WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Climbing the Tower with Time-Stop Ability

Chapter 46

──────

Nightmare Floor 4 (2)

- Black golems are 100% immune to damage below a certain thresholdhh... Please proceed with cautionnn...

...What now?

Immune to damage below a certain threshold?

Ding-

The wreckage of the earlier red golems disappeared, and the entrance opened.

Thud, thud, thud.

A black golem walked out.

Again, only the color was different; its form was the same as the other golems. Bipedal, with a core embedded in the center of its body.

Pli jumped in and smacked it with his forepaw.

But the black golem only wobbled for a second, ignored him, and kept advancing. It barely looked damaged.

Pli climbed right onto the golem and started biting and tearing at it.

Only then did cracks appear in its body and pieces start breaking off.

Watching that, my expression hardened.

Wait... its defense is that high?

So unless an attack has enough power, it just ignores everything?

I concentrated all five fireballs on one spot.

Kwaaaang!

With a huge explosion, part of the golem's upper body blew off, but it still did not go down.

I was starting to panic.

'If even that doesn't one-shot it...'

This is really bad.

I cast Searing Zone and spread it across the entrance path.

Flames ignited on the golems that entered the area.

But they kept striding forward like it barely hurt.

Looks like sustained-skill damage could not pass the damage threshold.

'Damn it.'

Fairy Light Bolts obviously had no chance either.

I let the second golem pass, then jumped down in front of the third and cast Blade Whirlwind.

Kwaaaah!

It felt much heavier than the red golems, so it did not get knocked back very far.

And damage... didn't seem to stick.

I climbed back onto the wall and looked toward Pli.

The golem Pli had been clinging to only shattered and collapsed after it reached the corner of Course 1.

The second golem, the one hit by Flame Strike, had already reached two-thirds of Course 1.

The moment Flame Strike came off cooldown, I fired all five fireballs at the second golem again, fully focused.

Kwaaaang!

Only then did the second golem go down.

Good, at least it couldn't tank two hits.

I stopped time and organized my thoughts.

So far, the only things that worked on black golems were Flame Strike and Pli's all-out attacks. Destruction Beam would obviously work too.

Even Blade Whirlwind did no damage, so Flame Strike probably only worked when all hits were focused onto one target.

Everything else, all the weaker attack skills, clearly would not work.

'This is getting rough...'

For now, five of them was manageable on paper.

Without using Destruction Beam, I could still stop all of them before they reached the exit.

But in the next stage, it'd be ten, then twenty, right?

...First, clear this stage.

I released time again.

The remaining three golems had all come out of the entrance.

I left the third one to Pli, and as soon as cooldown reset, I fired Flame Strike at the fourth.

Kwaaaang!

I had to save Destruction Beam.

Its cooldown was three minutes, and my trump card wouldn't fully recover during a one-minute break.

Pli handled the third golem, and I handled the fourth.

The fifth and last golem was finished around the two-thirds point of Course 2.

The indicator light turned blue.

"Phew..."

I caught my breath, then stopped time again.

Time to sort things out.

Based on what I'd just learned, I needed a plan for handling ten.

First, even on Nightmare, golem movement speed and spacing were the same as on other difficulties.

And based on that spacing, the maximum number that could line up in one course was five.

To cram in more than that, I'd have to block their advance myself...

Pli took about 30 seconds to kill one black golem.

In other words, about the time it took to move through one full course.

My Flame Strike cooldown was also 30 seconds.

But since I had to land Flame Strike twice per golem, it effectively took me 60 seconds to kill one.

Partly because of traits, but as stages went up, the golems' base specs were also getting stronger.

With black golems, even just stopping their advance was harder than ever.

...After running simulations in my head, ten seemed possible without Destruction Beam.

'Twenty probably isn't.'

For twenty, I'd have to pack them into one course as much as possible, then sweep them with Destruction Beam.

The problem was that they came out spaced apart, but if I forced them together, getting all twenty into one course still looked possible.

Their trait wasn't damage reduction, it was immunity under a certain threshold, right?

That meant Destruction Beam's damage should go through in full, so a full sweep might be possible.

Ah, but before that, something felt really off...

Am I even clearing this the right way?

The golems kept getting stronger, and I didn't even know how many stages there were.

I looked around the workshop again.

Entrance, exit, mechanical structures, collapsed golem debris along the path.

I couldn't leave through the entrance or exit. I just had to stay trapped in here and keep fighting golems.

...What, break some device to stop golems from spawning?

No, that didn't fit. Every structure in here was an indestructible object meant to prevent terrain manipulation.

The only breakable things in this place were the golems, just like the wreckage over there showed.

No matter how much I searched the workshop, nothing looked suspicious.

With time stopped, I pushed my brain to the limit for a long while, trying to think of something creative.

Nothing else came to mind.

