Chapter 97: Nightmare, 7th Floor (4)

I tensed as I stepped inside.

What awaited me was an enormous stone stele.

A pentagonal pattern had been carved into the floor, with the stele standing directly at its center.

Thud—

The door slammed shut behind me.

Keeping time frozen, I carefully surveyed the chamber for anything else out of the ordinary.

Only after confirming there was nothing did I release time and approach the stele.

Hummmm.

“...?”

The moment I stopped in front of it, crimson letters began carving themselves across its surface.

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

I read the question and frowned.

What... was this?

I immediately stopped time again.

‘A quiz?’

It had suddenly decided to spring a quiz on me.

The problem was, I had no idea what the answer was.

How many arrows had been fired in the first gate?

How the hell was I supposed to remember something like that?

‘I knew I had a bad feeling about this...’

I had suspected the trial wouldn’t end simply because I killed the boss.

Sure enough, there was another stage waiting for me.

Whatever this was, one thing was obvious.

Nothing good would happen if I answered incorrectly.

I dug through my memories, trying to recall the first gate.

But I hadn’t exactly been counting the arrows one by one while dodging them.

There was no way I could remember the precise number.

Fuck. How am I supposed to know this?

The question was downright malicious.

‘Demon King.’

– I do not know.

The useless Demon King answered the instant I called for him.

...Then there was nothing else I could do.

This wasn’t the kind of problem I could solve by thinking harder.

I would have to guess.

‘Hard had 300, so...’

Stage 1 had probably fired somewhere around that many as well.

What if the number was the same as it had been on Hard?

I released time and gave my answer.

“...Three hundred arrows?”

Was I simply supposed to answer aloud?

The letters on the stele vanished, and another symbol appeared in their place.

[X]

A cross.

Wrong answer.

Crimson light flowed down the stele and filled one of the five points of the pentagonal pattern connected to it.

[100]

A number appeared above the stele as well.

One hundred?

I didn’t know what it represented, but I doubted it meant anything good for me.

New letters appeared across the stele.

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

Another question of the same kind.

So the first one hadn’t been the end of it.

Five gates cleared.

Five questions, then?

One for each gate?

The second gate had been the darkness stage, where all the torches had gone out.

At the end, a barrage of arrows had poured down from the ceiling all at once.

It wanted to know exactly how many there had been.

‘Hah...’

This was truly revolting.

There was no chance I remembered the precise number this time either.

Once again, I had no choice but to trust my instincts.

“Twenty-five arrows.”

Suppressing the urge to scream, ‘How the fuck should I know, you bastard?’ I gave my answer.

[O]

A circle appeared on the stele.

...Huh?

Was that correct?

‘I guessed right.’

Apparently, luck had been on my side.

This time, no crimson light entered the pentagram.

The number above the stele remained unchanged.

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

The third question followed the same pattern.

“Twenty-five arrows.”

I gave the same answer.

[X]

Lightning did not strike twice.

The cross appeared, and crimson light filled another point of the pentagram.

[200]

The number above the stele changed as well.

It had risen by another hundred and now read two hundred.

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

At least the fourth question seemed somewhat manageable.

I tried to reconstruct the sequence of colored arrows in my mind.

The order had begun with blue, purple, red, orange, green...

I remembered it clearly up to the seventh arrow.

After that, things became hazy.

‘Orange? Blue?’

Shit.

Which one had it been?

I was certain the tenth arrow had been one of those two.

– Hmm. Wasn’t it green?

The Demon King inserted himself into my thoughts and made me even less certain.

I ignored him, agonized over the choice, and finally answered.

“Orange.”

[X]

Fuck.

– See? I told you. It was green.

‘...Be quiet.’

Crimson light filled the third point of the pentagram.

The number above the stele became three hundred.

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

The fifth question.

This was probably the last one.

And this one...

This one I knew.

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

The moment I finished answering—

[O]

A circle appeared.

Then the letters vanished from the stele.

No further question followed.

[300]

I stared at the pentagram, three of its five points glowing crimson, then looked up at the number above the stele.

At least I had answered two correctly...

So what happened now?

What did that number mean?

Krrrrk—

The stele trembled.

Cracks began spreading across its surface.

At the same time, the pentagram carved into the floor erupted with brilliant light.

[299]

I stepped back.

Sixth Sense screamed a warning.

An arrow is approaching from the left.

“...?!”

The instant I tried to move, I felt something was wrong.

I stopped time at once.

‘Again?’

