WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 175: Nightmare, Floor 16
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I entered Floor 14 to test my newly acquired skill.
[Skill: Blood Frenzy (Epic+)]
Pushes the body into a rampage at its limits. For 30 minutes, physical abilities are doubled and regenerative power greatly increases.
Stamina consumption greatly increases while the skill is active.
Classification: Physical-Type
Willpower Cost: 500
Cooldown: 24 hours
Blood Frenzy.
A Physical-Type buff skill that enhanced physical abilities and regenerative power.
The effect was simple, but the stat boost was enormous, as expected of an Epic+ skill. It doubled them.
Of course, unlike Enhancement, it was not passive and only lasted 30 minutes.
There was also the penalty of greatly increased stamina consumption while it remained active.
Hissss-
When I activated the skill, a red haze rose from my entire body.
It felt as though power was boiling up inside me, ready to explode.
I looked at the swarm of ants rushing toward me.
Then I went on a proper rampage against them.
Kraaaash!
I was currently Level 187 after clearing Floor 15.
With my physical abilities doubled on top of that, my strength was utterly overwhelming.
The ant monsters had already been little more than trash mobs, but now they were swept away as if I were fighting real ants.
Since the power of Physical-Type skills scaled with my physical abilities, Fatal Strike was much stronger when I tried it as well.
‘It definitely wears me out fast.’
After rampaging for around ten minutes, my stamina was already starting to run low.
By the time the 30-minute duration ended, I felt like I would be completely exhausted.
I used Life Devourer.
As I absorbed the vitality of the dead ants, my stamina quickly recovered to full.
If there were many enemies, I could use it together with Life Devourer to offset the penalty.
Though since this was a skill I would only use against enemies far stronger than myself, a situation like that probably would not come up often.
After finishing my test, I left Floor 14.
The Demon King’s voice rang out.
- Are you going to challenge it now?
“Of course.”
A few days had passed since I cleared Floor 15.
[This Floor cannot be cleared repeatedly.]
By the way, I could not even reenter Floor 15 because it could not be cleared repeatedly.
There was no point in clearing it again anyway...
In any case, it was about time to challenge Floor 16.
When I went into the living room, my younger sibling was watching TV.
- ...For several days, an endless stream of mourners has continued at the site where Kanyuk appeared. Public opinion overwhelmingly supports erecting a statue of Kanyuk there in honor of Kanyuk, the hero who sacrificed themself for Earth...
I watched the news for a moment as well.
After I revealed everything that had happened on Floor 15, the world mourned Kanyuk’s death.
I did not know what meaning it would have, but... I hoped this might bring Kanyuk some comfort somehow.
My younger sibling glanced at me before asking with a worried expression.
“Oppa... are you okay?”
I answered calmly.
“I’m okay.”
In the end, all I could do was keep climbing the Tower.
For Kanyuk, who had died, and Kanyuk’s world.
The weight on my shoulders had grown far heavier, but I had to do it.
My resolve to see this through no matter what was stronger than ever.
The very next morning.
I prepared to enter Floor 16.
- By the way, the Tower has been quiet lately.
I responded to the Demon King’s words.
“What are you talking about? That mess on Floor 15 was only recently.”
- Not that. I mean it hasn’t offered you anything.
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, it had been rather quiet lately.
The proposal during the Joint Battle on Floor 10 had been the last one.
Even though I had reached Floor 16, the Tower had not made me another proposal.
Did it think I would refuse anyway?
Or was it waiting for a situation where I could not refuse, like on Floor 4 or during the Joint Battle...?
Even though the Tower was quiet, I could not help feeling uneasy.
It felt like it might be gathering strength for another huge move.
After finishing my preparations, I went into the living room.
With my family seeing me off, I entered Floor 16.
‘Let’s go.’
It did not matter what kind of dirty trick the Tower tried to pull.
I had no choice but to keep moving forward.
[Would you like to enter Floor 16 of Nightmare difficulty?]
My vision changed.
* * *
The theme of Floor 16 was a frozen wasteland.
The condition for clearing it was to fight monsters amid frozen ground and bitter cold, then reach a designated destination.
Of course, Nightmare difficulty could be completely different...
[You have entered Floor 16 of Nightmare difficulty.]
Gurgle-
I had not expected to be underwater the moment I entered.
