The Lightning Tower, Labyrinthine Tomb
“Flaaash!”
A brilliant flash of light erupted in the center of the enormous circular hall, and four figures materialized in its heart.
Without a moment to spare, Kim Na-yeon scanned the floor around her, committing every detail of the spatial structure to memory.
“Ji-yeon-ah? Wiji Yeon!”
“Na-yeon-ah, what happened?”
“T-the bag...!”
Kim Na-yeon offered her trembling hand, a tearful expression twisting her features. The bag was gone, leaving only the broken strap dangling from her fingers.
Kim Do-yoon’s face had also hardened into stone.
“…The wind currents were stronger than I expected?”
“W-w-was the weight too much and the strap snapped?! Aaaah…! I was careless! What do we do now?”
Park Dong-hwan and Yang Tae-seon examined the supplies they had carried in their own bags.
“Our supplies are safe. We pre-ordered the hunting equipment needed for the assignment site.”
“Even this amount should be enough. The headquarters prepared far more than we anticipated, which was a pleasant surprise…”
As they said, even without the goods Kim Na-yeon had brought, Park Dong-hwan and Yang Tae-seon’s provisions would be sufficient to continue the assault if they rationed carefully.
Kim Do-yoon explained the situation to them.
“It wasn’t just supplies in the bag. …Ji-yeon was inside it.”
“...!”
“Dear me. How is that possible!?”
“As you know, if Ji-yeon strongly wants to go somewhere, we can’t refuse her. Even if we hadn’t brought her, she surely would have followed us secretly. We had no way to stop her.”
“Of course. Then… what do we do now?”
“We must find Ji-yeon immediately.”
As Kim Do-yoon, Kim Na-yeon, and Yang Tae-seon all sank into panic, Park Dong-hwan calmed them.
“It will be all right. No matter that Wiji Yeon-ssi is alone, she is far stronger than the sum of all of us, is she not?”
“…Y-yes, that is true.”
Yang Tae-seon nodded as well.
Though Park Dong-hwan and Yang Tae-seon had only recently joined the Shingyo Guild, they had undergone brutal training under Wiji Yeon for such a short period. Even if a young awakener had a high latent grade, they could become stronger than an official hunter, but Wiji Yeon’s strength had exceeded even that. What the two men had witnessed with their own bodies was a level of power comparable to the masters of the Five Great Guilds.
Kim Do-yoon agreed with a silent sigh.
“Still… he’s still so young.”
“Aaaah…! Ji-yeon!”
Kim Na-yeon’s panic showed no signs of easing.
She roamed the spacious hall in every direction, searching desperately for Wiji Yeon.
Once she had regained her composure, Kim Do-yoon stopped her.
He stepped forward, grasped her shoulders gently, and began to explain.
“Na-yeon-ah, I know how you feel, but first calm yourself and check the signals and calls.”
“…Ah!”
Because the inside of the gate was, in essence, another world, smartphone signals did not reach. Radio communication through devices, however, was possible.
To prepare for the possibility of parties becoming separated inside the gate, every hunter wore a transmitter. Everyone carried the P96K radio.
Kim Na-yeon frantically pulled out her own radio and attempted to contact Wiji Yeon’s.
Crackle—
Only static answered from Wiji Yeon’s radio.
“No signal.”
Just as tears began to well in Kim Na-yeon’s eyes again…
“…Eh? This place is familiar.”
Yang Tae-seon, who had been examining the layout of the hall, called out to the others.
The remaining three rushed over to him.
“Really?”
“W-where are we?”
“…Ah! I remember too!”
Park Dong-hwan clapped his hands and began explaining to Kim Na-yeon and Kim Do-yoon.
“During the time we worked as treasure hunters, we couldn’t count every gate we found with our bare hands, but if we limit ourselves to A+ rank gates, there were not many.”
“The layout of this area is extremely similar to one of them. Back then we requested support from S-rank hunter Je Gal Jeong-su, and together with the members of another guild we cleared it.”
To clear an A+ rank gate, at least one S-rank hunter was required. Even skilled A-rank hunters like Park Dong-hwan and Yang Tae-seon could not have managed it without his assistance.
Kim Do-yoon looked around.
The enormous circular hall.
The walls that encircled it.
And the spiral staircase that wound around those walls.
Describing the structure of this area in a single word…
“…A tower?”
“That is correct. It was a gate with a rather unusual layout, so we named it the Lightning Tower at the time.”
Park Dong-hwan took out his terminal and shared the information from the original assault.
[Lightning Tower]
[10 floors]
[Monsters appear after a set time on each floor; the higher you go, the stronger the monsters become.]
[Boss, alias Jilpaeks (A+): Humanoid / Thunder, Instant Teleport, Continuous Slash]
“We checked the documents right after the gate assignment was confirmed, and it turned out the S-rank gate that occurred in the United States had been divided into several sections. Each section had a boss at the end, and clearing that boss would open a portal to the next section.”
