Chapter 168: Heuksan in the Tower of Revelation
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 168: Heuksan in the Tower of Revelation
5
After a night with Ahyu, I had fallen asleep at some point. I rubbed my eyes and sat up.
“Nnngh.”
Perhaps because the blanket was gone, Ahyu seemed to feel a little cold as she flailed about.
We had been at it all night, finally falling asleep after showering together. I stroked her hair and pulled the blanket over her.
After getting up and brushing my teeth, I was opening the fridge to make breakfast.
Trrrrring—
Suddenly, my phone started ringing.
Worried it might wake Ahyu, I quickly grabbed my phone and answered.
“Hello?”
[Ha-chan.]
Hearing the urgent voice, I quickly adjusted my grip on the phone.
The voice belonged to none other than Seol-hyang.
[Baeksan went into the Tower of Revelation.]
My eyes widened at her words.
I quickly scanned my surroundings.
Baeksan was nowhere to be seen.
He must have sensed the mood between Ahyu and me and slipped away in the meantime.
“When?”
[I think it was last night. It seems he snuck out while I was briefly asleep.]
“Alright. I’ll ask around on my end, too.”
If it was about Heuksan, Baeksan would know best.
Realizing I had to find Baeksan first, I hurried to the closet and pulled on some clothes.
“Mmm, Domi-oppa?”
The noise must have woken Ahyu. She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest.
She rubbed her eyes, looked at me, and then tilted her head, her eyes still half-closed.
“Is something wrong?”
“It looks like Baeksan went to the Tower of Revelation.”
Hearing this, Ahyu’s eyes shot open as if she had finally shaken off her sleepiness.
“…What for?”
Ahyu tilted her head again, her expression one of confusion.
“I’m not sure. I’m going to head over there myself.”
I had a feeling Baeksan would have the answer.
Ahyu nodded at my words and got out of bed.
Naked, she shyly covered herself for a moment before quickly putting on her underwear.
Then, dressed in the same clothes as yesterday, Ahyu came and stood beside me.
“Let’s go together.”
She was Ahyu, the Heavenly Demon and The Strongest Under Heaven.
Having her by my side was the most reassuring thing in the world, so I nodded.
“Okay, please.”
I said to Ahyu and opened the front door.
Leaning against the wall just outside was Baeksan.
Had he been waiting here?
He glanced at me and sighed with a displeased look on his face.
“Took you long enough.”
“Uh, sorry.”
When I apologized reflexively, Baeksan glanced at Ahyu with an indifferent expression before speaking.
“You’re moving because you heard the news that this world’s version of me went into the Tower of Revelation, right?”
“So you knew.”
The fact that he hadn’t called to stop me meant that the original Baeksan had done the exact same thing.
“Yeah. I spent three years in the Tower of Revelation before coming out. Of course this world’s me would go too.”
My eyes went round at his words.
This was a story I hadn’t heard before.
“I told you, didn’t I? By the time I properly understood the world, JMC, Girasung, and those Alterz bastards were all on their last legs. That’s the reason why.”
So he didn’t know what was happening outside because he was in the Tower of Revelation.
Hearing this new piece of Baeksan’s past, I headed for the elevator.
“Why did you go into the Tower of Revelation?”
With Ahyu following me silently, I posed the question to Baeksan. He looked toward the window.
In the distance, the Tower of Revelation shimmered like a mirage.
“Because I wanted to find my worth.”
Hearing the word ‘worth,’ I looked at Baeksan with a puzzled expression.
“Back then, I was a goddamn idiot with trust issues, so I couldn’t believe in anyone. I was a guy who couldn’t even trust himself.”
Though he wasn’t a guy anymore.
“So, just like how I clung to fighting the Six Evils, I clung to the Tower of Revelation to find my worth. It’s the same as those returnees around you. Just as they depend on you, I decided to depend on the Tower of Revelation.”
Baeksan clicked his tongue with a look of distaste.
“And to think I didn’t even know it was all meaningless. A bastard with a terminal case of eighth-grade syndrome.”
Spitting out harsh words even at himself, Baeksan looked at me as if to say, ‘enough of that.’
“Are you going to get her?”
When Baeksan asked, I answered as if it were obvious.
“Yes.”
Just from Baeksan’s words, there was no reason for Heuksan to enter the Tower of Revelation.
The moment he called it meaningless, I knew I had to stop her at all costs.
When I said so, Baeksan sighed and spoke.
“Be careful. In the Tower of Revelation, things that defy comprehension are always happening.”
Hearing Baeksan’s warning, I nodded in understanding.
Since Seol-hyang said she would go on ahead and wait, I immediately shifted my gaze to the Tower of Revelation.
In that instant, a tingling sensation echoed through my head.
As I frowned at the unfamiliar feeling, a voice resonated in my mind.
[ €ill you com$¤ ]
It wasn’t a proper language, but a jumble of words.
“Just answer in your mind.”
Baeksan’s advice came from the side.
Hearing his words, I answered inwardly.
At that moment, my vision blurred and shot forward.
It felt as if my consciousness was being sucked somewhere. I shook my head to clear it and a new landscape came into view.
A field of golden yellow stretched out as far as the eye could see, swaying under a crimson sky.
