Later, into the quiet of the night, screams and urgent shouting burst into Rivyn's room. In one second, his eyes sprang open, alert. Throwing the covers off, he sat up in bed, instinctively scanning the room as shallow breathing strained to make out what he had heard from the chaotic sounds that reached him. Outside, the world had apparently gone nuts, and whatever was happening that night, for sure was not close to normal.
But before he could even get out of bed to check, there was a reddish hue bursting into the air in front of him-the System, bearing a message to run cold blood:.
[MAIN QUEST - FINAL]
[Your world is about to collapse due to the emergence of new towers. Escape the monsters and climb to the 100th floor of the tower.]
[Success - 50 system points, 1 random skill, Information on Argartha]
[Punishment - DEATH]
[TIME - 2 days]
His heart had literally stopped a beat as the message began to seep in. Rivyn's jaw had fallen as his mind worked its way around the enormity of the quest. "It's doomsday, and then suddenly along come these towers out of nowhere. What in the world is going on?" he muttered to himself, rubbing his forehead, the enormity weighing heavy upon him. It was a mission unlike any he'd ever been part of. The stakes were clearer than they'd ever been-failure meant sure death, not just his alone but anyone else present. His instincts kicked in. Dwell on the dread, do nothing, and that would get him nowhere. He was supposed to scale the tower in two days, so time was of essence.
Yanking his gear on hastily, Rivyn burst from his home into the crisp, midnight air that brushed his face. There before him stood something that stopped him, momentarily struck in place.
Scattered across the horizon, new towers dominated the landscape, their soaring spires glowering over the empire like harbingers of doom. He was able to count at least ten new towers from where he stood, each seeming to burst with monstrous energy. Rivyn's breath caught in his throat at the vision in front of him.
From the closest one, he could already see an endless tide of monsters coming out and surging from its base as if a tide of death.
The air was thick with the metallic taste of blood as pure panic ran rampant in the streets, while every shape and size of creature-fearsome beasts with claws and fangs, and then the ominous shadowy forms-tear anything and anybody across their path to shreds.
The screams of the innocent resounded through the streets, while blood painted the cobblestone in grim tapestry. Many adventurers fought valiantly to mount a defense, but they were fast finding themselves overwhelmed by the sheer tide of monsters surging forth from the tower. Most of the low-ranking adventurers had already retreated; the look of fear contorted their faces as they knew well their survival was far from permanent.
Rivyn steeled himself; the hand not holding the hilt of his sword clenched into a fist. The tableau was grim, but there was little time to save them all. He needed his focus on that tower. From what the system had shown him, these monsters would only continue to get stronger, and he was likely to get an S-rank beast before too long. He really couldn't afford to waste more time.
He charged towards the nearest tower, not showing a single bit of hesitation, as if to kill anything that dared block his path. Most were D-rank or below, small fries to the monumental power that was him. Blood splashed on the floor as, on those chaotic grounds, his sword moved down beast after beast. In a few minutes, he gained access to the main entrance of the tower, took a big breath of air, and went inside.
The moment Rivyn stepped into the tower, his eyes struck something astonishing-gone were the dark and ominous interiors he had set his shoulders for; instead, Rivyn stepped out into a sprawling, open field. Lush green grass stretched endlessly in front of him, meeting with the horizon defined by vòng hills and forests far away. Rivyn felt a little dizzy for a moment, as what he saw was quite different from what he had anticipated.
They didn't originate from the bottom of the tower, as one way or another he could have thought; whatever happened outside wasn't related to what happened inside. With a short sigh of relief-he knew well it wouldn't last too long-he heard the system's voice again:.
[Would you like to allow message from $$$? YES/NO]
The message was mysterious, but then most of the system messages were. Who, or what, was behind the message trying to get to him? He sat up for a moment considering it, then decided to accept the message. He needed answers, and this might just give it to him.
And then, in an instant, that screen was there once more; save that, against the constant redness of its hue, now it glowed blue.
[Floor 1 - Kill 20 slimes]
Rivyn narrowed his eyes as he studied the task before him: slimes? Really, this was what the tower started people out with? He didn't think on it hard. Slimes, kobolds, or whatever else made little difference in his decision. He wanted to climb to the top, and if the initial obstacles happened to be slimy monsters, he would cut his way through as though they were mere air.
But before he could take one step further, a batch of slimes appeared from the meadow, like gelatinous blobs emerging from nowhere. In slow, unhurried strides, which were very un-threatening, they came up to him with some type of slow determination. Rivyn wasted no more time. With one smooth motion, he picked up his sword and cut into them in a strong, wide arc. The slimes wouldn't fall; with a touch from his blade, they fell apart instantly.
And with one stroke, it was done.
The notification sound of the system echoed in that all too familiar tone and whisked Rivyn to the next floor. This time, the surroundings were indeed different- not being in the middle of a grassy field in a thick forest area with towering trees in all directions. Nevertheless, his mission remained in hunting slimes. However, for the time being, with such a dense forest, this became quite a challenge in searching for them. It would have taken any normal adventurer hours, painstakingly working their way through the maze of trees and undergrowth, searching out the slimes that hid therein. Rivyn wasn't normal, though. Rather than meticulously search out every individual slime, he hurled a fireball at one of the trees. The spell set the forest floor alight, and in mere seconds the flames were licking their way outward in every direction, painting the forest orange.
