Chapter 376: Eighty-Sixth Floor, Shrine of the Forgotten Gods (2)

The Community of the Dead, on the eighty-sixth floor.

[Is this for real?]

[No way a god just showed up.]

[Holy shit, this is insane. I’m actually swearing. Why the fuck did a god appear? 😣]

[This makes no sense. Isn’t the Tower of Ordeal trying to make a climber into a god, not contain one?]

[No, this is seriously messed up. Why is a god part of a trial?]

[This tower is trash. It’s like they never intended for us climbers to make it to the hundredth floor in the first place.]

[What the actual fuck. 😡 This can’t be it.]

[Can’t help but curse.]

[Like hell I’m keeping it in.]

[Don’t doubt him.]

[Come on, even if it’s Light Su-Hyeok, this is impossible.]

[Let’s be real. Even Su-Hyeok can’t beat a god.]

[Exactly. If there were a climber who could beat a god, what’s the point of the tower existing?]

[Don’t doubt him.]

[He’s right. Don’t question it.]

[I’ve been a die-hard Su-Hyeok fan since the first floor. Back then, I got flamed by a hundred people for it, but guess what? Not a single one of them’s still around. You know why? They all doubted Su-Hyeok. Light one up and think about that.]

[What the hell is he even talking about?]

[Sounds like a Korean meme.]

[You’ve lost your mind. How is that what you’re thinking right now?]

[He’s seriously cracked. I’m a follower of the Shadow Su-Hyeok myself, and even I’m getting worried.]

[He’s normal.]

[No, he’s not, so don’t doubt him.]

***

[Defeat the fifth-class god, Endless Furnace. Time remaining: 1 hour 56 minutes.]

To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to fully grasp the situation before rushing in, regardless of whether I wanted to speak with Endless Furnace or not. It still threw me off that a living god had appeared within the Shrine of the Forgotten Gods.

At first, I assumed it was another of the tower’s tricks.

The system had warned that a hostile god could appear, but even so, it felt illogical.

After a moment, I began to consider different possibilities. Perhaps something had happened to Endless Furnace. That assumption wasn’t far-fetched.

I had killed their apostle—Quinthavaren—on the seventy-third floor, firmly placing me against Endless Furnace.

That world originally had belonged to Ha Hee-Jeong’s patron deity, Master of the Five Carriage Wheels. Moreover, she had once been a first-class god. Even if she had borrowed power from the tower during Ha Hee-Jeong’s previous life, she had possessed the strength to rewind her time.

Though she was later demoted and then sealed, I had freed her. Judging by the way she looked at me, she clearly recognized who I was.

That suggested that she was aware of Ha Hee-Jeong’s regression, unlike the other gods I had met—probably because she had been directly involved in the act.

Given her past as a first-class god, she has to have some tricks up her sleeve.

Even if she hadn’t regained her former strength, she had likely done everything in her power to recover it as swiftly as possible.

Though people still worshipped Endless Furnace, they clearly weren’t highly ranked, considering they had first appeared on the thirty-first floor.

Master of the Five Carriage Wheels had been far stronger, and she was someone who truly cherished her world. She would never have allowed another god to covet it without resistance.

I would have done the same.

That was why I assumed something had gone wrong for the Endless Furnace. Based on everything I had seen, invading another world required the intruding god to wager something of their own.

It could be something grand or something subtle.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Just like the god behind the Void, even if they relied on loopholes, they had merely stood by and watched as their apostle got killed.

A current god wouldn’t go out of their way to hunt me down over a moment of irritation. If that were the case, others would have come for me long ago. I had derailed the plans of more than a few while climbing the tower.

Even now, Endless Furnace regarded me as a lesser being, staring down at me as if I were a trifling creature.

Chances were, they had pledged something to the tower as collateral, which ended up in them becoming a part of this floor.

Breathing out, I let go of the thoughts that had sprung up after our brief exchange and made my move. None of it truly mattered. At the end of the day, I still had to fight them.

Well, if I am being honest, it really is for a simple reason.

I absolutely couldn’t stand how they refused to treat me as an actual being.

Kicking off the ground, I flew through the air with my axe held to my right. Golden waves flickered through the air. Unlike usual, the wind brushing past my cheek felt sharp and biting.

