Eclipse Over the Frozen Witch
After Nyx finished devouring every last crumb of cake, I challenged the tower once more.
The theme of the 47th floor mission was a raid. Just like the previous floor, the constellations had intervened, forcing me to tackle a mission designed for fifty people all by myself.
“This kind of penalty is nothing.”
I had already crushed fifty orcs whose average combat strength surpassed anything on Earth. Objectively, this floor should be easier than the 46th.
“I’ll have to see how it plays out, but I should be fine.”
“Goddess, why are you being so pushy? It’s suspicious.”
An offering, huh.
Don’t tell me…
“The mint chocolate cake wasn’t actually good, was it?”
“Why would anyone pay money to eat something that tastes like toothpaste?”
“It is a new release.”
Whatever. I wouldn’t touch the stuff even if someone shoved it into my hands.
Trying to tease Nyx had clearly backfired and cracked open Pandora’s box instead. Ugh. Sorry, Jiyoung.
Ice Witch Kentra awakens from her slumber.
Defeat Kentra.
Due to the intervention of several constellations, part of Kentra’s true power has awakened.
A woman wearing a blue robe materialized on the ground alongside the system alert.
Crackle—!
The plains turned pure white. The moment the green vegetation touched that cold, it lost all color, its moisture freezing solid before crumbling into dust.
The Ice Witch. The original creator of the Blue Heart Stone was the raid target on the 47th floor.
How ironic.
Of course, the Ice Witch appearing inside the tower wasn’t the real one.
The Witch Who Stopped Time watches you.
An A-rank constellation’s presence. It wasn’t hard to guess who had sent the message.
“This is the land of bitter cold. No footsteps are permitted here. Begone.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“The answer should be obvious.”
The Ice Witch’s voice sank into icy calm. A faint killing intent chilled the air.
This was originally a mission for fifty challengers. On top of that, the magic power she was unconsciously radiating felt far from ordinary.
Wow. They strengthened the Ice Witch herself, not just removed the player limit.
“I’m curious what kind of reward they’ll give me.”
The manifested Nyx crossed her arms and stepped back, making it clear she would not intervene in this fight.
“If you change your mind, speak at any time, contractor of this one.”
…Was the mint chocolate really that delicious?
The Ice Witch’s gaze grew even colder.
“Intruder, you possess considerable resolve.”
“It’s less about resolve and more that I have my own stakes in this.”
“Very well. Then let us test whether you are qualified to set foot upon my domain.”
A single orb slipped out from within the Ice Witch’s robe.
It was the reward I had obtained on the 46th floor—a powerful artifact crafted from the Blue Heart Stone.
Call Ice Golem
Call Ice Dragon
Crackle!
Ice golems five meters tall rose from the ground. Behind them, a twenty-meter ice dragon spread its jaws wide, radiating overwhelming presence.
“Foolish challenger. I hope your courage matches your skill.”
Thirty ice golems densely packed the plain, advancing with heavy footsteps.
Thud! Thud!
The ground shook with every step. The ice dragon behind them carried the Ice Witch on its back and stared straight at me.
“I’ll have to smash the ice golems in the vanguard to pieces first.”
“That would only lead to a war of attrition.”
The Ice Witch possessed near-infinite mana. She could freely wield the overwhelming cold generated by the Blue Heart Stone.
“If I don’t destroy them in a single blow, they regenerate almost instantly.”
A spark of interest flickered in the Ice Witch’s eyes.
“You have studied me quite thoroughly. Yet even so, you cannot escape the winds of absolute cold.”
The 47th floor was a wall of despair that had broken countless players before a proper strategy was discovered.
The regeneration abilities of the ice golems and ice dragon surpassed those of trolls. Even if you shattered an arm or a leg, as long as the core remained intact, they could restore themselves in under a second. The location of the core was random, meaning you had to obliterate the entire five-meter body in one strike.
Nyx clapped her hands together with an expression of sudden understanding.
“So they weren’t made to be defeated in the first place.”
“You catch on quickly. The standard strategy is to tie down the golems’ feet.”
The key to clearing the 47th floor was tanking. Managing the ice golems’ aggro.
Because the Ice Witch had an aggressive nature, she would send every unit except the ice dragon forward. The proper method was to hold the advancing golems in place while attacking the witch herself.
“But there’s no rule saying I have to follow the standard strategy.”
Void Mirror
The shadow rippled with purple light and stretched long. Lexy rose from the extended darkness.
“Buy me some time up front.”
“Kyaaooooo!”
Lexy roared with reassuring ferocity. Good girl.
It was a shame I couldn’t summon her while using Void Mirror to manifest a primordial creature’s essence.
Mana began rearranging. After roughly ten seconds, a fiercely burning sphere compressed to its limit shimmered above my palm.
I imbued the completed Solar Explosion with the Blessing of Greed, then pulled Ars Goetia out of my subspace.
Tsk.
