Even though he rewound time to save her, the sheer volume of “monster memory” he consumed doesn’t fade instantly.
On the way to the fifth stage, his posture is feral, his teeth are bared, and he growls at Janine like a wild animal.
She backs away in horror, realizing that the “hero” saving her is actually a terrifying parasite that becomes more monstrous with every floor they climb.
They finally reach the top.
There are no trees, no gears, no books.
It is a vast, blindingly white coliseum.
In the center stands a glowing gate, but there are no shadows anywhere—the light comes from the floor, walls, and ceiling simultaneously.
The Hollow Quill stands at the center, its mirror-face completely cracked and shattering.
“You have reached the summit, Starved One.
You stand at the edge of freedom, yet you have never been more empty.
Look around you.
The light is absolute.
It leaves no shadow.
Your hunger is useless here.”
“Hear the final parameters of Phase V: The Gate of the Mirror-Keeper.
The Warden of Aethelgard is a being of pure radiance.
To open the exit, the gate demands a toll.
It does not want gold, nor magic.
It requires the ‘weight of a soul’ to balance the scale.”
“The light will only let one of you pass through.
If you both step forward, the gate remains shut forever.
One must stay behind in the dark, or one must consume the other.
Your memory is gone, your body is broken, and your time is up.
Who steps into the sun?”
Janine looks at Monster; she no longer trusts him because he is behaving even worse than in the third phase.
Monster begins and enters the entire room, which is a blinding, stark-white coliseum.
The floor, walls, and ceiling are made of pure, glowing crystal.
There are zero shadows.
He can see the Warden of Light—a faceless entity made of pure, searing radiance that moves near the speed of light.
The Warden of Light speaks up: “The exit gate requires a great energetic sacrifice to restore balance—the weight of a human soul.
The gate only opens wide enough for one person to slip through.
If two people try to enter, it locks.”
Janine followed Monster, whereupon the Warden of Light revealed the truth to her: “Did you know that your companion can turn back time?
He has used it several times to save you from dying, and now look what you have done to this young man.
He completely lost his own identity when he saved you.”
Janine’s legs gave way, tears streamed down her face; after condemning Monster, she didn’t even dare to look at him.
“N-no…
this can’t be happening, can it?
It’s not my fault…
I had no idea he could turn back time.”
She could still hear Monster growling at the Warden and her.
He had completely lost his identity while trying to free them both.
Enraged and heartbroken, Janine decides to plunge into the energy core of the gate to sacrifice herself so that the “monster” can leave.
Monster regained consciousness after becoming this monster and considered how he could overcome the fifth phase without sacrificing anyone, because he still needed Janine in case he got lost in the outside world.
Monster’s thoughts raced through his mind: “Perhaps I can sacrifice myself and then turn back time?
Or I could try to defeat the Warden of Light, or position Janine in front of it to create some kind of shadow by having her get close?
Or perhaps I could try to open the exit by creating a paradox that this tower can’t handle?
But I don’t possess any paradoxical abilities, do I? This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Or wait, I do; I just need to know how to use them properly.”
Before Janine could sacrifice herself, she heard the sound of something being smashed or struck with a blow.
She looked around and saw it.
Her face instantly darkened at the sight.
Monster violently strikes his own limbs with his fists, spraying his own blood into the air.
In the blinding light of the Warden, the drops of blood suspended in the air cast thousands of tiny, chaotic shadows onto the ground.
Monster instantly devours his own blood shadows, gaining a massive adrenaline rush and triggering a save state the same moment he grabs Janine.
The temporal paradox of rewinding the room while consuming his own future blood breaks the tower’s programming, forcing the main gates to shatter open.
The Warden of Light is surprised.
His last words, before they both left, were: “It seems you’ve figured out how the tower works, but remember that you couldn’t save everything; your friendship is now broken as well.
You will be left alone and can’t always trust everyone.”
They both tumble out of the tower into the outside world, alive.
But the friendship is completely dead.
Janine knows he manipulated her destiny across the floors, and Monster, as the Warden of Light had predicted, was badly injured and left completely alone.
Janine left; he was alone.
She found her group and never wants to see Monster again.
Monster couldn’t believe it.
He had hurt himself, created a paradox, and died countless times, all to help Janine escape.
And now she was leaving him?
Just as Monster’s legs began to give way, it started to rain, so he crawled under a tree to rest and lean against it.
Monster didn’t understand why all this was happening to him, but he felt too exhausted to think about it.
After a few hours, Monster woke up and realized it was still dark.
So he went back to sleep, unaware that there might be monsters nearby.
After a few hours, he woke up again, and it was still dark outside.
Now he felt a little afraid.
Did this world perhaps have a sun, but it had disappeared?
But he remembered that Janine’s memories also contained sunny days.
So the sun did exist.
Why was it still night then?
Monster then examines his wounds and notices that they have not yet healed and look exactly as they did when he came out of the tower – still quite fresh and still bleeding.
“What the hell?
I feel like I’ve slept for almost a whole day, so why are my wounds still so fresh and why is it night?” Monster muttered to himself.
Monster tried to get up, but more blood flowed from his injuries, whereupon he groaned in pain: “Damn, that hurts…”
He tried to think about why it was still night.
