Chapter 350: Eighty-Third Floor, Waiting Room

[8 hours 59 minutes until the rest period ends. Please take a rest.]

After arriving inside the familiar-looking waiting room, I looked around to see Doppy reading at the table.

He glanced up as I arrived. “Su‑Yeok! You’re back!”

“Yeah, just a moment.” I raised my palm to signal that I needed time to gather my thoughts.

Doppy nodded in understanding. I closed my eyes and focused my mind.

Although the notification had declared that I had completed the floor, I couldn’t let my guard down. The Primordial Dream had already deceived me once with a message from the tower, so I didn’t trust that this was truly the end.

It feels almost too easy and too fast.

This could be one last spiteful trick, or it was exactly what she intended. Perhaps she was trying to lull me into complacency before unleashing the real final dream. For all I knew, the very ability to question whether I was still in a dream had been deliberately planted in me.

I could only console myself that the stifling pressure deep in my chest was no longer there. That oppressive weight—the mark of the Celestial Mountain Blossom’s power—had never once disappeared during any of the four previous dreams.

I calmly stirred my divinity.

The blossom remained still. Its tranquility suggested that nothing was amiss, but even so, I couldn’t fully relax.

As I channeled my power, Doppy widened his eyes and looked at me in alarm. “Is something wrong?”

“I was trapped in a dream. I wanted to check if this is real. Doppy, can you try connecting with Fenrike?”

“Fenrike? Sure, hold on!” Doppy closed his eyes and murmured something.

A subtle radiance flickered around him.

Although I couldn’t guarantee that I could connect directly to Fenrike, we were linked through Doppy. In past illusions, I had only felt the presence of one divine being. Although this was just my assumption, I doubted that a god could imitate someone else’s divinity, no matter how strong they were.

Soon, a radiance descended over Doppy’s body, and it was unmistakably Fenrike’s divine energy.

“Is this enough?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Though I had already confirmed it twice—first with the Celestial Mountain Blossom and then through Fenrike’s divinity—I didn’t stop there.

I opened a portal to Natalie’s world and spoke with her. She hadn’t seen the dream itself, but she mentioned that I had, in fact, escaped it. My connection to Gehenna and Hyang was also intact. They continued to receive my divine energy without issue.

Phew.

Only then did I allow myself to relax and return to the waiting room. Some people would view my caution as excessive, but I needed that certainty.

In the Tower of Ordeal, caution was never wasted. One had to test every stone bridge before crossing it.

That should be enough for now.

If The Primordial Dream had truly intended to trap me forever, escape would have been impossible.

Iris was a first-class god. Perhaps I would be able to resist her in the future, but definitely not now. Whatever the reason, whether it be the tower or her own restraint, she hadn’t broken me. However, I suspected that the tower was to thank for that.

Still, it feels oddly anticlimactic.

The trial had ended quietly, like water flowing downstream. I hadn’t even fought or really done anything, though I had certainly felt a large amount of dissonance and unease. Simply reacting out of the ordinary was all it had taken. Either my divinity had responded instinctively, or I had released it. Nothing more.

This felt like a forced level-up from the tower. While it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it lacked that feeling of earned achievement.

I found meaning through growth that required personal effort. That had always been my goal.

To be honest, I wasn’t fully surprised, considering the Celestial Mountain Blossom’s effects. No mental attack that lacked divinity could harm me.

According to Ha Hee‑Jeong, mental immunity could only be developed through direct confrontation, which only reinforced my suspicion that the tower had placed this floor intentionally.

After all, improving combat skill required facing an opponent of sufficient strength—except for someone born with talent like me.

That likely applied to psychic attacks as well. Given that I couldn’t currently summon any strong enemies with psychic abilities, I had a clear limitation during training.

Maybe the trial was like a vaccination, letting me experience firsthand, but weaker.

Considering that The Primordial Dream had commented that the tower viewed me favourably, she could have been referencing the tower’s influence on the eighty-second floor.

Through Iris, the tower presented a mental attack I could just barely endure, while also offering a means of escape. It let me experience a real encounter against a powerful opponent I would normally be unable to face.

As I mentioned before, if she had truly wished to restrain me, I wouldn’t have been able to escape. I couldn’t let myself forget how it had felt.

Even before my divinity had reacted, I had sensed a subtle dissonance. If I could recognize it faster next time, escaping would be easier.

“

Ugh.

”

I washed my face at the sink.

Something about that trial had drained me mentally. Was this how people felt after experiencing a vivid nightmare?

I shook my head as there was no use dwelling on it.

Learn from past experiences, and keep my focus on what lies ahead.

Despite just completing a trial, I didn’t feel the need to shower. The eighty-second floor had existed in my mind, so I wasn’t sweaty or dirty.

Honestly, I would lie down for a bit, but I can’t afford to grow weak.

To become stronger, I needed resilience. I wasn’t exhausted enough to require rest, and talking myself out of training would be pointless. Everything was already prepared, so I went directly to the training room.

