Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 131

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 131. The Tower – City of the Lizardmen (7)

I rushed forward while conjuring dozens of clones.
Though I called them clones, they weren’t true duplicates—merely illusions bearing my likeness.
Dozens of phantom clones scattered in all directions, assailing the Lizardman King, while I slipped between them and attacked alongside them.
The Lizardman King, apparently lacking combat experience, failed to identify the real me and swung his spear to erase my phantom clones.
Thirteen phantom clones struck by the spear vanished in an instant like mirages, but the opening it created was precisely what I needed.
I slipped behind the Lizardman King and thrust my blade—wrapped in sword energy—straight at his heart.
Yet even dulled senses can perceive sword energy generated at close range. His body twisted to evade, and his spear pierced through toward my heart in return.
“Fool.”
My phantom clone—the one whose heart was pierced—dissipated with a laugh, while the real me struck at the Lizardman King’s side from the opposite direction with sword energy.
What the Lizardman King had mistaken for sword energy was actually a mana blade I’d created.
Weaving magic into my clones made deceiving one inexperienced lizard child’s play.
“Grraaaagh!”
The Lizardman King swung his spear and struck me hard with a sweeping blow.
I used Light Steps to evade and pulled my body back, but spear energy trailing the weapon’s arc severed my right leg and arm.
Before my severed limbs could fall away, I used telekinesis to press the cut surfaces together and reconnected them with regeneration.
Had the cut been ragged, reattaching my limbs would have consumed far more mana, but the clean severance meant far less drain.
Landing on both legs, I conjured phantom clones again and stirred up dust around us with wind, slipping into the cloud.
The Lizardman King temporarily sealed the wound in his side with mana, then swung his spear to disperse the dust completely.
He surveyed me and my phantom clones moving ceaselessly from all sides, his expression darkening before breaking into a grin.
“Stupid wretch! No matter how you reattach your limbs, you can’t seem to fix your clothes!”
The Lizardman King spotted me among the clones, my garment torn and hanging loose, and drove his spear toward me.
“Gahhh!”
This time, sensing some hit in his hand, the Lizardman King laughed triumphantly.
But my blade came whipping down at his neck from behind. He twisted away in shock, though his reaction was slow enough that he took a cut.
“Ugh!”
This one was deeper.
I’d wounded his carotid artery.
The moment I was certain of it, the Lizardman King lashed out with his tail, sending me flying.
Crash—!
I flew backward, tearing through two ancient ruin structures before slamming into the ground.
My vision reeled, and I lost consciousness for about a second before snapping back.
Counterattacking from that angle with his tail—that’s practically cheating.
“Cough! Ugh-ack-ack!”
Internal injuries erupted violently; blood gushed from my mouth in torrents.
If I hadn’t been defended by protective magic and my combat outfit, I’d have died on impact.
I hastily used regeneration to mend my internal wounds and gulped down a Mana Recovery Potion.
The metallic taste of blood filling my mouth made me gag, but I forced it down.
“How dare you deceive me!”
During the single second I’d been unconscious, my magic unraveled, and the Lizardman King realized what he’d pierced through wasn’t me but a clump of earth I’d hidden inside my phantom clone, filling him with fury.
He unleashed dozens of spear strikes in the direction I’d flown.
Seeing no escape space, I used Earth Magic to rapidly tunnel underground.
Such earth magic was illegal in the city governed by the 33 Magic Towers—as forbidden as unauthorized space magic—but here it mattered little.
A city with nine underground floors would risk collapse if earth magic were misused, but this place had no such vulnerability.
Burrowed underground to evade the assault, I used my sense of qi to locate the Lizardman King, then unleashed a massive Earth Wave like a tidal surge, burying him in it.
The King swung his spear, cleaving and smashing the earth wave attacking from all sides.
From within the collapsing sand, I thrust at the Lizardman King’s back.
“Cowardly Thrust!”
“Won’t work!”
The Lizardman King, entirely alert, swung his spear at me.
Of course, the one using the Cowardly Thrust was a phantom clone.
Surrounded by phantom clones spawning from all directions, the Lizardman King grew tense, his senses sharp as he searched for the real me.
Then his feet sank into the ground beneath him, and in an instant, he was dragged underground.
Still remaining beneath the earth, I surfaced and drew in oxygen I’d been lacking.
“Gasp—! Almost suffocated down there!”
I breathed in the fresh air and squeezed down hard on the Lizardman King buried beneath me, as if to crush him.
“Crack!”
crushing them to death under immense pressure.
Or strangling the life out of them entirely.
I drained a Mana Recovery Potion and poured everything I had into the spell.
As I pushed myself to the limit for what felt like a minute, the ground where I’d buried the Lizardman King erupted, and the earth shot upward into the sky.
“Roooaaarrr!! I’ll slaughter you! You wretched ape!”
The Lizardman King had detonated his mana, escaping death in the process.
“Tch. The gap in power is just too wide—there’s nothing I can do about it.”
My current strength was at best first-rate as a Martial Artist, though only third-class as a Mage.
Without powerful debuff techniques like the Scales of Sin to weaken him, it was clearly impossible to fight a monster that shouldn’t even exist below the 50th Floor.
But that mana detonation had shifted the tide in my favor.
The Lizardman King’s mana reserves were dwindling like a life force burning away.
Tansa, the Lizardman City, was already reduced to ruins by the chaos, riots, and the king’s rampaging attacks—countless Lizardmen, whether tribespeople or captives, had fallen dead.
Even if I fled now, I’d already secured roughly a ton of gold, so I couldn’t ask for a better profit.
“But I can’t let go of prey I’ve already caught.”
Gold? Mysteries?
None of that mattered anymore.
Experience Points from capturing the king?
