Berserk (1)
The plaza in Thebes was crowded.
When the Tower had first appeared, everyone had been terrified. But now things were different.
Hunters were beginning to adapt.
"There's a limit to what you can do alone."
"Yeah. Teamwork is the answer."
"The guys with guilds were doing it that way from the start anyway."
Before long, raid parties began to form naturally.
Some were made up of guildmates; others of hunters whose skill levels happened to match.
"We've cleared up to the 7th floor. We should be fine for the 8th too."
"The 8th floor probably won't have a boss either."
There was a strange rule in the Tower of Trials.
Ordinary monsters kept respawning even after they were killed.
But once a boss monster died, it never appeared again.
It disappeared completely.
"It's a shame we won't get the first-clear reward, but..."
"Still, it's a relief we can climb this easily."
The hunters' feelings were complicated.
They regretted the rewards they had missed because they hadn't been able to kill the bosses themselves. There had surely been incredible items among them.
But relief outweighed regret.
They didn't have to fight with their lives on the line.
They remembered the countless accidents that had happened in gates.
They remembered seeing comrades torn apart by monsters.
"Remember last year, in that B-rank gate..."
"Stop it. I don't want to think about it."
Entire parties wiped out because they had made a single mistake against the wrong boss.
These were hunters who had cleared gates before the Tower ever existed.
If anything, they were grateful for the current situation. Thanks to the Tower's rules, they could grow safely.
"Honestly, isn't this much better? You can just rack up experience without any risk."
"Right. The rewards are a pity, but your life matters more."
Not everyone was satisfied with the current state, however.
"This doesn't make any sense!"
The shout came from far away.
It was Han Seojin of the Blue Dragon Guild.
"Who do they think I am, to make me suffer this humiliation?"
The guild leader of one of Korea's five major guilds.
An S-class hunter renowned as a master of ice magic.
"Guild Leader, please calm down."
"Calm down? They've taken every boss from the 6th floor to the 10th!"
Han Seojin's face flushed red.
He was Korea's greatest ice mage.
And yet some nobody was stealing every reward from under his nose.
"Damn it!"
Han Seojin clenched his fist.
What infuriated him most was missing the first-clear rewards on the 8th and 9th floors.
The Core of Eternal Ice and the Elemental Enhancement Rune.
Those two items were essential materials that could raise his ice magic to an entirely new level.
"The Core of Eternal Ice..."
Han Seojin ground his teeth.
With that item, his Absolute Zero spell could become truly absolute.
Until now, it had only been able to freeze things temporarily, but with that core, he could freeze them permanently.
"And the Elemental Enhancement Rune too..."
That was the same.
A rare item that could double, even triple, the power of all his ice magic.
It was so valuable it would be counted among the rarest items in the world.
It wasn't even the kind of item that had appeared in Red Gates.
It must have been a special reward unique to this Tower.
And to think he had let something so precious slip through his fingers.
"Those should have been mine."
Han Seojin's voice trembled.
From anger.
He was an S-class hunter. One of the greatest mages in Korea.
And now he was following behind some nameless bastard, scavenging whatever scraps were left.
"Guild Leader..."
Deputy Guild Leader Ryu Aran spoke carefully.
"Still, we can climb safely all the way to the 10th floor."
"Safely?"
Han Seojin gave a cold laugh.
"I didn't become a hunter for safety."
His gaze turned icy.
"I did it to become the strongest. And now what is this? Picking up what's left after someone else has eaten?"
"But..."
"Shut up."
Han Seojin raised a hand and cut her off.
"Are you trying to get under my skin on purpose? Go prepare for the next floor."
The deputy guild leader bowed her head and stepped back.
Left alone, Han Seojin stared fixedly into the distance.
"Who the hell is it?"
Someone had entered the Tower before him and was monopolizing every boss.
That much was certain.
"I'll find out. And then I'll overtake them."
A cold glint passed through Han Seojin's eyes.
Whoever that person was, he swore he would overtake them.
*
Hunters who joined temporary raid parties or climbed solo had to distribute their stats evenly.
Even a tanker had to invest in attack power, since there could come a day when they had to fight alone. A damage dealer, too, needed some defense and health in case of a sudden assault.
They never knew when a party might fall apart, and coordinating with others was difficult enough as it was.
But things were different if it was a fixed raid party that would never break apart.
"Yararyarararaaat!"
Bang!
"Wahahahahaha!"
Tanker Park Minsu stepped forward and taunted the minotaurs gathered in the center of the labyrinth.
Having concentrated his points into health and defense, he boasted toughness on nearly fortress-like levels.
