Chapter 74
Chapter 74
Most of the parties that used up all of their entries on the first day trying to break through Floor 8 were met with the exact same void. They’d tried torches, illumination spells, enchanted lights, but none of it was effective. Some players tried to get around it by using scrolls imbued with the Night Vision spell, but it worked as well as a candle through fog.Every time someone tried to illuminate their surroundings, the Shadow Spiders that lived on the floor came crawling out and devoured the light like it was food. It was as if the entire floor was designed to stay dark no matter what. The spiders came in droves from all sides of the walls, the floors, and even the ceiling. It was impossible to track them all, let alone mount any kind of proper defense.
As if that wasn’t enough, the entire floor was riddled with pits, most of them packed with thick, sticky webs that were impossible to get out of. Falling into one of those was basically a death sentence. This very first Challenge Floor was absolutely cursed in every sense of the word.
All across the community, the players who had rushed to climb the tower on day one were losing it. Complaints flooded the chats nonstop, some profane, others written in all caps. While the rest of the player base was flailing around in panic, cursing at their screens and tilted out of their minds, one man stood calm at the entrance to Floor 8.
***
If memory serves right, it took nearly three weeks before someone finally managed to clear Floor 8...
The fundamentals of a proper raid were simple: study the terrain, memorize spawn points, and grind until every movement became instinct. Möbius had rendered all of that useless by shrouding the entire floor in pitch-black darkness, leaving players blind to everything they had learned. It was no wonder progress crawled.
There were only a limited number of entries allowed per day, so the only viable strategy was to throw as many players at it as possible until someone figured something out through trial and error. What a complete waste of time.
Sure, there wasn’t any death penalty, which was the only mercy the devs allowed, but that didn’t change the fact that players still had to get chewed up by monsters just to learn a single thing.
Not that it concerns me. I just need to handle what I came here to do, Do-Jin thought, determined to get through this by himself, regardless of how many players were losing their minds right now.
[Additional penalties will now be applied starting from Floor 8 of the Tower of Trials.]
[From now on, the number of consumables you can use will be limited.]
Even a place that devoured every trace of light was nothing more than a personal stage to Do-Jin. He had the means to tear straight through that darkness without breaking a sweat.
[Magic Eye: Silent Night]
His left eye, gifted by the progenitor who ruled the depths of the night, painted the world in crystal clarity even in a pitch-black void. The moment he stepped in, he spotted massive spiders about knee-high on a grown man charging at him.
Ugh, disgusting.
This spot was usually where most players died after first stepping into the floor. However, with his Magic Eye active, Do-Jin clearly saw where the swarm was headed and quickly pinpointed the direction with the fewest spiders.
They’re coming from over there...I gotta bait them out first.
If he just stood still, the ones crawling along the ceiling would come down and ambush him. So Do-Jin took off, weaving past spiders coming at him from both the ground and overhead. The heavy tapping of their legs echoed behind him as they gave chase.
Tight and narrow is what I want.
While navigating the maze-like layout of this floor, Do-Jin suddenly leaped forward. He had spotted a pit trap cleverly dug into the path and threw himself across. Seeing that the monsters had even strung up webs to hide the hole ticked him off. Nevertheless, he continued forward, this time using Psychokinesis to launch himself further. After a light landing, he took off running again. He still hadn’t found a spot he liked.
If I get greedy here, they’ll trap me from both sides. I better clean up a bit before moving on.
He stopped at a spot where the corridor narrowed and the ceiling dropped lower. It wasn’t perfect, but it’d have to do. Glancing back toward the path he’d come from, Do-Jin saw spiders pouring out from around the corner, shoving their grotesque bodies into the shrinking hallway. The horrible bottleneck looked like someone stuffing clumps of hair into a can of chips.
“Well then, let’s roast ‘em.”
As his Magic Circuits lit up, the signature golden mana of the Grimoire of Truth flared to life and formed a spell.
[Wave of Fire]
It was a spell that swept forward across a wide area, but the drawback was that it dispersed quickly due to that spread. Still, in a space where flames couldn’t spread out, that weakness became a strength. The compressed fire, unable to escape in all directions, blasted forward with even more force, filling the narrow corridor with blistering heat.
The spiders at the front were headed right into the flames, and the ones behind were being shoved forward by their own kind. They were roasted alive in waves, dying together in a glorious blaze.
Do-Jin lit a cigarette and calmly observed the scene. “Shadow Spiders or not, a bug’s still a bug. You’d think watching the ones in front die like that would make the rest think twice.”
Maybe they were angry. Maybe they weren’t capable of such reasoning. Either way, the spiders kept shoving their way into the bottleneck with no sign of stopping, and Do-Jin welcomed the idiocy. Range spells burned through mana like crazy, but wiping out this many in one go meant it was still a profitable trade.
Now their corpses are piling up too much for any more to squeeze through. I bet they’ll try again once the bodies disappear, but if I wait around, I might get boxed in from the other direction.
