Encircled by Nightmares
It was astonishingly similar to the moment he had first stepped onto the 0th floor.
Challengers packed the space around him, every one of them radiating a murderous aura that pressed in on Do-yun from all sides.
There was only one real difference from back then.
Now, every gaze and every killing intent in that throng was fixed on a single target: him.
Even extras whose names he had never learned—faces he had only ever glanced past—were staring him down with bloodshot eyes.
"They really went overboard on the fidelity, huh."
The second he caught sight of one particular man, Do-yun let out a dry, incredulous laugh.
The face had seemed oddly familiar—and then he placed it. It was the man who had died first to Kaya on the 0th floor.
They had even reconstructed people he had completely forgotten existed, down to the last detail.
A deep, thrumming roar filled the air.
Do-yun finished scanning the faces around him and lifted his head.
So much mana was gathering overhead that the air itself had begun to vibrate.
Whether the system refused to treat it as a skill or not, even Absolute Sight could not pull a name for what was forming—but Do-yun already knew exactly how those attacks would fall.
Nightmares can't use abilities I've never seen.
A Nightmare's form and powers were built from its target's memories. Anything Do-yun had never witnessed was off-limits.
The problem was that he had watched the same footage over and over, carefully cataloguing other people's abilities.
Every attack he had once analyzed so thoroughly was now unfolding in the air above him in perfect detail.
"I should have been a little less thorough about watching everyone else."
He found himself resenting his past self for taking the trouble to study even the skills of people he had barely ever crossed paths with.
"Doyun-nim? You might want to look down here too."
Ciel tapped his shoulder carefully. Do-yun, who had been entirely absorbed by the sky, finally lowered his gaze—and discovered that the ground was every bit as chaotic.
A warrior leaned back, a spear of blue light already poised to throw. A martial artist crackled with electricity from head to toe. A monk gathered white radiance in both hands. One after another, they were lining up their finishing moves.
"How the hell am I supposed to dodge all of that?"
Do-yun's face twisted in disbelief—and the fully charged attacks came screaming in at once.
Subspace (S)
For the first time since entering the 10th floor, Do-yun used a skill.
As Subspace activated, his body frayed into smoke and lost its solid form. The storm of attacks tore through him without purchase and vanished into empty air.
A rolling series of detonations thundered in the distance as the wasted finishing moves exploded far away.
If that at least thinned the Nightmares a little…
He let a flicker of hope show in his eyes—and was disappointed almost at once. When the dust settled, the Nightmares stood completely unharmed.
"What a pathetic amount of force."
If they were going to copy the attacks, they could at least copy the aftermath properly.
Grumbling, Do-yun dropped Subspace the moment the barrage eased, spun a full circle, and swept his sword in a wide arc.
Steel rang. An assassin bursting out of Do-yun's own shadow crossed both daggers in a desperate block.
The impact knocked the hood back. The face underneath was painfully familiar.
Nightwalker Grham—the man who had so generously left Do-yun the brokenly powerful movement skill known as Shadow Step.
"You're already dead. Stay in your damn grave!"
It was not a face he was happy to see. Do-yun immediately drove a Bash-loaded kick into Grham's gut.
A sound like a bursting drum answered the blow. Grham flew, bowling over the challenger copies in his path like pins.
Do-yun never got to watch the rest. El Sion came charging in—awakened mode, hair gone ashen gray.
Do-yun took one step sideways and let the greatsword whistle past. An arrow, as if it had been waiting for that exact motion, dropped straight for his head. He jerked back—and Halleon's flame-wreathed longsword came for his heart.
Do-yun caught the blade bare-handed, ignored the damage notices flooding his vision, and wrenched the weapon hard off-line.
Steel screeched. Kaya's claws, stopped by Halleon's sword, twitched a few centimeters short of his eye.
Flame Assimilation (B)
Strength +3
Agility +3
Attack Power +5
Confirming the skill had triggered, Do-yun hurled Halleon's sword away with all his strength. The shock wave blasted every enemy near him back.
But instead of rushing him again, they all pulled away at once—as if by prior agreement.
What now?
Unease prickled along his nerves. He swept his senses across the field—and found the open maw of a green dragon gathering power, along with a massive gun barrel, both trained squarely on him.
"Ah."
