Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 95
Chapter 95: Nightmare, 7th Floor (2)
TL: DDTL
After I passed through the door to the next place.
Boom!
The stone door slammed shut behind me.
I stopped time.
It was a cavern no different from the one before.
Arrow holes pocked the walls on every side, and another door stood at the far end.
But there was no way it was the exact same stage.
The difficulty had obviously been bumped up…
Just glancing around, I couldn’t tell what was different.
I let time resume and moved to the center of the cavern.
At that moment.
Whoosh.
Every torch lighting the cavern went out at once.
Pitch-black darkness dropped over me, so thick I couldn’t see an inch ahead.
‘Aha…’
So that was it?
I caught on to this stage’s concept right away.
Looked like it was cutting off my sight.
But that wasn’t a problem for me.
‘Diul.’
I activated Dark Vision.
The alarm bell of Sixth Sense rang, and an arrow came flying from straight ahead.
I sidestepped the arrow, which I could see plain as day.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The arrows’ size and speed weren’t much different from before.
Meaning I could dodge them with room to spare.
Even without sight I probably would’ve gotten by on Sixth Sense alone, and with Dark Vision on top of that, there was no chance I’d take a hit.
The arrows fired at shorter and shorter intervals, and then…
Just as it seemed about to wind down, Sixth Sense flagged the ceiling.
Not just one.
I looked up.
The instant I saw the arrows launch, I stopped time.
A rain of arrows blanketed a wide radius, falling toward the ground.
Let’s see…
‘I can just slip through over there.’
Dozens of arrows were plunging toward the floor all at once, but…
I took my time pinpointing a gap I could squeeze through, then released time and lunged for it.
Kaboom!
The floor was obliterated.
That must’ve been the last of it, because after I dodged that, no more arrows came.
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
The torches flared back to life, and the stone door to the next stage opened.
Stage 2 cleared without much trouble.
I walked toward the door.
Bang!
This time the surprise arrow came from behind, not in front.
Of course, I’d seen it coming and dodged.
‘So far it’s been pretty meh…’
Stage 1 was just dodging.
Stage 2 was dodging in the dark.
Sure, expecting someone to handle this blind on their first try was already pretty shameless, but…
Everything was relative.
For Nightmare difficulty, this was still on the gentle side so far.
I started toward the door, then hesitated.
…Should I look around a bit before moving on?
Obviously each stage would get harder than the last, but…
Floor 4 came to mind. I felt that old unease creeping back in.
There might be some hidden mechanic that screwed me later on if I didn’t catch it early.
I decided to give the cavern another sweep before crossing over.
I spent a good while combing through the cavern, but…
I couldn’t find anything notable.
I walked over to the door from Stage 1.
Going back to the previous stage seemed impossible; the firmly shut door didn’t react at all.
I tried firing a Full Charging Destruction Ray at it.
But the door took the Destruction Ray and was perfectly fine. Not a scratch.
“Hm.”
So the door was flagged as indestructible too.
Made sense. If it broke, I could just smash everything and skip the stage outright.
In the end, there was nothing for it but to move on to the next stage.
Thud.
The door shut behind me.
Stage 3 was the exact same cavern.
But one thing was different.
A massive pattern was carved into the cavern floor.
Two arrows chasing each other’s tails, rotating clockwise.
What did it mean?
It obviously wasn’t there for no reason.
I stopped time for a moment and thought it over.
…Move in a circle?
Or maybe something gets swapped?
I wasn’t Detective Conan; there were limits to what I could guess just from looking.
‘Any idea what this means, Demon King?’
I tried asking the Demon King too.
– Figure it out yourself.
The Demon King scoffed, though he didn’t seem to know either.
Guess I’d have to learn by doing.
I released time.
For now, I kept clear of the pattern and stood off to one side of the cavern.
Right then.
Flash.
The pattern began to glow like a magic circle.
“…?!”
Huh?
