Chapter 203: Adventurer of the 9th Floor (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 203: Adventurer of the 9th Floor (2)
When the demonic legionnaires of the 9th floor attacked, the Eastern Emperor remained completely unfazed. For that is the way of emperors.
However.
“Wh-where is General Azure Dragon…”
Now, he was in a full-blown panic.
During the monster attack, the Emperor had been leisurely observing his subordinates’ battle. He had tried to move to higher ground for a better view (?) when he stepped on a trap.
He was teleported and dropped into a place that looked like a cemetery.
The 9th floor is a hell, a battlefield, and a graveyard.
This place was littered with the corpses of the demonic armies that endlessly fought one another, a place where the wails of women who had lost their husbands, fathers, or sons echoed without end.
Sob! Hooo… sniffle!
Just like now.
“…A-a ghost.”
Hearing the woman’s weeping, the Emperor slapped both his cheeks with his palms.
“I must pull myself together.”
He called out for his trustworthy generals.
“White Tiger General!”
A man who had even been to the Deep Layer.
“Azure Dragon General!”
A 10th-floor adventurer.
“Black Tortoise General!”
Also a 10th-floor adventurer.
But no one responded…
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Instead of his generals, the one who came for the Emperor was the mournfully weeping woman. She was indeed a ghost—a monster called a Banshee. Its body fluttered like a tattered piece of cloth as it flew madly toward him, long fingernails aimed.
“Aaaaaargh!”
The Emperor screamed and stumbled backward, tripping over a skull and falling.
CRACK!
Something flew in and crushed the Banshee’s head.
It was a massive, heavy iron staff.
And the iron staff had lengthened. It was unmistakable. He hadn’t seen it wrong; it had truly stretched out like taffy to smash the Banshee’s skull, and now it was shrinking back to its original size.
Thud.
Clank.
The monk looked like a Buddha who had descended into hell.
“Y-You!”
The Emperor scrambled toward him.
“Help me!”
“Don’t move!”
An Elf Archer aimed his bow from behind.
“A leader of a race, wandering around alone! It’s one of those, right, Caleb!”
“Ah, this is a hundred percent it, hyung-nim. Damn, why’s their script always the same?”
“Is it an Inter-floor Lord?” Aimus asked, pointing his iron staff.
“No!”
“The Orc Great King pretended he wasn’t one at first, too.”
“I said no! I’m really not!”
The Emperor was horrified and vehemently denied it.
“I don’t think he is.”
Caleb said.
“There’s no way an Inter-floor Lord would be a fool who falls into a cemetery trap and screams his head off.”
“Cemetery… trap…?”
The Emperor’s eyes widened.
“Do not move.”
Aimus grabbed the Emperor and pulled him to the rear of the party.
“This land is filled with foul things.”
Only then did the Emperor realize the danger he was in.
It wasn’t a simple trap, but ‘Layer Magic’.
The Labyrinth wants to devour a delicious party of adventurers that has made it to the 9th floor, and it uses their bonds and solidarity against them.
The party member who steps on the trap is usually the one with the lowest individual survivability—someone with a low level, like a wizard or a priest.
They are placed like bait in the middle of this vast hell.
And the Labyrinth lies in wait to annihilate the party that comes to rescue them.
The Layer Magic, ‘Tartarus Trap’.
“They’re coming!”
The corpses on the cemetery floor began to rise.
Zombified demonic legionnaires.
And from over the cemetery hill, winged demons with crimson skin began to appear, one by one.
To them, this was a banquet.
There were even two legion commanders wielding massive butcher’s cleavers. An overseer holding a whip flicked his red tongue.
Dozens of Banshees drifted through the air, flying toward them.
CRASH!
Facing them, Aimus slammed his iron staff into the ground with all his might.
“Steel Absorption.”
The monks who train at Kalung on Mount Dalai believe that the fortitude of their own bodies is superior to anything else.
That is why they build their martial prowess by wielding an iron staff in their youth, but as they mature, they put down their weapons and advance, trusting in their own fists.
