First Place Midair
Do-yun fidgeted with his fingers amid an atmosphere that felt ready to explode at any second.
Should I burn my insurance here?
The Rune of Immortality—now the only SS-rank item he still possessed. He had wanted to save it until the very end, yet the situation pressing in around him was dangerous enough that drawing it out would hardly have been strange.
“Not bad, buddy.”
“I’ll pay this humiliation back right now!”
The challengers who had been helplessly locked inside ice by Absolute Zero were grinding their teeth as they closed in on Do-yun. Sharp killing intent prickled across every inch of his body.
Too many of them.
He had the misfortune of being right in the middle of the corridor; challengers filled both ends of the passage. Just as Do-yun steadied his breathing and tried to put his back to the wall—
Lily uses Mana Drain (F)
The crimson magic circles covering the walls suddenly flared. Do-yun jerked upright in shock.
Wait—wasn’t she on the verge of death?
Half of Lily’s body had essentially been vaporized by the Destroyer’s beam. There had seemed no way she could survive, yet the skill notification forced Do-yun into a defensive stance at once.
Huh?
Time passed and nothing happened to him. At first he wondered whether Lily’s cast had simply failed, but the stream of curses pouring from the challengers ahead and behind told him otherwise.
“That damn mage bitch is still getting in the way to the bitter end!”
“If you lost, just accept the loss already!”
Only after he watched faint blue light drain from their bodies did Do-yun understand what had occurred.
She’s absorbing mana!
The reason he alone had been unaffected was obvious.
I don’t have a single drop of mana left.
She probably hadn’t intended it, but the result was that Lily had done him a favor. Now the challengers in front of him were just as mana-starved as he was.
Do-yun immediately swung his sword at the nearest man.
“Kh—?”
While the man flinched from the sudden strike, Do-yun slipped past him and sprinted down the corridor. The others tried to cut him off a beat too late, but their movements were still sluggish; the aftereffects of being frozen solid still lingered in their limbs.
“Hoho, and just where do you think you’re going?”
Of course, not everyone was slowed. A woman in a billowing blue dress cut across his path at a speed clearly superior to the rest. Her face was already burned into his memory—the same woman who, when he had cast Blizzard earlier, had gathered its power and fired it straight back at him. Her exceptional cold resistance must have let her shrug off Absolute Zero’s residual chill far faster than anyone else.
“Out of the way.”
Even so, it changed little. Do-yun’s sword flashed. Surprise flooded the eyes of the woman who wore a dress even in this weather; he was several times faster than she had expected.
Clang.
She barely managed to snap open her fan and catch the blade, then trembled under the force as she muttered,
“H-how are you still preserving your mana?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That speed is clearly something only a skill could produce!”
She seemed to be under some kind of misconception. Do-yun lifted one corner of his mouth and corrected her.
“This isn’t a skill.”
He had simply moved his body a little faster. Unlike these people, who had barely changed since entering Floor Zero, Do-yun had collected the Tower of Trials’ rewards and grown tremendously.
“That’s ridiculous!”
“It isn’t.”
There was no reason to keep chatting. He shook her off at once, because far ahead his eyes had locked onto someone racing away.
“Nyaha~ Why are you even fighting them?”
It was Kaya. Instead of blocking Do-yun, she was bolting straight for the clear crystal. Her choice was wiser—and far more threatening—than anyone else’s.
I absolutely cannot let her get there!
If he lost first place on the Hall of Fame even once, every stack he had accumulated until now would reset. That was the last thing Do-yun wanted.
The moment he planted his foot to chase her, every sense in his body screamed a warning.
Rumble-rumble-rumble.
The floor beneath him was shaking. The source of that immense mana was none other than the half-dead Lily.
So that was why she had been gathering power—she meant to bring the entire mage tower down.
“I suppose eliminating everyone except myself was too much to ask after all.”
Blood from the stump of her missing left arm had already formed a pool, yet the light in Lily’s eyes had not dimmed. The surrounding magic circles were still feeding her strength. Of course—someone who dabbled in black magic was hardly going to die from mere blood loss.
What were the rest of them doing while it got this bad?
Do-yun wondered why the other challengers had never finished her off, then immediately realized the reason lay with him. Every weapon in the corridor was pointed at Do-yun, not at Lily.
“Was I that much of an eyesore?”
They had decided that crushing him was more important than risking whatever last card a still-breathing Lily might play. That misjudgment had bought her all the preparation time she needed.
“Still, if I bring the whole mage tower down, I can at least thin out a few rivals.”
Lily slammed her staff into the floor. At the same instant a tremor that began deep underground shot through the entire tower.
Krrrrrk.
Intact ceiling and floor cracked like spiderwebs; through the gaps a sky dyed violet became visible.
“Oh, shit—!”
Before Do-yun could finish the curse the floor completely gave way and his body floated into empty air. The sensation of weightlessness lasted only a heartbeat before gravity seized him and yanked him downward hard.
Whoooosh.
Feeling the wind slap his cheeks raw, Do-yun thought coldly: if he hit the ground like this he was dead for certain. Even the stamina system had its limits. A fall from this height could easily deal five-digit damage.
I have to grab the clear crystal before that happens!
Just then a tiny fairy zipped up beside him.
“Doyun-nim! Are you all right?”
“Does this look all right to you?!”
