And in that instant.
-WOOOOOO....
A red light wavered among the scattered rock fragments.
-RUMBLE, RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE....
The rocks fused back together,
and the Golem rose again.
Its eyes
stained red.
“...What?”
-THUD, GRAB!
I kicked off the ground, got up, climbed toward the core again, and seized the bastard’s core in my hand.
-CRACK—!
Then I put strength into my grip and broke it.
-SHATTER—!
At that, the light in the Golem’s eyes went out again, and the rocks that had formed the giant’s body collapsed once more.
-RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE, RUMBLERUMBLE—!
Again.
-...RUMBLE....
“Fuck....”
-RUMBLE. RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE....
It rose.
“Something’s wrong with this.”
I sensed it.
This bastard.
It had literally become ‘Immortality.’
Sure enough.
[ Ring! ]
[ Death Detection Skill activates! ]
[ Target has absorbed the Curse of Immortality! ]
The notification window appeared.
-CRASH—!!!
A rock fist with speed behind it smashed straight down on me and turned me into pulp.
“Kuh!”
Soon, after taking form and reviving, I stared at the bastard.
Strange.
That bastard.
It hadn’t been this fast.
It had gotten faster than before.
...In other words.
“...Did it take Overcoming Death too?”
But it was fine.
As long as I reduced any more useless killing, Overcoming Death would not activate.
...That was what I thought.
-CRASH—!
The bastard’s fist flew at me again, struck its own stone body, and broke its core by itself.
“What...?!”
-SLIDE, RUMBLE....
For an instant, the red light in its eyes went out, and the rocks seemed about to collapse.
-FLASH—!
Then its red eyes lit up again, and it firmly pulled the rocks back together.
“You crazy bastard, isn’t suicide going too far?”
Because of its unstable form, the Golem broke its own core every time it threw a punch.
Thanks to that, the bastard had become a bizarre monster that attacked on its own and grew stronger every time.
-CRASH—!
An attack that had been dodgeable.
-CRASH—! CRASH—!
Before I knew it, it had become fast enough for two blows to fly within the same span of time.
Soon, those two punches—
-CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
Had become fast enough to turn into a barrage.
“Damn it!”
Death.
Death.
Death.
Death!
Was it because of base stats?
My movements could not keep up with the bastard’s speed of Overcoming Death, and soon I was allowing its fists to strike me again and again.
-CRASH—!
A rock fist launched by a lump of rock.
Needless to say, every single hit killed me once.
“Fuck!”
In an instant, death repeated dozens of times.
[ Overcoming Death activates! ]
[ Stats rise dramatically! ]
A notification rang out, saying my stats had risen, but it was meaningless.
I didn’t know the bastard’s weakness, and the bastard couldn’t kill me.
At this rate—
‘We’ll keep killing each other forever without accomplishing anything.’
-CRASH—!
As if cutting off my thoughts, another lump of rock came flying.
“Kuh!”
After my limbs burst apart, I stood up while my arms and legs wriggled back out from my torso, then turned and started running away first.
“Damn it! There’s no way!”
Attacking was not allowed.
No, it was allowed, but it was meaningless.
The bastard was already self-destructing every time it attacked.
Giving it any more Overcoming Death stats would be no different from helping the enemy.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it...!”
...I remembered the Wraith Soldiers from the 15th floor.
Death Detection.
“Do something, anything, fuck!”
As if answering that shout—
[ Death Detection activates! ]
[ Scent of death detected. ]
“That’s right!”
[ Scent of death detected from the Immortal Golem’s core. ]
“Fuck!”
That was information I already knew.
I knew the bastard’s weakness, and I knew how to kill it.
What I didn’t know was ‘how to keep the bastard from coming back to life.’
I was climbing the tower because I didn’t know that, and yet I had to figure it out in order to clear the floor.
There was no joke more rotten than this.
-CRASH—!
“Guh, huuk!”
While I was distracted by other thoughts for a moment, the bastard’s fist flew horizontally and struck me, bursting my back, spine, and organs apart.
-BOOM—!
After flying far away and crashing into a ruined building, I restored my body and closed my eyes, then opened them again.
