Episode 286 [Tower of Chaos (2)]
It has been 6 months since Kyung-hoon entered the tower.
The world was changing rapidly.
The governnt established an awakened training center in Jamsil and began training new awakened people, and with the increase in the skills of item manufacturers and the developnt of mana engineering, Korea and the United States began to establish a different type of economy than before.
There were many countries that were destroyed during the cataclysm, and many are still suffering, but after the cataclysm, humans were gradually recovering the land.
Fortunately, the monsters could not properly respond to the humans’ counterattack. This was because the high-ranking monsters that were supposed to be the focal point were eliminated first.
This was thanks to the awakened person, who could only deal with high-level monsters by moving through space.
But he didn’t appear often.
People thought he was dealing with monsters out of sight, but in reality, the place he spent most of his ti was a ruined ancient city.
*
Babylon Central Tower.
Since six months ago, the tower has been in a lot of trouble due to intruders.
Quang!
As the mana stone exploded, the entire passageway was engulfed in flas.
Gyeong-hoon, who lifted his cloak to block the heat, frowned when he saw the red-hot gun barrel.
Smoke was rising from the railgun. The gun barrel was unable to remain intact as it continued to fire mana stones at a speed exceeding seven tis the speed of sound.
“Is this gun already at its limit?”
There was no one to repair it, so I reduced its use as much as possible, but it was bound to co to an end soday.
This railgun was also reaching its end.
Kyung-hoon raised his head and looked again at the scene created by the rail gun.
The entire wide and long passageway was covered in flesh and blood.
They were all the remains of high-level monsters.
The number was such that it was difficult to estimate how long it would take if they had been dealt with with a sword.
Kyung-hoon continued to climb the tower for 6 months. After defeating the monsters blocking his way and destroying the nest of the monster dominating the floor, he continued to move forward.
Unfortunately, there were no three paths or shortcuts to climb the tower. The vents were full of unknown man-eating plants, and the ceiling and floor were painted with unknown patterns, so they couldn’t be destroyed.
Kyung-hoon had no choice but to proceed through the stairs and along the passage guarded by monsters.
In six months he saw many monsters and many nests. There were monsters he knew, but there were also many he had never seen before.
Each floor of the tower felt like another world due to the influence of the monsters that lived there. So places were full of tropical rainforests, while others were full of desert ice.
Kyung-Hoon would experience a new world every ti he passed through a floor.
“It’s all good, but the problem is that we don’t know how much is left…”
There were no windows in the tower. Thanks to the altiter, I could see that I had climbed quite a bit, but I had no way of knowing how much further I had to go.
And sotis strange traps appeared.
It rattled.
A huge piece of iron protruded from the end of the passage covered in red blood.
Rumbling.
The iron balls that filled the passage began rolling excitedly toward Kyung-hoon. With chunks of flesh crushed and covered in blood.
It rattled. It rattled.
The iron ball was not one. The iron balls popped out one after another and ran side by side down the passage.
Kyung-hoon looked at the rail gun that was still radiating heat and sighed. It seed difficult to hit a tal ball with a rail gun. It was difficult to cut it with a knife because it stuck to it, and there was no place to escape next to the passage.
Eventually he turned around and started running. It was an operational retreat.
The reason he was climbing the tower for so long was not only because of the monsters that appeared on each floor, but also because of traps that appeared at the right ti.
“Could it be that soone is watching?”
He ran like crazy with an iron ball on his back.
*
The boundary of space where the distant horizon appears round and the sky appears black, not blue.
The last floor of the tower was up there.
High up there, where oxygen was scarce and rain and wind had no effect, the last floor of the tower stood unfinished.
The final level of the tower was a huge hall. Because it wasn’t completed, the ceiling wasn’t covered, but just looking at the gold-glittering walls and floor, its splendor was indescribable at a glance.
Instead of monsters, there were nurous statues standing in the hall. The statues all stood facing the throne inside the hall.
A mummy with visible bones was sitting on a huge throne with a crown on her head.
The mummy was wearing a gorgeous snake-shaped crown with a large jewel embedded in it, but her body could be called a skeleton covered in leather rather than a mummy.
In a hall that seed to have been frozen in ti for thousands of years, there was sothing moving.
A holographic image appeared in front of a mummy wearing a crown. The image of Gyeong-hoon running to avoid the iron ball was unfolding in front of the mummy.
In the video, Kyung-hoon pulls out his sword from subspace. And then he swung his sword at the wall in front. Blades made of mana poured out from the sword and shattered the wall in front.
The sky ca into view and Kyung-hoon jumped out of the wall.
An unexpected situation unfolded, but the mummy did not move at all, like a dead body. Neither the statues nor the huge hall had changed as they had for thousands of years. Only the jewels of the crown worn on the mummy’s head gave off a dull light.
*
Kuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Iron balls bounced out of the large hole in the wall. The giant balls fell into the sea of clouds, making strange noises.
