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Chapter 358 – Climbing the Tower (2)

“Haa! Haa!” Kang Ji-Hee and the Angela Guild players panted. Compared to them, Go Hyung-Chul and the rest of Gi-Gyu’s team looked much more at ease with the pace.

Go Hyung-Chul looked back and murmured, “That was a close one.”

The rest of the group looked back and saw the door they had passed through. It was flickering unstably, and soon, with unpleasant crunching noise, it crumbled down. This door led to the 81st floor; now, it was gone.

“Haa…” Gi-Gyu sighed and nodded. “Yeah, that was close.”

It had indeed been a close one, too close for anyone’s liking. They had also barely reached the 80th floor from the 79th floor; it was also a close call. The reason was that, like the 79th-floor door, the doors on all subsequent floors were too firmly shut. So, Gi-Gyu had to open each one by force.

“It’s getting worse…,” Gi-Gyu thought out loud. The 79th floor started collapsing when they were on it, but they still had time to escape. However, they had almost gotten trapped when they had gone to the 81st floor from the 80th floor.

‘We almost got stuck in the dimensional gap.’?Kronos and Gaia both had summoned him into a dimensional gap before, so he knew he could escape if that happened again.

‘But they would’ve died.’?In a dimensional gap, he could locate and save those synced with him, but he couldn’t say the same about the Red Players and the Angela Guild members.

‘It’s unlikely they would’ve survived.’?Gi-Gyu escaped such gaps by destroying the space itself with his power. So, he believed they likely had zero chance of escaping.

“We’ll keep going,” Gi-Gyu announced, urging everyone to move faster as their surroundings crumbled.

Kang Ji-Hee approached Gi-Gyu and requested, “Couldn’t we rest for a moment?”

Gi-Gyu saw the dark circles under her eyes, indicating that she was exhausted. It was rare for the players to get dark circles, thanks to their enhanced stamina.

‘The other players are doing even worse.’?In comparison, the Red Players and the other Angela Guild players seemed an inch away from death. On the way here, some Red Players had even fainted from dehydration, and Gi-Gyu had to use Life to help them.

“I’m sorry, but we have no time to waste.” Gi-Gyu had no choice but to hurry them along. He could feel the 81st floor disappearing just like the others. ‘It’s getting worse as we climb higher.’?

Unless they kept moving, they wouldn’t make it.

“But…” Gi-Gyu had an idea to ease their fatigue. “From now on, you can ride the dragons. Hal!”

Gi-Gyu called out to Hal, who was on his dragon and flying over them to scout ahead. His halberd was red with blood and flesh, indicating he had cleared their path by killing all the monsters nearby.

Gi-Gyu asked, “Could the Dragon-Knight Order let the players ride the dragons?”

Gi-Gyu was the master of the order, but he still asked for Hal’s consent. He could have just ordered them to do so, but that would have made him a tyrant; he didn’t want that.

Hal momentarily hesitated, but he ultimately agreed since he understood the dire situation. “Yes, Grandmaster.”

The order’s dragons were resurrected dragons called bone dragons. Dragons were notorious for being proud and arrogant, so the bone dragons could refuse to let anyone but the order knights ride them. However, that didn’t matter, as Gi-Gyu wasn’t in the mood to coddle them.

Hal added, “Dark wants you to ride it, Grandmaster.”

“You named it Dark?” Gi-Gyu asked. Dark Dragon, now called just Dark, purred quietly and tried to rub its giant face against Gi-Gyu. He grinned, and Dark grunted when he raised his hand.

Gi-Gyu announced, “You heard him, right? From now on, you’ll ride the dragons.”

“Thank you!” The Angela Guild players looked grateful. Meanwhile, Hal gestured toward the sky to have the Dragon-Knight Order and their dragons position themselves on the ground.

“Haures,” Gi-Gyu summoned.

“Yes, Grandmaster.” Haures hurried toward Gi-Gyu, and his Red Players followed him obediently.

“You guys”—Gi-Gyu pointed at the wolf—“can ride Fenrir.”

“Grrrr!” Fenrir snorted, clearly unhappy with the order. Still, it bowed down to Gi-Gyu.

“O-of course,” Haures answered hesitantly. Looking at the Red Players, he thought worriedly, ‘This won’t be easy for them.’?

Fenrir was giant and fast, which meant its rider was bound to feel motion sickness. The Red Players weren’t in tip-top shape, so they would obviously suffer more.

“Grrrr!” Fenrir was not a kind creature, and Haures knew it wouldn’t tolerate anyone vomiting on it.

Already on top of Dark, Gi-Gyu yelled, “We’ll get going now!”

The players quickly climbed onto their respective rides.

***

The group progressed much faster now that the Angela Guild members were on the dragons and the Red Players were on Fenrir.

“We’re already on the 83rd floor,” Gi-Gyu said to Kang Ji-Hee, also riding with him. At the start, she had been riding a bone dragon, but Gi-Gyu had asked her to ride Dark with him.

‘I need to extract as much information from her as possible,’?Gi-Gyu told himself. He didn\'t force a sync with her or read her memory. After discovering the strange effect of Lee Sun-Ho’s ability on Lim Hyun-Soo, Gi-Gyu felt uncomfortable trying anything on Kang Ji-Hee.

“Indeed… I’ve only gone as far as the 84th floor,” Kang Ji-Hee looked around and replied.