I took out the Sea Dragon’s Ruyi Pearl and breathed.
...Was this the ocean? The deep sea?
Judging by the pressure weighing down on my body, it seemed to be extremely deep.
It was pitch-black in every direction, so I used Diul’s dark vision ability to see.
Then I saw gigantic figures swimming toward me.
Fish-type monsters.
There were many varieties, from ones that looked like hairtail fish to anglerfish with glowing lures.
I cast Elemental Arrow Barrage.
Boom, boom, boom!
Arrows imbued with the wind element shot out like torpedoes in every direction, bursting apart the bodies of the deep-sea fish.
The monsters were just trash mobs.
I slowly looked around.
Something immediately caught my eye.
I could see something deeper down on the seabed.
‘A shipwreck?’
I immediately descended toward it.
Bubble, bubble, bubble-
Air bubbles were rising from a hole in the deep-sea floor.
It seemed they were meant to be used for breathing.
Suddenly, sand rose from the floor beside me, and a gigantic claw sprang out.
Having anticipated it with Sixth Sense, I swung the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper and cut off the claw.
It was a crayfish-like crustacean monster.
With one of its legs severed, it fully revealed itself and thrashed as it lunged at me.
I casually cut it in half, then turned my gaze toward the sunken ship resting on the seabed.
It was a huge vessel covered in moss-like growth.
I entered and examined it.
As I searched through the ship’s interior, which had collapsed and been smashed to pieces...
I soon found a treasure chest.
It was locked with a padlock.
Naturally, it seemed to be impossible to destroy. Even when I struck it with my sword, it did not receive a scratch.
Was I supposed to find a key and open it, like on Floor 11?
I went back outside and started looking for the key as I wandered through the sea.
I searched for a long time while killing the deep-sea fish that kept attacking me without rest...
I could not find it. Where was it?
As time passed, more and more deep-sea fish gathered.
The air bubbles rising from the ocean floor also gradually became fewer.
I tried heading upward once, wondering if there might be something on the surface.
‘It’s blocked.’
But the area above was completely sealed by ice.
Even when I slashed it with Heavenly Aura, it did not receive a scratch, so the ice also seemed to be impossible to destroy.
‘Is this a time attack?’
It seemed that if I failed to find the key in time, I would drown.
Of course, that did not apply to me because I had the Sea Dragon’s Ruyi Pearl.
I descended again and continued searching for the key.
I searched inside the ship, around the ship, and throughout the entire area.
But even after nearly half a day, I could not find it.
The air bubbles on the seabed had stopped coming out long ago.
Any other Nightmare Climber would have already died from the lack of air.
‘Hmm...’
Had it really been hidden this thoroughly?
I felt something was off.
Finding a hidden key and opening the treasure chest.
Simply making the key difficult to find... did not seem like something Nightmare difficulty would do.
I went upward again.
As I searched the sea more broadly...
Woooooo...
A strange sound came from somewhere.
It sounded somewhat like the cry of a whale.
I moved toward the source of the sound.
Soon, I found a striking sight.
Thud-
A whale with a huge hump on its head, like a bowhead whale.
The whale was ramming the ice sealing the top, breaking it apart.
The ice that had not budged even when I struck it with Heavenly Aura was gradually shattering beneath the whale’s hump.
What was that?
Had the ice not been impossible to destroy?
‘...Ah!’
Understanding suddenly struck me.
Could the treasure chest have been a fake?
The real objective was to escape to the surface through that whale.
It had drawn my attention by making the treasure chest look like the clear condition, then made me search for a key that did not exist until I drowned.
That was cruel enough to suit Nightmare difficulty.
I quietly waited, watching the whale break the ice.
But the whale stopped breaking it and swam somewhere else.
...What? Why was it giving up?
I hurriedly followed it.
But when I got close, the whale attacked me just like the other deep-sea fish.
Bellow!
Killing it would be easy, but I could not do that, so I dodged. The water churned.
Apparently having recognized me as an enemy, the whale kept changing direction and charging at me.
Wait... Could I lure it?
I led the whale chasing me back to the spot where it had been breaking the ice.
Thud!
I dodged just before it collided with me, and the whale headbutted the ice.
The ice cracked, and the fissure grew larger.
‘...This will work!’
I knew this was it.
I kept lingering around the ice, dodging whenever the whale charged at me.
