Chapter 431: Ninety-First Floor, The Maze of Saboden (7)

The Tower of Ordeal’s live broadcast, during the events on the ninety-first floor.

[????????]

[??????]

[Su-Hyeok... this ain’t funny... stop trolling......]

[WTF! Su-Hyeok hyung!!]

[Where did Light Su-Hyeok go????????]

[?????????]

[Bro nah. It ends like this?? Fr??]

[What even is happening???]

[Shit. We’re cooked.]

[Stop doubting him.]

[Su-Hyeok coin just crashed lmao I’m going all-in inverse ETF first thing tmrw 💀💀💀]

[You tryna die?]

[Hey man, you won the giveaway, drop ur address real quick.]

[No, you clowns, this isn’t the time. What do we even do??]

[Huh?]

[HUH???????????]

[HUHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!]

[HE IS BACK!!!!!!]

[Light Su-Hyeok is back?? If he’s back, we pump lmaoooo.]

[Damn!!! I trusted you!!]

[King Su-Hyeok! Light Su-Hyeok! GOAT Su-Hyeok!]

[Bro is he... riding a dragon? Is that real? A real dragon?]

[😂😂😂😂]

[Literal legend.]

[Light Su-Hyeok! Light Su-Hyeok! Light Su-Hyeok! Light Su-Hyeok!]

[Su-Hyeok is STILL ALIVE! HE LIVES! HE LIVES! HE LIVES! HE LIVES! HE LIVES!]

[Sheeshhh.]

[No cap, that’s badass af.]

[Holy shit.]

[Is this real life? People screaming in their apartments at 3 AM??]

[Broooo, I thought it was gg so I went out for a smoke, came back and almost had a heart attack 😭😭😭]

[LIGHT SU-HYEOK IS STILL ALIVE! LIGHT SU-HYEOK IS STILL ALIVE! LIGHT SU-HYEOK IS STILL ALIVE! LIGHT SU-HYEOK IS STILL ALIVE!]

***

[Exterminate all enemies. Time remaining: 32 minutes 47 seconds.]

From deep within my chest, divinity surged forth. The people of Earth and the climbers—both living and dead—let their faith bloom. The quality and quantity of divinity always varied according to the depth of faith. This time, it was purer than anything I had ever felt, far surpassing even what I had gained after battling Endless Furnace.

People had likely panicked when I fell into the abyss.

That wouldn’t be strange.

By now, the inhabitants of Earth would have realized what the tower was and that their fate was tied to it. Their faith had to have soared upon seeing me emerge unscathed. Judging by the purity of the divinity flowing in, it had left a deep impact on everyone watching me.

The trial had grown quite brutal, and Saboden’s control over space—along with the visual distortion it caused—would have undoubtedly caused unrest.

Ha Hee-Jeong would have been even more shaken.

A faint, bitter feeling rose in my chest. I had wanted to show her my best, not me on the verge of defeat. There was no helping it, though. It had already happened, and besides, both of us had known the trials would only grow harder.

In the end, surviving and prevailing were all that mattered.

I was back in peak condition. Higher than my previous peak, in fact, as strength welled up within me, so powerful that I could scarcely contain it.

The life force from Seorden’s Forest, a boost in mana, and on top of that, an overwhelming tide of divinity.

Additionally, my near-death experience had birthed insight. I didn’t have any fear left, only burning resolve. Lowering my gaze, I met Saboden’s glare. He had quickly regained his composure. Our eyes met. Without looking away, I placed my hand on Poong-Wol’s head.

I owed him thanks. “Thank you. You saved me.”

Poong-Wol rumbled softly. Considering that he had come all the way here, it appeared he had fully recovered.

Unfortunately, the opponent before us was far too dangerous. Poong-Wol was no weakling, but I still didn’t know the full extent of his abilities, and Saboden controlled space itself. Even I struggled just to dodge his strikes.

Now, Saboden would begin using his full power. Earlier, he only toyed with me.

