The Path to the Spiral Library
His vision went black.
A sensation of sinking somewhere washed through his body.
Keep your wits about you.
Ha-wol’s voice rang through his mind, far sharper and more tense than usual.
This is the outer rim, beyond the Tower’s laws. I have never set foot here either, so my knowledge is thin.
Got it.
Hyun Si-woon muttered the reply only in his thoughts.
How much time passed, he could not say.
In the heart of that pitch-black void, a single point of light no larger than a needle’s eye flickered to life. As he drew nearer it swelled, and at last the mouth of a vast passage revealed itself.
That has to be the path to the library.
With a soft thud of boots on stone, Si-woon found himself standing in the corridor of an enormous library.
The reek of ancient paper stabbed at his nose. Cool air brushed his skin.
“Huh…”
A dry laugh escaped him unbidden.
The corridor was grotesque. Bookcases soared skyward on either side, packed so tightly the passage between them dwindled into a vanishing point far ahead. What he had taken for the floor had already become a wall standing beside him, while another corridor hung inverted from the ceiling overhead, continuing on its upside-down way.
Mysterious. Geometric.
I have heard the rumors. The chain of cause and effect along the road to the Spiral Library is warped. The structure of the space itself can shift without warning—do not lower your guard.
“This is going to be rough.”
Because the space was unstable, even the flow of qi refused to settle into any steady current.
“Hoo.”
Si-woon adjusted his grip on the sword and advanced one careful step at a time. First visit. He intended to distrust everything his eyes showed him and to test every surface beneath his feet.
He had reached roughly the middle of the corridor when—
Sssss…
Between the shelves, deep in the darkness, something began to rise like heat haze. One, two, three… Before long five blurred silhouettes blocked his path.
Their bodies were closer to translucent spirit-forms, yet in their hands they held weapons whose edges gleamed a vicious blue. And in their eyes red flames burned—pure hatred and vicious jealousy twisted into mad fire.
One who has not been forgotten…
The one who holds the light.
Give it here! Everything you possess—give it all to us…!
Eerie voices rolled through the air.
Wraiths.
Ha-wol murmured.
Judging by the look of them, they are Rankers who once coveted the Spiral’s knowledge, lost everything, and were taxidermied here.
“Rankers?”
The silver lining is that they appear to have lost the power and authority of Rankers. What remains is only the pure martial might they honed before ever climbing the Tower. Do not underestimate them!
Ha-wol’s warning had not even finished when—
Shhhk!
The lead swordsman-wraith slid forward like a ghost, aiming straight for Si-woon’s heart. Right behind it a spear-wraith slipped into his blind spot with uncanny precision and thrust for his side.
A perfect pincer.
“Hup!”
Si-woon sucked in a short breath and stamped the floor.
Moon Shadow Step.
One step.
Swimming Step.
Afterimage.
His body flowed backward like water, barely slipping past both strikes. The sword tip scraped his chest; the spear point tore his hem—sensations so vivid they raised gooseflesh.
Fast.
Instinctively he reset his stance and launched a counter. Target: the swordsman-wraith that had charged first.
“Haaap!”
He drove Moon Point toward the gap between its brows.
But—
Kang!
The wraith’s hand flicked up and slapped his blade aside. A sharp, spine-chilling crack of impact rang down the corridor.
It blocked me?
That settled it. Every one of these wraiths was far stronger than a Grade-7 monster.
Here they come again!
“Kh—!”
The problem was that there were five of them, not one. Attacks poured in from every direction. A wraith hefting a massive axe crashed down from above as if it meant to pulverize everything. Once a blunt-weapon Ranker, by the look of it.
“Hup!”
Si-woon pushed Moon Shadow Step to its absolute limit, dodging with movements that bordered on acrobatics. He kicked off gravity-warped walls, seized inverted bookcases, spun his body through the air, and only just escaped the storm of blows. At the same time he swapped to his bow and even called a spirit.
Pick them off one by one.
Between the dazzling twin-sword dance of another wraith he glimpsed a fleeting opening. He did not miss it.
Puk!
At last his blade punched through a wraith’s heart.
Joy lasted only a heartbeat. A cold presence slammed into his back.
“Ughk!”
No time to dodge. The spear-wraith’s thrust raked deep across his side. Pain tore through him and blood fountained out.
Staggering, he barely managed to open distance and roared through clenched teeth.
“You said they lost their Ranker power!”
You idiot—if they still had Ranker power you would already be dead.
“Even so! They’re stronger than I expected!”
That is not it. You are weaker than you thought.
Ha-wol’s voice was colder and more serious than he had ever heard it.
This lady was already called Sword God before she ever climbed. Do not delude yourself. Rankers are strong long before the ascent. Those monsters survived every death trap imaginable and then climbed the Tower—that is how they became Rankers. To be frank, your world is abnormally weak.
Si-woon gritted his teeth. The truth struck like a hammer to the bone. Ha-wol had trained in martial arts long before her climb; the giant Kenzo had been born a giant.
Earth’s humans…
Were simply ordinary. Their strength lay in treating the Tower like a game to be solved, but in raw physical tier they would rank among the weakest of all Rankers.