But this tradition has a different origin. The founder of Kalung had mastered the Steel Absorption skill, allowing him to absorb all the steel he possessed and strengthen his body by the mass and hardness of that steel.
But an Iron Staff Strength Monk has no need to put down his staff.
He doesn’t need to absorb it. Because in the process of building his character, he had already learned Steel Veins.
The carbon alloy circulating throughout his body turns the monk’s tendons into steel springs, his neuromuscular system into rebar, and his skeleton into a mass of steel.
Then, what descends upon this place is Kalung itself.
‘Divine General of Steel.’
The superhuman’s iron staff is no longer bound to the simple shape of a cylinder. It can liquefy, like the blood circulating in his body. Controlling the flow of the iron staff is not difficult for Aimus. Because it is the Tidal Wave Iron Staff. For a steel monk, manipulating the flow of a fluid is now an easy task.
SWOOOOSH!
The iron staff turned crimson like molten metal from a blast furnace and extended, its range more than enough to dominate the battlefield.
CRASH! KABOOM!
After sweeping away a dozen charging legionnaires in a single blow, the steel monk retracted the staff and held it close.
Then, aiming straight ahead.
‘Rhinoceros Horn!’
He, too, charged forward.
“Wh-what is this…”
He was on par with most Deep Layer adventurers.
But his style was unlike any other. Even in Wyndham, the Emperor had never heard of a monk like this.
Tap, tap.
Yernil took up a position next to the dumbfounded Emperor.
‘Fire Net Volley!’
An arrow, fired in a high arc, soared into the air. But at the peak of its trajectory, it split apart like a grenade.
It was like a firework.
It burst with a beautiful pop, and every streak of fire that rained down in all directions carried a sharp arrowhead.
KABOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A rain of arrows poured down upon the battlefield’s sky.
A fire net.
The densely woven net of arrows blanketed the horde of monsters. And…
‘Arrow Retrieval!’
The seed of the suppressive fire, the very first arrow that had split, was once again nocked on Yernil’s bowstring.
TWANG!
The arrow fired this time flew in a straight line instead of an arc, aimed at the chest of a legion commander who was leading the charge.
‘Fire Net Volley!’
Dozens of arrows, scattering like a shotgun blast, embedded themselves in the legion commander’s chest all at once.
CRACK!
And Back Attack blew its head off in a single strike.
‘Pack Hunter.’
This rogue had a different build from someone like Blackdog. Almost no high-floor rogues chose Pack Hunter.
Creating three clones was good, but their duration was too short.
However, a genius rogue has the power to end any fight in a single turn.
‘Mirror Rogue.’
Four Back Attacks became eight. And all at once, they…
‘Leaping Ambush!’
Eight daggers, imbued with fire damage and the ability to cause flanking necrosis, simultaneously severed the external carotid arteries of eight different monsters.
‘Dagger Throw!’
Following that, eight daggers flew out in all directions.
“Wh-what kind of battle is this…”
Next to the frozen Emperor, the wizard with dual wands began to chant softly.
“Hailstorm.”
*
[Your turn. Time remaining: 60 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■■■]
Aimus, Back Attack, and Yernil were all nearing the completion of their builds. The final form I envisioned for this party is just around the corner.
What about the wizard?
I’m still a little ways off.
But I’m more overpowered than I initially thought.
“Memorize.”
I flipped the hourglass and summoned the Memory Book.
Right now, my Memory Book has five Tier 1 spell slots, four Tier 2 slots, three Tier 3, two Tier 4, and one slot each for Tier 5 and Tier 6.
A total of 16 spell slots. If I emptied them all, I would gain a whopping 8 Action Points.
But it doesn’t really work that way in practice. Even if I increase my Action Points indefinitely, if the only spells I can use are the Tier 1 magic stored in my wands, the destructive power would be negligible no matter how many shots I stack.
But that’s fine.
“Hailstorm. Hailstorm.”
