The Clocktower That Reversed Flow (2)
Tick-tock—
Kim Jun opened his eyes.
He was on the second floor again.
“Damn it.”
In the first regression, he had been caught off guard.
What the hell? Why am I suddenly on the second floor?
He’d assumed it was some sort of spatial transport trap. Dungeons often had warp snares.
But in the second regression, Kim Jun realized something else.
The crack in the wall he had deliberately smashed was gone, clean as if it had never existed.
The clock gears Andras had cut apart were still embedded in their original places.
“This isn’t spatial transfer.”
Kim Jun’s face hardened.
“Time itself is being rewound.”
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
He heard the sound again.
That ominous rhythm that had followed him all the way from the first floor.
In his third regression, Kim Jun began analyzing it.
There’s definitely a pattern to this sound.
On the first floor, the ticking had been leisurely, but as he climbed higher, it had grown faster and faster.
Then, at some point, it had accelerated explosively, and time had snapped back.
Fourth regression.
“Andras.”
“Speak, my lord.”
“This time, I’m going to test something.”
Standing in the middle of the second-floor corridor, Kim Jun said, “Don’t do anything. Just stand still.”
“Stand still?”
“Let’s time it.”
The two of them stopped in the corridor.
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
The sound rang out once every second.
Kim Jun counted his heartbeat and measured the time.
One, two, three…
Exactly 120 seconds later—
Tick-tock—
Tick—tock—
The sound grew subtly faster.
“It changed.”
“I heard it.”
Andras had noticed it too.
They kept waiting.
Another 120 seconds passed.
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
“It speeds up every two minutes.”
Kim Jun muttered to himself.
And then the final sixty seconds.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-!
The sound burst out in rapid fire, like a machine gun.
Whoosh—!
Only after the fifth regression did Kim Jun finally grasp the pattern of the Rewinding Clock Tower.
Two minutes, two minutes, then one minute of ticking.
In other words, he had to reach the boss within five minutes.
The moment he entered the Rewinding Clock Tower, he wouldn’t be able to leave until the boss was dead.
All that remained was to push upward even faster.
[Rewinding Clock Tower – 3rd Floor]
He had already identified the mages’ positions.
Without even looking, he swept them away with a wave of sword qi.
[Rewinding Clock Tower – 4th Floor]
The fourth floor fell almost instantly.
Kim Jun ignored unnecessary enemies completely. He cut down only those who blocked his path and moved on.
[Rewinding Clock Tower – 5th Floor]
The red-robed mages on the fifth floor were preparing fireballs, but—
“Dragon Slash!”
He wiped them all out with a single strike that burned the entire corridor.
[Rewinding Clock Tower – 6th Floor]
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
“Two on the left, one on the right.”
“There’s one straight ahead too, my lord.”
Andras cut down both sides while Kim Jun broke through the front.
[Rewinding Clock Tower – 7th Floor]
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
The sound sped up again.
He’d gone farther than before, but there was no room to be satisfied here.
Even if he regressed again, he still needed to have at least experienced the eighth floor.
So he pushed on—seven times, eight times, nine times…
“This is the fifteenth time already.”
He had counted fifteen regressions so far.
His best record ended on the ninth floor.
He had documented the pattern every time and searched for a way through, but he still couldn’t reach the boss in time.
Even if he somehow made it to the tenth floor within five minutes, he still didn’t know what kind of creature this “Chronos” was.
“Once I get there, I’ll just cut him down, my lord.”
“That much is true.”
The mana issue was solved now, and stamina and patterns were no longer serious obstacles.
The problem was time. At the very least, he had to actually meet the boss before he could analyze anything.
*
The sixteenth regression.
This time, he started differently.
The moment the run began, Kim Jun threw his body forward, rolling to build speed.
He didn’t step on the railing. He twisted his body and slipped through the narrow gap between the gear shafts.
There was no need to look back.
The moment his blade brushed past one of them, a red-robed mage crumpled.
Before the corpse had even hit the floor, he was already leaping toward the next floor.
“Faster!!”
“Understood!”
The eighth floor had been the most troublesome by far.
