Chapter 116: Nightmare, 8th Floor (2)

Just moving forward like this was getting me nowhere.

I desperately searched for another way.

I climbed back down into the sandworm pit and dug through the underground tunnels again.

I clung to the faint hope that there might be some other mechanism hidden down there, something that could take me all the way to the Oasis.

But no matter how much farther I dug, all I found were antlike tunnels stretching endlessly onward, and...

Nothing came of it.

I pored over the notebook and Compass the skeleton had left behind until my eyes ached.

I’d hoped there might be some hidden clue, something else I had overlooked, but there was nothing of the sort.

What if I headed away from the Oasis instead? Or went off to one side?

The displayed distance only increased.

I used the Demon King’s Flight to climb higher and higher into the sky.

Thud!

At a certain height, my body slammed into an invisible barrier that prevented me from going any farther.

It was just like the edge of a game map, walled off so that no one could pass beyond it.

It felt as though the Tower were mocking me.

Stop wasting your time on pointless tricks and just cover the required distance.

That was the only way to clear this Floor...

I stopped time and thought it over for a long while.

As expected, no answer came to me.

So I ran across the desert again.

Even though I already knew how it would end, no matter what I did.

Still, the only thing I could do was keep moving toward the Oasis I would never reach.

Maybe something would change once I crossed a certain distance?

Maybe.

I let myself cling even to that threadbare hope.

I ran.

And ran again.

I warped.

And warped again.

Warping the maximum possible distance every ten minutes pushed my mental endurance to its limits.

But I did it anyway.

I ran until my body gave out as well, and whenever exhaustion overwhelmed me or I needed sleep, I summoned Plli and rode on its back while I recovered.

Whenever the load had recovered enough, I used the Demon King’s Flight too.

It was a frantic struggle to squeeze out even the slightest bit more speed.

The desert sun was brutally hot...

Then, once the sun went down and night fell, the desert became as cold as a frozen wasteland, the exact opposite of the day.

The temperature swing was insane.

Fortunately, I had both ice magic and fire magic, so I could endure the heat and the cold.

For food, I rationed the biscuits and energy bars I’d stored in my Subspace.

And once those were nearly gone, I started hunting Sandworms and cooking them instead.

They tasted disgusting, and eating them left my tongue numb.

Fortunately, their toxin wasn’t strong enough to interfere with my movements.

And so the grueling journey continued.

Move, move, and keep moving...

“...”

[16,254,931/134,217,728km]

I stopped and looked at the remaining distance.

It was impossibly far.

I collapsed onto the sand as though I had dropped dead.

[Nightmare]

Population: 476,805

Time Limit: 7 days 6 hours 28 minutes 5 seconds

Reached Floor: Floor 8

Nearly thirteen days had passed since I entered Floor 8.

Now only one week remained on the Nightmare difficulty’s Time Limit.

I had traveled more than ten million kilometers.

But nothing had changed.

Something would change once I covered a certain distance?

Yeah, right...

It had been nothing but baseless wishful thinking.

It was over.

I’d known from the very beginning that it was over, but...

This really was hopeless.

“Demon King.”

– What is it.

“Has this ever happened to you? Failing to clear because you ran out of Time Limit.”

The Demon King answered.

– Never. Unlike you, I never spent an entire year at a time waiting before climbing the Tower.

I see.

Was that what had doomed me?

If I’d only had enough Time Limit, I could have cleared Floor 8 as well.

...Though there was no way I could have anticipated something like this.

The previous Floors had taken a few hours at most.

Forget twenty days—I had never even considered the possibility that a clear might take longer than a single day.

I’d been completely blindsided.

And because of that, the world was now on the brink of destruction.

I wondered what things were like outside right now.

The number in the Nightmare Communication Channel would still be unchanged, so at least they would know I was still in the middle of the clear.

But with so much time having passed without success, there had to be widespread panic.

My family would have read my will by now...

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again.

This was no time to worry about what was happening outside.

