Chapter 78
Chapter 78
The night before the final battle on Floor 9, Do-Jin slept like a rock. He definitely needed it since his body was wrecked, his stamina was shot, and his brain had been running on fumes for days.He’d taken a serious beating, and there was no walking that off. Forcing himself into another fight like this would’ve been suicide. He needed to get his body back into fighting shape if he wanted any shot at making it out alive.
Over the last few days, he had burned through all five of his daily entries without fail. The rest of his time had gone into watching combat footage on repeat, dissecting every second like his life depended on it. With all that grinding on barely two hours of sleep each night, his body began to break down from the inside out. However, one proper eight-hour sleep seemed to do the trick.
“Goddamn, youth is seriously broken...”
Do-Jin had previously lived in a body that was old and broken. Having gone through all that, it was clear to him how overpowered youth really was.
“My condition’s perfect. Now all I’ve gotta do is not fuck it up.”
As he stood on the edge of the gate to the boss room, Do-Jin found himself revisiting the question that had never sat right with him. No one in his past life had managed to kill Kusa, not a single one. And now, he had found out why. The hidden killer was the sustained damage. Kusa was not some impossible monster. If the players back then had been just a little more geared, it would not have been a big deal.
They simply didn’t have what it takes, so they got steamrolled. That was all there was to it.
At its core, the fight wasn’t even complicated. With the right stats, it would have gone down like any mid or high-tier boss. A Level 100 player, armed with the newest gear and updated skills, could have flattened it with raw force.
Back when the Tower of Trials was first introduced, even the top-ranked players were barely scraping past Level 80. No matter how tightly their teams were built or how much healing they stacked, the damage coming in overwhelmed everything. No strategies ever stuck, and most fights were completely one-sided. Even throwing a mountain of cash at it wouldn’t have helped. No amount of spending could drag future gear or unreleased skills into the present. That was why nobody had ever managed to take it down while standing inside the Flame Domain.
However, something about that had always felt off. Even with how deranged the devs were at Möbius Saga, they had never thrown in a boss that was truly impossible. Their content was punishing, but it was always meant to be beatable. There had to be something everyone missed.
The players back then had misunderstood the problem. Everyone assumed they just needed better stats. They pushed for stronger gear, higher levels, more fire resistance, tighter formations, anything they could get their hands on. They focused so hard on surviving the damage that they never stopped to realize they had already hit the cap.
No matter how hard they pushed, there was always a ceiling. That was the missing piece. Beating Kusa during the event period was never about raising stats or loading up on premium gear. The solution was to eliminate the penalty that had been crippling them from the start.
[All non-spirit races will have their stats reduced by 50%.]
Everyone had seen the system message and accepted it as an unavoidable fact. Every single challenger stepping onto Floor 9 believed they had no choice but to endure that penalty, and that was the biggest mistake of all.
If all but spirits had their strength halved, then there was no point in trying to overpower the debuff. The only answer was to become a spirit. Hence, Do-Jin opened his inventory and pulled out the ace he had been saving for this exact moment.
[Spirit Essence]
It was a crystallized item packed with condensed spirit energy, gathered from the Lavre Lake Underwater Cave. For the longest time, people thought it was nothing more than a rare crafting material. That had been its only known use. More than three years after it dropped, someone finally discovered what it could really do, and that was the Temporary Spirit Transformation.
It didn’t just cancel out Floor 9’s penalty. It also pushed his spiritual resistance far beyond what any existing gear could reach. No armor or accessory in the game even came close. At least on paper, this one item solved every single issue that had made Kusa an impossible boss. Do-Jin was ready to shove it straight down that bastard’s throat.
***
Do-Jin stepped into Floor 9 of the Tower of Trials once again, though by now he had lost track of how many times it had been.
[Tower of Trials: Floor 9]
[You have entered a Challenge Floor.]
[A new Challenge Floor penalty has been applied.]
[Item usage is now restricted.]
[All non-spirit races will have their stats reduced by 50%.]