At this rate I die.
He could always regress, but the humiliation was intolerable.
I see it through to the end.
From the tip of Si-woon’s sword the foundational forms of Moon Spirit Swordsmanship erupted without pause—Moon Point, Moon Line, Moon Face. The blade shimmered like moonlight, its trajectories relentlessly seeking every gap among the Ranker wraiths.
But the wraiths were no easy prey. They slipped his attacks with ghostly skill and struck back.
“Guhk!”
Once more the axe-wraith’s blow grazed his shoulder. Bone-crushing agony lanced through his brain, yet he had no breath left for a scream.
He yanked potions from inventory and smeared them on thick. Gulp—he forced one down between ragged breaths.
He changed the way he fought. He abandoned pure evasion. No—he kept only the barest minimum of defense and poured everything else into counterattack. Avoid only the killing blows; tank the rest with his body. A madman’s idea.
“Gnome.”
Nong?
“Help me.”
Noooong!
Stone pillars erupted at every critical instant, intercepting as many strikes as they could.
“Haaat!”
Seizing one such opening, Si-woon’s sword carved deep into a wraith’s neck.
Kreeeeak!
The spirit-form wavered. It worked. This method was viable.
Fortunately they are still far weaker than this lady was in her prime. Had it been my pre-ascent self, I would have taken their heads in the time it takes to pour a cup of tea.
Yeah, yeah, you’re amazing.
Kwajik!
The spear-wraith’s blade punched through his thigh at the same instant his own sword pierced its heart. Blood sprayed, yet he did not so much as blink. He smashed another potion over the wound and immediately charged the next target.
“Ughk!”
An arrow from the archer-wraith buried itself in his shoulder. Si-woon swallowed the pain and simply kept going—slammed the arrow-stuck shoulder into the wraith, broke its balance, and took its head. The mingled stench of blood and potion hung thick and metallic.
Pain is familiar.
Twenty-seven regressions had taught him that tolerance the hard way.
Si-woon fought with savage stubbornness.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
Thirty.
By the time he had lost all sense of the minutes, he drove his sword into the final wraith’s throat.
“Haa… haa… haa…!”
Silence settled.
Si-woon collapsed with his back against the wall. The hand gripping his sword trembled violently; every breath tore out of him like grinding metal. Sweat and blood plastered him from head to toe. Not one inch of his body remained whole.
Healing… Light…
He wrung the last dregs of mental strength to activate the skill. But his dantian was a dry well; not a scrap of energy answered. His will scattered into emptiness like a futile attempt to draw water from a barren shaft.
Foolish beyond measure… yet magnificent.
Ha-wol’s voice resounded in his mind—not anger, not scolding, but a strange note of admiration. That level of mental fortitude? Even in the world she had lived in, such venomous grit and madness were rare.
“Haa… haa…”
Si-woon lacked even the strength to answer. He could only breathe.
Pain rolled over him in waves. Every joint screamed; every muscle felt as if it were being shredded. Just as the thought of surrendering consciousness and finding relief began to seduce him—
Click.
From the far end of the corridor, out of the pitch darkness, a clear, cool footstep rang out. Completely different from the previous wraiths—quiet, yet carrying an overwhelming presence.
Click. Click.
The footsteps drew nearer. At last a single wraith emerged from the dark.
Its appearance was utterly unlike the five before. Not a blurred spirit-form but a silhouette as sharp as a living human’s. A lofty swordsman clad in simple martial robes.
This is bad.
Ha-wol shook her head.
Damn it.
Si-woon felt despair settle in. His body was wrecked. Internal energy was spent; potions no longer mattered. In this state even a single Grade-8 monster would be too much. Yet the new wraith radiated a pressure greater than all five of the previous ones combined.
Do I regress?
He could not fight this. That much was obvious. Humiliating as it was, this attempt had to end here.
No, you fool. This is not a matter of that level.
Ha-wol shook her head again.
That one is different. Even if you were whole I could not guarantee your victory. That presence, that resonance of the sword—he has clearly reached at least the Absolute Peak. My past self would have handled him easily, but you… it will be difficult.
The swordsman-wraith halted before Si-woon. Its empty eyes looked down at him—an emotionless gaze, as if regarding a pebble by the roadside.
The Spiral Library…
Si-woon suddenly felt certain that the road leading there would prove far more treacherous than he had imagined.
Shring!
The wraith drew the sword at its waist.
That was all.
Puk!
A cold sensation, and the blade pierced his heart with perfect precision.
Yes. That long-missed, choking sensation. The feeling of organs being wrung dry.
It was his twenty-eighth death.
Privilege Ability ‘Regression’ has been activated.
This is your twenty-eighth regression.
“Haaah—!”
Hyun Si-woon sucked in a huge breath.
At the same moment voices reached him.
“Hyung-nim!”
“Oh, Si-woon’s here too!”
The backdrop was the rear of the Tower. In Kang Si-a’s hand he glimpsed the familiar Autumn Wind’s Bow.
Yes.
The place he had returned to was exactly the scene just before the Atla event, the moment they cleared the seventh floor.