In soon time, the slimes could not bear the heat of the fire; they started to come out of where they had been hiding. Each came singly and was received to a grim welcome-some of them in the fire, other cleaved by Rivyn's blade.
For some period, the floors maintained this pattern.
Rivyn went upwards, starting with twenty to kill on each floor he needed to and scaling up until it reached a hundred on the fifth floor. Then, by the time he was working through the sixth, the monsters had changed from slimes to small lizard-like creatures called kobolds-slightly stronger but still no match against Rivyn's strength.
The speaker, with such an easy grace, reeled them upwards, floor by floor upwards the rising difficulty.
The monsters changed on the eleventh floor up: wolves, more graceful than the kobolds, darting between trees with incredible quickness; their ferocity again became a non-factor to Rivyn as he cut them down with his light, exacting blows, continuing up the floors as if it were some sort of chore.
Goblins once again waited for Rivyn on the fifteenth floor. He actually smiled when he saw them this time. It was little more than yesterday these same monsters gave him such a hard time, killing him over and over against the white expanse. Now, they were little more than an irritation, little bumps in the road between Rivyn and the top.
---------------------------------
Seven hours had passed.
Rivyn once more looked at the internal clock, standing on the sixtieth floor of the tower-really, he got there rather smoothly, more precisely, cutting through every wave after wave of monsters with fairly light labor. Indeed, one could say that the progress was good, but the floors began to seriously get more complicated and thus the hold-ups big.
Thus far, he hadn't gotten any experience from these monsters, but he suspected that was only because they were so amazingly weak they just didn't have anything worthwhile to give.
Now, on the sixtieth floor, he faced a horde of orcs. Upon seeing the group of them, his body tensed in anticipation. Although much larger and stronger than any of the monsters faced thus far, it was their movement that gave Rivyn pause-instead of rushing him, mindless beasts, they moved forward one at a time, each patiently waiting for its turn to fight.
Rivyn felt a pang of by now too familiar nostalgia at the view of them. They were so much alike to the orcs of the white space - honest warriors who conducted their battles in a one-to-one combat. For a moment he wrapped himself in the comfort of the familiarity of the situation.
Smiling, Rivyn took a fighting stance, stepping right into the face of the first-and in but a moment, it was over. In all, it took Rivyn but a single swipe of his sword to send this orc crashing to the ground. The second, aiming for Rivyn, likewise met a quick end. The remaining floors were the same. One orc after another, Rivyn killed them one by one with his blade. Not difficult, but it took quite a long time. However, Rivyn didn't hurry. He knew he would finally reach the top.
As if to confirm it, a familiar notification appeared before him just as he killed the last orc on the sixtieth floor.
[You have leveled up]
It actually brightened him up-maybe the fact that monsters in this place would give experience, however few and powerful the types were. He tucked that thought aside as he prepared himself to ascend the stairs to the next floor. Little time did he have to ponder on the mechanics of the tower; a single-minded determination in his head wished to see the top.
And, of course, the seventy-first floor wasn't an exception to all these difficulties. Standing on the deck of a ship, an endless expanse of the ocean stretched before Rivyn. On the blue screen of the system, his target finally appeared-a sea monster called Scylla, a creature that swam without making a single noise in the waves.
All around him, Rivyn noticed a fair number of spears strewn about the ship. He painfully stowed them in his inventory, then plunged into the ocean with one decided leap. The water wrapped itself around him, cold and unforgiving, the extreme pressure of the deep leaning against him as he sank, peering through the murk for the slightest movement. His mana poured through the ocean, extending in search of the creature below.
And for nearly two hours thereafter, he did. The coloring of Scylla's rock shell was similar in color to the sea floor, making it all but invisible to the naked eye. Rivyn grabbed the spears he had collected and threw them with all his might into the beast. The first pierced the shell, causing a small fracture, though the water did drain the velocity of the projectile. He pierced two more, and with each impact, the fractures opened further.
With the third lance, Scylla's shell cracked and lay there, twisting in death agony.
The other floors weren't that much different. On the next ten floors, Rivyn had been fighting sea monsters-each stronger than the previous one-but he felt that by the eightieth floor he had already tired himself out from swimming, while the monsters stopped being any threat to him quite a while ago. He had climbed up three more floors, and the huge jump in his strength could be felt by him.
[Rivyn - F-rank]
[Level - 74]
[Strength - 194]
[Agility - 154]
[Defense - 149]
[Mana - 124]
[Unallocated Stats - 12]
His strength and his dexterity were so well developed that he was the strongest ever, but such a thought was outshone by another great feeling-the feeling of an improvement. That put him on the eightieth floor and twenty floors away from his destination. A casual glance at his internal clock told him he had roughly twenty-seven hours left.
He'd had good progress so far, but he was pretty aware that waiting for him with the higher-order floors would be a lot greater than what he had faced so far. It was now time to pick up the pace.