Chapter 457: Ninety-Fifth Floor, The Phantom of the Predecessor (4)

I had first stumbled upon this skill in the training room while researching mana exhaustion. I hadn’t even given it a name yet. Training felt far more worthwhile than wasting time trying to come up with one.

As a general concept, enemies became increasingly formidable the higher I climbed—and that was especially the case after the ninetieth floor. After killing Eternal Feast, I had already anticipated even stronger opponents to emerge. That had generated a desire to test my limits.

How far can I push myself? How long can I last after running out of energy?

It was crucial to determine to what extent I could deplete my mana. Although, to be precise, calling it “mana exhaustion” wasn’t entirely accurate. Even without mana, I could keep myself operating with divinity or causality.

Regardless, an experiment to see how far I could draw out my power before true exhaustion set in had birthed this skill.

An accident, really.

When I had gathered my energy to its absolute limit, I panicked once I realized that releasing it could genuinely destroy the training room. Therefore, I directed that force into the circuits within my body, partly to test my durability as well.

Divinity. Mana. Causality.

The immense volume made my circuits feel as if they would rupture. To compensate, I transmuted the energy into lightning, amplifying its speed. The result was astonishing. Unfortunately for me, it left scars on the circuits. Wounds caused by the fusion of causality, divinity, and mana healed agonizingly slowly, and some didn’t heal at all.

Additionally, the rest of me suffered under the same strain. It felt as if my overall physical capability had diminished, and that, too, refused to recover. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the technique also put a noticeable dent into my mental state. I remained in a haze for quite some time.

I had hoped to never use it again, but it was undeniably a powerful skill. After all, if I ever found myself forced to rely on it in actual combat, that would mean I had no other path forward, that my life was at stake.

Survival by mortgaging my future is still survival. I would be grateful to just be alive.

Besides, that only accounted for when I used it in the training room. This time, I was inside a trial. The losses incurred through its use could be offset by the stat increases granted as rewards. Unlikely as it seemed, there was even the faint possibility that I would recover upon returning to the waiting room.

Another important aspect of activating the skill was that it sealed my energycore —the reservoir where my different powers gathered, or the mana core as Seo Ho-Su called it—and accelerated the circuits instead. Even if my mana, divine energy, or causality replenished mid-battle, I couldn’t draw upon them. Doing so would only cause the accelerated flow to spiral out of control.

That was the reason I had collapsed in the training room. The strain had nearly annihilated me. Perhaps one day I could find a workaround, but it would be far too risky to attempt that now.

In summary, that meant my focus had to be on ending the battle as swiftly as possible with the limited energy I possessed.

The three forces within me coursed through my circuits at blistering speed, and steam rose from my skin as I heated up. In an instant, the gathered power dispersed evenly through every muscle tense with combat readiness.

My thoughts quickened alongside it. The lightning-infused energy surged to my head, expanding my consciousness and sharpening my calculations. Even the faintest movement of air around me became vividly perceptible.

Tiny threads of electricity branched out from me, sharp and restless. Thin bolts, no thicker than a finger, forming and vanishing in rapid succession, created a sort of thin cloak of lightning, though it wasn’t very visible.

A rush of exhilaration welled up within me, both physical and mental. It was my first time employing this skill in true combat.

Kalain raised his sword.

Heart Sword.

Having faced it once before, I recognized it even before the strike came. Not needing another cue, I pushed off the ground.

Crackle—!

Lightning flared around me and trailed backward, whipping to and fro because of my sheer velocity. Suddenly, a name came to mind.

Thunderbird. Hmm. A bit cheesy, maybe.

Whatever. I could think about it later.

I dismissed the thought and readied my axe. I crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat, faster than I had ever imagined possible. My first strike came thundering down toward Kalain, and he reacted, but half a beat too late. As my axe tore through the air, producing a sharp, unnatural sound. It reminded me of Soulbound’s cry.

Boom!

Soulbound and Kalain’s sword met for the first time since I activated the skill, and the shockwave born from the clash, saturated with lightning, was immense. I immediately forced Kalain onto the backfoot. Soulbound urged me forward, yearning to chase after Kalain’s retreating blade.

I tightened my grip and swung upward along that very line.

Kalain barely managed to block. Behind our locked weapons, he clenched his jaw as his breath came out raggedly. He was forcing himself to keep pace. His Heart Sword landed not long later, and as I parried it, his crimson eyes glimmered. A fleeting stiffness seized my body, but it didn’t last.

“

Guh!