Chunks of iron regularly dropped from above, and the floor shook without end.
Normally, he would have waited for the traps to pause and moved forward one step at a time.
But now—
Swish!
He hurled himself directly into their path.
Instead of trying to stop the falling objects head-on, he shifted half a step sideways at the last instant.
His hair was clipped at the ends, but he didn’t care.
He couldn’t afford even a single breath of hesitation now.
The instant that flying acceleration broke, he’d be sent back to the second floor again.
The ninth floor.
This one was relatively simple.
The problem was the knights’ formation, and the mages guarding behind them.
Shields rose. Staff tips lit up in unison.
Under normal circumstances, he would have had to dodge the magic raining down like arrows.
Slash-sha-sha-sha-!
Dragon Eater and Shisan Hyeolhae crossed, carving a massive X through the air.
The knights with their shields were split cleanly in half and dropped, and the mages hiding behind them were severed as well.
[Rewinding Clock Tower – 10th Floor]
At last, he had reached his best record.
What lay before him was a horde of monsters that mixed the shape of beasts with giant hourglasses.
They charged on all fours like wolves, yet their upper bodies were human.
Long sand-blades jutted from their elbows and split like razor edges, while their eye sockets were hollow, spilling grains of sand from within.
“Annoying.”
When Andras swung Shisan Hyeolhae, one of the sand-beasts was split clean in two.
Kim Jun did not slow down.
As if carried by the wind, he cut straight through the monsters.
Every place his dark red sword qi brushed past, sand and blood scattered together.
“Andras!”
“I know!”
Before the words were even finished, Andras had already read Kim Jun’s intent.
Andras’s Shisan Hyeolhae swept the side path clean, clearing space.
Then—
Thud.
He grabbed Kim Jun’s leg with his arm.
“Kill the boss!! My lord!!”
Whoosh—!
In an instant, Kim Jun’s body was flung upward like a drawn bow, shooting through the crack in the boss room door.
Crack-!
Kim Jun slipped into the boss room through the gap.
And at the far end, the master of the Rewinding Clock Tower finally revealed itself.
[Boss: Regressor Chronos]
[Grade: C]
[Level: 1]
[HP: 1 / 1]
The boss of the Rewinding Clock Tower, Chronos, stood there.
Only 1?
It was an absurd number for something called a boss.
The kind of pitiful vitality one could barely believe belonged to even a trash mob.
And yet Chronos’s form was anything but pitiful.
A shape mixed from human and clock.
Its upper body looked like a skeletal doll, but clock hands and gears churned throughout its torso.
A massive hourglass on its back pulsed like a heart, and red light spun like needles inside its eye sockets.
Most striking of all was the staff in its hand.
A scepter forged from black iron and interlocking gold gears.
At the tip was a blurred glass orb, and within it, the hour hand and minute hand endlessly crossed and rewound.
So that’s the Scepter of Retrograde.
Kim Jun knew instinctively what it was.
The power to defy time.
It had to be the source of it all.
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
Even now, time still flowed.
Before it could rewind again, he would send a sword qi strike and bring the bastard down.
Kim Jun steadied his breathing and lifted his blade.
The simplest technique taught by Sword Saint Valderion.
“Slash.”
The most basic sword form.
It had neither force nor flourish.
Only speed existed within it.
Yet simplicity was the truest form of perfection.
At that moment, black flames wrapped around Kim Jun’s blade.
Dark red fire spilled down the edge of the sword and burst outward in a straight line.
Crackle-rumble—!
Power concentrated in an instant erupted as sword qi.
That dark red line allowed no room even for breath, and it raced straight toward Chronos.
A majestic yet merciless slash.
Like a sentence of judgment, it cleaved the air and drove down toward the enemy.
And just as it was about to reach his face—
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-!
Kim Jun let out a sharp breath.
He had clearly thought he’d hit it this time.
Still, there was something he’d gained.
That arrogant little HP 1 number, floating there as if daring him to kill it if he could.
And the Scepter of Retrograde in Chronos’s hand, something that seemed to twist time itself.
“Berserk.”