He now knows why it is still night: “Could it be…?
Did I unconsciously activate save state because I died of blood loss in my sleep?”
He forced himself to stand up and then looked for others to get help for his injuries.
He walked and walked, it seemed to him that he would never find anyone, until he saw a little girl crying under a tree.
He walked up to her and sat down next to her to catch a glimpse of her face.
“Everything alright, little one?” asked Monster, to which the girl looked up at him with a sly smile.
“Now that you’re here, I’m fine,” she said to Monster as her body grew into a woman’s.
Monster’s forehead began to sweat, his face darkened.
“Don’t tell me you’re Abigail…”
Her smile widened and became more malicious: “It seems you’ve heard about me.
This could be fun, don’t you think?
And if you know me, you also know that I’m not alone.”
Monster felt the urge to flee, but in his condition escape was impossible: “So you’re all here…?”
Then another person spoke from the shadows: “Yes, indeed, we are all here to kill you, in case you haven’t figured that out yet.”
One of them was Janine, who looked at Monster with disgust.
She had clearly instigated her group to kill him.
“W-why?
Why are you doing this, Janine?
I saved you countless times in this tower!
Why do you want me dead now?!
I haven’t done anything to you!” Monster screamed at her.
He felt even more betrayed than when she had left him, because betraying the one who had saved her simply felt wrong.
Even more wrong was the fact that she wanted to kill him.
Perhaps she saw him as a monster because she didn’t know his true self.
The Warden of Light had definitely told her that he had been suffering from amnesia all along.
Janine remained silent; it was clear that she did not want to talk to him because she believed Monster would try to manipulate her by making her feel guilty so that she would let him live.
One of her friends was annoyed by Monster talking so much, so they shot him with a lightning arrow, which he easily dodged because he had used save state before and therefore knew every move they made.
Then the woman from before tried to stab him with a knife.
He tried to dodge, but slipped and fell backward, breaking his left knee but fortunately not being stabbed.
He knows he can use save state, but using it too often would tire him out too quickly.
He tried to find out if the save state system could reappear, but unfortunately nothing happened, so he had to rely on predicting their attacks and winning despite his severely injured condition.
He adopted a sluggish posture and tried not to move too much, as he could die from blood loss if he lost too much blood again.
It was now five against one; he was clearly outnumbered.
Monster had to eat their shadows so he could defeat them with ease, but he can’t eat their shadows when it’s dark, so he has to get the one who fired the lightning arrow to do it again so he can eat as many shadows as possible in that millisecond.
Monster managed to get back into sight, thereby exposing himself to an attack.
But instead of being struck by the lightning arrow, he was hit by a giant hammer from the left, this time by a young girl who said, “Oh, did you really think we’d let you devour our shadow?
You know Janine told us EVERYTHING about your abilities, right?”
Monster was thrown through the trees and felt himself being pulled in different directions by something.
He began to spit blood, his skin turned pale from the heavy blood loss, and he was hurled over the clouds into the night sky.
“Shit…
they have this gravity manipulator on their team…” The gravity manipulation stops and Monster falls to Earth.
He starts to think on how to survive the fall by using calculations “Landing on a slope reduces impact because I’d glide forward instead of stopping instantly, which redirects the vertical force into horizontal forward momentum.
So I basically have to be in a 45° slope, cos(45°) ≈ 0.707.
This means I’d only absorb 70.7% of the total force perpendicular to the ground, resulting in a 29.3% reduction in direct crushing force.”
He gave it his best, trying to glide perfectly and then land on the ground exactly as he had calculated.
He made it, but it hurt like hell because of his broken left knee, but at least he was able to reduce the damage to 29.3%, which is better than suffering 100% of the possible fall damage.
He looked around to see where he was.
He felt an agonizing hunger, and as the sun rose, he set out in search of shelter, but his body returned to Janine’s group.
His inner self refused to give up, and with the sunrise, his chances of victory had significantly increased.
He found Janine and her group eating, enjoying themselves and not caring that they had almost killed him.
Janine went to urinate, so he followed her.
Instead of immediately eating her shadow, he waited until she started urinating, because that’s when she was most vulnerable, as she couldn’t defend herself while urinating.
That’s a pretty clever move, since he knew how insecure Janine is about her body.
He wasted no time talking, but went behind her, devoured her shadow, gathered more memories of her and their groups shared plans, and then returned to see whose other shadow he could devour.
He hid behind a tree and then said in Janine’s voice: “Abigail, I urgently need help, I accidentally soiled my underwear.”
Then Abigail arrived, but not alone.
She had brought Nina, the girl with the giant hammer, because she had a feeling it wasn’t Janine, since Janine didn’t speak so formally.
For Monster, it didn’t matter whether Nina was there; he would still win even if injured, since the forest is perfect for surprise attacks.
He stunned Abigail with a single, fluid movement, then snapped Nina’s neck until he devoured their shadows and their bodies vanished from the world.
Now they are forgotten by all.
The reason they thought of Janine was that they couldn’t really remember her either, but his voice awakened vague memories in them.
Yes, Monster is able to remind others of their loved ones or friends by using their voices or talking about them.
There were only two left, but he planned to rest before eating their shadows next, so he lay down under a tree to sleep.