“Why does this hurt so much?”
After I gained Pain Numbness, I had been able to take attacks to some degree without too much trouble, but the bastard’s attacks hurt strangely, as if they were stabbing straight into my brain.
Was this also because it had absorbed the ‘Curse of Immortality’?
I didn’t know the details, but even just because I didn’t want it to hurt, I refused to keep taking hits anymore.
“I don’t know anymore, fuck...!”
-CRASH—!
Using the stats strengthened by Overcoming Death, I kicked off the ruins and flew straight toward the bastard.
-GRAB!
I seized its center.
-CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
Then I repeatedly smashed its core with my fist several times.
I had clearly just resolved not to raise its Overcoming Death stats any further, but perhaps I was grasping at straws, or perhaps my reason had collapsed once more from the continuous deaths.
-CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
With my pupils half-unfocused, I kept smashing the core.
-WOOOOOO....
But soon, the Golem’s eyes turned even redder.
-CRASH—!
“Guh!”
As if shaking me off while I clung to it, it struck down.
-RATATATACRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! BOOM—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
Then it began pounding me indiscriminately at a speed impossible even to track.
“Guh, huuk.”
I was disassembled in the air and reassembled.
New flesh and bone sprouted again and again.
-RATATATA—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—!
Before I could even land on the ground, I was dying several more times.
This was bad.
“Kegh, keh-luck! Cough!”
This bastard
had become absurdly strong.
-BOOM—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRASH—! CRUNCH—!
What the hell am I supposed to do?
-CRASH—! CRUNCH—! BOOM—! CRASH—!
How do I sever the bastard’s ‘loop of Immortality’?
Could that... become a clue to my curse?
-SLIDE....
The bastard, which had been firing punch after punch at me in the air, raised its hand high.
-CRASH—!!!!
Then it struck down hard toward the ground.
-CRASH—! CRASH—!! CRASH—!!!
I smashed through the ruined ceiling and the floor after it, one after another, and was driven into the ground.
My ruined body slowly restored itself.
“Kuh... fuck....”
I was no match for it.
My body, which grew stronger the more I died, could not keep up with the speed at which the bastard grew stronger the more it died.
And I, who was climbing the tower to sever the loop of the curse, still did not know how to sever that loop.
-WOOOOOO....
The Golem slowly walked toward me, its red eyes shining.
Its eyes, and the core red like those eyes.
At that moment.
“...!”
I looked at my leg, now fully healed,
and one message window came to mind.
‘fuses with the blood of the ‘Curse of Immortality’.’
“...My... blood?”
And in that instant.
[ Ring! ]
[ Death Detection activates! ]
[ Death count has exceeded a certain threshold! ]
Notification windows appeared in succession.
[ Skill: Blood Retrieval acquired! ]
I had acquired a new Skill.
And in that instant.
-SLITHER.
“...!”
My bloodstains, smeared all over the floor.
That scattered blood trembled faintly.
“...Blood... Blood Retrieval.”
When I activated the Skill—
-SLITHER, SLITHER, SLITHER....
The puddles of blood slowly approached me, like a swarm of caterpillars crawling toward me.
-CREEP....
When they touched my skin, they were absorbed cleanly like skin lotion and vanished.
“...?”
So.
What am I supposed to do with this?
The moment I thought that—
-BOOM! CRASH—!!!
“Kuh?!”
The Golem’s fist broke through the wall and sent me flying into the air once again.
-CRUNCH—!
I landed with my back smashing into the ruined ceiling and rolled across the floor.
“Haa, haa. Fuck!”
-CRASH—!
In frustration, I struck the ground and glared at the bastard.
I had already spent more than enough time dying without resisting on the 1st floor of the tower.
“At this rate, I’ll be too pissed off to accept it. No, I can’t accept it!”
-TAP!
I got up from the floor, stood straight, and surveyed the battlefield.
The scenery of the wide floor.
The buildings, which had already been ruins to begin with, were now more than half destroyed.
-THUD, THUD....
And at the center of it, the Golem was walking toward me slowly and precisely.
And....
“...!”
Between the moss, in the cracks of the broken stones of the ruins, on the floor, on the ceiling.