Unless my opponent was overwhelmingly weaker, first clashes tended to be more of a probing exchange.

That held true even when my opponent was a god. Given that they were stronger than I was, I couldn’t gauge the exact difference in our strength.

Still, unlike a typical probing exchange, I would likely need to draw upon power close to my full capacity.

Only twenty meters separated us.

They still hadn’t moved. Instead, they remained firmly in place, simply watching me.

I swung my axe wide. The horizontal strike sent my lightning-infused Aura surging outward in a rough crescent arc. I followed closely behind it.

Endless Furnace didn’t so much as flinch.

With a simple flick of my wrist, I conjured another streak of lightning. This one was smaller, more similar to a dagger. Unlike my previous storm, this one shimmered faintly from divinity, making it more difficult for them to detect its power.

Five meters now.

At a range where an exchange would happen faster than a blink, Endless Furnace finally moved. Flames roared to life around them. Within those surging flames, something silver flashed.

A silver sword of unknown origin gleamed with striking beauty. Endless Furnace’s flames reflected across its surface, making it appear as if the blade had been stained red, although the silver beneath remained vivid and distinct.

The result of the clash became clear in an instant.

Damn it.

Endless Furnace’s divine flame cleanly split my first arc of Aura. As the crackling, lightning-infused Aura tore apart into two halves, the smaller streak of lightning darted between them. I followed up with a vertical axe strike.

Clang!

A single swipe of Endless Furnace’s sword had blocked both of my staggered attacks. They had just swung diagonally—a simple attack, but unmistakably full of depth and intent.

The smaller lightning vanished within the flame, and my axe went flying to the side. I grabbed it quickly.

After barely regaining my balance, I swung my left leg in a low kick while bringing my axe up, but the move lacked power or precision.

Endless Furnace evaded with a single step, leaned to the side, and struck downward at me again.

Kaaang—!

Their blade deflected my strike again. With my chest exposed, they followed with a thrust that came half a beat faster.

I twisted at the waist. The thrust missed, but in that fleeting moment, the divine energy around them transformed into dozens of bullets.

As I activated my divinity, I immediately realized it was too late, and I had to avoid it.

Their divinity was on a different scale. Although I would be able to block a few projectiles, I couldn’t withstand them all.

The moment I understood that, I threw myself backward. I rolled once across the floor, widening the distance.

Boom, boom!

The divine bullets embedded in the ground exploded like mines. More continued to rain down. I swung my axe in a wide arc to scatter them.

Fuck.

Each exchange lasted only a moment, and there had only been a couple. However, I was already gasping for breath. It was only the start, and I was already exhausted, but my thoughts didn’t extend any further.

Endless Furnace charged. Silver, tinged crimson, surged toward me.

Every one of their strikes traced a red crescent, and even with Fire Resistance, the heat coiled tightly around me. I could feel my divine energy slowly melting away in the heat.

Overwhelmed by the flurry of silver strikes, I swung my axe without conscious thought.

In the following exchanges, I barely kept myself from being cut down. Unfortunately for me, this wasn’t merely a contest of weapons. The pressure from their divinity was relentless.

At times, the ground beneath me would vanish the moment I tried to retreat. Fire would rise from my blind spots.

Of course, I didn’t remain passive. To keep the ground intact and block incoming flames, I used Divine Power again and again.

There was no time to think. It felt as if I had been swept into a violent current. Despite that, beneath the surface, I was learning how to wield divinity in real combat.

Then, my instincts suddenly roared.

I needed time to think. However, to secure that in the midst of this raging current, I would have to take a risk.

Looks like I will have to take a strike to make it happen.

Now wasn’t the time to hesitate. The instant I made the decision, I moved. A flash of lightning and Aura surged, and I drove my axe upward.

A blistering heat rushed over the back of my left arm, but I had succeeded. Because I hadn’t used my Aura to its full potential in this fight until now, it was more than enough to create an opening. My axe struck against their blade and pushed it upward.

In that narrow gap, I had just enough time to steady my breath and prepare a response. It gave me the space I needed to think, and in an instant, I had decided on whether to be active or passive.

I need to turn the tide of this battle.

