Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 137

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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 137. The Tower – The Golden Trial (6)

The Golden Dragon flicked his finger, tossing a gold coin high into the air, and the moment it struck the ground, Yong A-byeong and I rushed toward each other.
A vivid, bright yellow sword aura coalesced along Yong A-byeong’s golden blade as he swung it at my throat.
True to his nature as a retainer of the Golden Dragon, both his sword and his aura gleamed gold.
It appeared that Yong A-byeong, as a retainer of the Golden Dragon, was converting the Mystery of Gold into raw power and channeling it through his technique.
I swept my blade upward from below, deflecting Yong A-byeong’s strike to the side.
Even wrapped in sword aura, the blade was far harder than I’d anticipated.
Could the sword itself be made of Titanium Gold Alloy Steel?
In the Galaxy Martial Arts World, Titanium Gold Alloy Steel was treated like a standard-issue material—comparable to Cold Iron.
Compared to the extraordinarily rare eternal Cold Iron, it was somewhat inferior in hardness and tensile strength, but nearly equivalent nonetheless.
The price was considerable, but cheap relative to the special metal that Cold Iron was.
After deflecting his blade, I drove forward quickly and thrust my sword through the gaps in Yong A-byeong’s armor.
Yong A-byeong sidestepped by a millimeter and tried to strike my temple with his sword hilt.
I ducked beneath the hilt and countered with a palm strike to Yong A-byeong’s abdomen.
Crash!
The impact echoed like a massive gong.
Yet despite my palm strike carrying the subtlety of the Heavy Water Method, Yong A-byeong simply kicked me away without effort.
I quickly infused my coat with inner energy to absorb the shock.
So this was why people valued good armor—a kick that should’ve ruptured my organs and killed me outright now merely sent a spray of blood from my lips.
I rolled across the ground to dissipate the impact, sprang back up, and clicked my tongue in irritation.
“Damn! Having a hollow body inside isn’t cheating?”
The interior of Yong A-byeong’s Golden Armor was completely empty.
I knew he wasn’t a real body, but having nothing inside at all—that was just unfair.
Shouldn’t he be called Living Armor rather than Yong A-byeong?
The Golden Dragon chuckled mockingly at my complaint.
“The real cheat is your regeneration.”
He had a point there.
Still, my attack with the Heavy Water Method had revealed Yong A-byeong’s weaknesses.
First, the armor wasn’t nearly as hard as the sword.
If the armor had been as hard as the blade, there’d have been no hope—but weakening it to gold seemed to stem not only from the power Yong A-byeong could wield, but from something else.
The second weakness was the location of the Magical Formation binding Yong A-byeong’s soul to the armor.
Destroy the formation, and the connection between Yong A-byeong’s true form and the armor would sever—victory would be mine.
But the formation was too small to exploit easily.
It was inscribed on the inside of the helmet, roughly the size of a fist, at the back of the skull.
In that case, attacking it would be meaningless unless I severed the limbs entirely.
And even then, they might reattach themselves.
I was still puzzling through the strategy when Yong A-byeong spoke.
“If you won’t come to me, then I’ll come to you.”
Yong A-byeong stamped his foot once, then closed the distance in a flash, driving his blade straight at the space between my brows.
I twisted my head urgently to evade his thrust.
But I was a fraction too slow—my cheek was cut deep, and the cut extended all the way to my ear.
I ignored the sharp, cool sensation from the wound and drove inward, thrusting my blade at the gap beneath the helmet.
Yong A-byeong leaned his torso back slightly, dodging my thrust.
I reversed my upward thrust into a downward cut, aiming for the crown of the helmet.
I meant to cleave through the helmet and the formation together, but Yong A-byeong pulled his arm back swiftly and blocked my blade.
Simultaneously, he used my own force against me, drawing my blade downward as though sucking it toward him, then swept his blade upward from below.
The strike carved across my torso.
Crack!
“Ugh!”
The exchange happened so fast my body had no choice but to be cut.
My only luck was that my coat, woven from the hide of the Lizardman King and infused with my inner energy, managed to hold back the sword aura.
So this was why people chased after good equipment.
But while it stopped the blade itself, it couldn’t fully absorb the shock.
Driven back two steps, I spat blood and asked through gritted teeth.
“Cough! Aren’t you pushing yourself too hard?”
Yong A-byeong’s movements clearly far exceeded first-rate level, and the armor couldn’t keep up with them—cracks had begun to spider across his right arm.
That cracking sound just now hadn’t come from me, but from the armor of Yong A-byeong’s sword arm.
The armor-clad body had clearly reached first-rate condition.
