Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 97

Chapter 97: Nightmare, 7th Floor (4)

TL: DDTL

When I tensed up and stepped inside, what I saw was a massive stele.

A pentagonal pattern on the floor.

A stele standing right at its center.

Thud-

The door closed.

I kept time stopped while I scanned for anything else out of the ordinary.

Then released time and approached the stele.

Hummmm.

“…?”

The moment I stood in front of the stele.

Red letters suddenly began etching themselves across its surface.

[How many arrows in total were fired in the first gate?]

I read it and furrowed my brow.

What… is this?

I stopped time again for the moment.

‘A quiz?’

Out of nowhere, it was hitting me with a quiz.

But I didn’t know the answer.

The number of arrows fired in the first gate?

How the hell would I remember that.

‘I had a bad feeling about this…’

I’d figured it wasn’t going to end with just killing the boss.

Sure enough, there was more left.

Whatever it was, it was obvious nothing good would happen if I got the answer wrong.

I tried digging back through my memory.

But I hadn’t been counting them one by one while dodging, so there was no way I’d remember the exact number.

Fuck, how am I supposed to know this.

The problem is just straight-up dirty.

‘Demon King.’

– I do not know.

The useless Demon King answered immediately the moment I called.

…Nothing for it.

This was the kind of problem that wouldn’t yield to thinking. Nothing to do but guess.

‘Hard had 300, so…’

Stage 1 had been around that number too, I think.

What if the count was the same as on Hard?

I released time and gave my answer.

“…300 shots?”

Was I just supposed to say it out loud?

The letters on the stele vanished, replaced by something else.

[X]

An X mark.

Wrong answer.

Then red light flowed down the stele.

And filled in one of the points of the pentagram pattern connected to the floor.

[100]

A number also appeared above the stele. 100?

I didn’t know what it meant, but it definitely wasn’t going to be good for me.

Letters appeared on the stele again.

[How many arrows were fired in the final volley of the second gate?]

Same kind of question.

So one wasn’t going to be the end of it.

Five gates cleared, five questions? One per gate?

The second gate was the darkness stage where the torches went out.

At the end, a rain of arrows had come down from the ceiling all at once.

It was asking how many that had been.

‘Hah…’

Truly disgusting.

There was no way I’d remember the exact number for this one either.

I had no choice but to go with my gut again.

“25 shots.”

Swallowing the urge to scream ‘I don’t fucking know, you bastard’, I gave my answer.

[O]

A circle mark popped up on the stele.

…Huh? Did I get it right?

‘Got it on a guess.’

Looked like I’d lucked into the right answer.

This time the red light didn’t fill in a point of the pentagram. The number stayed put.

[How many arrows were fired in the final volley of the third gate?]

The next question was the same format.

“25 shots.”

I went with the same answer.

[X]

Lightning didn’t strike twice.

The X appeared, and the red light filled in another point of the pentagram.

[200]

The number above the stele changed too.

Up by another 100, now reading 200.

[What color was the tenth colored arrow fired in the fourth gate?]

The fourth question was at least a bit more workable.

I tried to recall the sequence of colored arrows.

The order had been blue, purple, red, orange, green…

I remembered clearly up to the seventh, but past that it got fuzzy.

‘Orange? Blue?’

Shit, what was it?

The tenth had definitely been one of those two.

– Hmm, wasn’t it green?

The Demon King butted in and threw me off.

I ignored him, agonized over it, and picked my answer.

“Orange.”

[X]

Fuck.

– See? I told you. It was green.

‘…Be quiet.’

The red light filled in the third point of the pentagram, and the number above the stele became 300.

[What was the order of body parts the Statue targeted in the fifth gate?]

The fifth question.

This was probably the last one.

This one… I could get!

“Right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, heart, head.”

When I gave my answer.

[O]

A circle appeared, and the letters on the stele disappeared.

The next question didn’t come.

[300]

I stared at the pentagram with three of its points filled in red, and at the number above the stele.

At least I’d gotten two right…

So what was supposed to happen now?

What did that number even mean?

Krrrrk-

That’s when a tremor shook the stele and cracks started spreading across it.

The pentagram on the floor blazed out with a strong light too.

[299]

I stepped back.

Sixth Sense ringing alarm bells.

An arrow is incoming from the left.

“…?!”

The moment I tried to move and felt the wrongness.

I immediately stopped time.

‘Again?’

The Left-Right Reversal debuff from Stage 3 was in effect once more.