Before I lost any more ground.

However, as I kept reminding myself, my opponent was a god. Shifting the tide in a single instant wouldn’t be easy. I needed to use everything I had, every trick available.

For a split second, my mind cleared. I was still trapped in Endless Furnace’s flow of attacks, and escaping it in one move wouldn’t be possible.

Even if it took time, I had to push forward slowly and deliberately. Even while losing ground, I had to establish a rhythm of my own within their flow.

I was undoubtedly weaker, and a weaker blade only revealed its true potential with the unexpected.

It was a challenging plan. I had to alter the momentum using my full strength without exhausting it completely. Regardless, it was possible.

Haaa.

Flashes of silver flickered through the flames. Now that I had chosen a path, the pressure in my chest eased. I gripped my axe more lightly and swung toward Endless Furnace.

There was a clear difference between my situation now and that of a moment ago. I had found a sliver of composure.

Of course, Endless Furnace wasn’t using their full strength either. They still weren’t trying to kill me—it was more like they were trying to discipline me.

Considering they were a legitimate god, it wasn’t crazy that they were holding back. The gap between us was overwhelming enough to make that restraint seem inevitable.

Perhaps this is exactly what the tower intended. They have to be under some restriction, something along the lines of “no killing the climber too quickly.”

Beneath the surface, I was seething, but I kept my emotions contained.

For now, that worked to my advantage. I had one safeguard and one hidden blade, and I needed to construct the circumstances that would allow me to use both.

Just as I had trained to defy the future revealed by The Meticulous Architect, I now had to design this battle with the same level of precision.

Of course, the fight was growing more demanding with every passing moment.

Endless Furnace didn’t need to say anything, but it felt as if their actions were declaring that if this were all I could offer, their amusement would soon come to an end.

I clenched my teeth and swung my axe.

Once. Twice. Three times. Four.

With every strike, I began to ground myself more and more within the current—but I was gradually growing weaker.

***

Momentum on the battlefield encompassed everything, from small glances to movements, and even the emotions that bubbled just out of sight. It held far greater importance than most people realized.

Lower-skilled combatants could sense an opponent’s resolve from a fleeting glance. More skilled—yet still average fighters—read it through their opponent’s gaze and actions, while the even more refined could perceive it despite the emotions being held deep within.

That was why I had to control the momentum. Even if I was shaping the flow of battle, I couldn’t let myself reveal my true intentions. My mind had to remain cold, my axe desperate.

I carved out a rhythm of my own within the torrent, and it had taken time to get there.

My opponent wasn’t foolish either. They lunged like someone unsheathing a hidden blade, and they even landed a couple of sword strikes and blasts of divine energy, each one sending rolling across the ground.

My armor—which a master had crafted—had already been pierced by their silver blade, and blood now seeped through the gap.

Suppressing all emotion with all of that had been no easy task.

Then, it finally happened.

It wasn’t a hunch or a flicker of instinct. It was a conclusion honed through continuous combat. I realized the moment had come.

I roughly wrenched up my divinity and mana through brute force alone. I had to charge in with the resolve to die.

Not hesitating any longer, I accepted death and kicked off the ground.

My Aura, which was stronger than Flash Strike, flared and surged along the axe. It wasn’t bloated or overcharged. It was sharpened, refined, and condensed.

A blade of lightning-infused Aura split the air, and I closed the distance.

The world slowed, and it felt like I was in slow motion.

Everything became clear. The sweeping arc of my axe and the direct line of their sword were etched with perfect clarity.

I followed Endless Furnace’s movement. My axe struck their shoulder, although to make that happen, I had taken their blow.

There was no way to avoid it. Their silver blade pierced my heart.

“

Guh!

”

As the blow knocked the air from my lungs, I summoned the divine energy and mana I had kept in reserve.

Responding to the necklace, Ha Hee-Jeong appeared in less than a second, and Gehenna revealed herself in midair.

Endless Furnace furrowed their brow. They didn’t seem pleased that they had taken a hit to the shoulder.

The sword still buried in my heart lifted straight upward. The burning heat of the blade cleaving through my body brought my thoughts to a halt.

At that moment, the bracelet wrapped around my left wrist sparkled.