I turned to Doppy. “You haven’t trained yet, right? It won’t take long.”

“Just about to.”

“Then let’s go now.”

“Got it!” Doppy folded the page and closed his book as I walked past him into the training room.

***

[3 minutes 20 seconds until the rest period ends. Please take a rest.]

Nothing notable happened in the waiting room. I trained, ate, and rested as usual.

If I were to be specific, I summoned Gehenna and focused on training mental resilience. I practiced breaking illusions without relying on divine power or the Celestial Mountain Blossom, reflecting on my experiences from the eighty-second floor.

That sense of dissociation, and most importantly, self-doubt.

The latter required special care since I needed to both question and trust myself. It sounded contradictory, but it was really about grounding myself.

Training with Gehenna gave me a good sense of how to regain control. With the power of the Celestial Mountain Blossom added on, things would only get easier. A bit more effort could even help me endure a psychic attack from a first-class god.

Later, Seo Ho-Su and Cole returned from their trials and messaged me, so we caught up. They talked about how the last couple of trials had been significantly more difficult and how they had struggled. I offered what encouragement I could.

I didn’t message Ha Hee‑Jeong. She had entered the eighty-third floor right before I left the eighty-second, and she still hadn’t returned. I didn’t think she was in danger, but after what I had experienced on the last floor, some concern was unavoidable. I just hoped that she stayed safe.

When she asks about the eighty-second floor later, I will need to moderate the story. I won’t be able to share it as it was. She wouldn’t respond well to that.

“You ready?”

Doppy nodded firmly. It was time to enter the eighty-third floor.

I looked up into the air. “Take me to the eighty-third floor.”

As I finished speaking, my vision flipped. Darkness filled my sight for a moment, then a sudden brightness followed, and I felt floaty.

The notification window refreshed.

[Welcome to the eighty-third floor of the Tower of Ordeal: The Void.]

[The forward base in the Void is under attack.]

[Stop the monsters from the Void. Time remaining: 47 hours 59 minutes.]

The mission appeared straightforward. I simply needed to defend the forward base from waves of monsters. It was a standard tower defense trial that I had faced countless times.

This should be manageable since dealing with large numbers is easier for me.

However, I reminded myself that this was the eighty-third floor. There had to be more to it.

Considering that the floor’s timer started at two days, the enemies would likely come continuously and give me no time to rest. Moreover, their army could be overwhelmingly large, and I couldn’t know how strong each individual would be. Finally, a boss would probably appear at the end.

This was simply my best guess, and I wondered if any hidden missions would show up.

My surroundings brightened fully as the summoning seemed on the verge of finishing.

Wait. This is strange.

Everything was violet, and the different terrains were simply different shades of the color. The sky was dark violet, while the ground glowed with lighter shades.

I found myself in midair. The trial didn’t seem to have begun as I couldn’t move a single finger.

Looks like the tower wants me to assess the situation first.

Below me lay the forward base I was tasked with defending.

Buildings constructed from smooth, pristine, and white bricks filled the landscape. A circular fortress wall encircled the towering spire that rose at the center.

The outpost was neither particularly large nor especially small.

From the top of the spire, a shrill alarm echoed in rapid intervals. Its piercing tone reverberated sharply. The people below moved even more frantically than the sound itself, tripping and colliding with one another in their haste.

Those carrying weapons rushed toward the outer wall, while children and the elderly made their way toward the spire.

Their skin bore a faint green hue, and the colors of their hair and eyes varied widely. It was a race I had never encountered before.

So this trial is about defending them from an assault.

As soon as I realized that, I knew that this trial was about earning their faith. There weren’t that many of them here, but considering that this was their forward outpost, it was likely important. Whatever feats I achieved here would be spread through their lips.

I glanced at the notification window. The countdown hadn’t begun.

Less than thirty seconds later, darkness began to creep in from all directions. It gradually swallowed the area surrounding the outpost in shadow.

That writhing gloom at the edge of my vision indicated the arrival of the Void monsters the tower had warned of. It was the moment my initial prediction proved true.

That is an absurd number.

There were hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, or perhaps even tens of millions of them. It couldn’t be compared to the million-plus lizardmen I had faced back on the sixteenth floor.

Of course, I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

If I didn’t have the gauntlet, things could have been a bit more troublesome.

Thankfully, I did have them, so that was a non-issue.

Sharpening my focus, I observed the Void creatures more closely. They were disgusting beasts that shared a similar dark-violet hue as the sky, and they came in different shapes and sizes. They looked like true monsters, and none of them seemed particularly weak either.

I will need to amplify my mana output a bit.

Just then, I regained control over my body. I rolled my neck from side to side, drawing out my mana.

Well.

The people below were gripped by terror, completely paralyzed with fear.

Not me, though. A grin crept across my lips. To me, the oncoming horde looked like nothing more than a mass of stray, ownerless mana scattered across the ground.

It had been a while.

Time to recharge my gauntlet.