The second I released time, I planted both hands on the ground.

And hopped forward, dodging the arrow.

Another arrow came flying right after.

‘Huh?’

…Oh, fuck.

The moment I saw the arrow, I stopped time again.

A blue arrow was incoming.

Was this seriously… were all the themes from the gates I’d failed being applied?

‘I’m screwed.’

How the hell was I supposed to deflect colored arrows with my body in this state.

I tried anyway.

I carefully calculated the trajectory I needed to swing the sword along.

Finished Mental Concentration, pulled the blue sword from Subspace, and struck the arrow.

Clang!

…Made it by a hair!

Then a thunderous noise rang out.

I turned my head to see the cracking stele crumble completely.

“…!”

What is that.

Something was inside the collapsed stele.

Humanoid, jet-black from head to toe, a pair of horns jutting from its forehead.

A monster whose appearance made the word ‘demon’ come to mind on its own.

‘The boss.’

I knew it on sight.

The boss, motionless as if it had been sealed, opened its eyes.

No, wait, fuck, hold on…

My body left-right reversed and colored arrows.

In the middle of this mess, I was supposed to take on a boss too?

Red light flashed in the boss’s eyes.

I stopped time.

What I had to do was already decided.

Before the boss could do anything, I’d hit it first with my strongest attack.

I finished Mental Concentration and fired a fully-charged Destruction Ray at the boss.

But…

“…?!”

Even after taking the Destruction Ray dead on, the boss didn’t die.

Far from dead, it was completely fine. Didn’t look like it had taken a scratch.

I stopped time again.

‘It just doesn’t work?’

There was no way it had the level to tank a Destruction Ray on raw durability alone.

My Destruction Ray had worked just fine on the 4-Zone boss, which had been at least level 80.

It made no sense for a boss on Floor 7 to be at a much higher level than that.

Some kind of gimmick, then… or maybe an invincibility buff?

Could be something like the invincible monster I’d fought back when I cleared the Sub-Tower.

[291]

I checked the number.

Even with the stele in pieces, the number floating in the air was still there.

The number that had been 300 had dropped to 291.

That was the seconds.

‘…Ah.’

That’s when it all clicked into place in my head.

The whole setup of this 7F boss fight.

‘It’s a survival run.’

Dodge the arrows, deflect the colored arrows, and survive 300 seconds against an invincible boss.

Probably once that counter hit zero, the boss’s invincibility would drop, or something like it.

If I’d gotten more questions right, the conditions would have been a hell of a lot better, but…

‘Fuck.’

Was this even possible?

Whether I could really last 300 seconds in conditions this bad was a real question, but.

What choice did I have but to try.

If I can’t, I just die.

I released time.

Crash!

At the same moment the boss came charging at me at high speed.

I dropped to all fours again and leapt to put distance between us.

An arrow came flying in from overhead. Stopped time.

Because of the goddamn Left-Right Reversal, I had to freeze time for every single action or my body got tangled.

The boss was slower than me.

It just had some invincibility buff slapped on it; the actual level didn’t seem that high. Level 60s, 70s at most.

Kraboom!

Except the boss also used a ranged attack, shooting out something like black spines.

Having to handle the boss on top of the arrows was exactly the nightmare it sounded like.

‘…Not going to work.’

Fighting the boss while also deflecting colored arrows was just impossible.

I summoned Diul and used Pitch-Black Fog.

Whooooosh!

The boss, caught in the fog’s range, lost its balance and crashed to the floor.

I kept the Pitch-Black Fog as narrow as possible to lock the boss inside.

And got out of the fog myself to keep dodging arrows.

Dodge, stop time, deflect, stop time.

I also used skills to take out arrows.

Flame Strike was too slow, so I used Lightning Strike and Blade Storm to knock arrows down.

The problem was that the interval between arrows kept shrinking.

Maybe because this was a boss fight, but the rate at which the intervals tightened was even worse than in the previous stages.

Eventually, multiple arrows started coming in at once.

What is this. Is this hell.

If just one of these, the left-right reversal or the colored arrows, hadn’t been in the mix, this would have been so much more doable.

“…!”

In the end, the limit slowly started creeping up on me.

I missed one of the colored arrows.

The Slow debuff triggered, and I felt my body grow even more sluggish.

To make matters worse, Diul was at his limit too.

The Pitch-Black Fog locking down the boss was about to go out.

I stopped time.

[151]

150 seconds still left.

Only half done.

