Crossing the Abyss
It was silent.
Whoooosh!
The only sound was the wind hammering against their ears.
Hwang Dae-un could not move.
His soles were fixed to the rock as if roots had sunk into the stone.
…I have to jump from here?
Beneath his feet lay a pitch-black abyss he dared not even look down into.
A childhood nightmare rose like a vengeful ghost.
The old rope bridge over the gorge. The rotten plank that had given way while he was horsing around, leaving him dangling in empty air. The terror of that instant. His father had caught his hand and saved him, yet the brush of death against his soles had carved a deep scar into his soul.
From that day on he had never willingly climbed high places. Even as a national-team prospect he had refused rock-climbing drills until the coach beat him half to death—and still he never scaled the wall.
It was his sole Achilles’ heel.
“Dae-un, are you okay?”
Jang Cha-yul’s voice rode the wind.
“Hey! Just do it! You can!”
Kang Si-a cheered as if it were nothing, yet to Hwang Dae-un her words felt impossibly far away.
“Si-woon.”
Baek Yeon-ho scratched his head.
“That doesn’t look like ordinary fear. Terror’s already seized his body and mind.”
“I know.”
Hyun Si-woon nodded.
In that state no encouragement or advice would mean a thing.
“So he has to break it himself.”
Otherwise he would remain rooted there forever.
Arms folded, Hyun Si-woon said nothing more. He simply watched and waited.
Hwang Dae-un understood the meaning of that gaze perfectly well.
Choose.
Stop here, or go all the way with them.
I…
The past few weeks flashed before his eyes.
Hellish training. The electric thrill of achievement at the end. Comrades who had fought back-to-back against the Bursting Fiend. A leader who, in the crisis, had trusted him enough to turn his back. The simple happiness of sharing a warm meal and laughing together.
Was he supposed to throw all of that away for a childhood trauma?
No.
He refused.
He wanted to remain part of this team. He did not want to watch their backs and fall behind. More than anything…
“….”
He did not want to disappoint the leader who was calmly watching him.
The man had not abandoned him. He had simply offered a chance—to rise by his own strength.
“Grraaagh…!”
A beast-like groan tore from Hwang Dae-un’s throat.
The light of fear in his eyes slowly faded, replaced by a smoldering, stubborn fire.
Fine. Worst case, I die, right?
Death?
Far more terrifying was fleeing this spot and living the rest of his life steeped in regret.
The thought was brief. If he lingered any longer he would give up for good.
“Hyaaaaaaah!”
Hwang Dae-un roared.
It was both self-hypnosis to cast off fear and a declaration of severance from the self he had been.
He no longer looked at the abyss beneath his feet.
His gaze fixed on one thing only: the comrades waiting on the far island—and Hyun Si-woon standing at their center.
Taat!
He kicked off the ground.
Instinctive terror tried to swallow him again; he clenched his teeth and ignored it.
When he reached the opposite island after crossing the chain bridge—
Kuuuurrrng!
The island began to tilt.
“Center of gravity!”
Hyun Si-woon’s voice seemed to echo inside his skull.
Rebuild from the lower body!
Hwang Dae-un instinctively dropped into a horse stance—the unshakable root of Taesan Sect martial arts.
On the slanting slope his body stabilized as if by magic.
Sssssk!
He slid downward. A chain appeared before his eyes.
Grab it!
There was no timing, no calculation. He simply reached out on pure instinct.
Chak!
The cold links bit vividly into his palm.
Success.
“...!”
As his body sliced through empty air, Hwang Dae-un squeezed his eyes shut.
Yet the expected plummet never came. Instead a strange lightness, a liberating buoyancy, filled him.
When he carefully opened his eyes, the world was spinning and his body was soaring toward the peak of a great swing.
“…Whoa.”
A soft gasp escaped him.
It was terrifying—and at the same time exhilarating. He felt as though he were flying.
Now!
Hyun Si-woon’s shout flashed through his mind again.
Don’t be afraid—just trust your body!
Hwang Dae-un hesitated no longer.
At the apex he released the chain and hurled himself into the void.
The distance to the final island was greater than expected. Yet somehow he knew he could reach it.
Kung!
A dull impact. His feet struck solid ground. He staggered several steps and dropped to his knees.
“Haaah, haaah, haaaah!”
His entire body was drenched in sweat. His heart hammered as if it would burst.
Yet on his face, instead of terror, a radiant smile bloomed.
So this is it? This is how it feels?
The triumph of having done it. The ecstasy of having shattered his own limits.
Then—
Tuk.
A hand settled on his shoulder.
He looked up. Hyun Si-woon gazed down at him with an expressionless face.
“Well done.”
Two short words. Yet they heated Hwang Dae-un’s chest more fiercely than any praise.
And in that instant—
Your stats have permanently increased.
Sense:15 → 16
A system message floated before Hwang Dae-un’s eyes.
He finally understood.
True growth was exactly this.
The journey began in earnest.
The route Hyun Si-woon had pioneered diverged completely from the standard “Safe Passage.” It was far more difficult, and far more complex monsters prowled its paths.
Whoa… so a path like this exists on the fourth floor.
Baek Yeon-ho followed Hyun Si-woon’s back in silence, swallowing repeated gasps of admiration. He had prided himself on having delved quite deeply into the fourth floor. Yet the road Si-woon led them down was different. From the very start he was heading in the exact opposite direction from the central Overseer.
