[Current eliminated: 58,942]
The threshold of the massive North Gate was right before them. Go Gyeol’s party, advancing as they twisted the necks and broke the wings of the gargoyles rushing in, finally stepped into the Tower’s shadow.
Just as the darkness of the entrance was about to swallow them, Go Gyeol shouted sharply.
“Kwon Do-geun, spread a curtain over our heads! Thick!”
“Y-yes! <Water Curtain>!”
Kwon Do-geun reflexively stretched out his hand. In his mind, he had already drawn the image of a hero from a film blocking tens of thousands of arrows. Streams of water condensed in an instant and surged above the party members’ heads, forming a massive dome-shaped water barrier.
It was the very moment they fully entered the inside of the gate.
RUMBLE! CRAAASH—!
Blue-white lightning poured down from the ceiling and struck Kwon Do-geun’s Water Curtain head-on.
“Ugh……!”
With a rupturing sound that tore at the eardrums, the curtain shook violently. Water droplets scattered everywhere from the impact of the lightning, and Kwon Do-geun’s arms trembled as if convulsing. But Go Gyeol gave him no time to stop. He had seen the tiles on the floor beyond the curtain twist grotesquely.
“Lee Seong-ha, now! Everyone upward!”
“May the Lord’s blessing lift you high……!”
At the same time as Lee Seong-ha recited the blessing in a benevolent voice, he struck the floor hard with his staff. In that instant, the gravity pressing down on the party members reversed, and their bodies shot up into the air like feathers.
RUMBLE—!
It had been a hair’s breadth. The moment their feet left the ground, the solid-looking hallway floor collapsed entirely downward. From the bottomless cliff below, thousands of sharp silver spears shot upward like the teeth of starving beasts.
“Hiiik!”
Kang Hoon screamed. The blue spear tips passed as if grazing right beneath the soles of their feet as they flew through the air. If not for Lee Seong-ha’s precise gravity manipulation, they would have ended up like hedgehogs.
The five crossed the air and finally slid down onto stable marble flooring beyond the forest of spears.
BANG—!
The moment they set foot down, the massive North Gate behind them closed heavily, shutting out the pandemonium outside.
[Notice: First 10,000 entrants complete.]
What spread before their eyes was the endlessly vast and majestic lobby of the Tower. Dozens of mana chandeliers gave off a gentle light from the ceiling, and all around them, Hunters who had arrived first were gasping roughly.
“……We’re alive.”
Kang Hoon sank onto the floor and squeezed the words out. Lee Seong-ha straightened his priestly robes and returned to his saint-like gentle expression, and Kang Ji-hyun gripped her staff tightly, as if the thrill had not yet faded. Kwon Do-geun did not seem to have the strength to speak and simply sank down where he stood.
Go Gyeol calmly checked his watch and looked back at the entrance. Beyond the gate, screams from tens of thousands of people were still ringing out, but the door granted to them would no longer open.
“You did well.”
Go Gyeol’s gaze swept over the lobby. Thousands of Hunters were sitting on the floor and gasping roughly, and strange things were floating above their heads.
They were not inorganic cameras. They were enormous eyeballs, with bloodshot, twitching muscle tissue, damp eyelids, and pupils that constantly expanded and contracted while scanning their surroundings.
Thousands of grotesque eyeballs clung one by one near each Hunter’s head, watching their every move. At that gaze, which stuck to them obsessively as if it would suck out the host’s very soul, Kang Hoon trembled as though he had goosebumps. But amid that bizarre scenery, Go Gyeol felt a sense of wrongness.
“……As expected, I’m the only one without one.”
Everyone around him had an eyeball following them like a shadow, but only the space above Go Gyeol’s head was clean. As the System had warned, he was not a “voting target,” so even the Tower’s surveillance system treated him like an invisible man.
With coldly sunken eyes, Go Gyeol stared into the air and called the System inwardly.
“System, answer me.”
[Yes. Please speak.]
“All 10,000 Hunters have the Tower’s ‘Eye’ attached to them, but only I’m excluded. That isn’t something possible just because you changed my settings. It means you interfered with the Tower’s rules themselves.”
Go Gyeol’s eyes sharpened.
“I’ll ask. What is your relationship with this Tower? The reason you could exclude me from the Preliminaries voting target list is because you are the Tower’s system itself, or because you have authority even greater than that, isn’t it?”
Go Gyeol was certain. The authority of the Tower he had seen before his Regression had been absolute. If there existed a being capable of manipulating that Tower’s rules, the System could not possibly be an ordinary support tool. Go Gyeol immediately threw out the most fundamental question.
“And one more thing. The Tower descending 2 months earlier than scheduled. Were you involved in that too?”
The causality that had begun diverging from his memories before Regression. If the System was a being capable of even adjusting the timing of the Tower’s descent, then this was not a simple support system, but perhaps the designer of this entire tragedy.