”

Abandoning defense entirely, Kalain seized an opening to counterattack. He lunged forward, intent on driving his sword into me even at the cost of an injury. As he closed in, his mouth opened wide. A burst of breath erupted from within an armspan, followed by a diagonal slash. I didn’t dodge. I lifted my left hand and deflected the breath.

Even though I had reinforced my fingertips with causality, they throbbed painfully. I endured it and gripped the axe harder with my other hand.

A cleave from five o’clock to eleven o’clock.

I swung Soulbound upward with one hand. In response, Kalain swept his sword horizontally at chest height. As I pulled my torso back, the dark blade grazed past me. The hem of my climbing jacket quivered where the sword tip brushed it. Thanks to my perfect calculation, I remained unscathed, and the fabric had split by a centimeter, no more.

Soulbound continued its upward arc through the air, and though my stance wasn’t ideal, the power behind the blow was overwhelming. Usually, this wouldn’t have been possible for me, but the technique that was enhancing me beyond my limits made it achievable.

The axe pierced through Kalain’s side.

Crunch!

His tattered armor shattered, and the blade burst out from the opposite shoulder. Black blood sprayed into the air. Droplets fell through the lightning crackling around me and splattered against my cheek.

What?

In that instant, Kalain’s memories and emotions flooded into me clearer than ever before.

It began on the first floor. Kalain hadn’t responded to the tower’s message at all, much like I had. He had held a worn sword, staring up at the ceiling as the prompt to select a status window blinked before him.

He hadn’t faced the same tutorial as I, but it had been just as difficult. Through the floors, Kalain pressed on, growing ever more wounded and weary. On the eighth floor, he lost a comrade. On the fourteenth, a lover. On the twenty-second, a brother by blood. That was when it began, when irreversible anger and hatred first took root in his heart.

Even so, Kalain relied on his kin and continued climbing the tower.

His circumstances had differed vastly from mine. No one had supported him as Ha Hee-Jeong had me, and everything around him remained unknown. He encountered countless crossroads that affected him and his fellow climbers, just like I had. Some climbers had survived because of his decisions, while others perished.

Our trials grew less and less alike as he climbed, and even I would have struggled to find the right path in his place. Kalain suffered and agonized at every turn.

In moments of hardship, he leaned on his comrades and on a new lover.

Sadly, on the forty-sixth floor, he lost the new individual with whom he shared his heart. That was when he resolved to destroy the tower. That was the Kalain I encountered on the fifty-second floor, consumed by wrath. When he lost his subsequent lover on the sixty-first floor, there was no one left for him to depend on. He still cherished the surviving climbers, but not as those he could truly confide in.

He feared forming such bonds again, terrified of enduring that loss once more. His heart grew cold, honed to a razor’s edge. His hatred extended beyond the tower itself—it encompassed all the gods.

Thus, Kalain resolved to destroy the tower and eradicate every god.

Kalain’s memories ended on the ninetieth floor. It stopped just before the ninety-first, at the moment the tower described the challenger’s trials, when he had felt a faint spark of hope. What happened between then and the ninety-fifth floor remained unknown.

Hmm.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a void. Kalain’s phantom had shattered into shards of black light that drifted through the air.

I have no idea what is going on.

Kalain’s memories and emotions still churned within me, his fury toward the tower echoing vividly inside. Of course, they didn’t consume me. Perhaps they could have earlier, but not anymore. Although I didn’t share his rage, I understood his anger and determination.

Becoming a first-class god through sheer will, invading world after world to grow his power.

All of it had stemmed from his wish to bring everything to ruin.

No, perhaps calling it “everything” wasn’t quite right. Kalain’s goal, as I had seen it, was not so different from my own. Both of us had been unwilling victims, each seeking to end the Tower of Ordeal and the gods’ acts of conquest.

The large difference lay in our methods. Kalain sought to destroy the source itself—the gods and the tower.

I see.

I hadn’t thought that deeply about it before. My core belief was that, once I gained enough power, I could change the tower’s laws and systems.

When Thunder Axe spoke of Kalain without hatred or bitterness, perhaps it was because he had watched him grow as his sponsor. They shared a purpose, but one’s path had merely veered astray.

Even for me, such emotions were difficult to untangle.

Maybe leaving behind such feelings is part of the illusion’s design.

After all, when I had first met Kalain on the fifty-second floor, I had been momentarily overtaken by strange emotions as well. I had overcome them quickly enough, though. This time was different. It wasn’t manipulation and was closer to Kalain showing his genuine self.

