The Demon Emperor Mask
The transfer finished in a wash of light.
"Hwaaah."
At the same instant my legs gave out, and I collapsed in a heap.
I really thought I was going to die. One wrong word and it would have been over on the spot.
That absurd bluff had somehow worked. If it hadn't, there would have been nothing strange about me becoming fertilizer for the Tower already.
Still.
"It looked like it knew me."
More precisely, it had recognized my trait — Heavenly Demon.
A stone gate that opened to the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. A place called Cheonmadong. A skeleton sitting alone inside in full lotus position.
To claim that skeleton had nothing to do with the Heavenly Demon would have been hopelessly optimistic.
"It's the skeleton from Cheonmadong, so… Cheonmagol, maybe?"
I was the Heavenly Demon, so for convenience I decided to call the thing Cheonmagol.
Anyway — Cheonmagol. I had no desire to ever tangle again with that monster whose mere gaze had made my knees shake.
It had said we'd meet again when we parted, but on my side I had not the slightest intention of that happening.
"Hoo."
I gathered my scattered thoughts and pushed myself up off the floor.
However it had gone, I was still alive. More than alive — I had walked out with a tidy little haul of rewards.
The Oni mask. Why that thing had handed it over without a word of protest was anyone's guess, but for now checking its performance came first.
◈ A mask for the absolute ruler of demons. Simply possessing it can cloud the perception of others.
◈ Saturated with dense demonic energy.
"Unique-grade gear?"
The moment I read the description, I nearly forgot how to breathe from sheer shock.
Unique-grade equipment?
The kind only rankers on the level of Super, Blood Demon, or Maestro could handle freely — the grade an average awakener might go a lifetime without ever so much as glimpsing?
I was so stunned my mind went blank.
Granted, I'd pried it off a lunatic skeleton in a hidden piece, but no matter how I looked at it, this was not the sort of artifact that ought to pop out on the fifth floor.
Unique-grade gear would fetch hundreds of millions the second it hit auction.
Of course, it was a mask rather than a sword or spear, so it wouldn't quite pull those full numbers.
And on top of that—
"Clouds the perception of others?"
As Tower equipment so often did, it came with a maddeningly vague description as a free bonus.
Clouding perception — I couldn't even guess how that was supposed to work.
"Does it thin out people's awareness of me itself?"
If so, it was exactly what I wanted. The problem was—
"It's ominous."
As the description made plain, this Demon Emperor Mask was bleeding some thoroughly unwholesome aura.
Demonic energy.
No real threat to me, but the kind of greasy power that could cause problems for anyone else.
"I'll just carry it."
A strong gut feeling told me not to slap the mask on my face on a whim.
Cheonmagol. That insane pile of bones had handed it over far too readily — there was definitely some scheme behind it.
According to the description, the effect applied from mere possession, so for now hanging it roughly at my waist would do.
"Time to open the chest."
I set the mask aside for the moment. Now came the long-awaited reward.
That said, having already scored a Unique-grade mask, my dopamine was in overdrive. Whatever came out of the chest now was going to have a hard time topping this high.
With that idle thought, I walked over to the box.
The same crude black chest as always.
"You'd think the design would change at some point."
At least then there'd be something to look forward to before cracking it open.
Well, maybe that was just taste. Plenty of people probably hated having the grade spoiled before they even opened the thing — killed the anticipation.
Vmmm!
The moment I stepped closer to open it, something in my clothes started vibrating.
"Huh?"
A phone obviously wasn't going to ring inside the Tower, so something else was reacting.
"This is…"
The Badge of Greed.
The little thing I'd been carting around faithfully because carrying it seemed like it might bring good fortune was rattling like a café buzzer.
"Why?"
Why was it vibrating all of a sudden? Was something actually good about to happen?
I pulled the badge out of my clothes.
Vmmm!
The closer I got to the chest, the harder the badge shook.
"What the hell?"
Was the chest about to spit out a jackpot, or was I supposed to do something to the chest with the badge?
I stood there staring blankly, unsure what to do, when—
Vmmm!
"Whoa—"
The vibration became too much to hold. The badge slipped from my fingers.
It tumbled free of my palm and landed on top of the chest with a soft tok. The instant it did—
FLASH!
A violent burst of light exploded outward.
"Gah!"
The sudden glare nearly blinded me. It felt exactly like browsing the gallery in dark mode in the middle of the night and catching a flashbang square in the face!
Even after I clamped my eyes shut, the afterimage refused to fade.
"What was that."
Only after a long while could I open them again.
"…Nothing's different?"
The chest looked unchanged. Still the same crude black box.
"My badge…"
Gone. I searched every inch of the area and couldn't find so much as a scrap.
"That was a consumable?"
It could have said so up front. If I'd known it was a one-use item, I would have saved it for a higher floor.
Well, regretting it now was a little late.
"What's inside…"
Hoping that something which had eaten an entire item whole would at least contain a jackpot, I carefully opened the chest.