I'm sure there's something, but I don't know what it is, damn it...

I released time.

Ten golems, Stage 11 started.

The golem wreckage in the path disappeared, and new golems came out of the entrance.

I handled them the same way as with five.

Pli took one, I took one.

I dealt damage with Flame Strike, and I kept cycling Blade Whirlwind on cooldown to block their advance as much as possible.

When my Willpower ran dry, I stopped time and refilled.

Like that, I picked them off one by one.

Just like before, I cleared half of them, five, around the very end of Course 2.

Then the remaining five.

It was close, but I managed to drop all of them in Course 4 without letting any cross into Course 5.

Now only Stage 12 remained.

Yeah, twenty definitely wouldn't work without Destruction Beam.

"This time, don't focus on destroying them first, Pli. Just shove them back and knock them down as much as possible. We have to block the path no matter what."

I gave Pli the order.

If Pli just latched onto one at a time again, there was no answer.

Ten had barely been cleared in Course 4. There was no way to kill twenty before they reached the exit.

So this had to be full path-blocking.

Pack them into one course and sweep with Destruction Beam.

Ding-

The golem debris vanished from the path, and Stage 12 began.

As ordered, Pli focused only on blocking their advance.

Kwaang!

Body slam, forepaw smash.

Pli kept aiming for their legs to knock them down.

My plan was to topple one, make the ones behind it get stuck, and jam the lane, but...

These insane golems did nothing but charge forward. And their forward momentum was absurdly strong.

Sure, one got knocked down, but the ones behind tried to trample over it, or shoved with their legs and kept mindlessly advancing.

The golems weren't attacking, but just withstanding that mass pushing in was damage by itself for Pli.

If Pli hit his limit and got unsummoned, I was done, so I couldn't push him too far.

Kwaaaah!

Of course, I helped block with full power too.

Blade Whirlwind, Flame Strike, and every other weak magic I had, I spammed everything to push them back even a little more. I conserved the ice dagger as much as possible.

All twenty still hadn't even come out of the entrance yet.

Hold, then fall back a little.

Repeat.

Then I realized corners were easier to hold than straight lanes, so I dug in there and held again.

It took around two minutes for all twenty to come out.

Has it only been one minute?

I was hitting my limit, so I gave up Course 1 and Pli and I fell back to Course 2.

Pli tanked again, and I supported by firing skills whenever cooldowns reset.

At one point I almost squeezed between golems to cast and got flattened, but I escaped with Teleport.

This was relentlessly disgusting.

That was the only thought in my head.

I kept forcing it, controlling things so Pli wouldn't die.

Finally, two minutes passed, and all twenty came out of the entrance.

Right now, the golems stretched from Course 2 back into Course 1.

Should I use it now?

No, just a little... just a little more.

If possible, pack them all into Course 2.

Then came those miserable seconds where each second felt unbearably long.

At last, all the golems lined up in a single course.

The moment I confirmed it, I pulled Pli back and stopped time.

'Die, all of you.'

While holding them off, two had already been destroyed, so eighteen remained.

But still... with this many, can I really wipe them all?

Whatever, let's see.

After 300 seconds of mental concentration, I cast a fully charged Destruction Beam.

A black beam shot out and filled my entire view.

"...!"

When the beam faded.

Before me stood golems in a straight line, each with a clean hole blown through the center of its body.

Every single one had been perfectly pierced.

...This thing was insanely strong.

The golems collapsed in heaps.

I climbed back up onto the wall and confirmed the indicator had turned blue.

That cleared Stage 12 too.

"Haa..."

I could finally breathe again.

Honestly, I'd agonized until the very end over which to choose: reduced physical ability or Destruction Beam prohibition.

If I'd chosen Destruction Beam prohibition, I'd have been absolutely screwed.

"..."

I cleared it somehow, but...

The clear message still did not appear.

'Didn't expect it anyway...'

If even stranger, stronger golems came out, I really couldn't hold.

Now I was almost sure.

I was definitely missing something. Something.

"...?"

Then suddenly, the golem debris in the path caught my eye.

Black golems destroyed with holes through the center.

Strangely, only the cores embedded in their centers were left intact on the floor.

Destruction Beam hit them directly... and those were still fine?

I could have passed by without thinking, but it felt off.

As if drawn in, I walked closer to the golem wreckage.

I reached out to pick up one core lying among the debris.

[You have gained 200P.]

"...Huh?"

The core melted away and vanished.

Then a stream of windows popped up in front of me.

[Shop]

- Physical damage +10% (100P)

- Magic damage +10% (100P)

- Willpower +10% (100P)

- Attribute Conversion (500P)

- Force Field (50P)

- Slow (50P)

- Stop (100P)

- Special Draw! (5,000P)

Points Held: 200P

(The effects of this shop disappear when you exit Floor 4.)

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried