Beyond the Barrier
Judging by the way El Sion had slammed his head into empty air, the barrier seemed to exist for no one but Do-yun.
Maybe it was because he had never properly entered the Tower of Ascension.
A system that had looked flawless was showing several cracks—cracks that appeared only for him.
Exploitable cracks, that is.
When he glanced back, he saw El Sion frantically pounding on empty space. The man’s mouth was moving in a hurry, yet not a single sound reached Do-yun. Inside and outside the barrier were being treated as completely separate spaces.
“Ah, Ciel.”
His thoughts suddenly landed on the fairy who had been trailing after him. Unfortunately, Ciel had not been able to cross. She remained inside the gate, staring blankly with a dazed expression.
She’ll be fine.
He had already confirmed that no one else could see her. Setting the worry aside, Do-yun started walking forward.
“What a strange feeling.”
Stepping into a forbidden zone he was never meant to set foot in brought a sensation he could not quite put into words. He looked down at the ground with a sense of fresh wonder, then turned toward the flood of monsters charging from ahead.
“Whoa. Merit points are pouring in.”
Was there any need to run around inside the fortress hunting monsters one by one? A buffet had already been laid out right in front of him, ready to be picked clean.
“First one.”
Do-yun swung his sword at the goblin that had come right up to his face.
205 Damage!
The notification flashed and the goblin dissolved into light. A goblin’s health was 50. With an ordinary weapon it would have taken five solid hits, but for Do-yun—who now held a C-rank sword—a single swing was more than enough.
Slash. Slice.
His blade moved in continuous arcs, weaving through the monsters. The sheer excess of attack power meant that even a graze turned them into light.
The more I look at it, the weirder it is.
The health system of the Tower of Trials was absolute. As long as health remained, death was impossible; the moment it hit zero, even a pristine body would die. That was exactly why Do-yun could harvest monsters like this. A single small wound was enough to exceed their maximum health.
Acquired 6 Merit Points!
Acquired 3 Merit Points!
It was about a minute later that Do-yun felt something off.
Why aren’t the monsters reacting?
Every swing of his sword dropped them like flies. At first he assumed it was simply because his attack power was too high, but the monsters never even tried to dodge the blade.
Thud.
He stopped swinging wildly and began watching the approaching monsters.
“Grrr.”
Drool dripped from the open mouth of an orc. Murderous light glittered in the eyes of a goblin clutching a dagger. Yet Do-yun was nowhere in their field of vision.
Thud-thud-thud.
They charged past him as if reaching the fortress gate was the only mission that mattered, completely ignoring his presence.
“Huh.”
He took one step forward. The monsters brushed past him as though he were a transparent wall. It felt exactly like becoming a ghost.
Is this another bug?
The goblins he had met inside the fortress had clearly recognized him. Apparently, appearing in a place that was never supposed to exist was the problem.
“This just makes it easier.”
No need to worry about counterattacks. He abandoned even the bare minimum of defense and focused solely on swinging his sword.
Is this the true joy of being an assassin?
Stabbing the weak points of enemies who could not even register his existence was surprisingly fun. He was seriously considering whether he ought to learn stealth-related skills when a strange roar rolled across the battlefield.
“Kuaaaaah!”
An orc with crimson skin. The hide, glossy and the color of fresh blood, made it clear at a glance that this was no ordinary opponent.
“A Bloody Orc, huh.”
Do-yun calmly studied the red-skinned orc. Mid-tier monster. Danger level green—immediate evacuation recommended. Unlike goblins, ordinary people stood no chance against it. Response protocol called for platoon-level firepower or a D-rank or higher returnee. But Do-yun was no longer an ordinary person.
“Its trait was Tough Hide, right?”
A hide that cut physical damage by more than half. That single feature made it a pain both outside and inside the Tower of Trials.
Bash (F)
The next attack will have 1,517% additional impact force.
If he simply dealt more damage than the hide could reduce, the trait became meaningless. Intent on driving his sword straight into the neck, Do-yun saw a club dropping toward his face and hastily pulled his blade back.
Clang!
You have taken damage!
Leather armor effect reduces damage by 30.
14 Damage received.
A sharp ache shot through his wrist and then faded. Meeting the orc’s savage eyes that were fixed squarely on him, he thought:
Guess mid-boss types can see me after all.
He had almost paid dearly for letting his guard down. Do-yun gripped his sword with a cooler gaze.
“Kuaaaaah!”
Seeing him take a step back seemed to embolden the orc. It raised the club for another overhead smash.
Crrrack.
A sound that should never have come from the weapon rang out. Something split with a dry snap, and the club fell in two pieces.
“You never reinforced durability either, huh?”
While the orc stared blankly at the ruined club, Do-yun’s sword flashed again. Moments later the crimson orc let out a mournful scream and dissolved into light.
Do-yun caught his breath and looked up at the empty air.
You have slain a Bloody Orc!
Acquired 250 Merit Points!
Merit points on a completely different scale from hunting mere goblins. His name was already visible in the ranking window that had been hovering at the edge of his vision.
1st — Kim Do-yun (414)
2nd — Heavenly Demon Jin Cheon-woo (84)
3rd — Gale Kaya (75)
4th — Executor El Sion (67)
5th — Moving Wall Bartur (57)
A gap that left second place and below in the dust. Considering he had been raking in points outside, it was almost surprising the difference was only this large.