The familiar system messages popped up, and he dismissed them without a second thought. Waiting for him ahead was the first named monster, Piercing Gale. Its opening attack came in just like always, and Do-Jin dodged it with the same practiced movement.
After beating the first boss, the next opponent, Munda, showed up without giving him any room to breathe. The bird made of rocks flew through the air like it owned the sky. However, Do-Jin quickly grounded the bastard and rendered it a useless pile of stone.
Now, the real fight begins.
From all his failed runs after getting to the third boss, Do-Jin was completely desensitized when dealing with the first two. Facing Kusa, though, his nerves kicked in whether he liked it or not.
He had made all the preparations, and it should theoretically be doable. The problem was that he had never actually done it himself, and worse, he had never even seen anyone pull it off. That alone was enough to set him on edge.
This should work, no matter what.
He kept repeating that to himself, trying to keep his head steady, but the tension building in his gut refused to let up. Maybe it was the fact that he had not only staked his Floor 8 rewards but also time, resources, and money on beating this boss. His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.
When I move on from Floor 9, I swear I’m just gonna take the damn reward and leave. This kind of stress isn’t worth it, he promised himself like a gambler before a final hand.
Just as he was bracing himself, the air began to heat up. A vortex of flame twisted through the area ahead, whipping through the field with rising intensity. As the flames spiraled, they slowly began to take shape, coiling together until the outline of a serpent solidified in the fire.
[The final guardian, Kusa the Fire Serpent, has appeared.]
[Defeat the strongest guardian and prove your strength.]
As the system announced Kusa’s arrival, the serpent let out a roar that thundered across the field. It was the signal that the Flame Domain had been activated, covering the entirety of Floor 9. The heat, which had already been building, suddenly surged. Even in a VR world where physical sensation was partially dulled, the spike in temperature was painful.
“Hup.” Do-Jin held his breath as the heat clawed into his lungs.
He reached out with one hand, and what was clutched in his palm was the Spirit Essence. As it came into contact with the searing heat radiating from Kusa, the item reacted as if resonating in the presence of another spirit. The essence began to shift violently and its color started to change as it absorbed the surrounding energy.
Just a little more...
The temperature continued to rise by the second, and his health started to plummet. Do-Jin stood his ground and waited. He knew that if he mistimed it, or if he panicked and acted too early, everything would quickly fall apart.
Now!
His instincts, sharpened through countless battles as a mage, kicked in before he could even think. Do-Jin could tell that the Spirit Essence had hit its limit and was seconds away from bursting. He didn’t hesitate to swallow it.
[Spirit Essence has absorbed the power of the Flame Spirit and transformed into Flame Spirit Essence.]
The system message flashed in front of him. At that exact moment, a red lightning-shaped crack split across the Essence. He downed it right as it hit the breaking point. If he had been even a second late, if anything had been off by the slightest margin, it would’ve all blown up in his face. It was a brutal, razor-thin window, but he nailed it.
There was barely any time for him to feel satisfied as the heat surged from deep inside him and started tearing through his body.
“Ggh—”
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to hold it in. It felt like if he so much as opened his mouth, the pressure would rip him apart from the inside out. For a second, the thought crept in that maybe something had gone wrong. The energy inside him wasn’t settling down. Instead, it was surging out of control, thrashing like a wild beast.
[Spirit energy is flooding through your body!]
[The overwhelming fire element is temporarily affecting your physical state!]
[Your unbalanced body has begun to collapse!]
The moment these messages popped up, Do-Jin began to see red. Cracks started to split across his skin and his body was literally cracking open. Fiery lines tore across his flesh, and blinding light poured out from within.
Guess... I was a little late after all, he thought, clicking his tongue with a tinge of annoyance.
The spirit energy he had forced down had tipped just past what his body could safely handle. Now he wasn’t just going through spiritification. He had slapped a ticking clock on himself, too.
Fine. This might actually work in my favor. All I’ve gotta do is stay alive long enough to finish that bastard.