Even places Yeon-ho had assumed were nothing but trap islands contained a hidden path. The islands themselves were different—reversal isles that flipped top and bottom at regular intervals, musical stepping stones that opened paths according to the order they were pressed. Gimmicks he had never seen, never even heard of, appeared one after another.
I know a few of these layouts, but that one… that’s a completely new method.
Even more chilling was Hyun Si-woon’s demeanor. He navigated every trap and gimmick with the casual mastery of a man taking an evening stroll through his neighborhood. He briefed them on the exact weak points of monsters that could leap out at any moment, and at every fork in the tangled maze he never hesitated by so much as a single step.
How the hell has he memorized all of this?
It was beyond mere good memory. It was as if he himself had designed this hellish prison—or as if he were a ghost who had died tens of thousands of times carving out this very path.
Baek Yeon-ho gave a wry smile and shook his head.
I guess I shouldn’t go around calling myself a veteran anymore.
All he could do was trust and follow.
“Next is the Vibration Island. The moment the first foot lands, the whole island will start shaking hard.”
The instant Hyun Si-woon’s briefing ended, Baek Yeon-ho planted his shield firmly on the ground and shouted,
“I’ll go first and secure the chains! Cross one at a time!”
Teamwork now flowed as naturally as water. Baek Yeon-ho crossed the vibrating stones by a hair’s breadth, fixed the chains, and the rest of the party followed in turn.
—Kieeeeeek!
Threats did not come only from the ground. From the pitch-black void, packs of gargoyles with razor talons swooped in for an ambush.
“Si-a.”
Hyun Si-woon calmly swapped to his bow and called out.
“Yes!”
The two stood side by side and drew their strings.
Even in the game Tower of Despair, the optimal way to deal with those gargoyles had always been to drive them off or drop them with arrows.
Shwing, sh-sh-shwing!
Hyun Si-woon himself had received steady coaching from Kang Si-a, so his accuracy had improved considerably. His arrows aimed for large, reliable targets—torsos and wings—steadily reducing the enemy’s numbers.
Of course, they still could not compare to Kang Si-a.
Whiiiiiish—thuk!
One shot, one eye, and a plummeting corpse.
—Heh.
A quiet note of admiration escaped Ha-wol’s lips as she watched.
—That girl never ceases to amaze me. Reading the flow of qi with the heart itself and loosing her arrows… at such a young age she instinctively grasps the realm of the Mind’s Eye.
One shot, certain death.
The arrows that left her fingers carried not a speck of waste, not a hair’s breadth of error.
Whiiiiiish—thuk!
The brow of the one charging in the lead.
Whiiiiiish—thuk!
The heart of the one that had cunningly slipped into a blind spot.
Whiiiiiish—thuk!
The nape of the one that tried to exploit the chaos to strike a comrade.
Wherever the silver flash passed, a death invariably bloomed.
Even the remaining gargoyles seemed flustered; they wheeled about and fled.
“No pursuit. Conserve arrows.”
Hyun Si-woon lowered his bow.
Ordinarily they would have recovered the shafts for reuse, but that was impossible here. Under the systems of Tower of Despair, a single quiver held only twenty arrows. Carrying more required additional rare “quiver” items, so every shaft was a precious strategic asset.
They continued onward in that fashion.
Keeping their balance on tilting islands, dodging pillars of flame that erupted without warning, crossing chains by the skin of their teeth. At times their feet were bound by the ambushes of Shadow Binders; at others they had to leap from island to island to evade the fists of colossal stone golems—moments that left their hearts in their throats.
Battle, rest, and training repeated without pause. By the time their sense of time had grown dull—
“There.”
Hyun Si-woon stopped and pointed.
At the end of his gaze floated a massive rock island whose atmosphere was utterly alien to the others. It was less an island than a small continent. And from its very center, the deepest part, radiated a darkness denser and heavier than anywhere else.
—Hoh.
Ha-wol’s voice resonated inside his skull.
—To think such a place exists on the fourth floor. I sense a mixture of grudges, rage, and a very ancient sorrow.
Baek Yeon-ho was equally stunned.
“There was an island that big on the fourth floor? How did I never see it…?”
“That’s the first hidden route—the Prisoner’s Rest.”
Hyun Si-woon spoke quietly. His tone was calm, yet his eyes were fixed on a different part of the island.
The party’s gazes all locked onto the upper section—the cave mouth belching darkness. That was the entrance to the Prisoner’s Rest, the hidden route that even veterans like Baek Yeon-ho might have discovered someday.
But Hyun Si-woon’s eyes were not looking there.
His gaze was trained on the island’s lower reaches—toward the deep abyss no one else would bother to notice.
That’s the place…
In the pitch-black void, at the roots of the colossal rock island, a vast whirlwind of luminous dust particles churned violently, as if propping the island up from below.
Pajik, pazzzzt!
At the living, writhing heart of the vortex, blue lightning occasionally flared like camera flashes.
To anyone else it would have looked like nothing more than a bizarre natural phenomenon, or perhaps the power source keeping the island aloft.
But Hyun Si-woon knew.
That’s where the spear is obtained.
Not a hidden for anyone else—only for Hyun Si-woon.
His heart began to pound heavily in his chest.