At this rate, it really would be the end.

The world would be destroyed.

I opened my hand and stared at my palm.

The unidentified something the Sage had given me.

The thing he had said I needed most.

If there was ever a moment for it, this was it.

If there was ever a time when I desperately needed something, it was right now.

“If I can’t clear this now, it’s all over...”

But no matter how intently I stared at my palm, no matter how much I shook it or tapped it...

Nothing happened.

Thunk!

I even went so far as to summon the Sword of Light and stab it into my palm.

All that did was send blood gushing out.

I stopped soon afterward.

Thanks to the Frozen Hydra’s power, the wound regenerated within moments.

...Fuck.

Seriously, what a goddamn useless piece of garbage.

I should have chosen the Book of Omniscience instead of this thing.

– It seems this truly is as far as you go.

The Demon King spoke.

I could sense only the slightest hint of regret from him.

Other than that, he seemed utterly detached.

“You’re talking like this has nothing to do with you. You and I share the same fate.”

– Then what would you have me do? What must be accepted should be accepted. This is your defeat.

“...”

– In the end, perhaps it was too much to hope for. To defeat this monster... For a mere speck of a creature, you have already climbed remarkably far.

I gazed silently up at the sky.

Then...

“...There’s still one thing left.”

– Hm?

I pulled an item from my Subspace.

[Special Item: Scales of Life]

Offer the user’s lifespan to obtain a reward of equal measure. Anywhere from a minimum of 1% up to a maximum of 99% of the current remaining lifespan may be offered. Once used, the Scales break, and the user’s remaining lifespan is displayed.

I took out the Scales and quietly read the description.

– Ho. You had an item like this as well?

The Scales of Life.

It was a reward I had earned from clearing a Sub-Tower some time ago, one I had never used until now.

I had kept it in mind from the beginning.

But because using it cost lifespan, it was my absolute last resort.

I considered spending the remaining seven days searching for some other way.

But in the end, I made my decision.

‘...Let’s use it.’

Yeah.

Let’s use it.

I’d already tried everything there was to try, hadn’t I?

There was no other way.

And I was afraid of what might happen to the outside world if I let the Time Limit get pushed to the brink again.

The only question left was how much lifespan I should offer.

I could offer anywhere from 1% to 99% of my remaining lifespan.

The more I offered, the greater the reward would be.

...But what if I offered some middling amount and ended up with nothing but a middling reward?

Then there really would be no hope left.

Even if I offered the maximum, I wasn’t confident the reward would be enough to solve this situation in the first place.

All I could do was go all in, like a drowning man clutching at straws.

[Will you use ‘Special Item: Scales of Life’?]

[Determine the lifespan to offer.]

...If I offered [N O V E L I G H T] 99%, how much longer would I have left to live?

Would I be lucky to have even a year?

Well, that was a problem I could worry about only after I cleared Floor 8.

Praying that I would receive something capable of breaking open this hopeless situation...

“99%. The maximum.”

I declared how much lifespan I would offer.

[You offer 99% of your lifespan to the Scales of Life.]

Along with the message,

a red energy resembling life force itself flowed out of my body.

“...!”

The red energy condensed into a sphere and settled onto one side of the Scales.

The Scales tipped heavily in that direction.

Sssss...

Then black energy began seeping out from the Scales.

It gathered before my eyes and gradually assumed a human shape.

It was the Death God.

As I stared blankly at it, the Death God’s voice reached me.

– Make your wish. I shall grant a reward as close to your desire as the lifespan you have offered allows.

...Make my wish?

Just as the Death God instructed, I thought about what I wanted.

There was only one thing.

The power to cross an insane distance of more than a hundred million kilometers in a single instant.

Anything would do.

Give me some kind of ultra-long-range teleportation that went even beyond warping.

Whoooosh...

The Death God extended its hand.

Black energy gathered and settled onto the opposite side of the Scales.

The side weighed down by the lifespan I had offered slowly rose.

