The Prisoner's Sanctuary
Still, this is a relief.
Hyun Si-woon thought as he moved.
Because the spear’s skill summons someone into physical form…
Honestly, he had been fretting about it deep down. Being able to wield all six types of weapons was an overwhelming advantage, yet it also carried a clear inefficiency.
Bows and shields could be swapped in as situational support. But swords, spears, blunt weapons—the close-range arsenal?
Realistically, using them all together is tough.
Swapping was awkward too. The flow would break, and the footwork and internal energy circulation tailored to each weapon would tangle hopelessly. He had vaguely assumed a day would come when he would have to make the sword his mainstay and abandon the rest.
The Thunder Dragon Spear was different.
I don’t even have to swing this one myself, do I?
Attack power: zero. This spear had never been meant for direct strikes. Its true nature was a medium for summoning the sealed ancient Ranker, Noe-je—a conduit linking him to that power.
The manifestation time is short, sure, but I can grow it.
The growth conditions weren’t spelled out clearly, yet his gut already knew. The bone-deep instinct of a long-time veteran was speaking: just keep calling him out often enough.
Of course.
He would not use it on the fourth floor. He had to save it for Penlark.
Hyun Si-woon returned to the starting point. He considered blowing the party assembly horn, then decided against it.
We still have work to do.
The Tower was a stage that had to be cleared, yes—but it was also a foothold for the next leap in growth. Clinging only to the easy path would never make them strong.
And Hwang Dae-un…
That guy needed to conquer his fear of heights one more time.
The members were following instructions perfectly. From a distance he saw them all training in silence, not one slacking.
“Hup!”
“Chaat!”
Baek Yeon-ho and Hwang Dae-un crashed into each other, sweat flying, while Kang Si-a and Jang Cha-yul corrected each other’s stances and drilled the fundamentals of their martial arts.
“Oh—Hyeong-nim!”
Hwang Dae-un spotted Hyun Si-woon first. Every gaze snapped toward him, and a moment later Si-woon landed lightly at the starting point with a soft taat. His movement was far more fluid than before.
“You already finished?”
Baek Yeon-ho approached and asked. Without a word Hyun Si-woon pulled a spear from his inventory and held it out.
The Thunder Dragon Spear.
Baek Yeon-ho’s eyes went round. He ransacked every drop-list for the fourth floor stored in his head and found nothing like this spear.
“There was a spear like this on the fourth floor…?”
“Yeah. Deep inside.”
“Whoa.”
Stuff even a veteran didn’t know, pulled out like he was strolling through his own house. What insane condition had he satisfied this time? Baek Yeon-ho couldn’t even guess.
This is past the point of jealousy.
The feeling ordinary people got when staring at a veteran—Baek Yeon-ho, a veteran himself, was feeling it right now.
“You’ve all waited long enough. Let’s move out.”
Hyun Si-woon saw no need for long explanations. They would understand soon enough once they experienced it themselves. Especially once he showed them the whirlwind beneath the giant rock island on the way. They would realize this spear was gear they could never hope to claim even if they knew about it.
The journey began again.
Hyun Si-woon’s movements, honed by countless deaths, had reached the realm of art.
“Whoa.”
“Crazy bastard…”
The members could only gape as they watched him cross the islands.
And then they followed the same procedure. Hwang Dae-un had to conquer the fear inside him once more if he wanted to stay with them; the others had to fight monsters to open the hidden routes.
Before long they arrived safely at the first hidden route: the Prisoner’s Sanctuary.
A colossal rock island. At its center lay a great stone platform.
“You and I stand on that platform with our shields and hold out against those prisoners.”
“……Hold out and then what?”
“We get the skill Guardian’s Barrier. It’s pretty useful, and just learning it permanently raises Strength by one.”
“……!”
“It’s not hard, but if you lose focus you can die. I’ll give you a quick rundown of how it works.”
Hyun Si-woon’s private tutoring session was brief; Baek Yeon-ho absorbed every word with total concentration. When they were ready, Hyun Si-woon stepped onto the platform without hesitation. Baek Yeon-ho followed, face set with resolve.
The moment both men took their positions, the faint patterns carved into the floor glowed blue and reacted.
Access forbidden to all except shield users.
The trial begins.
Endure the vengeful spirits of the enraged prisoners for 5 minutes.
With the system messages, the darkness around the platform began to seethe.
“Everyone else wait outside the platform. Be ready for anything.”
At Hyun Si-woon’s low voice the teammates gripped their weapons, faces tight with tension.
“Hyeong-nim!”
Hwang Dae-un shouted in worry, but the trial had already begun.
Krrrrumble!
The floor shook, and ten pairs of crimson eyes lit up in the surrounding dark—the wraiths of prisoners who had died trapped here in Asphodel.
“Damn, look at the numbers.”
Baek Yeon-ho spat a curse and reset his shield grip. Hyun Si-woon smiled at the half-complaining grumble.
“Relax. Just do exactly what I told you.”
In the game it had been nothing more than a simple mini-game of blocking a rain of projectiles. Reality was different. The murderous intent and lingering grudges pressing in from every side felt as though they would scrape the mind raw.
“First wave is projectiles. Eleven o’clock, one o’clock, seven o’clock!”
“R-right!”
Whoosh!
Exactly from the eleven-o’clock direction, three projectiles of condensed black energy streaked in. Hyun Si-woon, as if he had been waiting, angled his shield with the barest motion and flicked them all away.
Tang! Tang! Tang!
Baek Yeon-ho, stunned, reflexively swung his shield toward one o’clock. Sure enough three projectiles slammed into it.
Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!
Even braced, the impact was heavy. Hyun Si-woon was different. He deflected the final volley from seven o’clock and used the rebound to step forward.
“You need to adapt fast. Next is three o’clock and nine o’clock. Back to back.”
That was the pattern. Simply turn the shield to the pre-set directions and endure. After about two minutes the phase changed.
“Block five, seven, and nine while watching the front! Two melee types are coming out. Ignore the big one and take the agile one first. After the big guy attacks three times he’ll tire for a moment—that’s the window.”
The briefing had barely ended when a wraith wielding a massive axe and another with twin daggers burst from the dark.
Kwaaang!
The giant wraith charged Baek Yeon-ho and began hammering down with its axe. Baek Yeon-ho gritted his teeth and held, but Hyun Si-woon never even glanced that way. His sole target was the dagger wraith.
“Hup!”
Stepping through Moon Spirit Steps, Hyun Si-woon lightly slipped past the dagger strikes, then smashed the edge of his shield into the creature’s wrist with perfect precision.
Kang!
The dagger flew free. In that staggered instant he slammed the shield flat into its face.
Puhk!
The wraith dissolved into black smoke. Only then did Hyun Si-woon look toward Baek Yeon-ho, who was barely holding against the giant’s third blow.
“Now!”
Hyun Si-woon shouted and charged. Both shields smashed into the exhausted wraith’s torso at once, and it too vanished without resistance.
“Haa… haa…”
Cold sweat rolled down Baek Yeon-ho’s forehead.
If Si-woon hadn’t been here…
He would have flailed and been slaughtered helplessly. This trial was nowhere near easy. Yet with Hyun Si-woon it felt like executing a perfectly rehearsed combo.
“Phase three—full-area attack incoming. When the red circle appears in the center, get to the edge within three seconds. Projectiles will still fly outside the circle, so keep the shield up.”
“Got it!”
Baek Yeon-ho asked no questions. He simply listened and mirrored the movements. Only one thought occupied his mind:
Just shut up and follow orders.
Kwaaang!
Projectiles rained from every direction, melee wraiths charged, and red circles bloomed and vanished across the floor without warning. Pure chaos. Yet the two men never wavered. Under Hyun Si-woon’s precise calls they moved as one body.
“Yeon-ho, two on the right! I’ve got the left!”
“Three-o’clock projectiles!”
“Dodge the floor!”
Baek Yeon-ho moved mechanically to every instruction. When he came back to himself the hellish five minutes had ended.
Trial completed.
“Haa… haa… haa…”
Every surrounding wraith dissolved into smoke at once. Only the two men remained on the platform, soaked in sweat and gasping for air.
Guardian’s Barrier
Creates a barrier in front of the shield proportional to the caster’s Strength and Stamina stats.
Stats permanently increased.
⚡ Strength:15 → 16
“……We did it.”
Baek Yeon-ho collapsed onto the floor and muttered while staring at his status window. Exhaustion and deep awe mixed on his face.
But this was only the beginning. The real fourth-floor route hadn’t even started.
“Rest a little, then we move right away.”
“Huuuuh…”
Baek Yeon-ho stuck out his tongue. Five minutes of desperate fighting had drained every drop of strength, yet the man showed no intention of resting.
Ruthless bastard.
Still, Baek Yeon-ho nodded without complaint. In this hellish journey the only way to survive was to follow silently behind Hyun Si-woon—he knew that in his bones.
“This is where it starts. There’s no safe route for us. From now on we scour every inch of this prison and take everything that can be taken.”
“You’re saying we search every single island…?”
Jang Cha-yul echoed in disbelief. Thousands of rock islands stretched before them. Exploring every one was, by any normal standard, impossible.
“Yeah. All of them.”
Hyun Si-woon’s answer was absolute. His goal was not a simple clear. It was a perfect clear—squeezing out every last drop of experience, TC, crafting materials, and anything else of value. There were no shortcuts to growth. In any game, the end always came down to grinding.
“Let’s get going.”
Two weeks passed.
The floating prison Asphodel had become their vast training ground and land of opportunity.
“Dae-un, left! Cha-yul noona, upper right!”
“Yes sir!”
“Got it!”
Under Hyun Si-woon’s command the teammates now read one another’s movements by eye alone. Fighting dozens of gargoyles on narrow rock islands had become daily routine.
Hwang Dae-un no longer feared the empty air beneath his feet. He even used the tilting slopes of the islands to charge enemies with reckless boldness.
“Kraaaah! This is the true taste of Taesan Sect blunt weapons!”
Puhk!
His mace crushed a gargoyle’s skull.
Pwah!
Blood sprayed. Something caught Hwang Dae-un’s eye.
“Hyeong-nim! There’s a chest hidden under the moss!”
“Yeah? Bring it!”
That was how they gathered a fair amount of TC and miscellaneous junk. Most of it was useless, yet every so often they uncovered rare crafting materials. Those materials had to be stockpiled. Past the tenth floor they would be needed endlessly—another piece of knowledge only Hyun Si-woon possessed.
Once I’ve built up a solid pile of TC, I should start buying materials cheap from the exchange too.
Time to prepare for the future, step by step.
More time passed. Of the thousands of rock islands, not one remained untrodden by their feet.
And at last—
“……This is the end.”
Hyun Si-woon murmured quietly. Before their eyes the heart of the floating prison—the enormous central prison tower—revealed its full majesty.
Fourth-floor boss, Warden Argos.
It was time to clear the floor.