I really needed to devour some essences related to double or multi-casting soon. No matter how fast I made my mana rearrangement, it couldn’t compare to true parallel processing.
Ars Goetia, drenched in my dark mana, radiated an eerie glow.
Nyx, still watching with her arms crossed, asked with a puzzled look.
As if I wouldn’t know that much.
“Just keep watching.”
The Ars Goetia, having absorbed every drop of dark mana, released the rearranged power.
A hammer of dark mana floated in the air—a powerful black magic that partially mimicked Barbatos’s authority.
“Kyaao!”
Between Lexy’s warning roars, some of the ice golems charged toward me. Lexy’s specs were higher, but the 1-versus-30 numerical disadvantage made it impossible for her to cover everything.
The fact that she had held them off until my spell finished was impressive enough.
I immediately dismissed Lexy’s summon and slammed the two forces together.
Kwaaaaaaaaang—!
Flames and darkness. They weren’t exact opposites, but the clashing energies still produced a deafening roar.
If I let them collide like this, I would only waste my own mana.
“How about this?”
Eclipse
The essence extracted at the extreme point. While it wasn’t the exact opposite of fire and ice, natural attributes generally had terrible compatibility with dark-dimensional mana.
The instant I maximized the repulsive force between the symmetrical powers, an explosion far louder than the first collision between Barbatos’s hammer and Solar Explosion erupted, turning my vision pure white.
Thump— Thump—
The sensory warning arrived a beat too late.
Ah, shit. This feels like I really screwed up.
The acrid smoke blanketing the sky originated from the exact point where Eclipse had maximized the repulsive force between the two powers.
A massive crater had formed at the collision site. Dozens of meters of earth had simply “evaporated” without a trace. The ground indirectly exposed to the heat generated by the two spells’ repulsion now flowed with bright red lava.
Twenty-three ice golems had been completely annihilated. The remaining seven were melted over half their bodies.
“Why aren’t they regenerating?”
The Ice Witch’s face twisted in shock. The ice golems should have restored themselves instantly, but the aftermath of the impact was so severe that the melted sections refused to recover.
“Damn it. That hurt like hell.”
“I’m not.”
The repulsive force between Solar Explosion and Barbatos’s hammer. Since they weren’t true opposites, I hadn’t known exactly how much destructive power the amplification would reach.
Even though I had kept some distance from the epicenter, the shock had been strong enough to trigger my senses. My entire body throbbed so badly that tears stung my eyes.
“If I had used Demonic Power to dump everything into magic, I really would have died.”
Dying from the aftershock of my own skill? Just thinking about it was horrifying.
I could easily imagine how much Nyx would have mocked me if that had happened.
I had used Eclipse several times before my regression, but because the power varied wildly depending on how strongly I amplified the repulsion, it had always been difficult to gauge properly.
“Still, the path is wide open now.”
I hadn’t wiped out every ice golem, but there were more than enough openings to attack the Ice Witch.
“Go! Trample that intruder!”
The ice dragon that had been standing motionless spread its wings and flew straight at me.
“Come out, Lexy.”
“Kaooooo!”
I resummoned Lexy. She opened her massive jaws and collided head-on with the ice dragon.
A clash between monsters. The ice dragon thrashed its head, unable to shake Lexy off.
“Didn’t that magic annihilate you just now?!”
“I unsummoned her before the collision.”
I sprinted up Lexy’s tail. The Ice Witch hurriedly poured power into her orb.
Cold condensed into crystalline form swirled around her, weaving a barrier harder than diamond.
Crystal Barrier
A solid defensive wall. I placed my hand on top of it.
Internal energy seeped in layer by layer, shaking the barrier’s very structure.
“You think you can interfere with my magic?”
“I’m not interfering. I’m just breaking it.”
The principle of explosive force shattered the Crystal Barrier into pieces. At the same time, my outstretched left hand pierced the Ice Witch’s throat.
A finger-sized hole opened in her neck. Even as her throat was pierced, the Ice Witch’s smile never faded.
Ice Duplicate
Absolute Zero
The corpse of the Ice Witch I had just killed froze over, spreading the chill of absolute zero.
Her desperate counter-pattern. Well, I had already predicted something like this.
Shrink
I folded space and moved. Chasing the position where ice and flesh had swapped, I seized the Ice Witch’s throat once more.
“Kuh, hack— How…?”
“A spell that lets you avoid one instant-death attack. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
“You bastard…!”
The Ice Witch glared at me with eyes full of resentment.
She’s a fake created by the tower, yet she can make an expression like that? Isn’t that cheating?
Crack.
Without hesitation, I crushed the Ice Witch’s windpipe. The cold that had blanketed the plains vanished in an instant.
▶ Main Mission — You have cleared the Guardian of Frost.
A mission strengthened by the constellations’ intervention. Since I had cleared a raid meant for fifty people alone, I could look forward to quite the reward, couldn’t I?