I had a talent that couldn’t absorb those.
But that king absolutely had to have an Ability Stone.
A monster that shouldn’t appear below the 50th Floor had shown up on the 22nd—how remarkable could that stone be?
I simply couldn’t abandon this.
If I hadn’t possessed Regeneration, I would’ve died at least three more times over in this fight, yet here I stood alive.
Cats die from curiosity, humans from greed. What’s a few more deaths?
I tossed away the empty potion bottle and rushed toward the Lizardman King as he landed.
The Lizardman King lunged at me in kind.
The overwhelming aura he’d radiated moments before was gone.
He’d spent more than half his mana escaping from being buried alive fifteen meters underground.
The thick Spear Energy that once wreathed his weapon had been reduced to barely a whisper around its shaft.
Yet the remaining energy was still terrifyingly formidable.
Even a graze would shred bone and flesh like paper.
But I didn’t care.
I’d surrender my bones and flesh if it meant I could take his heart and slit his throat.
With that resolve, our battle resumed.
The king’s spear thrust sharply toward my neck.
I twisted aside and answered with a Sword Energy strike at his throat.
Though I’d dodged, the turbulent winds birthed by the force of his spearhead grazed my neck, drawing blood.
The king evaded my sword and swept his spear downward in a wide arc; I threw myself clear.
As I swung my blade, the king parried and knocked it aside, then drove his spear toward my abdomen.
I deflected the thrust and, sliding along his spear shaft, closed the distance and pierced his heart.
The king blocked my blade with the scales of his left arm and stepped back, widening the gap between us again.
I pressed forward, he retreated, our blades crossing as we moved in ceaseless rhythm.
To block the king’s Spear Energy, I had to match it with my own Sword Energy.
Through constant live combat, the feel of wielding Sword Energy had become second nature.
Generating Sword Energy no longer consumed an exorbitant amount of Inner Power.
I was growing steadily more refined.
My abdomen was pierced, my thigh slashed by the king’s spear, yet I paid it no mind—I regenerated and kept swinging.
When his spear aimed for my heart or throat, I conjured a Mana Chain to bind the king and lock his movement.
Worn though he was, the king’s frame was too mighty to be held by mere Mana Chains, but they bought precious moments of lag—moments that saved my life.
My entire body became a canvas of wounds as I continued to wield my blade.
Whether it was adrenaline surging through my veins or simply the wounds healing as fast as they opened, the pain felt distant and unreal.
After a desperate, razor-thin duel, one mistake left my heart pierced—a wound that Regeneration couldn’t heal.
The instant I sensed death, I reabsorbed my Clone and summoned a new one.
The human body could maintain consciousness for a few seconds even with a ruptured heart.
I’d never experienced a shattered heart until now, so this was my first time learning it.
I felt a strange exhilaration and began to hum.
“Now it begins, my dream, my journey for my dream~!”
The moment my heart regenerated perfectly, terror flooded the Lizardman King’s face.
“Why? Why won’t you die? Die! I command you to die!”
The Lizardman King’s voice shook with desperation and rage.
He suppressed his fear and conquered it with fury.
Was the king not the real deal?
I let his desperate cry pass through one ear and swung my sword.
I poured everything into moving faster than before, striking with greater force.
A long battle had begun anew.
My blade couldn’t deal a killing blow to the Lizardman King, but it was more than enough to drain his Mana.
I took wound after wound, triggering Regeneration over and over, chipping away at him bit by bit.
As his Mana depleted, blood began to seep from the wounds I’d inflicted earlier.
His Mana consumption had become so severe that he had to conserve even the energy needed to seal his wounds.
But I was hemorrhaging Mana just as badly.
In the span of mere seconds, we exchanged dozens of blows—and the king finally saw it.
“Ahahaha! Your wounds are healing far more slowly now! So that tiresome ability has finally reached its limit? Of course! Even this magnificent king has limits to his life—did you think yours would be endless?”
Each new wound left me with insufficient Mana to regenerate properly.
And I couldn’t drink a Mana Recovery Potion—the Lizardman King wouldn’t give me a moment’s respite.
Yet the king’s hopes would not be so easily realized.
“Now die!”
I swung my sword even as blood drenched me from head to toe.
Our Spear Energy and Sword Energy clashed and crossed at breathtaking speed.
The battle did not pause even as Mana began to run dry.
“You won’t die alone—let’s go down together!”
Drenched in blood, I laughed like a demon.
The king was undeniably stronger than me.
No matter how depleted our Mana became, that fact did not change.
Yet he hesitated, and fear crept back into his eyes.
Was that fear of me, or of the death that came with exhaustion?
I couldn’t say—I only moved, only swung my blade without ceasing.
At last, broken and battered from our clash, the king and I unleashed our final strikes at each other.
Both of us sensed this blow would be our last, so we poured everything into it—sword and spear crossed in a flash.
A cough of blood.
The final blow had landed.
“Ahahaha! My victory! You miserable wretch!”
In that final moment, his spear found my abdomen before my blade could touch him.
I had lost.
…If I had been alone, that is.
As my body began its rapid descent toward death, vitality surged back into me.
Silver Holy Power washed through my frame, reviving me, flooding me with Mana.
I grasped the spear lodged in my abdomen with my left hand and smiled.
“Now it’s time for us to part—don’t come back!”
“What—!”
Humming softly, I gathered every ounce of Sword Energy and severed the Lizardman King’s head.
His head fell to the ground, and I tore the spear from deep within my body.
“Ah….”
I collapsed to the earth and lost consciousness. As my vision faded, I saw Diana and Lee Su-young rushing toward me.
Fortunately, the wound in my abdomen was closing quickly—I wouldn’t bleed out.

(To be continued in the next episode)

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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