Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 58
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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 58. The Tower – Chimera (4)
Lee Su-young’s water bullets and flame rounds, along with William’s three magical arrows, struck dead center between the lion’s eyes.
“What?! It didn’t break!”
The Heavy Armor Climber, standing at the front with a shield as large as his own body, using his ‘ability’ to redirect the Chimera’s attacks, cried out in shock at the beast’s intact gem.
“No! It’s not intact!”
At Diana’s cry, I looked closer and saw fine cracks spreading across the gem embedded in the lion’s head.
The Chimera, sensing the danger of its weak point being attacked, grew more ferocious in its movements and turned its gaze toward Lee Su-young and William, who stood at a distance.
“That Oriental destroyed the goat’s head gem in a single strike!”
The Heavy Armor Climber questioned Diana accusingly.
Diana glanced at the goat’s head and spoke.
“That was probably Han Ji-woo’s attack being stronger than the two behind him—be careful!”
While the Heavy Armor Climber’s attention wavered for a moment, the two fighters grappling with the tail lost their grip, and the tail launched a surprise attack from his blind spot.
The snake-headed tail bared its gleaming fangs, attempting to devour the Heavy Armor Climber in a single bite.
I rushed forward and severed the snake’s neck cleanly before it could strike.
“Ugh!”
I was struck by the Chimera’s thrashing tail and flew backward, coughing blood.
The snake head wasn’t completely severed, but more than half was cut through, so the recoil from the tail’s swing caused it to tear away completely.
“Ji-woo!”
Diana cried out in alarm, and I immediately rose to my feet, gesturing that I was fine.
The blood I coughed up wasn’t from internal injuries—just a torn mouth.
The problem was my left arm.
I had instinctively reinforced my combat suit and blocked with my left arm, but the suit couldn’t completely absorb the impact.
Just as a bulletproof vest prevents penetration but can cause bruising or broken bones at the impact site, my left arm’s reinforcement crumpled completely, shattering the bones beneath.
With severed nerves and bones piercing flesh, the sharp pain made me break into cold sweat and grit my teeth.
Fortunately, I had learned how to suppress vital points during my preliminary studies.
Pressing vital points was only possible from 2nd Class onward, and I happened to be a natural genius at internal energy manipulation—even more so than Cheon Mu-ji-che.
I pressed the vital point on my left arm, cutting off all sensation transmitted from it.
This was my first time actually pressing a vital point—I never expected my own body to become the test bed.
Still, I was relieved to realize that what I had learned wasn’t wasted.
“Keep attacking!”
I shouted to Lee Su-young and William to keep targeting the forehead as I charged at the Chimera.
The Tamer Climber fighting alongside me seemed to have a special ability to enhance wolves and fought quite well, but had already lost one wolf.
I was concerned whether one wolf would be enough, but he pulled another whistle from his pocket and blew it, summoning another wolf.
It seemed he could only command two at a time, but had multiple wolves tamed and stored in his pocket.
Did he purchase that whistle from the Tower Shop?
Or did he create it with his ability?
Can it only contain monsters?
It would be quite convenient if I could store items in my inventory as well.
A somewhat chronic curiosity tried to lift its head, but I suppressed it and slashed at the Chimera’s front leg.
As the snake head on the tail was severed, the tail could no longer move independently, and its movements became simpler.
While we had to face the lion head that fully controlled the body head-on and also contend with the tail, the Wolf Man and Metal Man fighting from behind seemed to have it much easier.
Since its rear end kept getting stabbed, the lion head couldn’t concentrate entirely on killing me.
Lee Su-young and William’s attacks continued to target the center of the lion head’s brow.
William’s magic arrows occasionally missed and struck the lion’s face, but Lee Su-young’s water bullets and flame bullets hit with perfect accuracy.
“I heard you studied archery—that’s impressive!”
“Hehe, ahem! This much is nothing!”
At William’s praise, Lee Su-young brightened up, then coughed and composed herself.
She seemed to enjoy praise more than I’d expected.
I made a mental note to compliment her more later.
While thinking that, I took the opportunity when the Heavy Armor Climber used his ability to draw the Chimera’s attention, and I severed its left front leg with a powerful slash.
“You there, your left arm…!”
The Heavy Armor Climber, fighting beside me, noticed my left arm and was startled.
“Stay focused. We’re still in combat.”
As I severed the Chimera’s front leg, it turned its relentless attention back to me.
I used lightness of step and footwork techniques, doing my best to evade and strike.
My proficiency in lightness of step felt like it was climbing rapidly through this battle, more than through years of training before.
Of course, my current heightened senses came from concentrating with my life on the line, causing all the experience I’d accumulated to burst forth—but it was undoubtedly precious experience nonetheless.
Perhaps people really do perform better when they’re desperate.
The tail came at me again, and I leaped high, immediately storing my sword in my inventory and exchanging it for a hand axe, then threw it at the center of the Chimera’s brow.
During the brief moment I hung in the air, I reinforced it with my inner strength—it was weaker than when I finished off the goat head, but still carried sufficient power.
The Chimera seemed to have developed trauma from my thrown hand axe and hastily twisted its head to evade, but the axe struck its right eye directly.
“Kyaaoooo-!!”
“Ugh!”
The Chimera shrieked in agony and lashed out at me with its right front leg in fury, but I leaped once more using my double-jump anklet to avoid the attack.