“Is it right above the clouds?…”
Kyung-hoon muttered as he watched the tal balls disappearing into the clouds.
He was clinging to the wall just above the hole. He attached himself to the wall by moving mana in a similar way to Cheongeunchu.
“I’ve taken care of the iron ball, so let’s go again…”
He was about to go back into the hole and looked up.
We reached the top of the clouds, but there was still no end in sight. Kyung-hoon felt at a loss.
“Is there anything left at the end of the tower?”
I didn’t get much useful information while coming up here. The environnt inside the tower changed over a long period of ti, so no murals or hieroglyphs painted on the walls remained.
Instead of records of the past, I only got a lot of mana stones.
Gyeonghoon looked at the outer wall of the tower and his hands and feet attached to the outer wall.
“But there’s no need to go up inside, right?”
There was no reason to fight monsters when there were no records left.
Kyunghoon stood up. He stepped on the wall with both feet and stood perpendicular to it.
A strong wind hit his body, but his legs did not co off the wall.
He took one step at a ti. I started walking.
His body beca faster and faster.
He stepped on the wall and started running. He ran upward.
*
A few days passed like that as the sun rose and the shattered moon rose again.
Gyeonghoon continued to run without even dinsional shifting and was eventually able to reach the top floor of the tower.
Kyung-hoon clung to the outside wall and was out of breath. The air was thin.
I never dread it would be this high. It was clear that if I had climbed inside the tower, I would not have been able to climb all the way up even if I had climbed for several years.
“It’s not an orbital elevator… What were you thinking when you built a tower this tall?”
Moreover, when I looked at the end of the tower, it wasn’t even completed. This was not the end of the height that was originally intended to be made.
Anyway, now that we’ve reached the end, it’s ti to go inside. He checked his weapons and checked his physical condition.
It would have been difficult for an ordinary person to breathe, but as an awakened person, he was able to endure.
“On the contrary, it has beco easier to move.”
Air resistance decreased as it beca difficult to breathe. It seed like it would actually be helpful in battle.
“Well, the sa goes for the other person…”
He took one last deep breath and jumped over the edge of the outer wall.
thud.
As Kyung-hoon landed on the floor, a deafening crash sound echoed through the hall. Due to lack of air, sound could not be transmitted well.
Kyung-hoon frowned at the sight in front of him.
The final level of the tower was a huge hall lined with hundreds of statues.
It was a very ornate hall, but the hall had no roof and its walls were unfinished.
“Is this place also a disaster?…”
But fortunately, there was sothing unusual.
In the distance, on the other side of the hall, I saw a mummy sitting on an ornate throne. It was also a mummy wearing a snake-shaped crown.
“Could it be that this is also the emperor’s tomb? “Anyway, if it’s the emperor’s tomb, there must be sothing left.”
He walked towards the throne.
Jerk. Jerk.
The sound of footsteps rang out.
And at so point, the footsteps stopped.
Kyung-hoon was standing in front of a statue.
It was a statue resembling a snake with horns on its head. Kyung-hoon had seen this statue sowhere else.
The giant earth dragon that erged from the Cheonggyecheon underground and chased him all the way to Busan had the appearance of this statue.
Kyunghoon looked around. The statues all had the appearance of monsters. A giant raven flesh monster crocodile knight. They were all monsters he had seen.
I couldn’t understand. Statues of monsters.
Kyung-Hoon infused mana into the sword.
I couldn’t understand it, but I had no intention of leaving the monster-shaped statues alone.
Mana gathered within Miri and began to shine brightly.
At that mont, an image flew into Kyunghoon’s head.
[Long-ti guest. Radical.]
The fragntary image quickly turned into a sentence.
[A visitor after a long ti is very aggressive.]
It was the first ti I had heard of the completed image. Not an image mixed with emotions, but an image that allows for a full conversation.
[Is this your first ti seeing a proper image? Oh my… I can’t even send images properly. Have my subjects now beco dayti monsters?…]
“Who is talking? Is it a control device?”
I had also heard images from the pyramids. It was an image sent by a type of managent system called a coordinator.
[You an the coordinator. This may be a very rude thought, but it’s been a while since I visited, so please understand. …More than that, there was a coordinator that was still operational.]
It was an image filled with regret, but Gyeong-hoon just raised his sword and looked around.
I couldn’t tell the direction the image was coming from, and I couldn’t feel where the mana was coming from. I couldn’t stop being nervous because I didn’t know where the other person was.
[What are you looking out for there? Co this way. Although the body has beco a skinny mummy, it is possible to welco guests.]
Gyeonghoon looked at the mummy with bewildered eyes. His bony fingers were waving at Kyung-hoon.
The mummy was calling to him.
[I, the last pharaoh of Egypt and the god of the world, welco visitors.]
Clap. Crash. Crash.
Before the mummy finished speaking, all the statues knelt down towards him.
These were not ordinary statues. The statues were all golems powered by mana.
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