Vulcan has reached far beyond the boundaries of ordinary life forms. However, even with his vision, the ends of the green pasture could not be assessed.
However, now, after just a moment has passed, the prior scenery was as if it had been no more than a dream, as Vulcan and the god of destruction Shiba were in completely different scenery.
Kwang-Kwang-Kwang-Kwang!
The god of destruction Shiba’s strong body turned black, and with that as the source of an immeasurable power, he wielded his trident.
With his eyes glaring, Vulcan was able to dodge the swinging trident, by using dragon dash, but the incredible, sharp piercing attacks continued without giving him a break.
Of course, Vulcan’s movements weren’t so dull, simple to open himself to get hurt, but he couldn’t help sweat profusely as he watched the annihilating ground each time the trident came in contact with the earth.
On top of that, there were more attacks by the god of destruction Shiba.
Boowooooong.
Whirl!
Narrow flame of fire shot out of the 3rd eye which was on his forehead.
Vulcan initially snickered when he saw it the first time.
That was because he thought the bastard’s skill appeared to be useless, and he also believed that his resistance to fire was certainly good enough.
As a result, he was going to directly face the bastard’s attack, but for some reason, he thought differently and hesitated to do so.
Ultimately, with a cringe, he used magic and sufficiently distanced himself from the flame.
And grazing by him, Shiba’s flame made contact with the ground in the distance.
Then he witnessed an awesome scene.
Whirrrrl!
“….What the heck!”
The ground which appeared to have been firmer than the one in Act 3 of Asgarde was being annihilated in the tens of square kilometers at a time!
Shivering from the shock of seeing that, Vulcan turned his head toward Shiba.
The god of destruction Shiba’s awesome skill certainly could not be defined as ordinary fire energy.
Having seen that, Vulcan gulped down his dry mouth, and Shiba spoke to him.
-You, foolish one who is going up the tower and knows not yourself….I will pour out a curse that is worse than death!
Shiba’s eyes were scattered with resentment and hatred.
A series of violent energy force, which even a demon king or a god wouldn’t be able to handle, spewed out, yet Vulcan did not dodge them.
Instead, increasing his magic power, Vulcan raised the output power of demon god’s protection and the wrath of the god of destruction.
He replied, somewhat, in an excited voice.
“Son of a bitch.”
* * *
[You have destroyed the god of destruction Shiba, the master of the 11th floor.]
[You’ve earned a huge quantity of experience.]
[Each floor’s master will regenerate in one week, but after killing them, you will earn erased experience. Please be mindful of that.]
“Phewww. Phew.”
Vulcan has successfully defeated Shiba, who was called the ancient god of destruction, after a long and difficult battle.
However, he could not help, but remained cringing.
It was because he wasn’t very happy with the way he had performed in the battle against Shiba, a moment ago.
Of course, it wasn’t that Vulcan had truly difficult fight against Shiba.
His awesome military might and lightning like speed were sufficient enough to overwhelm Shiba, at every time, and in fact, as if to prove that, he came out completely unscathed.
‘….Despite that, was not able to demonstrate skills to differentiate my level.’
The god of destruction Shiba’s level was 1,615.
Compared to that, he was at 1,653, or higher by 38.
Certainly, it couldn’t be viewed as a big difference, but having had defeated monsters with almost the same or slightly higher levels up to now, he definitely could not be satisfied by what has transpired.
Besides, the bastard wasn’t even the ultimate boss, and he was only in charge of one of the many levels of the Babel Tower.
That implied that as he moved up higher, he would be faced with powerful bastards, at the level which would be equal to him, or even higher leveled ones would certainly appear.
‘I struggled against a bastard, at a lower level than me….Phew. At this rate, who knows I might actually lose ground from the moment a monster at the same level as I appear.’
Of course, Vulcan was not going to let that happen.
After staring in the direction of the stairs leading to the 12th floor, he changed his way back to the space where he was forcibly transported to where the god of destruction Shiba had been.
He thought about dueling against Shiba, the god of destruction, who was to be regenerated in one week.
Unlike other hunting grounds, he knew that he could only earn the experience which would have been erased after the initial victory, yet Vulcan thought that there was a lot more to gain.
‘The bastard appeared to be much like me, yet handles fire very differently than I…I’ll go up to the next floor after I absorb everything I could possibly get from him through repeated battles.’
Having finished his thoughts, Vulcan plopped down into a lotus position.
Although he was victorious, the bastard had demonstrated amazingly fast, unrelenting trident attacks, and fire management skills which were in a different orbit than he was.
He felt it would have been too empty to go up to the higher floor without having any reflecting moments, or to having fought only once as there were much more to learn.
Hence, he slowly fell deeply into his own world, and went up to the next floor only after he was satisfied with the fact that he had enough amount of battle time against Shiba.
* * *
40 years have passed.
Vulcan’s physical level was at 1,513, a rise of 10 levels. He had 1,663 with combined deity power.
It was still a very slow pace in terms of the speed in which he was upping his level, yet Vulcan did not seem too unhappy.
It was because he was fully prepared to accept the consequences of slower leveling up since he had made the decision to not immediately go up to the next floor, after each battle.
He would have been quite dissatisfied if just the leveling up was slowed, and that nothing was gained, but that wasn’t certainly the case.
In fact, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a lot more has been gained.
Boooowooong.
“Phew. That’s enough for this floor.”
Vulcan let out a comment after having fought the 50th floor’s master for the 74th time.
It was because he had earned satisfactory accomplishments after having fought ‘the great demon king Asmodeus’, to which no demons of other demon worlds could even be compared, for a very long time.