I stood there in silence for a moment, in that strangely comforting place.
It was the sensation of an unfamiliar scene invading my mind without permission.
“Don’t stare at the sunset for too long. Your mind will get sucked in.”
Baeksan, who had appeared beside me, offered his advice.
I quickly tore my eyes away from the sunset.
I had a feeling something terrible would have happened if I kept looking at it.
Just then, Ahyu appeared next to me.
She scanned our surroundings before coming closer.
“Hmm, the naturally formed energy here is bizarre.”
Ahyu also seemed to sense something, her expression uneasy.
Seeing her, I took out my phone.
I wonder if I can get a signal.
As expected, the phone screen read ‘Out of Service Area.’
Feeling a pang of disappointment, I put the phone back in my pocket just as another person appeared behind us.
“Ah, Ms. Eunhyeon.”
“A pleasure to see you.”
It was none other than Eunhyeon.
Still wearing her blindfold, she glanced around the Tower of Revelation and smiled faintly.
“This place hasn’t changed.”
“Have you been here before?”
“Yes, for a short while, a long time ago.”
Eunhyeon said, then came to stand beside me.
“Lady Seol-hyang is not too far from here.”
A single, pure white tail swayed behind Eunhyeon’s back.
As expected of someone with outstanding sensory abilities, she already knew Seol-hyang’s location.
“Could you please lead the way?”
“Of course.”
Eunhyeon spoke and began to walk, leading me along.
As I started to follow her, I saw silver hair in the distance.
The wind blew, and through the fluttering strands of her hair, her face was revealed, illuminated by the sunset and looking incredibly beautiful.
Watching her, I was momentarily captivated until Ahyu jabbed me in the ribs.
“What are you staring at?”
Seeing Ahyu’s face full of jealousy, I gave a bitter smile.
“Are you jealous?”
“Hmph, I don’t know.”
Seeing the pouting Ahyu, I shrugged.
“If you don’t know, then there’s nothing to be done.”
With that, I quickly headed toward Seol-hyang. Ahyu’s eyes widened, and she chased after me.
“Domi-oppa!”
“What? Didn’t you say you don’t know?”
At my words, she followed me with a sulky expression.
Somehow, I had grown accustomed to handling a jealous Ahyu.
“Seol-hyang.”
“You’re here?”
Seol-hyang turned to me with a bright smile, then glanced at Ahyu beside me and clicked her tongue with a ‘tsk.’
“So you came.”
“Why do you sound so displeased?”
They’re ready to fight the moment they see each other.
“Right now, Baeksan is more important than the two of you fighting. We need to find out what floor of the Tower she’s climbed to.”
When I prioritized Heuksan, Seol-hyang and Ahyu glanced at each other and said no more.
Instead, Seol-hyang came to my side and said.
“There is an easy way to find that out.”
When I asked how, Seol-hyang looked at the stairs visible in the distance.
“If we go up to the 10th floor, we should be able to get a rough idea.”
“You’re talking about Alterz.”
Seol-hyang nodded in agreement.
Wolfgang Vegas, an S-rank hunter and member of Alterz, was the lord of the 10th floor, always sitting there like a permanent fixture.
The German-born hunter was famous for blocking other hunters from ascending the Tower of Revelation.
“The Tower of Revelation was recently cleared up to the 22nd floor, right?”
I had been keeping a close eye on the situation in the Tower.
I knew that a returnee from the US had recently challenged and cleared it.
“But Alterz is still the same.”
“Alterz may have shrunk a bit due to recent events, but it’s still a gathering of S-rank hunters.”
Seol-hyang seemed to have a grasp on Alterz’s situation as well.
In the meantime, we had arrived in front of the stairs.
“Let’s go up quickly.”
The cleared floors of the Tower of Revelation can be ascended without any interference.
So, the four of us began to climb the stairs.
With each floor we climbed in the Tower of Revelation, the surrounding scenery changed.
And each of those places was somewhere I had never seen in my life.
“That’s because this place is modeled after somewhere in another dimension. How could you have possibly seen it in your lifetime?”
Hearing that the floors of the Tower were imitations of other dimensions, I felt a strange sensation.
What exactly was the Tower of Revelation?
Why did it appear on Earth, opening dimensional gates while also protecting us from invaders?
Many questions arose, but I knew well that Baeksan couldn’t answer them.
The mouth of a regressor who stared silently at the Tower of Revelation as if he had swallowed something bitter could not be easily opened.
And so, we finally arrived on the 10th floor.
I felt a sense of wonder as I watched the blue snow crystals falling from the sky.
It was snow so dangerous it would give an ordinary person frostbite on contact, but to the four of us, it was just prettier than normal snow.
We had reached a stage where environmental factors were becoming meaningless.
“Hmph.”
At that moment, Ahyu suddenly let out a hum, her eyes turning red.
Simultaneously, my own senses began to pick up on several people.
Every one of them had an extraordinary presence; they were clearly members of Alterz.
“Domi-oppa, what’s the plan?”
As Ahyu asked my intentions, Seol-hyang and Ms. Eunhyeon also looked my way.
“I’ll talk if they’re willing to, but…”
Red sparks crackled in my hand.
“We don’t have time, so if they try to fight, let’s just subdue them.”
I wasn’t going to hold back.