However, I couldn’t evade the tail that followed.
“Cough!”
This time, without any guard, it struck my torso directly, and I coughed up blood.
“Gurgle.”
Seeing blood foam rise when I breathed, it felt less like torn tissue in my mouth and more like my ribs had fractured, piercing my lungs.
Unable to move due to the pain, the Chimera seized the opportunity and lashed its tail at me once more.
Clang—!
However, the Chimera’s tail was blocked by the Heavy Armor Climber and Diana, who had rushed over urgently.
“Are you alright?!”
“I’ll heal you right away! Good heavens! Your left arm!”
I grabbed Diana’s hand as it reached toward my left arm and pulled it toward my chest instead.
The injury to my chest was more severe than my left arm.
Seeing me cough up blood, Diana healed my chest wound with her silvery holy power.
I could feel my bones finding their proper positions and healing—not simply mending, but actively realigning themselves.
Feeling the sensation meant I also experienced every ounce of pain that accompanied the bones’ movement.
Though brief, the agony had drenched my entire body in cold sweat.
So holy power could facilitate healing as well.
“Your left arm next.”
“No, ptui!”
I spat out the remaining blood in my mouth before continuing.
“We’re still in combat. Let’s conserve our strength.”
Diana had likely expended roughly half her holy power just treating my chest wound.
Since Diana’s hardening ability also consumed holy power as its cost, depleting more energy would be dangerous.
“There’s an Alchemist among us. And even if there weren’t, I have potions.”
I had no intention of using potions.
Once I recreated my clone, everything would recover anyway—why waste precious potions?
With the two frontline defenders pinned to my side, the other melee dealers couldn’t hold their ground.
In the moment I looked away, three more wolves fell, and the Tamer was now locked in combat with a single wolf and a fragile Goblin.
“Argh! My arm!”
The Metal Man had transformed his entire body into metal, yet he couldn’t match the Chimera’s strength—his arm bent in a direction it absolutely shouldn’t.
The Wolf Man was holding up better somehow, so why was metal weaker?
“You face me! Unholy beast!”
The Heavy Armor Climber bellowed, using his ability to redirect the Chimera’s attention.
As the Chimera turned its head, I hurled my hand axe once more, aiming directly between its eyes.
The Chimera batted the axe away with its right foreleg this time.
But with more time to react, the blow didn’t merely graze—it tore a massive gash across the foreleg’s hide.
“Roooaarrr!”
As injuries accumulated, the Chimera attempted to flee by taking flight on its wings.
“Not so fast!”
The Druid Climber, who had been restraining the creature’s hind legs, extended wooden tendrils and roots further, binding even the wings.
“I can’t hold much longer! Hurry!”
The Chimera’s gem was already heavily fractured.
Lee Su-young, William, and I attacked simultaneously.
The Chimera tried to dodge by turning its head, but the Druid’s tendrils extended to its neck, momentarily freezing it in place.
My hand axe, Lee Su-young’s water orb, and William’s magic arrow struck true at the same instant, shattering the Chimera’s gem completely.
The lion’s head went limp, its eyes losing all focus, and the massive Chimera collapsed to the ground.
“Phew, it’s over.”
Now I just needed to distribute the magical stone from the Chimera’s chest.
The distribution method was straightforward.
One person would convert the magical stone into points at the Tower Shop, then everyone would take turns shaking hands to divide the points.
One might argue the distributor could cheat on the stone’s value, but we could verify the conversion rate beforehand by checking how much it was appraised at.
A creature of that size probably had a substantial gem, so the points should be considerable.
Though honestly, once divided, the reward probably wouldn’t match the effort we’d put into this fight.
I hadn’t fought for the points anyway, so it didn’t really matter.
Once the climbers gathered, a warm and friendly atmosphere formed as everyone commiserated about their hardships.
“Everyone worked hard. Especially you, Han Ji-woo—I didn’t expect you to fight so aggressively despite sustaining injuries.”
Starting with Bogard Dellington’s praise, everyone seemed to begin complimenting me.
In particular, the Black climber in heavy armor gave a slight cough before speaking to me.
“Ahem, I owe you an apology for what I said before the fight about being hasty. Thank you for blocking that snake-headed tail when it tried to attack me. I owe you my life. That left arm—you sustained that injury back then, didn’t you?”
“No, please don’t mention it. I practically dragged you all into the Chimera subjugation anyway, so that much is the least I could do. My left arm doesn’t hurt much at all.”
At my response, he spoke as if bewildered.
“It’s visibly swollen though?”
It wasn’t a lie. I had blocked pain sensation through acupressure points.
Outside the Tower, it would have required immediate surgery, but inside the Tower, it wasn’t a serious injury.
As long as limbs weren’t severed, most injuries could be treated by the clergyman—whether Priest or clergy—at the 10th Floor Cathedral using holy power, paid with Tower Shop points or credits.
The cost seemed to scale with the severity of the injury, but they wouldn’t refuse treatment if you lacked points or money.
Apparently, any shortfall in Tower Shop points would simply be recorded as a negative balance, so it was better to maintain a buffer in both credits and points.
Though it didn’t matter for me since I could create a clone to recover.
But the harmonious atmosphere shattered once we began distributing the Chimera byproducts and magical stones.
(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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