After torching another few waves into charcoal, Do-Jin slipped away through the opposite passage. He heard the skittering patter of another spider nearby. It had clearly locked on to his position even though they hadn’t even come face to face yet. That aggressive charge said it all.
Hearing the furious stomping, Do-Jin grinned with a wicked edge. “So these fuckers weren’t that dumb, huh?”
Rather than rushing in endlessly, they’d been buying time for one of their own to flank him.
“Too bad, you were just a little too late.”
Do-Jin turned toward the path where the angry footsteps grew louder and stretched out his hand.
[Creeping Flame]
Do-Jin picked the longest-lasting spell he had available, one that would keep glowing while it moved. The flame snaked forward and curled around the corner, vanishing from sight. The writhing shadows tangled with the flickering firelight and the sounds that followed made it clear the spiders were done for.
“Sorry, but this spot’s not really working out for me. That little gift is all you’re getting for now.”
Do-Jin offered his farewell with a smirk and took off again. However, not long after, he was forced to stop in his tracks.
“Tch...!”
One of the spiders had been lurking silently on the ceiling, and he had missed it. It sank its fangs into him before he could react. Even though he had pumped a decent amount of stat points into his physical strength, he was still a mage at the end of the day. His HP took a serious hit, and the venom debuff slammed him at the same time. Although he’d managed to fry it with a shock-and-fireball combo, for someone soloing this nightmare of a floor, every tiny mistake could mean game over.
“If I plan on clearing this alone, I’ll need to chug mana potions nonstop... Even then, it might not be enough.”
Rather than dwell on the mistake, Do-Jin quickly downed an antidote potion, followed by a healing potion to patch himself up. However, the spiders had already caught up by this point. It had taken no more than fifteen to thirty seconds for him to heal, but they were now filling the corridor both in front of and behind him.
“Shit, guess this is as far as I go this time.”
Breaking through the encirclement was not the real problem here. If he fought while surrounded like this, it’d be a massive waste of resources. He’d be left with nothing in the tank to deal with the boss.
Goddamn it...
He had a feeling deep down that clearing this floor on the very first try was near impossible, but he’d still hoped it was doable by some miracle. In the end, that hope had turned out to be nothing more than arrogance.
Even I’m struggling this much. I wonder how the hell everyone else is even managing this.
He could see everything, and he had a rough idea of how to get through it from prior experience, yet a single slip-up was enough to fumble the whole run. Meanwhile, people were out here face-tanking this nightmare blind and still managing to push through.
There are just too many damn monsters.
As Do-Jin shook his head, the Shadow Spiders started creeping toward him, shrugging their bodies up and down like they were laughing at him. It was as if they were mocking him, treating him like some helpless prey that was as good as dead.
Do-Jin let out a long sigh as he watched. “Those creeps think they can look down on me just because I slipped up once? Fucking unbelievable. Killing the boss is the hard part. You assholes are just background mobs...”
Do-Jin had already accepted that the run was over, so he threw out any concern for wasting mana or burning through potions and went all in. Smashing through the spiders’ formation head-on, he blasted the ones that were visible with enough fire to burn the whole place down.
While doing that, he made it a point to keep moving, hitting every section of the floor he could reach. He figured he could go through the recording later and break down the footage to piece together a rough map of Floor 8. For now, the goal was to soak in as much data as possible.
Eventually, he came to a stop in a clearing and stood there, waiting for another horde of those nasty spiders to come crawling his way. That was when his carefully rationed cigarette finally burned out.
“At least I’ve got enough mana left for one final shot.”
He tossed the butt onto the ground, prompting all the spiders to come crawling over to investigate. As the last wave, dumb but brave, came barreling over, Do-Jin pulled together every last bit of mana he had managed to recover and set the bastards on fire along with himself.
With that, his first attempt in the tower ended on day one.
***
Exactly a week after the Tower of Trials first appeared, every single player saw the same message flash before their eyes.
[The Tower’s progress has stalled. As a result, the light of Laves, Star of Ruin, burns even brighter.]
[Bella’s blessing has vanished from the continent of Lostania.]
[The power to resist fate belonging to the people of Regenian has started to weaken.]
[Damage dealt to monsters is reduced by 30%.]
[Damage taken from monsters is increased by 30%.]
[Experience gained is reduced by 30%.]
[Item drop rates are reduced by 30%.]
The LOST community forums, Lotranet, and pretty much every corner of the internet went up in flames. Social media exploded with rants and furious posts, all filled with foul-mouthed chaos.
People had been clinging to this game just to get through their shitty reality, and grinding levels and picking up loot had been the only thing keeping them sane. So when the one thing that gave them even a sliver of joy got yanked away, their rage was loud, ugly, and absolutely justified.
Möbius, of course, got absolutely torn apart in the comments. However, they stayed silent like always, stonewalling everyone like they were impervious to criticism. With no one else to scream at, the blame ended up falling on poor streamers who had hyped themselves up as the first to clear the tower. They were still busting their asses, taking in donations and pushing through Floor 8, but no one had been able to do it.