How Can Stealth Break from a Single Trap?!

How the hell does stealth get canceled by a single trap?!

-Kuuung!

Poppy, now swollen to a full ten meters, slammed into the giant lizard—the Basilisk.

"Do not approach the giant beasts!"

"Our role is support! Aid Haram-nim's army!"

It was the kind of spectacle where any ordinary human who got too close would end up as the shrimp crushed between two whales. The knights and holy knights steered clear of the titanic clash and focused on holding back the waves of replicated Void Hounds and monsters surging toward them.

The Doppelganger Lord hadn't stopped at copying just the Basilisk. The sixth underground floor was crawling with ordinary monsters as well—orc warriors, trolls, and more.

"Lucy!"

"Got it!"

Hearing my voice, Lucy melted back into a black phantom.

"These trash dare to copy me!"

She fixed her crimson gaze on her own replica.

"Kyaang!"

The moment Lucy's eyes locked on, the fake Lucy collapsed into a formless black mass.

"Huh? Why is my clone so weak?!"

"...Don't tell me you only copied human Lucy? No—mental attacks can't be copied in the first place, right?"

The Doppelganger Lord exploded in rage at the sight of the melting replica.

"You cheaters! How can a body that holds such a powerful rank be this fragile?!"

"Hey, who asked you to copy her?"

"Shut up! Do you know how hard it was to make that thing... I will kill you for this!"

"Then stop running already!"

His words promised my immediate death, yet the Doppelganger Lord kept darting through the darkness, always just out of reach.

"When your entire legion dies, you die with them!"

He must have used the mana-conversion skill to boost his physical power; he fled at nearly the same speed as me. In a pure one-on-one chase my superior senses would have caught him long ago, but—

-Whoosh!

-Slash!

"Argh! These Void Flowers are so damn annoying!"

The replicated Void Flowers kept harassing me without end, so the Doppelganger Lord slipped through my fingers again and again. My blade did graze him now and then—

-Slash!

"Hiek! Regenerate!"

—but even when an arm was severed or a mortal wound opened, he healed almost instantly. At least he couldn't use the skill-sharing ability; no armor ever formed on his body. Still, that ridiculous regeneration kept the fight from ending.

"Damn it! Just you wait!"

I finally gave up chasing him and looked back. My legion was locked in a grinding stalemate with the doppelganger army, the front line surging and receding without decisive progress.

"Gwoooaaaar!!!"

"Keong!"

Poppy, fully enlarged, matched the Basilisk replica in sheer bulk, yet—

"Krrrrrrr..."

—couldn't pierce the creature's thick hide deeply enough to land a killing blow. Occasionally Poppy's claws drew blood, but a white light would immediately wash over the wound and close it.

"You blasphemous wretches! How dare you imitate her!"

The Cardinal smashed a replicated Void Hound's skull with his thorned hammer, voice thick with fury. In the heart of the enemy ranks stood a woman in flowing white vestments. Even the loose robes couldn't hide her enormous chest.

The bandages that once covered her eyes were gone, revealing golden irises that glowed with every pulse of healing light. Each time those eyes shone, the dying doppelgangers' wounds sealed shut.

Flanking the Saintess replica were copies of the Knight-Commander and the Cardinal, shielding her with their auras. Lightweight Void Hounds lunged for the fake Saintess only to be driven back by the replicas' aura blades and holy power.

"Lucy, we clean that up first."

"Okay!"

Catching my intent, Lucy activated invisibility and vanished. In her black-phantom form she could hide from every eye around her.

"He's hidden! Everyone stay alert!"

The Doppelganger Lord had noticed my disappearance and shouted the warning.

He never stole the Detector's ability, huh.

Floating eyes—Detector replicas—drifted through the sixth floor, yet the most crucial detection skill itself had somehow eluded him.

I closed on the Saintess replica and thrust my sword.

-Clang!

The Knight-Commander's aura-coated blade intercepted the ambush.

"Maybe I should just stop trying ambushes? They're completely pointless."

"Hahaha! Haram the scrub! Ambush blocked again!"

"...Lucy, you're banned from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Hunter Gallery for a week."

"Nooooo!!!"