"Kwooooooo!"
"Yararyararararat!"
"Kwooooo!!"
"Yuriaaaaat!!"
The minotaurs' roars and Park Minsu's shouts tangled together.
Dozens of minotaurs lowered their horns and charged toward him from the narrow passage.
"Bash!"
Thud!
As Park Minsu drove his shield forward, the minotaurs tangled together and toppled like dominoes.
And then,
"Ryu Jia! When are you going to use it!"
"Shut up and wait!"
In that instant, mage Ryu Jia, who had invested her stats purely into intelligence and mana, raised her staff high.
An extreme build that had not spent a single point on health or defense.
"Inferno!"
Fwooooooosh-!
A massive firestorm swallowed the fallen minotaurs. Not even ash remained where it passed.
"At this rate, I might actually catch up to hyung soon!"
"As if, idiot!"
Ryu Jia was already level 17, Tanker Park Minsu level 15, supporter Lee Seoyeon level 14, and assassin Han Suin level 15.
They were still far behind Kim Jun, but that was only because the comparison was wrong.
Excluding Kim Jun, they were among the strongest hunters currently in the Tower.
"Still, getting here in two days is pretty fast, isn't it?"
Park Minsu said, looking around.
It had been a full two days since they entered the 10th-floor Minotaur Labyrinth. At last, they had reached the labyrinth's center.
In the middle of the huge circular arena, the remains of the Minotaur King, now nothing but bones, sat on its throne, and behind it stood a golden gate that led up to the heavenly floors.
"We just heard that the 11th floor was cleared a little while ago, so if we do well, maybe we can catch up to Guild Leader-nim?"
Lee Seoyeon said hopefully.
"R-Really?"
"Huh? You don't talk back when noona says it? You really want to die?"
"Shut up!"
Ryu Jia shouted, her face red.
"Enough, enough. Let's just go up. We need to meet the Guild Leader who left us behind."
The four of them stood before the golden gate.
Angels were carved in relief across its surface, and a faint light leaked from within.
"Then let's go in!"
Park Minsu placed his hand on the gate with eager anticipation.
Wooooooong-
The gate slowly began to open, and a beam of light brighter than anything else poured out.
Step, step, step-
But before they could even marvel at it, the sight before them left them stunned.
"Uh...?"
Ryu Jia's toe touched something.
Crack.
A fallen angel's wing.
Not white, but charred black.
The bodies were impossible to distinguish.
Some had no heads. Some were split in half and glued to the floor.
There were footprints left behind by someone who had tried to flee while burning, and severed feet lying apart from the rest of the body.
Some things had been scorched by black flames until their shapes were no longer recognizable.
And some human-like forms had had their armor melted into their skin, frozen with pained expressions on their faces, while others had all their wings torn apart and their limbs scattered in every direction.
"W-what is this...."
The floor was a mess of black blood, ash, and melted flesh.
What must once have been a holy marble floor in heaven had become something more horrific than hell itself.
The feathers embedded everywhere had all been burned black, and shards of golden halos lay shattered and scattered across the ground.
"...What is that?"
Ryu Jia pointed shakily toward the sky.
"W-what."
Lee Seoyeon covered her mouth.
The sky had been torn open unnaturally.
Not just the 12th floor, the 13th... even the 15th.
The sky of the heavenly realm had been ripped apart from top to bottom.
"...."
No one spoke.
Only the fact that something enormous had happened pressed down on their skin like the air itself.
"...Calm down, and keep moving."
Park Minsu finally forced out the words.
"There has to be something incredible up ahead."
No one answered.
They only nodded heavily.
Passing beneath the angel relief on the blackened gate, they stepped forward carefully.
Creeeak-
The instant the gate opened,
like a sudden intake of breath, a hot, sticky force dragged them inward.
A scene more terrible than hell spread before their eyes.
Kyaaaaaaa-!
Kwaaaaaaang-!!
Cries burst from beyond the ceiling, and dozens of heavenly monsters thrashed in black flames before disintegrating into pieces.
Bang!
Slash!
Thump!
Something from somewhere lunged in, seized a flying monster with bare hands, and crushed it. The corpse that dropped with a dull thud immediately ignited on the floor.
And then.
Step-step-
Cutting through the flames, it walked out.
A body smeared with blood.
Crimson-black wings of fire blooming from its back.
Rune patterns etched across its flesh, and horns jutting from its body.
A sinister mask-like marking around its mouth.
And eyes that burned red like a beast's.
Yet somehow, the figure looked familiar.
"Sh-shit, we're screwed!"
Lee Seoyeon blurted out the curse before she even realized it.