The Left-Right Reversal debuff from Stage 3 had returned.

The moment I released time, I planted both hands on the floor and threw myself forward, narrowly avoiding the arrow.

Another one followed immediately.

‘Huh?’

...Oh, fuck.

The moment I saw it, I froze time again.

A blue arrow was flying toward me.

Was this serious?

Were all the mechanics from the gates I had failed being applied at once?

‘I’m screwed.’

How the hell was I supposed to deflect colored arrows with my movements reversed like this?

Even so, I had to try.

I carefully calculated the precise trajectory my sword would need to follow.

After completing Mental Concentration, I drew the blue sword from Subspace and struck the arrow.

Clang!

...I barely made it.

Then a deafening crash shook the room.

I turned toward the sound.

The cracked stele had collapsed completely.

“...!”

What was that?

Something had been hidden inside it.

A humanoid figure, black from head to toe, with a pair of horns protruding from its forehead.

Its appearance immediately brought a single word to mind.

Demon.

‘The boss.’

I knew it the moment I saw it.

The creature, which had stood motionless as though sealed within the stele, opened its eyes.

No.

Wait.

Fuck.

Hold on.

My body was under Left-Right Reversal.

Colored arrows were flying at me.

And in the middle of all that, I was expected to fight a boss as well?

Crimson light flashed in the creature’s eyes.

I stopped time.

There was only one thing to do.

Before the boss could act, I had to strike first with my strongest attack.

I completed Mental Concentration and fired a fully charged Destruction Ray straight at it.

But—

“...?!”

Even after taking the Destruction Ray head-on, the boss did not die.

It wasn’t merely alive.

It was completely unharmed.

There wasn’t so much as a scratch on its body.

I stopped time again.

‘It had no effect?’

There was no way the boss’s raw durability was high enough to withstand a Destruction Ray.

The same attack had worked perfectly well against the 4-Zone boss, which had been at least level 80.

It made no sense for a Floor 7 boss to be far stronger than that.

Then it had to be some kind of gimmick.

An invincibility buff, perhaps?

It might be similar to the invulnerable monster I had encountered while clearing the Sub-Tower.

[291]

I checked the floating number.

Even though the stele had crumbled, the number remained suspended in the air.

The three hundred had fallen to two hundred ninety-one.

It was counting seconds.

‘...Ah.’

At that moment, the entire structure of the Floor 7 boss battle became clear.

‘This is a survival trial.’

I had to dodge the arrows, deflect the colored ones, and survive for three hundred seconds against an invincible boss.

Once the counter reached zero, the boss’s invulnerability would probably disappear.

Or something along those lines.

Had I answered more of the questions correctly, the conditions would have been much more favorable.

But...

‘Fuck.’

Was this even possible?

Whether I could truly survive three hundred seconds under these conditions was questionable.

But what choice did I have except to try?

If I failed, I died.

I released time.

Crash!

The boss charged toward me at tremendous speed.

I dropped to all fours and sprang away, opening some distance between us.

An arrow came from above.

I stopped time again.

Because of this goddamned Left-Right Reversal, I had to freeze time before every movement.

Otherwise, my limbs became hopelessly tangled.

The boss itself was slower than I was.

It seemed to possess little more than an invincibility buff.

Its actual level did not appear especially high.

The sixties, perhaps.

The seventies at most.

Kraboom!

Unfortunately, it could also attack from a distance, launching what looked like black spines.

Handling the boss while avoiding the arrows was every bit the nightmare it sounded like.

‘...This won’t work.’

Fighting the boss while simultaneously deflecting colored arrows was impossible.

I summoned Diul and activated Pitch-Black Fog.

Whooooosh!

Caught within the fog’s area of effect, the boss lost its balance and crashed to the floor.

I narrowed the Pitch-Black Fog as much as possible, trapping the boss within it.

Then I moved outside the fog and continued evading the arrows.

Dodge.

Stop time.

Deflect.

Stop time.

I also used skills to destroy the arrows.

Flame Strike was too slow, so I relied on Lightning Strike and Blade Storm to knock them from the air.

The problem was that the interval between volleys kept shrinking.

Perhaps because this was a boss battle, the rate at which the gaps shortened was even more severe than in the earlier stages.

Before long, several arrows began arriving at once.

What is this?

Hell?

If either Left-Right Reversal or the colored arrows had been absent, this would have been far more manageable.

“...!”

Eventually, I began approaching my limit.

I failed to deflect one of the colored arrows.

The Slow debuff activated, and my body became even more sluggish.