Anyone could see it wasn’t. He had essentially leapt naked from a height of several hundred apartment stories. Whether any of his body would remain when he hit the ground was an open question.
I’m not going to burst like a tomato, am I?
“Kyaaaaah! Nooo!”
Ciel turned white as a sheet at the mental image. Even so, there was little Do-yun himself could do. If he still had mana he might have used a skill, but recovery was still a long way off.
“Ciel, never mind that—find out where the clear crystal is.”
In the complete shattering of the mage tower the crystal had almost certainly been flung somewhere. Ciel, with her fairy wings and tiny frame, was ideal for weaving between the falling debris to locate it.
“Y-yes! Leave it to me!”
After sending her off, Do-yun scanned his surroundings. Even in this unprecedented free-fall crisis the other challengers were each dealing with the plunge in their own ways. One rode a magic broom with expert balance; another fluttered his martial robes and slowed his descent like an immortal. Someone else ignited a backpack jetpack and rocketed upward.
Yet the most impressive of all was someone else entirely.
“How the hell is that even possible?”
Kaya. She relied on neither equipment nor magic. With nothing but her body she moved freely through the incomprehensible situation of free fall.
Thud.
She landed on a massive floating fragment, then launched herself full-force toward the next. Jump, land, jump. She bounded between the debris as though she were flying. Calling her sense of balance divine would not have been an exaggeration.
Should I try it?
Do-yun experimentally set a foot on a nearby rock, but even a simple push-off failed. Delicate force control was everything, and he was no genius who could master it on the first attempt.
“Doyun-nim! I found it! It’s behind that rock over there!”
Ciel flew back to him. Following her pointing finger, Do-yun let out a short breath of relief. It was far closer than he had expected.
Silver lining, at least.
Still, “right next to him” was relative. In midair with nowhere to plant a foot, the distance felt impossible. The wind tearing at his face made even looking straight at it difficult.
“Found you, you bastard!”
On top of everything, someone was still trying to attack him. The roaring boom of a jetpack and a man’s shout exploded behind him; the man’s body shot forward like a spear.
Boom!
The full-body tackle spun Do-yun around once. Before he could even adjust to the alien battlefield of open air, the man fired his jets again and came screaming back in.
Shuuuuuung!
Do-yun managed a desperate sword swing, but the man simply twisted his body midair as if the attack were a joke. Three-dimensional mobility that ruled the entire space—he banked left and right, dove and climbed, shredding every prediction Do-yun made.
“Haha! Look at you now!”
Do-yun glared with ice-cold eyes, yet the man only slapped his jetpack and sneered.
“You think a ground-pounder like you can keep up with my speed?”
Unlike the man who possessed a means of flight, Do-yun’s only path to survival was clearing the seventh floor and returning to the Sanctuary Room. The man knew that perfectly well.
“I’ll keep harassing you until you hit the ground!”
When Absolute Zero had frozen him solid, the man had realized just how dangerous Do-yun was. That was why he had abandoned even searching for the clear crystal and come after him. Opportunities to take down a powerhouse of this level did not come often.
As long as I just keep my distance, I win!
What the man failed to account for was that Do-yun possessed a way to close any distance in a single breath.
Shadow Step (F)
Do-yun’s body vanished from right in front of the man’s eyes. Panic lasted only a second before the man understood where he had gone. His jetpack, strapped to his back, had suddenly become unnaturally heavy.
“Shit! Get off!”
He twisted with all his strength, alternating between hard acceleration and hard stops, changing thruster direction again and again in an aerial acrobatics display. Yet the Do-yun glued to his back showed no intention of letting go.
“Guh!”
The jetpack was overheating; altitude was dropping steadily. Flight stability had already collapsed long ago. A bleak future rose in the man’s mind.
At this rate I’ll die too.
If he wanted to live he had to shake Do-yun free. But Do-yun’s monstrous Strength stat refused to allow it. After a moment’s hesitation the man ripped free the locking clamps that secured the jetpack to his harness.
Crack.
The instant he violently separated the pack he flung himself backward and deployed a parachute. Do-yun’s hand shot out a fraction too late, grasping only empty air.
“Blow up!”
Still not satisfied, the man triggered the self-destruct. At the same moment the jetpack detonated violently in midair.
KABOOOOOM!
The blast hurled Do-yun’s body upward. Amid the soaring flames and smoke the man gasped for breath and muttered,
“That should have finished him for sure.”
Yet the moment Do-yun reappeared through the smoke, the man’s face twisted into pure disbelief. Because the face that had been swallowed by the explosion was wearing a broad, delighted grin.
“Wow, I never imagined I’d get this kind of help.”
The reason Do-yun could smile after taking an explosion head-on became clear the moment one looked at the notifications blooming before his eyes.
Flame Assimilation (B) activates
Attack Power +54
Strength +35
Agility +37
Physical ability on a completely different level from before now flooded his limbs. He felt he could do it now.
He confirmed a fragment floating within stretch-and-touch distance, then folded his body the way he remembered Kaya doing it. Every nerve concentrated into the tips of his toes as he extended his legs.
Thud.
It was neither as elegant nor as efficient as Kaya’s, yet he succeeded—imperfectly—in defying gravity for a moment.
“Got it.”
The instant his hand closed around the white crystal floating right in front of his nose, countless lines of text burned across his retinas.
You have cleared the 7th floor in 1st place.
Clear Time: 56 min 25 sec
Returning to the Sanctuary Room.