“Only four times as much, huh.”
If you excluded the points from the Bloody Orc, the lead before that had been barely double. These people were absolute monsters.
No getting complacent. Keep grinding.
Just as he prepared to focus on hunting again, a beep sounded and the ranking window refreshed.
1st — Kim Do-yun (414)
2nd — Reassembly Angelina (157)
3rd — Heavenly Demon Jin Cheon-woo (84)
4th — Gale Kaya (75)
5th — Executor El Sion (67)
“What the—”
She had vaulted over third through fifth in a single leap. And it was a name he had never seen before. Still, the epithet gave him a pretty clear idea.
Reassembly Angelina.
It certainly sounded like someone who specialized in restoring things.
He turned around. The wide-open fortress gate was now boarded up with what looked like wooden planks.
“Sealing the gate is worth about 150 points, huh.”
Less than soloing a dangerous monster like a Bloody Orc, but still a score no one could ignore. It had instantly overtaken people who had been focused purely on combat.
“I should grab a few more and head back.”
He still did not know the exact clear condition for this floor of the Tower of Ascension, but it was probably something like restoring the fortress enough to function and then clearing out every monster inside. Do-yun intended to return before that condition was met.
The place he was standing now was somewhere a bug had allowed him to reach. A gut feeling told him that remaining outside until the trial ended would not end well.
Just as he adjusted his grip on the sword again, a tingling sensation rose and a notification window appeared before his eyes.
Goblin Assassin uses Stealth (F).
A skill-activation alert for a skill he himself had not used. The situation was jarringly unexpected, yet a piece of information flashed through his mind.
“A truly great one looks down upon all from above.”
— Detects the flow of mana in the surroundings.
— Detects skill usage in the surroundings.
The detection skill he had obtained on the 0th floor of the Tower of Ascension. Situations where it could actually be used had been rare, so Absolute Sight had usually remained quiet. Now it was reacting.
A faint afterimage of mana rose into his vision—tiny ripples spreading through the air. There was a presence cutting through empty space and closing in on him.
The system said Goblin Assassin.
Small monster. Danger level yellow—containment required. A mutated goblin with black skin that possessed the special ability of stealth. Because of the massive casualties that followed if even one slipped away, the manual demanded a full lockdown of a one-kilometer radius the moment one was discovered.
Goblin Assassin uses Vital Point Designation (F).
While the information was still surfacing, a hot sensation bloomed near his chest. He looked down. Vivid red mana was etched clearly over the area of his heart. It intended to mark a vital point and then strike.
“Hup!”
Do-yun spun at once and lashed out with a kick. He had not confirmed the direction with his own eyes, yet Absolute Sight pointed the way like pure instinct.
Thud!
His reverse roundhouse kick smashed squarely into the face of the goblin that had been lunging from behind with a dagger.
29 Damage!
Because it was not a weapon strike, only base attack power had gone through—but that alone was fatal to a small-framed goblin. As the creature staggered off-balance, Do-yun’s sword swept through it.
You have slain a Goblin Assassin!
Acquired 300 Merit Points!
Only after the kill notification appeared did Do-yun let out a breath of relief. He had responded calmly enough, but his heart was still hammering.
“Without Absolute Sight I would’ve been in real trouble.”
Of course, even if a dagger pierced his heart now, he would not die as long as his health remained—but the psychological resistance was still there.
“Where the hell did this bastard even come from?”
He kicked the dissolving corpse of the Goblin Assassin. Unlike its green-skinned kin, this mutant was a deep, almost black hue. Even from a distance the appearance should have stood out, yet Do-yun had not noticed until it was right on top of him.
It couldn’t have been stealthed from far away.
He recalled the exact moment Absolute Sight had activated. There had been almost no gap between the assassin using stealth and the moment it closed in.
“Is there somewhere nearby it could have been hiding?”
He tilted his head and scanned the surroundings. Countless monster packs still streamed past him, but he only cut down the ones that happened to block his path while advancing. Trash mobs were not worth the merit points. The Goblin Assassin he had just killed had given far more. If he could find the source, he could hunt the same way again later.
Why are they avoiding that spot?
As he casually passed through the monsters, a small anomaly registered. The chaotic throng was deliberately diverting around one particular point, fighting their own flow.
Thud.
Do-yun carefully moved toward it. And at last he came face to face with it.
The ground.
Between dust-choked pits, a purple fissure had opened as though reality itself had been torn.
Whoosh—
There was no sound, yet Do-yun clearly felt the resonance. A cold sensation crawled over his skin. An instinctive revulsion climbed his spine.
“…A Gate?”
For a moment the world stopped. Wind, sound, even sensation seemed to cut out. The thing floating before his eyes was familiar. So familiar it felt almost alien.
The street he had lived on. His home. His family. Ordinary mornings. The origin of the disaster that had stolen every one of them.
That was a Gate.
“Why the hell is something like this here?”
Do-yun clutched his throbbing head. Simply looking at it made his sense of balance waver. His heart pounded roughly. Even the Goblin Assassin earlier might have been nothing more than a scrap that had leaked from this place.
What’s inside it?
Standing before the silent crack, Do-yun felt as though he were staring down into an abyss of unknowable depth.