After repeating that more than ten times...
Crash!
At last, the ice shattered.
I thanked the whale and escaped through the hole.
When I reached the surface, everything above was a frozen wasteland like the Arctic.
It seemed I had finally arrived at the same starting point as the other difficulties.
I looked around.
Flash-
Then I saw a pillar of light descending in the distance.
Was I supposed to go there?
Using Air Step, I immediately headed toward the pillar of light.
Yeti-like monsters roamed the surface, and I saw them chasing after me as I raced through the sky.
They could chase me all they wanted. I ignored them and kept running.
The pillar of light quickly drew close.
But...
“...?”
The sky suddenly turned white.
Sixth Sense sounded an alarm like mad.
Without another thought, I used Armor of Karma.
At that moment, the entire world was covered in a blinding snowstorm.
Whoooooosh!
As though the Demon King had swept away the army of a million Monkeys on Floor 9.
The Yetis on the ground turned into particles of ice and scattered through the air.
...It was a snowstorm with absurd power.
If I had taken the snowstorm head-on, I would not have escaped unscathed either.
‘To avoid it, I would have needed to stay underwater.’
Was it a mechanism that activated when one got close to the pillar of light?
If so, I was not supposed to travel across the surface. I was supposed to travel here through the sea.
Then I would use the whale to break the ice and emerge onto the surface.
If the hole in the ice was far away, I would not be able to flee underwater in time.
Well, it was cruel as expected of Nightmare difficulty.
But what could it do?
I had simply endured it with my overwhelming stats.
The snowstorm soon died down.
After releasing Armor of Karma, I moved closer to the pillar of light.
It was a blue pillar of light with a radius of around five meters.
Was it a portal?
Sixth Sense was not sounding any alarms.
I stepped into the center of the descending light.
Then...
Rumble-
This time, the ground began to rumble.
I used Air Step to rise into the air.
As the ice field split apart, enormous tentacles burst forth.
They were octopus legs.
‘...Kraken?’
A boss battle.
I activated Weak Point Insight.
None of the parts of the legs that had emerged onto the surface were marked as weak points.
When I fired Fatal Strike and blew away several legs at once...
The severed legs regenerated in an instant at an unnatural speed.
There was no point attacking the legs.
Only its legs had emerged onto the surface.
It looked like I had to target its body, hidden underwater.
All eight legs attacked me at once.
I spun my body and used a jumping skill in midair.
Dodging the oncoming attacks, I shot into the sea.
Grrrrr!
The moment I entered, deep-sea fish swarmed toward me.
I dealt with them using Elemental Arrow Barrage and dove deeper into the sea.
Following the outstretched legs, I soon reached their source.
I saw the Kraken’s head and body, as enormous as the antlion boss from Floor 8.
Weak Point Insight marked three weak points on it.
Come to think of it, octopuses had three hearts, right?
I cast Destruction Beam and immediately pierced one of the three.
Rooooar!
The Kraken boss roared with a low-frequency sound that shook my eardrums.
Then currents began swirling around me.
Did it use magic too?
There was no problem.
Using the Sea Dragon’s Ruyi Pearl’s ability, I shook off the currents and approached the boss.
Rather than swing my sword, I thrust it out and fired Fatal Strike in the shape of a gigantic spike.
Heavenly Aura cut through the currents and pierced another heart.
One heart remained.
I moved closer to destroy it directly with my sword.
As I dodged the legs blocking my way and closed to point-blank range...
Splaaash!
This time, black ink poured from the boss’s mouth.
‘Poison.’
After inhaling some, I confirmed that it was poison.
Of course, my body was virtually immune to every poison.
No matter how desperately the boss struggled, it had no attacks that could affect me.
I completely ignored the ink and closed in on the boss.
I stabbed its final remaining heart with the Sword of Heaven’s Gatekeeper, wrapped in Heavenly Aura.
No, it was so huge that I burrowed inside and tore it apart.
When I split the boss’s final heart, buried within its thick flesh...
[You have successfully cleared Floor 16 of Nightmare difficulty.]
A message appeared.
[The power of the Floor is being absorbed.]
[Your level has increased.]
[Your level has increased.]
[Your level has increased.]
.
.
.
[Your level has increased.]
[You are the first to successfully clear Floor 16 of Nightmare difficulty.]
[You are being moved to the Reward Room.]
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