A silence heavy enough to feel oppressive flowed for a moment. At last, the mechanical voice ringing in his head was drier and colder than usual.
[Answer: Your conjecture is false.]
“You deny it?”
[This System is unrelated to the Tower’s operating system, and the timing of descent is a naturally occurring phenomenon caused by the planet’s mana density reaching the critical threshold. In addition, your exclusion from voting was merely a bypass route using the Tower’s ‘blind spot,’ not a direct modification of its laws.]
“Don’t lie. A blind spot alone couldn’t make such a perfect exclusion possible. And reaching the critical threshold? Are you saying causality changed because of my Regression?”
But the System no longer answered. Silence that was neither affirmation nor denial. It was like an unspoken warning not to ask any further.
Go Gyeol clenched his fist and ground his teeth. This unknown System had regressed him, made Lee Seong-ha an exception, and now even let him avoid the Tower’s Eye. It was definitely hiding some enormous truth.
“Go Gyeol-hyung? Why are you staring into empty air so scary like that?”
When Kang Hoon asked cautiously, only then did Go Gyeol loosen his expression. The eyeballs around them were still obsessively watching the party members, rolling their pupils.
“It’s nothing. The next stage will begin soon. Seong-ha, manage your expression. Those eyeballs are broadcasting Hyung’s ‘benevolent’ face nationwide without missing even a second.”
“……Understood, little lamb. The Lord’s Eye is watching over me.”
Lee Seong-ha forced the twitching corners of his mouth upward and answered. Above his head, one eyeball narrowed its bloodshot pupil and approached as if interested.
Go Gyeol raised his head again and looked at the high ceiling of the Tower. It did not matter what the System was hiding. Once he reached the top of the Tower, he would face every truth by force if he had to. Whether that was the owner of the Tower, or this lump of a System whispering inside his head.
[YouTube Live: Hunter World News Real-time Breaking News]
(Viewers: 5.4 million)
“……This is breaking news just in. We have reports that 8,000 Awakened were wiped out in the West Gate area alone. Please look at the screen. Ah, this is too horrific. The gargoyles are tearing apart the limbs of fallen Hunters…… Please, turn the camera away!”
[Live Chat]
RIP_Earth: Did only I see streamer Fire Fist die just now? His head just got ripped off by a gargoyle...
Shadow88: Who were the bastards pushing from behind when the land mines exploded? They’re no different from murderers.
NoMoreTower: Is it really okay to broadcast this? Kids are watching too. It’s too brutal...
Justice: Their screams for help are being broadcast live. The Tower was definitely made by a demon.
[Community: HunterNet - “Real-time Selection Round” Board]
Title: Did you see the situation at the South Gate 5 minutes ago? It was a living hell.
Author: SurvivorX | Views: 1,980,412
Remember the Ares kids, that guild around rank 50? Their shieldbearers formed a formation, but when thousands of gargoyles poured out from the Tower wall, they just got crushed to death. The sound of shields crumpling and bones breaking came through the mic so clearly I almost threw up. I heard the Seoul plaza has rivers made of Hunters’ blood now. 10,000 people? This isn’t selection. It’s slaughter.
[12,492 comments]
Anon1: True... Especially the person who was 10,001st when the gate closed at the end, caught in the gap... Ah, I get chills just thinking about it.
Anon2: But some people did look pretty good even in the middle of that. Did anyone see that strangely relaxed team at the North Gate?
Anon3: Ah, that man wearing priestly robes? He crushed a gargoyle’s head with a staff... He looks kind, but his combat power is seriously insane. Does anyone know his name?
Anon4: The masked guy beside him was no joke either. Lightning was falling, and he blocked it with water... While everyone was screaming, he moved quietly by himself. It was kind of chilling.
Anon5: I thought the man in the suit was scarier. There were corpses lying everywhere around him, but he didn’t blink once and just checked his watch. He doesn’t seem like a Hunter either, but he doesn’t have an eyeball above his head... Seriously, what is he?
[Twitch: Variety Game Streamer ‘Pungwol’ Reaction]
(Viewers: 450,000)
(Staring at the screen with his mouth covered) “……My god. Look over there. The first-generation Hunter famous as ‘Iron Heart’ just got... dragged up by a gargoyle. (Silence) Viewers, I’m sorry. I really can’t commentate this anymore. This isn’t sports. It’s just hell.”
[Chat]
HolyCrap: 60,000 people died in 10 minutes? Does that make any sense?
Fear: The eyeball cameras zooming in on dying people’s faces is seriously disgusting.
Mystery: Huh? Who’s that female Hunter shooting arrows of light? She pierced three gargoyles by herself.
User01: That team keeps showing up from earlier. Priest, Witch, masked guy... It feels like they’re in a different world. Everyone else is despairing, but they look like they’re just out for a walk.