“Go back to the forest. Don’t worry.”

Poong-Wol didn’t cling or resist needlessly. Our divine connection wasn’t spoken language, but still conveyed intent perfectly. After assuring me of his trust in me, Poong-Wol slipped away the same way he had arrived, forcing his way through a spatial rift.

It was a mysterious sight.

None of the other divine beasts can do that.

They were weaker than Poong-Wol, and the corruption had even left some irreparably wounded. Moreover, this ability didn’t stem from our divine connection. More likely, it came from his status as a child of the Primordial God and that world.

It wasn’t something urgent, though. I pushed the thought aside and tightened my grip on my axe.

Saboden was still glaring at me. Every one of my nerves was on edge, tuned to the signals sent by the wind spirit.

In the end, this battle came down to one question.

Space. Can I cut it?

I had pondered this while falling into the black hole. My doubt didn’t matter. If I wanted to win, I had to cut it. That was all. This was no different from everything I had done to reach this floor. I had always challenged myself, refusing to set a limit on what I could accomplish. That was why I stood here.

Out of nowhere, Saboden asked, “How did you come to possess Seorden’s power?”

“Does that matter?”

“I will soon make you answer,” he responded with quiet fury, still filled with confidence.

He still believed he would easily win. Whether it was stubborn arrogance or faith in strength he had yet to reveal, I couldn’t tell. This time, though, I wouldn’t be so easily dispatched.

“We’ll see about that.”

“You crawl out of one rift in space, and now you consider yourself great.”

“You’ll find out soon enough whether I’m overconfident or not.”

Words were no longer needed. We both fell silent, drawing on our power. Saboden was no longer smiling. A chill swept over me, sharper than before. This time, however, Seorden’s power fueled me.

I dodged to the side and closely watched the nearest spatial detonation. Although I couldn’t perceive it with my five senses, something was there.

If my instincts and Sixth Sense can pick it up, then it has to exist.

There was no such thing as a perfect attack. Every strike had a flaw, and I only needed to find it. In the void, a patch of space did what I could only describe as twisting. As expected, Seorden’s power allowed me to perceive the change.

Space burst apart, and I realized it hadn’t been torn apart but rather released—an outpouring. It was the opposite of how a black hole consumed everything around it.

So it absorbs, then unleashes it as an attack?

It was a reasonable guess.

As I observed, Saboden fragmented the space around us, causing everything to look distorted once again. I answered by expanding my domain. He had created finer splinters than before by scattering, merging, and spreading the overlapping spaces farther.

The same applied to his attacks. Unlike when he had treated me like a toy, his strikes now came endlessly from every direction. Much like our first confrontation, he intermingled physical strikes with the spatial ones.

Defending was meaningless.

To win, I have to attack and cut space itself.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t simply cut the spatial tears or black holes. Those were merely fragments he absorbed or released at will. To cut him and space, I had to pierce deeper.

While dodging, I thought about how.

This isn’t entirely unfamiliar.

The idea itself had come to me here on the ninety-first floor, but in truth, I had practiced this before. While training, I would envision invisible targets and slash the air. The only difference between this and that was that I had to cut a particular space—Saboden’s space.

It reminded me of something I had done on the twenty-sixth floor.

Well, it isn’t exactly the same.

Back then, I had opened a tiny rift in the sky and let the goddess Azure Dawn Breeze slip through. With how early on it had been, I hadn’t acquired divinity yet, but still, the experience mattered.

Wait, I learned something similar from Angelina, too.

Though that time, she had given me a set, visible location to pierce, not the unseen interwoven distortions before me now. Cutting Saboden meant cleaving the hidden, entangled space itself. Regardless, the principles resembled each other.

I retraced my memories.

The experience with Azure Dawn Breeze was more fitting, since it involved tearing through something greater. Azure Dawn Breeze’s strength had allowed it, but in the end, I had carried it out.

