Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability - Chapter 124

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 124

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Nightmare Floor 9 (2)

The blinding light made me flinch for a moment.

I stopped time.

Unlike the other boulders, this hadn't produced a monster.

Two objects sat visible within the light.

One was a scroll. The other was a golden ring.

In other words... anyone looking at it would call it a circlet of Gingoa.

I released time.

The instant I did, the Circlet of Gingoa in front of me vanished. It happened in the blink of an eye.

"...?"

Something felt off on my head.

I touched my forehead and found a metal ring sitting there.

What the hell was this...

I didn't even need a mirror to know what had happened.

'Did the Circlet of Gingoa just put itself on my head?'

Half stunned and half tense, I checked the remaining object, the scroll.

I unrolled the rolled-up scroll...

Black ink writing on white paper.

[Mortal being, if you wish to earn Gingoa's approval, swallow the Essence of Gold.

If you earn Gingoa's approval, the stone monkeys will crown you their king.

If you fail to earn Gingoa's approval, Gingoa shall take your life as the price of your greed.

If Gingoa is destroyed, one million stone monkeys shall all awaken.]

...What was this now.

I read through the whole thing and thought it over.

Was earning Gingoa's approval the clear condition for this floor?

And to do that, I had to swallow something called the Essence of Gold.

Creeeak-

Right then, the Circlet of Gingoa on my forehead tightened.

I frowned and fumbled at the circlet.

Was this thing going to keep tightening bit by bit?

If failing to earn its approval meant Gingoa would take my life... that better not mean my head was going to burst.

"Damn it."

I tried forcing the circlet off with brute strength.

Of course, it didn't budge.

Not just because it was tight around my forehead. Some unknown force was clearly at work here.

I read through the scroll's text again.

For now, I had no choice but to do what it said.

But what the hell was the Essence of Gold?

And where was I supposed to find it... hm?

A faint noise reached me, and I turned to look down the mountain.

Boulders were cracking open one after another on their own, and monkeys were bursting out.

Screech- Shriek-

Something like dozens of monkeys started climbing up the mountain.

I readied for combat.

I hurled Flame Barrage after Flame Barrage at the swarming monkeys.

Kwaaaaang!

I laid down Searing Zone and Frost Mist in different spots.

I summoned the Sword of Light and cut through the monkeys as I moved among them.

A lot of them had gathered, but not enough to overwhelm me.

I skipped the long-cooldown Destruction Beam and Hellfire, using only the other spells to whittle the monkeys down.

But fighting them wasn't the hard part...

I needed to solve the Circlet of Gingoa problem instead of just standing here fighting.

Killing the monkeys wasn't the end of it, either. Dozens more kept swarming in.

The boulders were endless, so new ones kept spawning.

"...?"

Then, off in the distance among the monkeys, something odd caught my eye.

Unlike the others with silver fur, one had gold fur, standing alone.

Wait, could that be it?

A thought came to me instantly, that it had to be connected to this Essence of Gold thing.

Unlike the other monkeys charging at me like their eyes had rolled back, the gold monkey stood still off to one side, not moving at all.

'Diul.'

I dropped the fight and called on Diul to go invisible.

The moment I vanished from sight, the charging monkeys all froze at once.

I slipped past the monkeys looking around for me and headed down the mountain.

I moved in close toward the gold monkey, which sat scratching its head on a broken boulder.

But once I'd closed to about thirty meters...

Screech-!

The gold monkey turned toward me, looking startled, and bolted.

...What? Had it noticed me?

'Sharp instincts on this one?'

I'd been spotted before, back during the Floor 4 hidden route, so I didn't panic.

Seeing it flee instead of attacking, this had to be the right one to catch, didn't it?

I immediately chased after the fleeing gold monkey. My invisibility broke the moment I picked up speed.

'Disgustingly fast.'

The fleeing gold monkey's speed was faster than I'd imagined.

A different league of speed compared to the other monkeys.

Still, I was a little faster... ugh, annoying as hell.

The other monkeys started blocking my path, getting in the way on purpose.

Not bothering to deal with them, I leaped upward.

I ran through the air on Air Step, closing in tight behind the gold monkey.

The distance narrowed again, and I fired Flame Barrage at its back...

Kwang! Kwaaang!

The gold monkey dodged every fireball, weaving in a zigzag with startling agility.

I was a little dumbfounded.

Did this thing have something like my Sixth Sense too?

The absurdity didn't stop there.

Wings suddenly burst out through the gold monkey's back, and it took off flying into the sky.

"Wow."

What was this, some kind of chimera?

I let out a short laugh at the sight, then bent my knees.

Did it think flying would let it escape?

Kwang!

I used Air Step and my leap skill together, launching myself high into the air.

Chaining Air Step after that, I closed the gap on the gold monkey in an instant with explosive leg strength.

It looked back, its face twisted with shock.

Being a monkey, its expressions came through almost like a person's.

"Go on, then."

Slash!

I cut clean through the gold monkey's neck with the Sword of Light.

Red blood sprayed out as the gold monkey's head and body dropped separately toward the ground.

I followed it down.

I landed and checked over the gold monkey's corpse.

"..."

Nothing?

I'd figured killing it would drop the Essence of Gold or something.

Nothing happened at all.

What was this... what was I even supposed to do?

Creeeak-

Right then, the Circlet of Gingoa tightened again.

Even harder than before.

"Ugh."

Gritting my teeth against the pain, which had started to feel like something real now.

Before I knew it, monkeys had swarmed around me again.

I fought them off, then stopped time for a moment to think.

'Are there more gold monkeys?'

Maybe I had to kill every gold monkey to get the Essence of Gold.