The soft sound had barely left his mouth when Kairos's breath and Destroyer's annihilation beam, both held for the perfect opening, fired together.
Where Do-yun had been standing a heartbeat earlier, the ground melted away without a trace. The charge time had made the blasts formidable—but Do-yun had already vacated the spot the instant the light flared.
Shadow Step (F)
Targeting the shadow cast by the dragon's wing, Do-yun blinked—and the moment he opened his eyes he was already swinging for the beast's back.
A clear, ringing note answered the cut. Even mid-breath, with no reason to spare attention for defense, a translucent shield bloomed over the scales and flung his sword aside.
Do-yun looked up and met the eyes of a blond mage standing on the dragon's head.
"Lily?"
She raised her staff. Structured mana poured from her fingertips in thick streams, slamming into Do-yun where he hung unsupported in midair. The blast knocked him off the dragon's back, and he began to fall.
He twisted calmly to check below—and his expression went flat with disgust.
The challengers had already formed a formation on the ground, waiting for him to drop.
"Do they actually share thoughts or something?"
It was past mere coordination. He felt like he was fighting a single vast hive mind. Predicting the exact point of impact and camping there was just unfair.
Do-yun sighed, reached into his coat, and drew out a glass vial.
◈ A potion whose properties remain unfixed, untouched as yet by fairy power.
He downed the 9th-floor reward without hesitation. With only four of them left, wasting one stung a little—but this was not the time to hoard consumables.
The strange, rainbow-shimmering liquid went down. Warmth bloomed in his stomach and spread through his entire body.
◈ HP and MP recover slightly every 10 seconds
◈ Physical ability rises as HP falls
◈ All debuff durations reduced by half
◈ Chance to reflect equal damage back on the attacker
◈ Movement speed doubled
Watching the cascade of notifications, Do-yun allowed himself a small, crooked smile.
"Jackpot."
Five buff effects in total—far too many to credit to a single potion. His guess that potions, like items, could catch positive bugs had landed dead on.
Bash (F)
As the ground drew close, Do-yun loaded Bash into his sword and swung with everything he had at the moment of impact.
A deafening boom shook the floor. The shock wave blasted the waiting challengers into the air—but even mid-flight they twisted and strained to land another hit on him.
A blue blade of sword-ki streaked for his wrist. A mana bolt smashed into his abdomen. A sharp spike glanced off his thigh.
-57 HP
-15 HP
-22 HP
Damage alerts stacked in front of him, but beyond the numbers Do-yun felt almost nothing.
The ones who had struck him felt something else entirely.
Damage received has been transferred to the attacker.
Identical wounds opened on the Nightmares that had hit him.
Not identical in the strict sense.
His HP system had protected his body from actually splitting open. The reflected damage dumped the injuries he should have taken straight onto them instead.
The swordsman's wrist sheared clean off in a spray of blood. The mage who had fired the mana bolt clutched his gut, face contorting. The assassin who had thrown the spike was out of sight—but was almost certainly thrashing on the ground, clutching a ruined thigh.
They hesitated for a fraction of a second under the unexpected damage. Do-yun used the opening to sheath his sword in one smooth motion.
A fine vibration started inside the scabbard and traveled outward. He still hadn't reinforced its durability, so Sun Swordsmanship was off the table—but for a pure quick-draw, this was more than enough.
The blade flashed free and cut through the Nightmares closing in. The stroke was too fast for them even to react. Three heads left their bodies and rolled across the floor.
More manageable than I expected.
Dropping a few more as the fight rolled on, Do-yun kept thinking. Strictly speaking, the Nightmares were not a true recreation of the challengers he actually feared. The real ones would have hidden trump cards. Techniques he remembered as finishing moves might only be ordinary swings for them.
But Nightmares were bound to his memories. They could not reach past that ceiling of possibility.
Might as well pull data off them while I'm at it—like I did with Kaya.
He was still pressing the attack with that thought when several pillars of light slammed down from the empty air.
Do-yun tensed, bracing for another assault—then shut his mouth the moment he saw the figures stepping out of the beams.
"Huh? That's me."
"Was the 10th-floor trial a doppelgänger thing?"
Familiar voices brushed his ears.
Real challengers. The ones who had chosen to enter the moment their early-entry tickets expired. They stood looking at the Nightmares surrounding Do-yun with puzzled faces.