"This is…?"
Inside was a skillbook.
But its appearance was completely different from the ones I'd gotten before.
Where the old skillbooks had been plain paperbacks with no name printed on them at all, the one in front of me was a hardcover with a lavish cover and an elegant title embossed in handsome lettering.
There was only one case that looked like this.
"A designated skillbook?"
Not random — a skillbook that let you learn a fixed skill for certain.
"Whoa."
Scratch what I said earlier about the chest not being able to squeeze out any more dopamine.
Jackpot.
"Heh heh heh."
Blood Demon.
These days, Chao Feilong was enjoying every single day.
The reason was obvious: the Heavenly Demon. A rising awakener who had stomped the former eyesore Super flat and was now shredding records at a breakneck pace.
Click.
He flipped on the TV out of boredom and found Super's interview already playing.
"Bwahaha!"
Now that was entertaining news.
The liquor tasted especially sweet today.
To Blood Demon, Super — Josh Richard — had been a towering wall.
He had tried everything imaginable to surpass him.
He had plastered his whole body in Unique-grade items, scraped together every skillbook he could find to pad out his technique roster, and thrown in doping drugs, buff magic, a cleric's miracles — every card he could play.
And the result?
Feilong had never beaten that musclebound blond Yankee. Not once.
Truly, not even once!
The pride and future of a billion people.
Blood Demon, Chao Feilong — an elite among elites, burdened with the destiny of leading the ignorant masses — had never managed a single victory over some Yankee of unknown origin!
"Those were dogshit days."
Back then, just breathing was enough to spike his irritation.
He could tolerate the unwashed masses calling him a loser who couldn't even beat Super. What he could not tolerate was his own parents throwing Super's name in his face and mocking him as a half-wit.
Of course, those days were over now.
Heavenly Demon.
Because a newly risen awakener was rewriting Super's records and climbing the Tower with unstoppable momentum!
Heavenly Demon, huh. Probably named himself after me.
Feilong had wanted the nickname Heavenly Demon himself at first.
But his power — shaping weapons out of blood — had never quite matched the name, so he'd been forced to settle for the runner-up option, Blood Demon.
In any case, with Blood Demon's prestige at its current height, anyone deliberately choosing a name that invited inevitable comparison had to be a hardcore fan of his. Ten to one.
"Heh heh heh."
Wasn't that adorable?
If you respect someone, just say so. Instead, he'd gone and stamped that feeling onto a Tower nickname you couldn't even change once you set it.
There was just one sticking point.
"He's clearly one of our people, but he refuses to show his face."
Nearly a full week had already passed since the Heavenly Demon started climbing.
An awakener with that much promise should have been unveiling himself to the world by now, yet Heavenly Demon remained completely silent.
"The type who doesn't care about money or fame?"
Bottom-rung awakeners crawled into the Tower to make a living, but rankers were different.
Wealth was something you raked in outside. The Tower was a stage for protecting honor and reputation.
A place to prove you were still worth investing in.
In truth, the income that fell inside the Tower — barring the occasional Unique-grade item — couldn't begin to compare to the fortune you vacuumed up outside.
"Or maybe… he's being jerked around by the media's nonsense."
It wasn't as if he had no idea why Heavenly Demon was hiding so thoroughly.
The public was already babbling that Blood Demon, shoved down to third place by Heavenly Demon, must be cursing the newcomer in private.
Perhaps Heavenly Demon was simply afraid of running into him at all.
"I have no such intention."
If they ever met in person, Feilong would rather pull him into a crushing hug and let out a hearty laugh. Express his gratitude. Say let's keep this going.
He had even released an uncharacteristically conciliatory statement with that very feeling in mind.
"Looks like I need to apply more pressure."
The press — whose job was to convey the will of the people — dared to twist Blood Demon's true feelings however they liked.
If they didn't issue a correction, they wouldn't be writing a single line of awakener coverage ever again. He needed to make that crystal clear—
Riiing!
The phone rang.
"It's me."
"F-Feilong-nim!"
The subordinate on the other end nearly choked on the urgency in his voice the second the call connected.
"What is it?"
"Heavenly Demon — Heavenly Demon has—!"
"Heavenly Demon?"
He had just been thinking about Heavenly Demon. Uncanny timing.
"Did Heavenly Demon do something?"
"Heavenly Demon has finally revealed himself!"
The one who had been locked away in hiding all this time had finally started to move.
"Heavenly Demon—!"
Feilong couldn't contain his excitement and shot up from his seat.
"Where? Shanghai? Beijing? Hangzhou? Or some provincial backwater?"
"Th-that's…"
The subordinate stammered.
"Spit it out!"
Feilong barked.
He had never been the sort of considerate soul who made room for a subordinate's feelings.
"Th-that's… Korea, sir."
The man forced the words out in a trembling voice.
"What?"
Had he misheard?
"Where?"
"Th-the Republic of Korea."
Crack!
Blood Demon Chao Feilong's face twisted.