“Members of the Five Great Guilds must have scattered into multiple areas as well. The difficulty in each area is expected to range from A-rank to A+ rank.”
Kim Na-yeon muttered in a daze.
“Does that mean the inside of an S-rank gate is connected to other high-rank gates?”
Pazuzuk!
At that moment, a powerful discharge erupted from the center of the lowest hall of the tower.
“Monsters. They all seem to carry thunder attributes.”
Park Dong-hwan and Yang Tae-seon assumed battle stances.
Of course, the monsters’ ranks would be extremely high, but there was one reliable S-rank hunter among them.
Pazak.
Blue lightning flickered in the empty air, and Kim Do-yoon drew his sword from within it.
“So monsters with thunder attributes, huh? That’s actually good news. We’ll clear this as fast as possible and move to the next section.”
“J-Ji-yeon is…? We have to find Ji-yeon first.”
Kim Na-yeon had also activated her abilities, but tears still clung to her eyes.
Kim Do-yoon gave her a reassuring smile, hoping to calm her.
“She must be in another section. We have to clear this area quickly so we can go find her, right?”
Kim Na-yeon wiped her tears and gritted her teeth.
If Ji-yeon, who had lost her brother and sister, was crying somewhere…
It was not the time to panic.
She would pull herself together and find Ji-yeon as quickly as possible.
When Kim Na-yeon’s eyes returned to the look of a hunter, Kim Do-yoon smiled proudly. He too looked forward with gleaming eyes.
Pazak, pazak, pazak.
Several enormous spheres rose into the empty air, all emitting powerful discharges.
Kim Do-yoon grinned and gripped his sword tightly.
“Who’s using lightning in front of us now?”
Thunder accompanied by a fierce blue bolt swept through the entire hall.
Kwaarurrung!
***
“Ooh. What an oddly shaped relic.”
Crackle, crackle.
I chewed on a snack while looking around.
A foul odor wafted from the air. Inverted roots hung damply from the ceiling in several places.
On the left and right were walls. Ahead and behind were paths that seemed endless at first glance, but after a short distance a wall blocked the way, forcing the corridor to split left and right again. It was a labyrinthine structure.
As I walked the passages, I recalled the memories just before I had entered the gate.
Even though I had been sitting quietly inside the bag, why had I ended up separated from the Shingyo Guild members?
I soon realized that the thin thread of inner energy I had felt being pulled toward me by a strong suction force was connected to something.
“Someone tampered with it.”
The force had no killing intent, so I had remained calm, but if I had not been the one to act, that incredibly weak power would have severed the connection with the left guardian’s thread.
I had no idea of the intention, but the skill required to manipulate inner energy in such a subtle manner meant at least an ultra-peak master.
Of course, even as I hid inside the bag I had not sat still. I had widened my perception and roughly assessed the abilities of the surrounding hunters.
Excluding Kim Do-yoon, there were four ultra-peak masters among us, each of them a master from one of the Five Great Guilds.
After clearing this gate I would need to face these masters one by one, examine the origins of their inner energy in detail, and then locate and interrogate the culprit who had tampered with it.
Crackle, crackle.
“Im Yeong-won, and the Korean hunter community… it’s a mess.”
The bag I was hiding in had incredible elasticity. It could expand to accommodate my entire body, but if I pulled the left and right straps hard, it could shrink to the size of a child’s bag.
Whoosh.
I tossed away the empty snack wrapper and opened the bag on my back to check the rations.
Energy bars of every flavor, along with snack pouches compressed to remove the air, filled the space. Jelly, candies, sweet chocolate pound cakes—everything prepared to the limit of my preferences.
I smiled.
“Compared to the Nekon Guild, this is a feast.”
Of course, it was nothing compared to food eaten outside, but it would be enough to get by for several days.
I shouldered the bag again and looked around.
A damp, faintly familiar underground labyrinth scene.
“It reminds me of Gwigundong.”
The memory of Gwigundong from my previous life as a child before I became the Heavenly Demon surfaced. Children in the same situation had fought over rations, and I had battled against the rising undead that emerged from every corner.
Then, as now, my body was small, but the power inside me was of another dimension. This labyrinth exploration could be considered a trial.
If there was a strong phantom at the end of the path, I would take the opportunity to extract a fine inner pill.
Suck, suck.
I pulled out a lollipop and continued searching.
“Hm?”
At the end of the passage I had been walking, an ominous light flickered.
Gwaaa—
A skeleton wearing an odd crown and draped in strange cloth appeared, dripping with death qi.
Then—
Clack, clack, clack.
With the sound of bones colliding, dozens of skeleton warriors holding swords and spears rose from the ground around the skeleton.
“Monsters?”
Still holding the lollipop in one hand, I extended the other, which was now empty.
Heavenly Demon Fighting Star Stance, pressed.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
The sword technique that contained power capable of overturning heaven and earth swept through the corridor along with the skeletons.
Wherever the technique passed, not even a single bone fragment remained.
“So that’s what comes out.”
While sucking on my lollipop, I continued forward.
Suck, suck.