If this were flesh and blood, the muscles would have ruptured by now—the user wouldn’t even be able to grip a sword.
“Hmm… I’ve never grown this weak before. I’m having trouble controlling my strength.”
Since this wasn’t a real body, power control was impossible.
It was as though the body’s limiters had been shattered entirely.
With a genuine body, no matter how limitless the power, I would have managed precise control.
But this armor wasn’t real flesh—so fine-tuned strength was inherently difficult.
Then again, who would squander two tons of gold just to face Yong A-byeong?
No matter how much gold one accumulated, it would only be hundreds of kilos at most—I doubted anyone had gathered gold in ton quantities like I had.
Even if they had, they’d have been stingy with it, knowing they’d need to pay out gold as compensation later.
“Still, that regeneration is tiresome. He must have taken serious internal damage, yet he already looks fine.”
“That’s my only strength, sir. My body can take a beating without issue.”
Just now, from the slash, his organs were pulped—but before death could claim him, regeneration swiftly restored everything.
External wounds healed fastest, but internal injuries recovered quite rapidly as well.
Yong A-byeong loosened his stance and swung his sword casually through the air.
“Right. I’ll do my best to control my power so you can learn through real combat as you wish. But control might slip, so try not to die.”
“Before I die from a power-control mistake, wouldn’t that clay-doll body of yours get smashed to pieces first?”
At my jab of a joke, Yong A-byeong nodded seriously.
“That’s possible. But I’ll do my best to prevent it.”
Yong A-byeong rushed forward, swinging his sword at my throat.
I deflected his blade with a sword wreathed in sword energy and hooked his leg from the inside.
Yong A-byeong’s center wavered slightly, and I swung at his exposed neck.
But he braced his left arm against the ground and kicked at me with his right foot, moving like Capoeira.
I blocked the kick with a cuff reinforced by Gung-gi leather and steel plating on my left arm, then slashed at his left leg with my sword.
At the same moment, Yong A-byeong—still braced on his left arm—spun a full rotation and slashed at my right leg.
“Tsk! I just made these pants yesterday!”
I reattached my right leg before it fell completely, but the pants made from Lizardman Warrior hide were lost.
Yong A-byeong flexed his left arm, pushed himself up, and landed on his right foot.
Then he reattached the armor on his left leg.
“You’re reattaching severed limbs—that’s cheating!”
“Coming from you?”
So it seemed this fight wouldn’t end unless I dealt with the magical formations.
I swung my right leg, flinging away the torn pant leg that had become a nuisance, then rushed at Yong A-byeong.
He met my charge with equal ferocity, clashing our blades together.
Clang!
Steel rang as sparks scattered in the bright collision.
I was clearly overpowered in raw strength.
But the swordplay I’d learned was the Flowing Sword—swift as wind, quick as lightning.
When overwhelmed by strength, you yield and guide the blade past.
After deflecting, you drive your own blade forward like a vortex.
Having guided away his sword, I exchanged dozens of strikes with Yong A-byeong, feinting toward his neck while targeting his left leg instead.
He fell for the deception—his reaction lagged half a beat, then half that again.
Given the gap between us, even at this reaction speed he should have defended adequately, but his current power level was significantly reduced, and he hadn’t yet adjusted to this new body.
As his left leg was severed again by my sword energy and fell from the armor, I understood.
“It’s not recovering completely.”
It was clearly much easier to cut through than at first.
“You caught on.”
The cracks still visible on his right arm gave me the hint, but the durability of the armor Yong A-byeong was controlling had clear limits.
The left leg armor I’d severed reattached, but his left leg had developed serious fissures.
“Did you figure it out from how the severed left leg reattaches quickly while the cracks in my right arm don’t repair?”
“More or less, yes.”
The hollow core of Yong A-byeong’s body was a cognitive trap.
Challengers who witnessed both the hollow interior during combat and the reattaching of severed limbs would realize the magical formations existed, then focus on targeting them alone.
From Yong A-byeong’s perspective, once the challenger’s target became obvious, it was easier to defend—and he could lure them into the perfect opening for a counter, just as when he’d slashed my abdomen.
“You’ve got sharp eyes. Usually challengers lose the same limb four or five times before they catch on.”
“At that point, wouldn’t anyone who doesn’t notice be an idiot?”
“I think so too. But there are more fools in this world than you’d expect.”
Yong A-byeong charged at me, swinging his sword.
His blade had begun to accelerate as he grew accustomed to his current body.
Though not by much.
I was creating an illusion of speed—it felt that way because Yong A-byeong was thrusting his blade from blind spots outside my perception, making me misjudge his velocity.