The sensation from that moment returned to me. The feeling when I gripped my blade, and Azure Dawn Breeze’s divinity flowed through me.

I can do it.

My will had mattered the most. I had believed I could, and so I had. Dodging his strikes, I seized the moment.

It is go time. First, Flash Strike, then the triple domain, and finally, another layer of Flash Strike.

I had the advantage in speed. If he could keep up with my top speed, he would have done so before. He did have experience facing this technique, however. The gap of two beats had narrowed to half a beat. Some of his attacks even predicted my path.

Dodging them wasn’t particularly difficult, though. Even as I twisted, I managed to maintain my speed and pressed forward once more. In response to my dash, the fractured distortions grew increasingly tangled and intricate.

It doesn’t matter.

I just needed to cut.

I absorbed every signal the wind spirit conveyed, now strengthened by Seorden’s power of life. With my eyes shut, I leapt through the rift and raised my axe.

Life force, divinity, and mana swirled together, and beyond my closed eyelids, a muted emerald glow intertwined with shimmering blue-gold light.

Sskeuk—!

A crisp slicing note followed my strike. It sounded just like before, but it felt different. I had struck Saboden.

I had cleaved space itself.

In that instant, it felt as if my mind expanded outward, horizons flung wide by sudden inspiration that could only be born during combat.

“You bastard!”

A chill ran down my spine, warning me of a dangerously close attack. I kicked off the void in haste.

Perhaps because Saboden was composed of space, my axe didn’t have any traces of blood. Around me, fist-sized fragments of space detonated in all directions, cutting off all of my escape routes.

I will have to force my way through.

Channeling mana into my armor to harden it, I compressed the triple-layered domain. Additionally, life force spread over it and reinforced me.

Even so, the shockwave still reached me.

When I finished dodging what I could and turned, the sight before me left me staggered.

Huh?

Ahead, every shattered fragment of space had begun to swell into black holes, sucking in the surroundings as they grew larger and larger.

***

The ruptured pockets of space that had burst open revealed black holes that devoured everything at a terrifying pace. They contained nothing but absolute darkness. Hundreds, even thousands of these black holes expanded, consuming whenever they touched. Each collision birthed one greater than before.

Kwon Su-Hyeok realized these spatial phenomena were unlike any he had experienced before.

This is it.

They emanated the same sensation he had felt when his axe pierced Saboden, what had lain beneath the outer shell. The swelling black holes were Saboden’s innards, his true essence.

Kwon Su-Hyeok sensed danger.

The strike he had just executed couldn’t cut through something of such scale and force. Saboden intended to devour the entire chamber, but this phenomenon was clearly abnormal. It would wound Saboden grievously once it ended.

What state is he in?

I had driven the axe deep into him, yet I still hadn’t discovered his core. That left me with two possibilities. Either he was so gravely wounded that his innards were spilling outward, or he had lost his reason entirely.

Whichever it was, there was no denying this was Saboden’s full strength.

Kwon Su-Hyeok knew his options. Either cut through the colossal void that consumed everything or be swallowed whole.

Of course, he had no intention of being consumed.

I struck him once already

.

He steadied his thoughts. The space-cleaving strike had brought countless insights, and they formed connections that flared in his mind. Saboden was space itself. If he regarded Saboden as a material being, cleaving space would only become more difficult.

The black holes before him were Saboden’s essence, but while cutting them, he also had to focus his will on cleaving Saboden’s very being. It seemed contradictory, but it was because he had unwittingly brushed against what swordsmen called the Heart Sword.

As soon as he realized it, Kwon Su-Hyeok didn’t hesitate. He surged forward, determined to shatter space before the black holes grew any further. In the pitch-black void, blue-gold lightning ignited like a starless cosmos, becoming a star of its own as it streaked toward the massive black hole.

Kwon Su-Hyeok swung the axe along a path he had never before taken, both physically and spiritually. It was the single most flawless motion he had executed since stepping into the Tower of Ordeal.

Before him, the enormous black hole split apart.