Everywhere on this floor.
Everywhere.
There was my blood.
Then, then....
On ‘the bastard’ too.
On ‘the bastard’s’ ‘core’ too.
Wasn’t my blood still there?
-SNAP!
Hesitation slowed action.
I had no time, and I had no knowledge.
I stretched both arms toward the Golem approaching me and shouted.
“Blood Retrieval!”
And the first thing I saw after that was—
-CLATTER!
the Golem, which had been walking just fine, staggered for a moment.
-THUD!
As if being pulled by something,
it lost its balance and dropped to one knee on the floor.
-RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLERUMBLE....
In that state, it dragged itself across the floor, scraping as it came toward me.
“...What?”
And second.
-CREEP....
I could feel it.
Through sound, through vibration, and instinctively.
‘All of my blood existing on this floor’ was gathering and coming toward me.
I didn’t really know what effect this would have,
but one thing was certain: ‘my blood,’ scattered throughout these ruins, was returning to me.
-SPLASH, SPLASH, SPLASH....
The blood that had flowed from my body after I died hundreds, thousands of times—
-...SURGE....
Became a pool of blood.
No.
-...SURGE...!!
It became a sea of blood and began rushing toward me.
I was standing at the top of the ruins.
“Th-this fucking...!”
-SPLAAAAASH!!!!
I took the waves of that sea head-on.
***
A floor lined with ruined buildings.
[ Ring! ]
[ Reached the 25th floor of Namyangju Tower No. 2! ]
“Hmm— the 25th floor. Is this the floor where ‘that bastard’ is?”
Oh Yuk-il entered the 25th floor of the tower slowly, still spinning his knife with a relaxed attitude.
“No matter what comes out, I’ll overtake him with this floor.”
Oh Yuk-il had grounds for his confidence.
Only two days had passed since he began the Namyangju Tower No. 2 subjugation.
He had finished subjugating up to the 20th floor,
and today, the third day, the morning had not even passed yet, but he had already climbed to the 25th floor.
Since the notification for Yoo Da-huin completing the subjugation of the 25th floor had not sounded yet, he had to still be on this floor.
“I’ll hurry up, overtake the bastard, climb higher, and collapse the tower.”
Then he would take Yoo Da-huin.
Oh Yuk-il flicked his tongue and smiled wickedly.
“Now then. What monster might our dear ‘Curse of Immortality’ be subjugating right now?”
-WHIRL—!
He spun the knife in his hand once,
and just as he was about to slaughter whatever appeared in an instant—
[ Error! ]
“...Huh?”
Oh Yuk-il was an SS-grade Hunter with nearly ten years of experience.
A notification with words he had never seen before appeared in front of his eyes.
“Error?”
And then.
[ Hidden Boss of the 25th floor of the tower – Immortal Golem has appeared! ]
[ Subjugation begins! ]
“...Hidden Boss?”
Before the eyes of Oh Yuk-il, another Climber of the tower.
-RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE....
The Immortal Golem appeared as well.
“Hidden Boss? What the hell is this now?”
Oh Yuk-il stared hard at the notification window, at words he had never seen in his life.
-THUD... THUD....
Then he looked at the Golem approaching with rumbling footsteps.
“...What did that bastard do?”
The stench of blood was thick in its red eyes.
The fishy smell of blood vibrated through the air, enough to cover the damp moisture of the ruins.
“Well, does it matter?”
The time it took that bastard to catch the Wolf King was 90 hours.
The time it took Oh Yuk-il was 30 seconds.
There was nothing to compare.
However that bastard had encountered such a boss on this floor,
and however much he was struggling—
Oh Yuk-il was an SS-grade Hunter.
The bastard’s movements were nothing....
And in that instant.
“!”
The Immortal Golem vanished from Oh Yuk-il’s sight in an instant.
“Wh-what?”
-FLASH—!
Before he knew it, when he came to his senses, it had appeared in front of him and was raising its fist to the side.
-CRASH—!!
“...Guh, huuk?!”
With just one blow.
-CRUNCH—!!
It struck Oh Yuk-il from the side and hurled him into the wreckage of the ruins.