[The great demon king Asmodeus]
[1645 Lv]
[Characteristic: The ancient demons were even scared of his evil nature, but is somewhat eroded by the Tower]
[Potential: Maximum]
* He was the demon that had no comparable opponent in the ancient Solemnhon Dimension, but is currently constrained within the Tower.
* He feels hatred toward all those who climb up the Tower.
* He is showing hatred towards you.
The bastard used to use sword, just like him.
However, by watching the bastard using sword skills which was completely differently than his, Vulcan was able to learn what he had been missing, and even felt a bit more powerful than before.
Although the bastard poured out curses with hatred filled voice, he had become a teacher of swordsmanship to Vulcan, in some sense.
Putting on a smile after having thought this far, Vulcan reminisced the past events.
Asmodeus wasn’t the only one who acted as his teachers.
In fact, many ancient beings were excellent teachers to Vulcan, including Shiba, the god of destruction, who was his first opponent.
They all showed brand new skills, movements, and powers which Vulcan had never imagined as they guided him to a new world.
Of course, not every being had been helpful to Vulcan.
The ‘strange world’s monsters’, with completely different body structures and powers weren’t any help, other than helping him earn experience levels.
Certainly, Vulcan immediately moved up, up to the next floors after destroying them.
This Tower was filled with beings which could be his instructors.
There was no need to waste his time on those lowly bastards, at all.
‘I had to slowly pay attention to experience levels…But, that wasn’t urgent, anyway. By having cleared about 100 floors, it would be OK to sweep them up by going up and down between 11th and 100th floors since I wouldn’t need to wait for them to regenerate.’
Rather than focusing on the experience as he had done up to now, Vulcan has decided to concentrate on the inspiration which he could obtain from the master of each floor.
He moved up to the 51st floor with confidence, and he felt that something was different.
“…..”
He could not, not feel it.
After stepping on to the last step of the stairs, he felt suffocating pressure as soon as he has landed on the 51st floor.
He unconsciously pounded on his chest as he felt it even difficult to just stand still, from the pressure of several hundred, thousand times of the earth’s gravity.
Of course, doing that did not make the situation better.
In fact, he felt goose bumps due to the fear coming from the ever more deepening abyss.
Momentarily, Vulcan thought about turning around and moving back down to the 50th floor.
He knew that the being which was waiting for him on this floor would be incredibly powerful. That was certain.
Just like the rewards and difficulty level rose acutely from 10th to the 11th floor, he felt that the level of difficulty would rise beyond the gap between two immediate floors, 50th and 51st floors.
Although he had easily defeated Asmodeus, the great demon of the 50th floor, the situation seemed to indicate that he would lose to the master of the 51st floor, should he directly confront him.
“….Shit.”
However, Vulcan did not turn back.
Of course, by immediately turning back, and leveling up by hunting the floor masters of 11th through 50th floors, he would increase the chance of defeating the monster.
Who knows, perhaps, after leveling up by 40~50, even this 51st floor which felt so tough could easily be cleared.
However, he could not do that anymore.
By repeatedly running away and dodging in such fashion, it would certainly cause his lightning and fire to lose their nature and get weakened, for sure.
And at some point in time, they would no longer be able to penetrate through a thickened wall, and would lose their powers.
He understood it from Powell’s teachings, and felt it while he fought the true demons in Naraka. He even demonstrated and showed the results of it when he fought Rock Seeger.
He had to move forward.
No matter what fearful being was waiting for him, he could not give up.
Thinking such thoughts, he moved one step, two steps forward. Then.
Whirrl.
[You have passed through the lower region of the Babel Tower.]
[You are entering the mid region of the Babel Tower.]
The scenery changed instantly.
And the alerting message was heard.
Feeling what would come has come, Vulcan turned his head.
He did not even need to look around the area.
Far in the distance, about 100 meters away, he could not help, but feel a very powerful being interestingly observing him.
[Ikarus, the king of all nature]
[1,700 Lv]
[Characteristics: Neutral (Erosion in progress)]
[Potential: Ultimate]
* The most powerful one of the ancient Urupus Dimension.
* Due to being in the Babel Tower, he is getting eroded.
* He is showing interest in you.
‘…..Interest?’
It was the first time that Vulcan met a being showing an interest towards him.
Ikarus, the king of all nature began a conversation.
“You could have returned, yet you did not.”
“…..”
Even though he was far away, his voice reached Vulcan’s ears as if he was talking to him, from nearby.
However, Vulcan did not even respond to him.
In fact, he could not even process the situation and did not know what to say.
He was just in a posture to battle by raising his lightning and thunder sword, so that he did not leave himself open to an unexpected attack.
Showing even more interest as he watched Vulcan taking that posture, Ikarus spoke again.
“나보다 약하다는 것을 알고 있음에도 불구하고 패기가 넘치는군. 확실히 재능이 있어. 너, 여기까지 올라오면서 몇 번이나 죽었지?”
“Your fighting spirit is overflowing, although you know that you are weaker than me. You certainly have a knack for it. You! How many times have you been killed as you made your way up here?”
“….I haven’t been killed, yet.”
Was it because he felt relaxed as Ikarus showed no intention of engaging in a battle.
Vulcan unconsciously replied to his question, and Ikarus seemed amazed as he exclaimed.
“Ahh, certainly great. You’re the second most worthy opponent of mine, as of yet. You appear to even be able to bypass me.”
“What is it that you want to say.”
Hearing Vulcan’s sharpened tone of voice, Ikarus, the king of all nature, smiled then instantly opened his all white wings and flew to close vicinity of Vulcan.
When Vulcan felt nervous as he looked at his beautiful face which looked to have been chiseled out of white jade, an unexpected comment was heard from him.
“Alright, I’ve chosen you. Let’s make a deal.”
“What?”
“I’ll teach you.”
“…..!”
“In return, take me out of this place.”
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