If the boss started moving again from here…

I had no confidence I could hold on. The colored arrow stacks would pile up in seconds.

The moment my body got too slow to dodge arrows, that was it.

The arrows weren’t going to be polite enough to avoid my head.

‘I’m losing it.’

Backed into a corner.

What do I do?

Pull out the Kalundi citizenship and Plli for now, get them to keep the boss busy as long as possible…

– Hand it over.

That’s when the Demon King’s voice came.

– Surely you don’t intend to keep being stubborn even now. Hand it over already.

I asked.

‘…Can you actually do something about this?’

I don’t know exactly what abilities the Demon King can pull off.

The Demon King just let out a scoff, as if he found the question laughable.

A guy who’d supposedly climbed past floor 20 of Nightmare, so yeah, he had to be strong, but…

The problem was that handing my body over to the Demon King meant control went back to him.

‘If I hand it over, you won’t give it back.’

The Demon King spoke irritably.

– I’ll give it back. Just hand it over.

‘…Really?’

What? It wasn’t a lie.

The guy who’d been demanding my body every other day, suddenly?

– Even if I seized your body using this as an excuse, you’d just start with the time-stopping nonsense all over again.

‘Fair point.’

So even though he didn’t want to show it, the old man was anxious too about me dying from pushing myself too hard.

After all, if I died, he died.

If the Demon King really could break us out of this on my behalf.

Then there was no reason for me to keep taking the risk either.

‘Alright then…’

It had been almost a year.

I handed control of the body over to the Demon King.

– Release time.

I released time.

The boss broke out of the Pitch-Black Fog and lunged at me, arrows coming in.

In that moment…

Whoooooooosh-!

A massive wave of cold spread outward in every direction and froze everything. The boss, the arrows, all of it.

‘…!’

Even with time released, it was a scene that looked exactly like time had been stopped.

[Willpower: 0/4050]

My willpower bottomed out in an instant.

“Stop.”

White frost streaming from his mouth, the Demon King spoke.

I stopped time again.

…So the Demon King used my willpower to channel his power too, huh? Well, of course he did.

The Demon King said.

– Restore it yourself each time it drops.

‘Got it.’

The Demon King obviously knew I could recover willpower by freezing time.

I refilled the willpower completely and released time again.

The boss was frozen solid and couldn’t move an inch.

The arrows kept coming.

This time the Demon King unfurled what looked like a barrier around us and suspended countless ice blades in the air.

Krakakakaboom!

The ice blades whipped through the air like a storm, smashing every incoming arrow to pieces.

In just a few seconds the willpower was drained again and I stopped time.

It was the same cycle, over and over.

As time passed, the arrows multiplied at an exponential rate.

But an overwhelmingly larger number of ice blades shattered every single one.

Watching it, the Demon King seemed to be spamming his magic with no cooldowns to speak of.

Since willpower couldn’t run out thanks to Time Stop, it was literally infinite spam. There was no chance any arrow was reaching me.

There was no need to deflect colored arrows with the sword either.

It didn’t matter how many Slow stacks piled up, since I was just standing still casting magic.

Except for one thing.

My body was slowly freezing over.

Krrrk, splintering cracks ran across it, and then one of my arms just dropped off. Huh?

‘…Demon King?’

When I asked in alarm, the Demon King answered with utter nonchalance.

– Your flesh is too pathetic to withstand the power I wield.

‘Ah.’

That’s kind of not okay, though?

An arm I could deal with, but if my head fell off at this rate, I was dead.

[5]

5 seconds left on the clock now.

Soon the number dropped to 0.

And I saw the red haze that had been wrapping the boss vanish.

Invincibility down?

The cold the Demon King let loose engulfed the boss.

Kraaaaash!

The boss took the direct hit, turned into icy fragments, and scattered into the air.

Crack!

At the same moment my waist split open and my upper and lower halves came apart.

The Demon King clicked his tongue.

– Tch. Can’t even hold up under low-grade magic.

[You have successfully cleared Nightmare difficulty Floor 7.]

The message floating up before my eyes.

Either way, the boss was down, so the clear was a success.

I stared at the message, a little dazed.

What is this.

I felt like I’d just gotten the most insane carry of my life.

[Absorbing the Power of the Floor.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

[Your level has increased.]

.

.

.

[Your level has increased.]

[You are the first to clear Nightmare difficulty Floor 7.]

[Floor 7 Hidden Route is unlocked.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]

****

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