There was no turning back. Do-Jin pushed the thought of his body breaking down to the side and focused on the upside. Although the spiritification had gone too far and his human body couldn’t take the strain, his resistance to fire had just gone through the roof.
Kusa stared at him from across the field, stunned. After a brief pause, its eyes narrowed as it tried to figure out what was even happening. The monster was sensing spirit energy identical to its own coming from Do-Jin and didn’t know what to make of it. That moment of confusion didn’t last long, however. Even if the energy felt the same, if it didn’t recognize it, it was a threat.
Its tail whipped out wide, flames roaring to life and shooting in every direction along the arc. The spread was so wide that, without even needing to aim, anything in the area was bound to get scorched. Do-Jin didn’t have any time to react when explosions lit up the sky. The blast waves tore through the air, spraying fire across the battlefield. However, not a single flame touched him.
This stuff works even better than I thought.
He blinked, caught off guard by how completely unharmed he was. His health had dropped a little, but barely.
In hindsight, it made sense. He had just consumed spirit energy to the point that he was barely human anymore, and the one who had supplied that energy was none other than Kusa itself. On top of that, his natural magic resistance as a mage further reduced the damage. The biggest factor was that his body had tipped too far to the spirit side, which nullified Floor 9’s penalty. His full stats were back in play.
Kusa wasn’t the only one caught off guard. Do-Jin stood speechless, staring at the aftermath. If looks could talk, his expression would have been screaming, “What the fuck is happening?!”
A massive firestorm, courtesy of a broken AoE attack, had been unleashed at full force. Yet, here he was, completely unharmed. Kusa’s burning eyes went wide as it continued staring at Do-Jin. Both of them were frozen in a weird, awkward standoff.
When Kusa opened its mouth again, it released a devastating breath of fire with the clear intent of ending this farce. Do-Jin didn’t hesitate as he threw up a barrier spell on instinct. The shield cracked under the pressure and it barely held up.
“That one actually stung a bit,” he muttered as he felt the heat scorch past the barrier.
Kusa’s pride must have been bruised badly. That last hit came with real weight behind it, but even then, it wasn’t enough to bring Do-Jin down.
“What... What are you? Why do you carry the same power as I do?”
Do-Jin blinked twice before asking, “You can talk?”
In his past life, not once had he heard anyone say that Kusa could speak.
It bristled at the question, clearly offended. “What do you take me for? You think a spirit like me can’t talk? Don’t be ridiculous!”
It slammed its tail into the ground with a sharp, cracking thud. Flames flared around its mouth as its eyes narrowed, glaring straight at him.
“Hmph. It doesn’t matter what you are. You stink of the same power as me. That means you can’t destroy me, just like I can’t destroy you. You’re not leaving this place unless you slay me.”
It exhaled a long gust of flame from its nose, like it was done playing games. Kusa didn’t see him as a human anymore. In its mind, he was just another Flame Spirit. Of course, that was nothing more than a misunderstanding. Do-Jin might have taken on that kind of aura for a moment, but it didn’t change what he actually was. His essence came from the Grimoire of Truth, which allowed him to use any magic he had inscribed within it.
[Frozen Arrow]
A shard of ice formed from pure mana shot through the searing heat and reached Kusa just before it could melt away. The spell didn’t last long, hissing and vanishing the moment it touched the flames. Even so, it had already done its job. The mana packed into the Frozen Arrow drained both the fire and the spirit energy making up Kusa’s form. Its tail, which had been thrashing around in irritation, froze midair.
“H-how did you...?” Kusa said in disbelief.
The look in its eyes held not just confusion but something close to betrayal. It had thought they were the same kind. There was no way someone like him should’ve been able to use ice. Regardless, Do-Jin was already weaving another spell, forming even stronger ice within his circuits.
“I’m just built different,” Do-Jin replied as he was about to finish casting.
Sensing the energy of his next attack, Kusa’s tail couldn’t help but tremble.