Ordinary stealth that couldn't mask body heat or air currents lost its edge once an opponent reached a certain level. Absolute Stealth would have fixed that, but I'd already chosen Subspace, so there was no point mourning what I didn't have.

"Kieeek!!"

"Not even pretending anymore, are you?"

The Cardinal and Knight-Commander replicas charged me. Normally a doppelganger's copies couldn't wield aura or holy power, yet these three—Saintess, Cardinal, and Knight-Commander—used both freely.

"So you're the Doppelganger Lord's apostles."

"Kie... Die!"

The Doppelganger Lord was a commander-type lesser god who led armies. Where there were trash mobs, named elites were only natural. The two apostles swung sword and hammer together, trying to overwhelm me with numbers.

"I'm not really the ambush type to begin with."

"I've got this!"

Lucy's mental assault slammed into the apostles; their movements slowed. I put everything into parrying the Knight-Commander's aura blade, then took the Cardinal's thorned hammer on my left shoulder.

-Thud!

-Seok.

The hammer shattered my left shoulder, but the off-balance Knight-Commander couldn't stop my follow-up. His head sailed into the air.

"These are stats that fought Lucy's true form. You think mere apostles can stop me?"

"Kieeeek!!!"

My ruined left arm regenerated in under five seconds. The thrashing Cardinal replica lost his head soon after, leaving the golden-eyed Saintess replica alone before me.

The real Saintess always wore a serene smile. Apparently that detail couldn't be copied; the replica's face was twisted in pure hatred.

"Those uselessly huge breasts pissed me off from the start."

"What?!"

"Huh? Did someone hear that?"

I could have sworn I heard the real Lucia's voice somewhere, but it had to be my imagination. Either way, the unprotected Saintess replica's head dropped without fanfare. The moment her support vanished, the stalemated front line collapsed in our favor.

"Gwoooaaaar!!!"

The Basilisk replica, still fighting alone, finally fell once Lucy and I joined the fray. The sixth floor was being cleaned up at high speed. With breathing room at last, I searched every corner for the vanished Doppelganger Lord.

"Where'd he go?"

"Haram, maybe stealth actually is a good skill?"

The Saintess's holy light flooded the floor. Detectors zipped through every nook, yet the Doppelganger Lord was nowhere to be found.

My Queen! The original Basilisk is attacking the fourth floor!

"Hold as long as you can—I'm coming."

Our legion excelled at defense, but a lesser-god-level attacker was more than ordinary soldiers could handle alone.

"Weird... I know he's still here."

The sixth floor had opened when the fifth-floor floor collapsed. The only path to another level was the staircase leading up to the fourth.

"I set traps on the stairs to the fourth floor, so he can't have—"

-Ting!

A snapping string sounded overhead. I looked up. There, right in front of the staircase to the fourth floor, hung the Doppelganger Lord, caught dead in a trap.

"You cheaters! How does stealth break from a single trap? That doesn't make any sense!!!"

"...Haram, stealth really is garbage."

"...Can't even argue."

While we fought his army, the Doppelganger Lord had tried to sneak to the surface with stealth. The trap I'd prepared earlier canceled it instantly. Without allies to draw attention, he offered his neck without resistance. His regeneration skill still frantically tried to knit flesh back together, but a severed head was beyond even that.

"Shoong-shoongs! I'm counting on you for the rest!"

"Ukki!"

I planted a Void Pond on the sixth floor and ordered the Void Monkeys to dissolve the doppelganger corpses.

"Poppy! How much time left on the skill?!"

"Keong!"

"Thirty minutes?! Move!"

We'd killed the Doppelganger Lord, yet the tenth floor of the Tower still hadn't cleared. The objective had always been escape to the surface, and as long as the original Basilisk lived, the threat remained. We had to finish this before the skill duration ran out.

"Humans, fall back! Don't wander around and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠die for nothing!"

"We will help!"

"If you die stupidly the points vanish! Get out!"

"Uh... points?"

"Just go!"

I pushed the knights and holy knights who wanted to keep fighting out of the way and headed for the stairs connecting to the third floor. The Void Pond that had stood there was already destroyed, its water dried up. Void Monkeys and Void Hounds were throwing their lives away to slow the enemy advance.