With the reduced cooldown, I rapidly crammed in the spells.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 52 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■□□□□]
Next, I remove Whirlwind from my five Tier 1 spells.
-Tier 1 Spell Slots (4/5)
① Dust Shot
② Heat Wave
③ Humidify
④ Frost Ray
⑤
From my Tier 2 spell slots, I remove Static Coat, Owl’s Hunt, and Compression.
-Tier 2 Spell Slots (1/4+3)
① Light
② Dust Explosion
③ Heatwave
④ Cumulonimbus
By emptying a total of four slots, I gain 2 additional Action Points.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 47 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■□□]
“Hailstorm.”
Now, I remove all three Tier 3 spell slots. I also remove both Tier 4 spell slots. Same for Tier 5.
I don’t need them right now.
When facing a large number of field monsters instead of a few enemies I need to be careful with, like an Inter-floor Lord, it’s better to cram in as many wide-area spells as possible.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 28 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■■■■□]
“Hailstorm.”
One more.
“Hailstorm.”
I eliminate the spell’s casting cooldown, and with my last remaining Action Point…
“Lightning Shock.”
[All Action Points have been consumed.]
[Ending turn.]
“Hailstorm.”
I immediately recast the spell whose cooldown had just reset.
Then I flip the temporary hourglass.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 60 seconds]
[Action Points: ■■]
“Hailstorm.”
*
KRA-KOOM!
The sound of thunder was extraordinary.
Bipa read the ominous change in the sky’s color. An intense chill permeated the air, as if a Tier 7 Taoist Art, ‘Frigid Winter,’ had been cast.
“What is that?”
He and Mugol hurried toward the source of the magic.
KRA-KOOM!
The thunder roared once more.
KABOOM!
The sky was in turmoil, like on a day of disaster.
The closer they got, the more intense the cold became, as if they had arrived in the northern wastes.
Caleb had summoned a large number of cumulonimbus clouds in the past and triggered a chain lightning effect with a single Lightning Shock, but this was different.
No spell he had ever cast at such high speed had reached this scale.
It poured down hail instead of rain.
The chunks of magical ice, possessing physical mass, were far more destructive. Each falling particle could be considered an ‘ice pick,’ because his Wisdom stat was now on par with the very best adventurers.
And even now, Caleb had never put a single point into any stat other than Wisdom.
KRA-KOOM!
“The lightning won’t stop!” Mugol shouted.
Ice clouds still lingered over the area. Pouring down hail and snow while unleashing relentless lightning strikes, the number of ice clouds was more than enough to completely cover a whole section of the sky.
“What… is that…”
Even Bipa and Mugol were speechless with shock when they arrived at the scene.
There was no one there, but even if there had been, they wouldn’t have been able to find them.
They would have been ‘buried in the snow’.
The power of the magic that had rained down on the entire cemetery was comparable to that of the 3rd floor.
The Monument of Mass Annihilation.
Just like the magic of that monument, which had triggered an avalanche in response to a monster wave, nothing remained on the site after the blizzard had passed.
“Don’t get any closer!”
Mugol stopped Bipa as he tried to approach.
The magic’s power was just that immense.
“Blue Sky Within the Clouds.”
Bipa began to clear away the ice clouds.
“…Be revealed.”
But even a Deep Layer Taoist who had reached the realm of ascension could not dispel such a vast amount of clouds all at once.
“My goodness.”
Bipa moved through the safe zones he managed to create amidst the falling ice. The sunlight barely piercing through the clouds was melting the ground, but it would take a long time.
“This is…”
Searching the area, Bipa finally identified it.
“It was a cemetery trap.”
“If it was a cemetery trap, there should have been hundreds of monsters.”
“They’re all buried under this avalanche.”
“…Look here, Bipa.”
Mugol pointed at the snow.
There were footprints.
One set belonging to a man with a heavy build.
Three more sets from a lighter man and women.
And…
“It’s the Emperor.”
The party that destroyed the cemetery trap took the Emperor with them.