I tried to move, lost my balance, and toppled over.
Bewildered, I stopped time at once.
‘…What the hell?’
That alien feeling in my body.
What just happened?
I’d clearly meant to move my right leg, but my left leg had moved instead.
Then when I tried to recover my balance, my body moved every which way and I went down.
I released time.
I tried moving my right hand.
My left hand moved.
‘No way…’
I got it right away.
The left and right controls of my body had been swapped?
Try to move the right side, the left side moved. Try the left, the right side moved. Like the nerves of my left and right brain had been switched…
So that was what the arrow pattern meant.
…It’s fine. No reason to panic.
I just had to move in reverse, right?
I planted both hands on the floor and pushed myself up unsteadily.
Sixth Sense sounded the alarm.
An arrow was coming from the left.
I stopped time again.
I worked out how I’d move, then released time and moved.
I aimed diagonally left; my body went diagonally right instead.
I dodged the arrow but lost my balance again and fell.
‘Goddammit.’
One movement at a time, I could pull off.
But trying to chain movements together inevitably tied my body in knots.
No matter how well I understood it in my head, left-right inversion wasn’t something I could adapt to on the fly.
This time, an arrow came in from behind.
I stopped time again.
Sure, instantly adapting was out of the question, but…
I had Time Stop.
Whenever my body tangled up, I’d just stop time, think it through, then move.
I released time and threw myself to the left to dodge the second arrow.
I didn’t bother getting up, keeping both hands planted on the ground.
Better than trying to stand on two feet.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Dodge, stop time, dodge, stop time.
I hopped around on all fours like a frog, dodging arrow after arrow.
‘Doable.’
A little undignified, sure, but whatever. This was way more efficient.
No need to burn a skill, just as I thought.
Using a skill would make it easier, sure, but…
No telling what else might pop up; I couldn’t afford to let my guard down.
Dodge what could be dodged, save skills for when they were needed. That was the right call.
Kaboom!
The final arrow barrage.
I stopped time.
This time, a swarm of arrows came at me all at once, blanketing the entire front.
There was a gap I could slip through, but…
My body wasn’t responding to fine control right now. I didn’t trust myself to thread the needle.
No need to take that risk.
I finished my Mental Concentration and used the Teleportation I’d been saving.
The arrows whistled through empty air and slammed into the far wall with a deafening crash.
No more arrows came.
The light from the arrow pattern on the floor faded.
I rose to my feet.
Only then did my inverted body return to normal.
“Phew.”
Stage 3 cleared.
A liiittle bit rough, sure.
Honestly, without Time Stop, I wouldn’t have even been able to control my body properly, and I might’ve gotten pretty seriously screwed…
Either way, it was starting to feel like a proper Nightmare, the bullshit getting denser.
How many stages did this thing have, anyway?
I recovered the bit of stamina I’d lost and headed for the door to the next stage.
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
No more cheap surprise-arrow ambushes.
I moved on to Stage 4.
“…?”
Stage 4 was the same cavern again.
And again, a large pattern lay on the floor.
A pattern of a human foot, with an arrow next to it pointing downward.
What was that supposed to mean…
The intuitive read was that it slowed movement.
Beyond the pattern, there was something else.
Several swords were planted in the floor at the center of the cavern.
‘Rainbow?’
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Seven swords in seven colors.
I walked closer.
No warning from Sixth Sense.
I picked one up. Just an ordinary longsword. Aside from the color.
Out of nowhere, the Tower was handing me weapons…?
And not just one, but a whole set of identical ones? Why the colors?
Just as I was thinking they had to serve some purpose.
Bang!
I dodged.
An arrow plunged down from above and shattered the floor.
The shockwave sent the swords flying noisily in every direction.
Arrows started coming in.
No different from the previous stages. I dodged them easily.
But then.
“…?”
One arrow in the mix was different.
Unlike the missile-sized arrows, this one was normal-sized. And blue.
