121. Committing the Great Sin
Combat really needs that element of scrapping it out to keep it fun. Fights where you just crush them with overwhelming stats and skill performance make your mind go slack. Even that 25th-floor ranker, Choi Gil-hyun, had zero real combat sense—embarrassing to even call him a spear knight. If I didn't want to end up like that, I had to maintain my edge no matter what.
On the 14th floor, I'd tried sealing my own Mana Reinforcement to keep sharp, but it still felt lacking. Fighting like this with my stats halved forced me to rely on pure skill, keeping things way more tense and balanced. Demons tended to just bulldoze with brute force, so I never got chances for this kind of technique duel. Sure, I was still pretty loose, but as a warmup, it was damn solid.
"Hah, huff... How... How can a human from the surface... be this strong..."
Adriel muttered in disbelief, sprawled on the ground and twitching. After I'd taken down Ropiel, she'd fought hard on her own—but of course, she couldn't beat me. I dodged all her arrows without breaking a sweat, closed the distance, and slammed my fist into her solar plexus hard enough to make her see stars. She was way stronger than your average heavenly being, but still just 15th-floor level. The only reason the fight even lasted was my stats being cut in half. Back on the 14th, even demon king-class bastards crumbled to bone dust from one punch.
These guys were predictable as hell.
"Hey, how strong are you two supposed to be? Among the priests, where do you rank?"
I squatted down and asked the staggering Ropiel.
"I have nothing to tell the likes of you! Unclean one, divine punishment will befall you!"
They said heavenly beings couldn't even swear properly, and yeah, her face was scary but the warning was toothless.
"Bring it on, then."
I hadn't expected much of an answer anyway. I pulled out a potion. For some reason, Ropiel flinched and went pale.
Why the fuck was he so scared? Like I was gonna torture him or something?
"It's a potion, dumbass. Drink up."
"Ngh."
"I'm telling you, it's a real potion."
I shoved the bottle at him, but Ropiel bit his lip and turned away. Maybe he doubted the contents, so I took a swig right in front of him to prove it—but he still refused. Even if it was real poison, it wouldn't work on me anyway, so this charade was pointless. But he didn't seem to know that.
Was he avoiding it because it was human-made?
"You're forcing me to do this. Hold still, fucker. Open up."
"Ngh, mmph!"
"Hey, stay still. Teeth away. Wanna get hurt more?"
No choice—I pried his mouth open and poured it in. That should heal him up quick. These guys had to guide me to the core. And I'd never planned to kill them anyway.
I healed Adriel too, then force-fed a potion to Ropiel where he'd flopped. Once they were patched up, Adriel—who I'd left alone for a bit—hugged her shoulders and sobbed pathetically.
"Sob, ugh... Hic... Defiled... by a filthy surface human..."
What the fuck? I'd saved her ass, and this was her reaction? The whole scene looked so goddamn weird.
Was Angela actually way more open-minded than I thought? Adriel was bawling like she'd been sexually assaulted, and once Ropiel woke up, he lunged at me in a frenzy. He got beaten half to death again and crashed into a cloud, while Adriel went from sobbing to trying to kill herself.
"Nice one, keep bullshitting. Just from chugging a potion, you're acting like you caught some plague..."
"Let me go! I... I can't go on... Not with this body...!"
"Your body's spotless, you crazy bitch!"
I'd felt a bit sorry for her misery at first, but now it was just annoying as hell. Fanatics were something else—brainwashing was terrifying. No wonder other towers' 15th floors were like this. Telling them their god was just a pigeon would only make it worse.
How the hell do I convince them? With my silver tongue, nothing would work. No choice.
Clearing 15th floor. Priest chick crying and trying to suicide nonstop.
Took her to guide me to core, fought once, fed potion to save her.
She refused so I force-fed. Now she's freaking out saying she's defiled.
Seems brainwashed hard. How do I convince her? Someone script me a line pls urgent.
Need to hit the core.
(Photo)
This was where the community shone. Plenty of ghosts were invested in my climb—they'd help for sure.
As expected, seconds after posting, comments flooded in.
Of course, actual helpful comments took forever, as always.
I somehow managed to calm Adriel down after sinking a ton of time into it. I get the sentiment, but don't we have shit to do? Gotta take me to the core, right? I spewed lines like that nonstop. I barely remember what I said since it was straight from community scripts—fluent bullshit I'd never come up with alone. Part of me worried she'd off herself after dropping me off, but heaven would erupt before then anyway.
"To enter the core... you must drink this first..."
Adriel shoved a vial of glowing blue liquid at me. I already knew what it was from the community: a potion that loosened the challenger's restrictions. They called it holy water here. In reality, just fancy alchemy brew. Real holy water was in my inventory—buyable consumable from other floors' shops.
"We can't just let an unclean one into the Heavenly God's domain... This washes away the minimal defilement."
She said it trembling like a leaf. I meekly chugged the so-called holy water.
The aura of Heaven rejects the unclean born of earth. All stats are reduced.
The system message dropped "drastically" and just said "reduced." I checked my status window.
My halved stats had recovered about 10%. The 15th floor let you regain original stats bit by bit through quests. Full recovery by the labyrinth challenge. But sticking to the questline meant you could never reach the hidden boss, the Heavenly God. That's why other towers' heavens were slowly marching to doom.
"Th-then... let's go."
I followed Adriel and Ropiel to heaven's core.
The core was a temple shrouded in massive clouds. Fitting, since it housed the Heavenly God. The few heavenly beings here were all priests. And among them, at the top was the High Priest—I met him soon enough.
"Ropiel, Adriel, good work. You look exhausted—rest for today."
The High Priest with four pairs of wings dismissed the two priests and met me alone.
"Human from the surface, you've come far. Now, we judge your sins."
He led me to the temple's center: the altar for divine punishment.
"First, on the charge of stealing sky guardian medicine..."
"Yeah, that was me."
"Pardon?"
Normally it'd be some drawn-out process, but I cut through it.
"I did it all, so quit dragging and hit me with that punishment already."
The flustered High Priest? Ignored. I pulled a hammer from inventory, leaped, and smashed the altar.
-BOOM!
The "sacred" altar shattered instantly. I scattered iron balls around next. Chaos erupted.
Rampaging at heaven's core—especially the altar—was a top-tier sin by their laws. Top-tier punishment wasn't handled by priests. The Heavenly God itself judged—the ultimate taboo. And that judgment? A live sacrifice to the pigeon monster calling itself god.
"Have you lost your mind, surface human...?"
Now the High Priest had to take me to the Heavenly God.