot of people—enough that the players outnumbered the NPCs in his field of view. Part of it was simply that Pine Breeze was a tiny village, but it also meant a great many bastards had reached the fifth floor.
Looks like they all just got here.
They were a real sight. The same wrecked, exhausted faces Yujin, Lee Sia, and Park Ji-hoo had worn the first time they stepped into this place. Roughly fifty of them? In the first timeline, Yujin himself would have been arriving around now.
Come to think of it, a few of these kids look familiar.
He did not know their names. They had been idiots he never bothered paying attention to. Yujin walked slowly, examining them one by one. Bastards who had climbed to the fifth floor around the same time as Zygote. Not outstanding, but still fairly skilled for the early stages… my ass.
What a mess.
Trash. He had no intention of comparing them to Lee Sia or Park Ji-hoo. Thanks to Yujin’s help, those two had already hit level 30 by the time they reached the fifth floor. They had not simply focused on climbing; they had devoted most of their time to leveling. If Yujin had merely aimed to ascend, the two of them would have reached the fifth floor in a day rather than a month. Because they had sacrificed that time to hunt, they had arrived at the absurd level of 30. So those two were exceptions.
Even allowing for that, the ones in front of him were enough to make him sigh.
Level 10. Level 8. That one over there is maybe around 12?
Not even half of Lee Sia’s and Park Ji-hoo’s levels. Plenty of them did not even reach a third.
Was it always this bad?
Thinking back, yes. He had called them pathetic bastards back then too.
Whatever. I shouldn’t expect much.
Aside from a few exceptions, they were of little use in conquering the Tower. Most were simply struggling to survive. Yujin had no interest in babysitting the likes of them.
Scratch-.
Coming all the way down here already felt pointless. The first thing he had seen was Zygote’s repulsive face, and no one decent was in sight.
I should just go look for the Fighting Demon’s gauntlet.
Focusing on Park Ji-hoo’s item would be far more worthwhile. Having circled the small village of Pine Breeze once, Yujin turned around, heading for the place where the Champion Glove [C] lay sleeping.
That was when it happened.
Wooooong-.
The stone pillar standing in the center of Pine Breeze began to vibrate, giving off a soft light. A sign that someone was entering the fifth floor through the pillar. No one would be coming down from a higher floor, so it was almost certainly a player returning from outside.
Who could it be?
Yujin looked that way with indifferent eyes. No real expectation—only curiosity. Returning at this point meant the climber had moved at a speed comparable to Zygote’s. When Yujin’s gaze met the stone pillar, the light faded and someone took a step forward.
Thud-.
The stride was stable. Even a simple walking gait, yet free of any sway—enough to catch Yujin’s interest.
That is…?
Age roughly late twenties to early thirties. An ordinary-looking man with nothing special about his features. Whether he had truly returned from outside, he wore clean clothes that allowed free movement. Unlike the trash filling Pine Breeze, a strong, heavy presence radiated from him.
His level is higher than Zygote’s?
Probably sixteen. Or seventeen. Similar to Zygote, or maybe one higher. It was surprising—that at this stage his level surpassed that repulsive bastard’s. Only then did anticipation begin to frost over Yujin’s eyes.
“So it really has returned.”
In one hand he held an old spear that looked to be E-grade. He sighed with a somewhat empty face.
“I had hoped it wasn’t real.”
Even in his furrowed brow, an upright character showed through.
“No choice, is there. Right, Eliyah?”
The man greeted Zygote, who had still been standing in front of the stone pillar. They clearly had some prior connection. Zygote put on a friendly smile and returned the greeting.
“Looks like you enjoyed your vacation, Kang Mu-hyun.”
“Not really. I just ate a ton of food. You wouldn’t know, but Koreans live on rice power. You’ve got to eat hearty if you’re going to climb the Tower.”
The old spear spun once in his hand. Seeing it, Yujin finally remembered who the man was. Only once—even in the first timeline he had seen him only once—yet a single name flashed through his mind on pure instinct.
Chiyou.
A powerful player who had represented Korea, a tragic War God who had vanished without ever reaching the higher floors.
Found him.