I dodged it for now.
When the missed blue arrow embedded itself in the floor…
The pattern on the floor suddenly began to glow.
“…!”
Something else was coming.
Bang!
The next arrow gave me no time to rest.
The second I dodged it, I noticed something off about my body.
‘My body…’
A little sluggish?
I stopped time.
I needed time to think.
For starters, the pattern meant exactly what I’d guessed: some kind of Slow debuff.
Seven swords in rainbow colors.
A colored arrow, unlike the others.
And the pattern activated when the arrow embedded in the floor…?
As I pieced the information together, a thought struck me.
‘Am I supposed to deflect the arrows with the swords?’
Colored swords, colored arrows.
The connection came naturally.
And the fact that only the colored arrows were normal-sized, unlike the absurdly huge ones, lined up too…
Maybe I had to deflect each arrow with a sword of the matching color, or the Slow debuff would trigger?
And if I failed to deflect, my body would keep getting slower.
I needed to grab the swords.
The moment I released time, I sprinted to gather the swords scattered everywhere.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Dodging arrows, picking up the swords one by one.
This time, a violet arrow flew in.
‘Shit.’
The speed wasn’t too hard to deflect.
But I hadn’t grabbed the violet sword yet, so I parried it with the blue sword I was holding.
Fwoosh.
The pattern’s glow grew stronger.
My body felt a little more sluggish.
Just as I thought: the colors had to match.
I soon had all the swords gathered up.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Two stacks of Slow now, but still not enough to seriously get in the way.
The Exaltation skill offset it somewhat too.
But if it kept piling on, that’d be dangerous.
If my body slowed to the point I couldn’t dodge, I’d just have to take every hit.
I had to deflect the next colored arrow. But…
‘…This is kinda rough.’
Seven swords, two hands.
Right now, I had them all bundled at my waist.
In that state, picking the matching color and swinging on cue, no matter how I thought about it, wasn’t going to work.
…Hold on.
I could just use Subspace, then?
[Skill: Subspace (Epic)]
Creates a subspace where objects can be stored and retrieved. Objects must be touched directly to be stored, and can be retrieved within a 1-meter radius. Living beings and spirits cannot be stored. Up to 100 kilograms of storage capacity. Casting requires 3 minutes of mental concentration.
Type: Magic
Willpower Cost: 300
Cooldown: None
Stopping time as I went, I stuffed all the swords into Subspace.
Subspace had no cooldown on storing or retrieving objects.
Pulling out the matching sword to deflect each arrow as it came was perfectly doable.
I dodged arrows with my slightly slowed body, and then.
‘Red.’
Another one snuck into the mix: a red arrow.
I stopped time, pulled out the red sword, and parried the arrow.
Clang!
This time, the pattern’s glow didn’t intensify.
So that was the answer.
I dodged the missile arrows and deflected the colored arrows with matching swords pulled from Subspace.
Dodge, deflect, dodge, deflect.
The firing intervals got shorter and shorter; things got hectic.
But when it got hectic, I just stopped time and caught my breath.
That way, aside from the first two I’d missed, I deflected every single colored arrow without dropping one.
After a few minutes, no more arrows came.
Stage 4 was over too.
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
The door to the next stage opened.
I rested for a moment, tilting my head.
‘Something feels…’
A little off.
Were there really no hidden mechanics or tricks?
Floor 7 felt like a pure skill test, somehow.
Sure, a left-right inversion debuff, and color-matching arrow deflection.
Just those alone would be impossible for other Climbers to clear without prior info, but…
Either way, no letting my guard down.
I wouldn’t know what other crazy bullshit was coming until I saw it through to the end.
“Let’s go.”
I didn’t bother dumping the colored swords, keeping them stored in Subspace.
I moved on to Stage 5.
****
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ExBlazE
There’s the nightmare flavor we were looking for. Gosh.
Thanks for the update!