"Gwoooaaaar!!!"

The same roar I'd heard from the replica on the fifth floor—except the original Basilisk's cry froze my body for a heartbeat. Considering mana conversion was still active, the sheer pressure packed into that sound was terrifying.

"Fuck, can we even kill that thing?"

"The Tower never said we had to kill it! You're the weird one for trying, Haram!"

Two stats over a thousand put me in the lower high-ranker range, and I even had an S-rank mental barrier, yet looking at that monster I still couldn't believe we could take it down.

"This much difference between lesser gods?"

"A well-endowed big sister who's lived over ten thousand years—Basilisks are top-tier even among lesser gods! Should we just run?"

Strength aside, the narrow underground ruins were a nightmare for something that size. Outside the unusually spacious fifth and sixth floors, every other level forced even Poppy to shrink just to move comfortably. The Basilisk's massive body was a penalty here.

"Lucy, you and Poppy lure the Basilisk deeper in."

"Got it!"

"Keong!"

I ordered the entire legion holding the line to retreat at once, then approached the raid party still hiding in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rear.

"Miss Haram! As expected, our assistance—"

"Forget it. Pack everything. We're escaping the ruins."

"Hmm? You've already slain the original Basilisk?"

"Even a hundred Cardinals couldn't kill it, so hurry up and pack!"

While I coordinated with Poppy to draw the Basilisk deep into the fourth floor, the rest of the legion carved a path to the surface, slaughtering any monsters that wandered into our way. The Basilisk was a solitary powerhouse that never interacted with other creatures; it never noticed us quietly slipping away.

"I am truly grateful. This debt will be repaid."

"I'll be visiting the Holy See soon, so have the sacred relics ready."

"Ahem... Understood. But are you not leaving with us?"

"I still have work to do. And get as far from this area as you can, as fast as you can. I'm about to cast a very large spell here."

"Very well. We will head straight for the city."

I sent the entire raid party out of the ruins, then descended again to the first underground floor. After giving them enough time to clear the vicinity, I began the operation.

"Everyone ready?"

"Woof!"

"Ukki!"

The Void Hounds and Void Monkeys that had stayed behind instead of escaping with the humans.

Poppy, where's the Basilisk?

Keong!

Lured by Poppy and Lucy, the Basilisk had already gone all the way down to the sixth-floor cavern. I opened the status window and checked the remaining cooldown.

The moment the escape plan was set, I had canceled Skill Share to start the cooldown. Three hours later, it was finally ready.

"Haram!"

"All right. Time to finish the real tenth floor."

"Keong!"

"Juejueya!"

My body turned translucent and rose into the air. In this state no physical force could touch me.

"All right, kids. Die for the legion."

Poppy roared, and the same command slammed into every legion unit inside the ruins. Void Monkeys tore at the walls with frenzied claws. Mana-reinforced Void Hounds shredded pillars with fangs and talons.

"Poppy, you get inside."

"Keong!"

-Kugugugugugu...

Nearly ten thousand legion units smashing the walls at once sent a massive tremor through the entire ruin.

"The Basilisk's going to be pretty surprised."

"Basilisk! Great workout for you!"

"Isn't that a bit heavy for a workout?"

"Haram, are you broken? You don't even get the joke!"

"...Lucy, I really am confiscating your Hunter Gallery access."

While Lucy and I traded nonsense, the ruins slowly began to sink. Then the critical point passed; the ground gave way and the whole structure collapsed. Hundreds of millions of tons of mass plummeted straight onto the Basilisk.

"If this doesn't kill it, we really will have to call it a god."

"I'm a god too!"

"A bottom-tier lesser one?"

"No! I'm a Transcendent!"

Before the operation I'd confirmed with actual Transcendents that the Basilisk had zero chance ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of surviving a collapse like this. A lesser god, for all the title, was still just a somewhat versatile and powerful creature—exactly as the God of War had said.

"Now this is magic."

"Magic! Physics!"

After a short while the collapse ended and the tremors faded. We couldn't check the corpse buried underground, but the moment Lucy and I stepped out onto the surface, system messages bloomed before my eyes.