Because of the havoc he’d wreaked in the heavenly realm, his D-rank skill Berserk had risen to B-rank.
Current rage level: 1st stage.
Duration: Active
If he kept Berserk active at all times and continued using Acceleration?
The Blue Abyss Talisman would handle mana, and if that still wasn’t enough, he could burn his own health with the Lion’s Talisman.
“This ends now.”
He ran.
No—he flew.
Kim Jun was flying now.
He no longer touched the ground.
He was using the air itself as a springboard, blasting forward at impossible speed.
“My lord! Go ahead!”
Andras’s voice came from behind, but it barely had a chance to register.
And so he tore upward through the third floor, the fourth, the fifth.
Without even pausing for breath, he reached the tenth-floor boss room again.
Tick-tock—
Tick-tock—
The spring sound had quickened a little, but there was still enough time.
This was still clearable.
And the boss room.
Regressor Chronos appeared once more.
Kim Jun didn’t hesitate.
“Slash.”
Just as the sword qi wrapped in black flames reached Chronos’s face—
Grin.
He’s smiling?
The monster’s mouth slowly curled upward.
And then the ticking sound accelerated.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-
Whoosh—!
He was sent back to the second floor again.
“Strange.”
“Did you fail? There should have been enough time.”
“Yes.”
He had even activated Berserk and gone up while spamming skills.
And yet, he’d still been rewound at the very edge of Chronos’s face.
Kim Jun slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again and murmured, “...So that’s how this works?”
His eyes narrowed.
Right before the sword qi landed, Chronos had indeed smiled.
That grin had triggered the regression.
…It has nothing to do with the ticking. The bastard used the scepter itself.
If that was the case, then the story changed.
This wasn’t merely the tower’s pattern; it was an active skill used by the boss itself.
“This just got more complicated.”
Maybe he would have to spend even more time here.
After all, he’d need to identify the pattern and find a way to respond to it.
But Kim Jun shook his head.
“I have no intention of doing that.”
The twenty-first regression.
By now, his body remembered the route perfectly.
Kim Jun and Andras broke through the floors in exactly the same way.
Like machines, without the slightest tremor.
Second floor, third floor, fourth floor…
Without taking a single breath, they reached the door to the tenth-floor boss room.
There was still enough time.
When the door opened, Chronos’s shape flooded his vision again.
That bizarre figure tangled together from human form, clock hands, and gears.
The Scepter of Retrograde still rested in his hand.
Kim Jun spoke slowly.
This time, he wouldn’t grant him a single chance.
Twist—
Mana surged violently.
It seethed hotly through his veins, scorching his nerves.
Dragon Tongue activated.
Mana consumption: enormous.
Insufficient mana will be converted into health through the Lion’s Talisman.
The pain hit as if his blood itself were burning up.
He could clearly see his health being shaved away, but Kim Jun didn’t even blink.
“Don’t move.”
The space around him froze.
The weight of a dragon’s roar settled over the room, an oppressive force that seemed to swallow even the air.
Chronos’s shoulders stiffened, and the arm gripping the scepter began to tremble.
He had clearly tried to activate the scepter, but—
“Kneel.”
Kim Jun’s voice fell like a blade.
The command he unleashed was the highest form of dragon speech, a dragon’s imperative that only a precious few in history could wield.
“…!”
The massive hourglass shook, and grains of sand surged upward in reverse.
But the spell never activated. It screeched like cracked glass, then stalled.
There was still plenty of time.
The scepter was sealed.
Chronos’s pupils trembled.
But the body forced to its knees could no longer move.
The hand holding the scepter shook, yet even resistance was denied.
Swish—
The blade passed through.
Chronos’s body split along a single line.
-1 HP
“You have defeated the boss ‘Regressor Chronos’!”
“Item acquired: Scepter of Retrograde, Hourglass of Retrograde.”
“My lord.”
“Yeah?”
“May I desecrate the corpse?”
Kim Jun snorted.
“Please do.”
Slash, slash, slash—!
“You little piece of shit. You’ve been pissing me off.”
“…;”
Andras’s speech might have been getting more sophisticated, but... well, whatever.
It was time to go back to the girls.
46
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