This had to be a time attack.

The longer it dragged on, the more the circlet would keep tightening.

I had to find the Essence of Gold and swallow it fast, before my head burst.

I released time.

I went back up into the air without fighting.

Ignoring the monkeys howling in rage below, I searched for gold monkeys.

I kept flying around searching like that, but...

No more gold monkeys showed up.

My mind started to race with urgency.

I had no idea what I was even supposed to do.

While flying around the rocky mountain, something caught my eye.

"...!"

Partway up the mountainside.

A cave, hidden behind brush.

I dropped down right away, holding onto a sliver of hope.

I cleared the monkeys out and went inside.

Past a dark passage, light was leaking out from somewhere further in.

'...This?'

A spirit flask sitting atop a large pattern that looked like a magic circle.

Sixth Sense gave no danger reading.

I approached the flask carefully.

I picked it up and examined it.

Empty inside. Nothing in it.

Shriek-!

While I was checking it, the monkeys outside had followed me into the cave.

Disgustingly annoying, seriously.

I gritted through the headache and got ready to fight again.

Then, the moment one monkey stepped inside the magic circle...

Whoosh!

Black energy suddenly ripped out of the monkey like a soul being torn free, and got absorbed into the flask I was holding.

"...?!"

The monkey withered up instantly and collapsed.

Seeing that, the other monkeys froze and wouldn't set foot inside the circle.

Startled too, I looked inside the flask.

A pitch-black liquid sloshed inside it.

'What is this.'

What had just happened?

I turned the situation over in my head, then it hit me.

'The Essence of Gold...'

This was it.

I had to bring the gold monkey here and let the flask absorb it!

Splash.

I poured the liquid out of the flask onto the ground.

This black liquid, which looked like it'd wreck your stomach if you drank it, obviously wasn't the Essence of Gold.

Monkeys were blocking the passage.

I fired a fully charged Destruction Beam, wiped them all out in one shot, then pushed out of the cave.

No time to waste.

I had to drink the Essence of Gold before my head burst.

I remembered where the gold monkey's corpse was.

I ran through the sky and rushed back there, grabbing the corpse.

'Demon King-nim, help!'

- Tch.

The body was so big it wasn't easy to carry.

I handed my body over to the Demon King, who froze the gold monkey's corpse briefly, floated it in the air, and flew back to the cave.

Back to the flask with the gold monkey in tow.

I thawed the corpse out and threw it into the magic circle.

But...

"...?"

Nothing.

The flask showed no reaction at all.

What, don't tell me... single-use?

'...No, wait.'

Flustered, I turned around and looked at the monkeys that had swarmed into the cave again.

I summoned Pli and had it drag one over.

Screech-!

Pli bit down on a monkey and dragged it into the magic circle.

Just like before, the flask reacted and drained the monkey's energy.

I stared blankly at the black liquid inside the flask.

Then a sudden ugly thought crossed my mind, and I swallowed hard.

'No way.'

Don't tell me... it can't be a dead one?

Did I need to bring it in alive?

Creeeak-

"Aaargh...!"

Right then, the circlet on my head tightened again.

A pain like my skull was splitting apart.

Something ran down from my head. Blood.

I kept Skin Hardening active the whole time, but it did nothing.

It had dug clean through the flesh, nearly reaching bone.

I staggered and stared at the gold monkey's corpse.

I tried tapping the flask against its head, tried stuffing it inside its mouth, tried everything. Still nothing.

...Was I screwed?

I stopped time for now.

The headache faded, and I could think more clearly.

Of course, being screwed didn't change no matter how clearly I thought about it.

There was no bringing a dead thing back to life.

Ah, damn it...

I should have been more careful...

If the enemy fled like it was practically begging to be hunted down and killed, I should have been suspicious of that too.

Like in a game, killing a monster drops loot. My mind had jumped to that biased assumption the instant I saw the gold monkey, thinking killing it would drop something.

I didn't feel particularly wronged by it.

This wasn't the first time Nightmare had pulled something this petty and filthy.

The fault was mine, for not being paranoid enough.

Like I'd already confirmed, there were no more gold monkeys.

Probably just the one I'd killed.

Still, I couldn't give up like this, so I hurried back out of the cave.

Enduring the throbbing pressure in my head, I flew through the sky, eyes burning as I searched desperately for gold.

But there was nothing.

I stopped time again, hanging in midair.

I could feel it instinctively.

The circlet had one more tightening left before it was over.

'...Demon King-nim, what do I do?'

I asked for his opinion.

- What's there to ask. You're screwed.

The Demon King had picked up my own refined vocabulary.

Ha, damn it, damn it, damn it.

Even with the Frozen Hydra's ability, I'd die if my head burst.

Was this really how it ended, I wondered...

Then something occurred to me.

'Radiant Incarnation.'

[Skill: Radiant Incarnation (Legendary+)]
Borrows the power of sacred radiance to transform the body into light. While the skill is active, no damage can be received, and omnidirectional movement at the speed of light becomes possible. Casting requires 1 hour of mental concentration. The skill can be maintained for up to 10 minutes.
Type: Magic
Willpower Cost: 5,000 per second
Cooldown: 72 hours

Using Radiant Incarnation would turn my body into light, putting me in a state where I couldn't take any damage.

So the moment the circlet tightened again... what if I used Radiant Incarnation right then?

Even a Legendary+ grade skill, could it possibly shrug this off too?

There was no other way.

Worth a shot.

I released time.

And waited for the circlet's final tightening.

Since it was a life-or-death situation, Sixth Sense would definitely trigger right before it happened.

Time passed...

Creak-

'...Now!'

The instant Sixth Sense triggered.