To make matters worse, Diul was nearing his limit as well.

The Pitch-Black Fog restraining the boss was about to disperse.

I stopped time.

[151]

One hundred fifty seconds remained.

I was only halfway through.

If the boss regained its freedom now...

I had no confidence I could endure.

The colored-arrow debuffs would pile up within seconds.

The moment my body became too slow to avoid the arrows, it would be over.

The arrows were hardly going to spare my head out of courtesy.

‘I’m reaching my limit.’

I had been driven into a corner.

What was I supposed to do?

Use my Kalundi citizenship and summon Plli?

Have them occupy the boss for as long as possible?

– Hand it over.

The Demon King’s voice entered my mind.

– Surely you do not intend to remain stubborn even now. Hand it over already.

I asked him,

‘...Can you actually do something about this?’

I still had no clear idea of what the Demon King was capable of.

He scoffed, as though the question itself were absurd.

He had supposedly climbed beyond the twentieth floor of Nightmare, so there was no doubt he was powerful.

The problem was that surrendering my body to him meant giving him control again.

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

The Demon King responded irritably.

– I will return it. Just hand it over.

‘...You mean that?’

What?

He wasn’t lying.

This was the same man who demanded my body every other day.

And now he was suddenly promising to give it back?

– Even if I seized your body under this pretext, you would simply begin that time-stopping nonsense again.

‘Fair enough.’

So, despite refusing to show it, the old man was anxious too.

He was worried that I would die from pushing myself too far.

After all, if I died, he died with me.

If the Demon King truly could get us out of this situation...

Then there was no reason for me to continue risking my life.

‘All right, then...’

It had been nearly a year.

For the first time in that long, I handed control of my body over to the Demon King.

– Release time.

I released it.

The boss tore free of the Pitch-Black Fog and lunged toward me as arrows converged from every direction.

At that moment—

Whoooooooosh—!

A colossal wave of cold exploded outward.

It spread in every direction and froze everything it touched.

The boss.

The arrows.

All of it.

‘...!’

Even though time was flowing, the scene looked exactly as if it had been frozen.

[Willpower: 0/4050]

My willpower dropped to zero in an instant.

“Stop.”

White frost streamed from the Demon King’s mouth as he spoke.

I stopped time again.

...So the Demon King also used my willpower to channel his own power.

Of course he did.

The Demon King continued.

– Restore it yourself whenever it runs out.

‘Understood.’

He clearly knew that I could recover my willpower while time was stopped.

I restored it completely, then released time once more.

The boss remained frozen solid, unable to move even a finger.

The arrows continued to rain down.

This time, the Demon King unfolded something resembling a barrier around us.

At the same time, countless blades of ice appeared in the air.

Krakakakaboom!

The blades tore through the chamber like a raging storm, smashing every incoming arrow to pieces.

Within mere seconds, my willpower was drained again.

I stopped time.

Then we repeated the same process.

Again.

And again.

As time passed, the number of arrows increased exponentially.

But an even greater number of ice blades met them in the air and shattered every last one.

Watching him, it seemed as though the Demon King was casting magic without anything resembling a cooldown.

And because Time Stop prevented my willpower from ever truly running dry, he could continue indefinitely.

There was no chance any arrow would reach me.

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

It did not matter how many Slow stacks accumulated.

I was not moving.

I was simply standing still and casting magic.

There was only one problem.

My body was slowly freezing.

Krrrk.

Cracks spread across my flesh.

Then one of my arms simply broke off and fell to the ground.

Huh?

‘...Demon King?’

When I called out in alarm, the Demon King answered with complete indifference.

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

‘Ah.’

That was... somewhat concerning.

I could survive losing an arm.

But if my head fell off next, I was dead.

[5]

Only five seconds remained.

Soon, the number reached zero.

At that instant, the crimson haze surrounding the boss disappeared.

Its invincibility was gone?

The cold unleashed by the Demon King swallowed the boss whole.

Kraaaaash!

The boss took the attack directly.

Its body shattered into fragments of ice and scattered through the air.

Crack!

At the same moment, my waist split apart.

My upper and lower body separated and fell in opposite directions.

The Demon King clicked his tongue.

– Tch. It cannot even endure low-grade magic.

[You have successfully cleared Nightmare difficulty Floor 7.]

A message appeared before my eyes.

Whatever the cost, the boss was dead.

The floor had been cleared successfully.

I stared blankly at the message.

What was this?

I felt as though I had just received the most absurd 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.]