“So, where exactly is Guild Master Lee Sun-Ho?” asked Gi-Gyu. Kang Ji-Hee had already told him this before, but he just wanted to be sure.

“He should be on the 90th floor.” Kang Ji-Hee seemed certain. And Gi-Gyu also sensed no falsehood from her.

‘So unless something unexpected happened, he should be on the 90th floor.’?Kang Ji-Hee’s answer had reassured him a bit.

Gi-Gyu was deep in his thoughts when Kang Ji-Hee asked, “Deputy Guild Master Lim Hyun-Soo must be okay, right?”

“Yup, he seems to be fine,” Gi-Gyu answered. Lim Hyun-Soo was also riding Dark with them; Gi-Gyu touched him just to confirm everything was okay.

Honestly, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if Lim Hyun-Soo had died the next second. After all, he was only alive because Gi-Gyu had managed to force a bit of his Life into him. The second that bit of Life and his will to live were used up, he would die.

‘He might die before he sees Lee Sun-Ho again.’?But Gi-Gyu didn’t voice this thought.

Kang Ji-Hee replied in genuine relief, “I’m so glad…”

Gi-Gyu kept quiet and looked ahead. Dark wasn’t as fast as Gi-Gyu’s Super Rush, but it was almost as quick as a short-distance teleportation skill. If it weren’t for the bone dragons following behind, Dark would’ve flown faster.

‘And Fenrir is keeping up nicely.’?The Red Players’ motion sickness couldn’t be helped; thankfully, after throwing up a few times, they had gotten used to the speed. Or maybe they were just too afraid to vomit more while riding Fenrir.

Hal, who had been silent, opened his mouth. “Grandmaster.”

But he quickly closed his lips and spoke to Gi-Gyu telepathically.

-Why aren’t you syncing with the Red Players?

It seemed that Hal didn’t feel comfortable talking to Gi-Gyu in Kang Ji-Hee’s presence. Hal and the rest of Gi-Gyu’s creatures knew that Gi-Gyu had chosen not to sync with the Angela Guild players because of Lee Sun-Ho. But Hal was curious why Gi-Gyu hadn’t synced with the Red Players.

Gi-Gyu replied telepathically, ‘The Red Players might be obedient now, but most of them are criminals. I know syncing with them won’t affect me, but still…’?

Gi-Gyu believed that these criminals should suffer some hardship, and he also wasn’t comfortable syncing with them now, so he decided to do it later.

-All right.

Hal had a vague concept of good and bad, so he was seemingly unsatisfied with Gi-Gyu’s answer. But being a faithful servant, Hal didn’t ask any more questions.

“We’ll be on the 84th floor soon,” Kang Ji-Hee announced. Until now, she had been guiding them through the floors.

‘But things will be different beginning on the 84th floor.’?Starting on the 84th floor, they would have to find the path on their own. But Gi-Gyu was relieved by the lack of monsters on these floors.

“Is it normal for there to be so few monsters on these floors?” Gi-Gyu asked Kang Ji-Hee.?The Angela Guild had climbed much higher in the Tower than they had revealed to the public.

‘Has Lee Sun-Ho already reached the 100th floor?’?Gi-Gyu wondered. He didn’t bother asking Kang Ji-Hee because he didn’t expect to get an accurate answer. Gi-Gyu also didn’t bother asking her why they had lied about how far they had reached.

“Yes, after the 80th floor, the number of monsters decreases dramatically. The ones living on these floors are powerful, but there aren’t many.” Kang Ji-Hee explained that this was an ordinary occurrence.

“And you’re sure you’ve never experienced the floors collapsing like this before?”

“Yes, I’m sure… This is my first time, and I’ve never heard of such a thing from our guild master either,” Kang Ji-Hee answered. Gi-Gyu could sense that she was telling the truth.

Dark began flying faster, probably because it could feel that this floor was also starting to crumble and disappear quickly. As they moved to the next floor, Gi-Gyu couldn’t help but be concerned. ‘There wasn’t any test on the 80th floor either.’?

There was another fact that troubled Gi-Gyu. ‘It’s not just the higher floors; all the floors are collapsing.’?

Gi-Gyu connected with Eden again to learn about Lou and El’s status. Then, he heard a message that Heo Sung-Hoon had left.

-We have received news that indicates that the Tower is about to collapse.

***

The sticky energies here made it hard to breathe.

“Ackkk!” This place was in pandemonium—gut-wrenching screams were everywhere, the sky was stained red, and the moon looked like the devil’s eye. There was no day or night here, and no one could sense the passing of time.

“This is…” the woman whispered.

“Let’s get going.” When the man announced, the woman nodded. The two kicked the ground and made headway at an alarming speed.

A frown appeared on the man’s face, and the woman asked, “Where is this place?”

The woman’s tone was respectful. She seemed just as uncomfortable as the man in this strange place. It was rare to see such an expression on her face.

“I don’t know.” The man didn’t have a clear answer. “But this place is different from hell.”

He was once the king of hell, so he could be sure of at least that. Someone had built this place in the image of hell, but the former hell king could spot the differences.

Lou added, “This is more like Chaos.”

“Gehenna,” El whispered. Lou and El were currently in Gehenna.

“I would love to leave this place as soon as we find Oh Tae-Gu,” Lou muttered.