The Clocktower That Reversed Flow (1)
[Dungeon: The Backflowing Clock Tower]
[Description: A nest of time where the hands of the clock run backward.
The monster Chronos, who devours the time of the dead, rules here.]
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Before his regression, Kim Jun had never once set foot here.
He had roamed countless regions of the vast world of Dark Soul, searching for the items he needed.
But the world was so enormous that it would have taken at least a year to explore all of it.
In the end, he’d had no choice but to focus his efforts, and the Backflowing Clock Tower had fallen outside his route.
And yet, even now, he knew there was an NPC here.
The reason was none other than Ryu Jia.
Before his regression, after barely escaping the Dark Soul floor.
When they’d gathered with their companions again, she’d tossed out a remark as casually as if she were talking about the weather.
“Oh, that? There’s this tower in the swamp, right? I think it was the hallway at the end of the second floor... There was a craftsman NPC there. He’d process pretty much anything—mana stones, whatever—and turn it into talismans.”
At the time, Kim Jun had hardly cared.
It had been a place he’d never visited, after all.
But Ryu Jia was different.
For all her childish, prickly front, she was a meticulous mage.
When it came to magic-related items, she collected everything, big and small alike.
Even paths that looked useless, she would stubbornly push into, searching until the end just to get a single staff or one scroll.
So I owe this to Jia.
He wondered if he should pat her head the next time they met.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 1st Floor]
Tick.
He entered the first floor.
The moment he stepped in, a bone-chilling aura washed over him.
There were long corridors, and along them stood a line of figures in white robes.
Each held a long staff, their eyes dim and hollow as if something had been scooped out of them.
They all swung their staves at once.
Blue magical shots poured down on him.
“Out of the way.”
Kim Jun’s greatsword swept sideways, severing the barrage’s path.
Andras’s Shisan Hyeolhae followed immediately after, staining the corridor red.
Staves snapped, robes tore, and the magic shots scattered.
The monsters here were not very strong.
No, to be exact, Kim Jun and Andras were so far above the floor’s level that this was nothing.
Even with the power of Dark Soul suppressing them, this was child’s play for two men who had already reached high levels.
As the fallen robes crumbled into dust and vanished, the stairway to the next floor revealed itself.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 2nd Floor]
The second floor was even darker.
Old clock gears jutted from both sides of the narrow corridor, as if gnawing their way out of the walls.
There was no sound of turning gears, only the metallic rasp that lingered in his ears.
Kreeeeek—
“The end of the hall.”
“Got it.”
Andras lowered his body, and Kim Jun advanced straight ahead with his greatsword out front.
More mages appeared here and there, but it was the same as before.
When blue crystals flew in, the greatsword casually split their line of attack, and the blood blade pierced through the opening.
Only short screams rang out before the monsters vanished like smoke.
And then, when they finally reached the end of the corridor.
In the darkness, he saw an old door.
Its texture was closer to stone than metal, and faintly glowing patterns drifted over its surface.
Kim Jun slowly reached out and grasped the handle.
So this is it.
The place Jia had mentioned—the craftsman’s room.
The old door opened with a creak.
Inside was narrow and dark.
There was no lamp, yet a faint blue energy poured down from the ceiling.
In one corner sat a hunched shadow.
A grotesquely curved back, a robe dragging all the way to the floor.
A face with layered wrinkles, hardened like shell, came faintly into view.
...
The craftsman said nothing.
Instead, he tapped a rough wooden plaque hanging beside him with thin fingers.
The crudely carved letters caught the light and rose into view.
[Item Processing]
[Materials → Talismans can be crafted]
[Price: 100,000 coins]
The robe and even the face somehow resembled the monsters outside, but that wasn’t important right now.
Kim Jun took out a mana stone and placed it on the table.
The craftsman slowly lifted a hand and seized the mana stone.
A brief silence.
Then blue light melted away and condensed into a small charm.
[Item Crafting Complete!]
["Blue Abyss Talisman"]
[Effect: Increases mana recovery speed]
Kim Jun picked up the item.
The pulse he felt at his fingertips was definitely different.
It was expensive, yes. 100,000 coins was a fairly painful price.
But.
Now I’ve got it all.
Even after all this time, even after his tremendous growth, he’d still been forced to fight as though one of his wings were bound by mana restrictions.
But the Blue Abyss Talisman loosened part of that shackle.
Kim Jun smiled with quiet satisfaction at that fact alone.
The blue light throbbing in his palm felt almost like a guarantee of the battles ahead.
And then there was this.
[Contractor effect is shared.]
[Andras: Increased mana recovery speed]
“...What the hell is this?”
Kim Jun’s eyes wavered for a moment.
Not only Kim Jun, who wore the talisman, but Andras as well—the contractor—was affected.
Kim Jun stared wide-eyed at the craftsman, but—
Waving his hand dismissively, the craftsman showed no further interest.
It was the signal to leave now that the business was done.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 3rd Floor]
Tick.
Tick.
Clock hands hung from the ceiling in droves, dropping one by one like rain.
“What the hell is this?”
“I don’t know, master.”
It was a scene that defied explanation.
The very idea of clock hands pouring down from above felt ominous.
Plink.