The Scales came into perfect balance.

The Death God vanished like smoke.

The black energy faded away.

I looked at what remained on the Scales.

“...”

An orange Skill Stone.

I had seen one before at the Masked Auction.

It was a legendary-grade Skill Stone.

Snap.

And then the Scales broke cleanly in two.

[Broken Scales of Life]

When I read the item description, my remaining lifespan appeared before me.

“...Ha.”

So this was how much time I had left.

Bracing myself, I picked up the Skill Stone.

What exactly had I gotten...?

[Skill: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+)]

Borrows the power of sacred radiance to transform the body into light itself. For as long as the skill is maintained, the user takes no damage of any kind and can move in any direction at the speed of light. Casting requires one hour of Mental Concentration. The skill can be maintained for up to ten minutes.

Category: Magic Type

Willpower Consumption: 5,000 per second

Cooldown: 72 hours

“...”

Legendary+ grade.

As I read through the skill description, my eyes widened.

...It was a Magic Type skill that allowed me to move at the speed of light.

Of all things.

I had never imagined I would receive something like this.

‘Hold on.’

[16,254,931/134,217,728km]

Let me calculate this.

The remaining distance was roughly one hundred and twenty million kilometers.

The speed of light was three hundred thousand kilometers per second.

Four hundred seconds.

Less than seven minutes.

That was all it would take to arrive.

The Willpower consumption was monstrous, but that wasn’t a problem.

And the skill could be maintained for up to ten minutes, so...

It was possible.

I could reach the Oasis!

“...Demon King.”

A hollow laugh escaped me as I spoke.

“I think I’ve actually cleared this.”

I had paid a brutally steep price for it.

But either way, this should be enough to clear Floor 8.

– A steep price indeed.

“You can say that again.”

Looking toward the Oasis, I used the Skill Stone.

[You have acquired ‘Skill: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+)’.]

Now to end this.

What I was supposed to do after clearing it was a terrifying problem in its own right...

But for now, I was getting out of here.

Back outside.

I stopped time and began my Mental Concentration.

After completing a full hour of Mental Concentration...

I activated the skill.

Fwoooosh!

My entire body erupted in dazzling golden light.

No.

My body itself became light.

I immediately moved toward the Oasis.

My body shot forward at the speed of light.

“...!”

The scenery around me warped strangely.

Even though I was moving at light speed, somehow my thoughts seemed able to keep pace...

And time itself felt as though it were flowing slowly.

At no point did I lose control of my movement.

Whenever my Willpower ran low, I stopped time and recovered it instantly.

[32,384,923/134,217,728km]

The distance that had once seemed impossibly vast vanished at an unreal speed.

The Oasis that had remained forever beyond my reach like a mirage, no matter how far I traveled...

Now I could actually see it drawing closer.

[53,149,112/134,217,728km]

[79,042,368/134,217,728km]

[104,592,139/134,217,728km]

.

.

.

[134,217,728/134,217,728km]

I released the skill.

I looked at the lake before me.

Sunlight glittered across the surface of the water, turning it gold.

“...Whew.”

The Oasis.

I had reached it.

As the messages appeared before my eyes,

I raised my head and let out a long breath.

[You have successfully cleared Floor 8 of the Nightmare difficulty.]

[Absorbing the power of the floor.]

[Your level has risen.]

[Your level has risen.]

[Your level has risen.]

.

.

.

[Your level has risen.]

[You are the first to successfully clear Floor 8 of the Nightmare difficulty.]

[Moving to the Reward Room.]

.

.

.

[Special Item: Broken Scales of Life]

Offer the user’s lifespan to obtain a reward of equal measure. Anywhere from a minimum of 1% up to a maximum of 99% of the current remaining lifespan may be offered. Once used, the Scales break, and the user’s remaining lifespan is displayed. (This item has already been used.)

Remaining lifespan: 305 days 23 hours 16 minutes 45 seconds