Kalain had simply changed the fifty-second and ninety-fifth floors. By revealing his true heart to the challenger who followed after him, he seemed intent on forging an ally.

Regardless, Kalain’s phantom was gone.

To be honest, it left me feeling a little hollow. Considering how hard the fight had been, it had ended far too quickly. Even if I could go back, though, I would have done the same. Without that approach, victory would have been impossible.

Also, since I had used a skill that drained my potential, that was only fitting.

It allowed me to crush a challenger—and a future first-class god no less—who reached the ninety-fifth floor.

Once I passed the hundredth, I would have to face hostile gods directly. Although most lacked causality, they would be far stronger without the tower’s restrictions.

In the worst-case scenario, Kalain appears.

Thunder Axe would likely protect me, but that wasn’t certain. Kalain’s faction could very well be stronger than the Thunder Axe’s. Though Thunder Axe had lived far longer, Kalain had ascended to a first-class god in only four thousand years.

Anyway... where is the completion message?

The trial had ended, yet I refused to release my power until the tower had confirmed it was over. Doing so now could cause me to collapse.

Or maybe not?

Once I returned to the waiting room, I would begin to recover. Though I couldn’t heal these wounds, the tower’s power could succeed where I couldn’t. I even wondered whether it was worth testing now.

Just as I began to release control over the intermingled powers, the message arrived.

[Congratulations. Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok has conquered the ninety-fifth floor of the Tower of Ordeal: The Phantom of the Predecessor. Achievement points will be calculated.]

[Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok may now claim the Predecessor’s Legacy. Please choose one piece of equipment worn by the illusion. The tower will enhance the selected item and grant it as a reward. However, the illusion’s sword is excluded.]

So that is what the Room of Abandonment is for.

Even so, the reward didn’t seem particularly worthwhile. Even if it were enhanced, it was still just one piece of equipment, while I had discarded everything. Still, since the tower was offering a reward, I saw no reason to refuse it. Perhaps the upgrade would prove greater than expected.

Wait. Maybe I was wrong about that.

On second thought, perhaps it wasn’t much of a loss. None of the items I had discarded were particularly essential at this stage. Armor was meaningless against opponents of my caliber. Accessories had long since reached their limit. Now that I could practically fly, even the boots had lost their use.

The gauntlets were somewhat better, but with causality and divinity reinforcing me, they weren’t a necessity. Besides, my total mana capacity had increased significantly.

Still, if I can’t select the sword, that probably means Kalain kept his weapon as well.

That thought made me wonder who he had faced if he was the very first challenger.

I had pondered a similar question back on the fifty-second floor. Back then, Kalain’s presence hadn’t been necessary during the climb, but this time, the trial had been centered around the battle between us.

Hmm. Did he fight himself, perhaps?

Since I hadn’t seen anything beyond the ninety-first floor, I couldn’t know. He could have just as easily faced another formidable being. Either way, it wasn’t worth lingering on.

“The cloak.”

Neither the armor, the boots, nor the gauntlets had shown any noteworthy properties. They could contain hidden features, but rather than gamble, it would be safer to choose the cloak that had caused me issues.

[Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok has chosen the cloak. His reward will be granted upon return to the waiting room.]

As I watched the message tallying my achievement points, I wondered what the next challenger would select if they managed to defeat me.

My gauntlets? The armor?

Judging by appearance alone, the gauntlets seemed plain, so perhaps they would take the armor instead. Not that it mattered. None of my equipment possessed any particularly unique abilities anyway.

[He will now enter the waiting room.]

When the final message appeared, I remembered my earlier decision to release my power. Without a second thought, I unleashed everything within me. Blue-gold lightning flared outward and illuminated the surroundings. At the same time, a deep exhaustion swept over me.

As my consciousness faded, a question brushed faintly against my mind. Something was off.

Why didn’t the tower have me leave a phantom?

Back on the fifty-second floor, during the Trial of Penance, the tower had given me that right.

Did I have to complete a hidden mission first?

That didn’t seem likely. This had been a straightforward combat trial, so there wouldn’t have been a hidden objective. I felt almost certain of that.

The Phantom of the Predecessor.

It was strange that the same illusion had persisted unchanged. If that were the case, the same should have happened on the fifty-second floor. That led me to believe that something about the challenger trials had shifted. Or perhaps not.

I wasn’t sure. Mana exhaustion was setting in, leaving my thoughts hazy. One final idea passed through my mind.

Am I the last challenger?

Feeling a sense of weightlessness, I closed my eyes.