Each one that struck skin sent out a cold, alien sensation that didn’t feel metallic at all.
But so what?
Slash.
He simply cut them down and kept moving upward.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 4th Floor]
Tick.
Tick—
Gears turned on every wall.
In front of them, mages in blue robes dragged along beasts they had chained up.
Monsters that looked like wolves, yet had limbs twisted out of shape.
The beasts broke free first and charged.
Gears, beasts, and mages tangled together and clogged the path.
But only for a moment.
Broken gears, torn robes, and collapsed beasts were all that remained.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 5th Floor]
Tick.
Tick—
Tick.
The corridor was packed with mages in red robes standing in a line.
Tens of fireballs rose at once, filling the air.
Kim Jun held his greatsword straight and called out briefly.
“Dragon Slash.”
───!
The blade strike of Black Flame tore through the corridor.
The red robes were sliced apart like scraps of paper, and dozens of them fell at the same time.
All that remained was the lingering trace of flames.
From now on, no mana restriction would hold him back anymore.
And Andras, tied to him by contract, was enjoying the benefits of the Blue Abyss Talisman as well.
Every time the red greatsword carved through the air, blood-colored trails burst out like explosions.
“Heh-heh-heh... I can finally breathe, master!”
With Andras rampaging ahead, the corridor turned into a slaughterhouse in an instant.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 6th Floor]
The moment they climbed the stairs, the air changed.
It was still a dark corridor, but the sound of ticking burst from every direction.
The same sound they’d heard from the lower floors.
At first, it had come once every few seconds.
Now it was drilling into their ears every single second.
Tick—
Tick—
Kim Jun felt as though his heart were being shaken to that rhythm.
His toes had gone numb, a faint prickle racing through them.
“Master. It’s getting faster.”
“Yeah. Stay sharp. We don’t know what’s coming.”
Tick—
Tick—
Tick—
Tick—
The intervals kept shrinking.
Like a heartbeat, like a threat, a sinister force filled the corridor.
And then, all the sounds overlapped for a single instant.
Ticktickticktick-!
Fwoosh!
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 2nd Floor]
Kim Jun and Andras were back on the second floor.
*
Kim Jun and Andras stood once more at the end of the second-floor corridor.
It had been the very moment they’d stepped out of the craftsman’s room with the Blue Abyss Talisman in hand.
“...We got sent back?”
Kim Jun let out a heavy breath.
The talisman in his hand still pulsed with blue light.
At least the loot hadn’t disappeared, but it was obvious that something incomprehensible had just happened.
Andras glanced around and muttered,
“Master, I still hear the sound.”
Tick—
Exactly as he said. The ticking was seeping up from somewhere—between the stones in the corridor, from the shadows on the ceiling, from nowhere and everywhere at once.
As if some enormous, invisible mainspring were winding the entire tower.
At first, the ticking came once every few seconds.
But by the time they’d reached the sixth floor, the interval had been cut in half.
And when all the sounds overlapped, they’d been forcibly thrown back to the second floor.
...So that was the trigger?
Kim Jun’s brow furrowed deeply.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 7th Floor]
They started climbing again.
Thanks to the route he remembered, they broke through the third, fourth, and fifth floors without hesitation.
The falling clock hands were cut down, and the red robes were swept away by Black Flame.
Andras’s greatsword left trails of blood as it opened the way forward.
Then they passed the sixth floor and finally reached the seventh.
Tick—
Tick—
The sound drilled once again into his ears.
The rhythm was even faster than before.
Now it rang out every second, like needles stabbing into his skull.
Kim Jun’s toes trembled with a numbing sting.
It wasn’t simple auditory hallucination.
Each tick seemed to directly strike his body and heart, pressing in on him.
“It’s getting faster.”
Andras muttered lowly, raising his greatsword.
But it was already too late.
Ticktickticktick-!
The clock sounds wrapped around his entire body, overlapping until his vision scattered.
[Backflowing Clock Tower - 2nd Floor]
When the light vanished and he opened his eyes, they were there again.
The end of the second-floor corridor.
The same spot, the same moment.
“Damn it.”
Kim Jun clenched his teeth.
This time, they’d been cut off not at the entrance to the sixth floor, but at the end of the seventh.
Then it’s not a specific floor that’s the problem.
The floor where clock hands fell, the floor where beasts were released, the floor where magic circles had been laid.
None of them were any different.
In the end, the cause wasn’t the floor itself, but a regression phenomenon brought on by the flow of time.
“Master, then we just have to move faster.”
Andras muttered in a low voice.
Kim Jun didn’t answer. Instead, he steadied his breathing and looked into the gaps between the walls.
The ticking was starting again.
Tick—
A sound squeezing time from beginning to end.
Now that the mana problem was solved, the monsters on this floor were nothing more than things he and Andras could cut down in a second, unless they were bosses.
But.
Even if we climb quickly, we still get sent back to the second floor.
It was a new obstacle.
He felt a brief stab of regret that maybe wasting time on the first floor had caused this, but it was too late for that now.
“Andras.”
“Master.”
“We’re going faster.”
“Understood.”
Both of them kicked off the corridor floor at the same time.
To move faster than sound, to get ahead of time itself.
45