I continued treading the Footwork while dodging his strikes, all the while keeping track of both our positions.
“It seems your body can’t keep pace with your thoughts, after all.”
Yong A-byeong’s observation was accurate.
The body I’d been training all this time was my Reincarnation Avatar’s form.
Even at its weakest, it was superior to my current body by at least a factor of two.
I’d grown somewhat accustomed to it thanks to my training with the magical avatar’s body, but the lag between my thoughts and my body’s response was something I couldn’t overcome.
Yong A-byeong continued to thrust and slash at my vital points while speaking.
“To be honest with you, you have no talent for martial arts.”
“Can we save that conversation for after the trial?”
Why does he keep talking and distracting me?
Yong A-byeong’s blade grazed my neck as it passed.
Blood sprayed like a fountain, but I staunched it with regeneration.
Through a gap in my coat, his blade drove deep into my body.
I stopped the bleeding with regeneration while severing his right arm.
His right arm—already cracked—shattered completely and didn’t recover, but Yong A-byeong simply switched his grip to his left hand and continued swinging without concern.
“Haha, won’t my body fall to pieces once the trial ends? So if I’m going to give advice, it has to be now. Everyone fights together in the group trials, but you face this alone—so listen without answering back.”
Yong A-byeong hurled a Killing Move without hesitation as he spoke.
“Your wretched flesh, honestly, has no more room for growth without the Tower’s Blessing. The fact that you’ve grown at all this far is remarkable.”
But I’m not even receiving the Tower’s Blessing properly.
Unaware of that truth, Yong A-byeong continued.
“However, physical growth is something the Tower’s Blessing can handle. Unlike your wretched physical talent, you possess considerable battle sense. The heights you’ve reached, incompatible with your natural gifts, must surely be thanks to that combat intuition.”
…Is that so?
Come to think of it, what Yong A-byeong called the Tower’s Blessing and the growth method of my Reincarnation Avatar were fundamentally the same.
If the Tower’s Blessing worked by soaking the monsters’ magic I’d slain into my body to drive physical and magical growth, then my avatar’s body worked by harboring unbearable internal energy in the Dantian—steeping my entire frame in that power to accelerate physical development.
“I have only one piece of advice: fight and fight again. Become a Battle Spirit, fight through experience, and fill that wretched potential with hard-won wisdom.”
Our blades clashed.
The power behind his strikes was weaker than when he’d fought with his right hand, yet his swordsmanship remained terrifyingly sharp.
Facing a left-hander made him more threatening than when he’d held the blade in his right.
There’s an old saying in baseball: you’d recruit a left-handed pitcher from hell itself—and the same was true for swordplay. Fighting right-handers was second nature, but left-handers always felt awkward.
If not for my coat, my body would already be soaked in blood and past the point of regeneration.
But despite bearing more wounds than he did, Yong A-byeong too had been slashed repeatedly by my blade.
His armor bore cracks here and there, and his left leg—the first to be severed by me—was so shredded it could no longer support his weight.
“Aren’t you emphasizing my wretched talent just a bit too much?”
“But it’s the truth, isn’t it?”
We both readied what would be our final strike.
“Did you learn much from fighting me?”
“A great deal. Before engaging in combat, make sure your equipment is solid. Good armor saves your life.”
And left-handers are terrifying. It sounds trivial, but it’s not a lesson easily grasped.
The handful of left-handers I’d faced before had all been weaker than me.
Even with this final attack, I still had considerable strength left thanks to my coat made from a lizard king’s hide, whereas Yong A-byeong had little to nothing left.
I could have simply stalled until the trial passed, but I poured all my internal energy into the clash.
At my action, Yong A-byeong let out a soft chuckle.
“Huh, that’s also good wisdom.”
Having already confirmed through our battle what I’d learned, Yong A-byeong spoke with satisfaction.
We unleashed our final Ultimate Moves at each other.
I could have dodged, but I met it head-on instead.
Where’s the style in that, after all?
His blade energy tore my body into countless shallow wounds, yet his armor shattered completely.
Yong A-byeong, collapsed on the ground, spoke with a tone of satisfaction.
“My name is… I’ll tell you if we meet again. You’ll reach the upper floors….”
Before he could finish, Yong A-byeong crumbled to dust and vanished.
I watched him fade and spoke.
“Ah, my hands are shaking—magic exhaustion.”
During the fight with Yong A-byeong, there’d been no opening to drink, so I hurriedly downed a Mana Recovery Potion.
“Phew~! I feel alive again.”
As my magic returned, I healed my wounds and gave a light wave to the two people standing within the Barrier.

(To be continued in the next chapter)

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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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