I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 101

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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 101
I watched Lee Ah-woon sink into the dark mana with mixed feelings—satisfaction tinged with sorrow.
Given that Lee Ah-woon had always suffered when wielding dark mana, he must be in considerable pain right now…
‘Pain is the price of EX-rank power.’
Great power demands great responsibility.
The moment Lee Ah-woon donned the crown of EX-rank, his path forward was sealed as one of thorns.
EX-rank—Earth’s strongest.
To imagine that path bathed in rose-colored light would be a delusion.
Had this been a stable era, perhaps it might have been different.
In such times, he could have farmed, sold mana stones and artifacts, and lived as an idol of the Hunter age.
But what of now?
Earth is a terminal patient.
In truth, South Korea is a preview of Earth’s future.
Even the United States, thriving now, will hit a wall around the 90th Floor—unless someone like me with asymmetrical power exists to break through.
When that hellish brake fails… South Korea’s fate will befall them in an instant.
If the United States falls? What of Japan or China?
It’s not a matter of if, but when—the progression will stall, the brake will shatter, and collapse is inevitable.
In other words, from the moment this cursed Tower appeared.
Earth’s annihilation was sealed.
‘Survival has become a cruel joke in this age.’
There is only one way to overcome this predetermined doom.
Clear the Tower to its end.
Specifically, the 100th Floor…!
Which party currently has the highest probability of clearing to the 100th Floor?
The sole hope to save South Korea, and indeed all of Earth.
My Climbing Party.
‘I said it in jest, but we really are a Hero’s party.’
Lee Ah-woon is a member of this party.
Moreover, he is our most crucial tank.
There’s a reason I granted him EX-rank Commander alongside a dual class of Spirit Mage.
To save humanity.
Before this grand purpose, no one can afford arrogance.
Not even I.
Therefore, Lee Ah-woon’s path cannot be peaceful.
It must not be.
He must walk the thorny road ahead.
That is Lee Ah-woon’s fate.
* * *
As an unsettling aura emanated from Lee Ah-woon, the Elf Queen drew upon the power of the World Tree.
She alone was the sole being capable of wielding the World Tree’s infinite life force directly.
Within this realm, the Elf Queen was supreme and invincible.
Thus, she had never once entertained the notion of struggling against these wretched insects of humans, and was merely ‘indulging’ them with the intention of making them suffer a painful death for their transgression in invading Mother’s Forest.
However, that black mana intensely provoked the Elf Queen’s vigilance.
Though the power appeared small and insignificant.
The magnitude of that power felt scarcely different from that of Mother World Tree itself!
Moreover, immediately after that power revealed itself, a crimson lake materialized beneath her feet, and a colossal dragon of bone abruptly emerged.
If this continued, the tide of the battlefield would reverse.
‘I must kill it now!’
Kwauuuu—!
Wind howled behind the Elf Queen’s back, manifesting the form of a towering giant.
The most formidable magic the Elf Queen could wield, the pinnacle of spirit arts—the summoning of a Spirit King.
Specifically, the ‘Spirit King of Wind.’
“Wind! Grind that filthy bone to dust!”
The Elf Queen extended her finger toward the Bone Dragon.
The Spirit King of Wind, manifested in the form of a giant cloaked in tempest, answered her fury by driving down a fist the size of a house.
Bwuaaack!
The atmosphere compressed and tore, unleashing a deafening roar that threatened to rupture eardrums.
Craaackle—!
[Screeeeeee!]
“What?!”
Yet the scream came not from the crushed dragon, but from the attacking Spirit King of Wind.
The effect of [Authority: Thorns] had reflected a portion of the impact damage directly into the Spirit King of Wind!
The Bone Dragon’s condition was far from unscathed either.
Under the Spirit King’s brutal destructive force, the ribs of its chest shattered pathetically and dangled loosely.
Yet the crimson lake rippling across the ground below—
[Authority: Ocean of Blood] ceaselessly restored the dragon’s shattered bones.
The speed at which the fractured bones knitted together with the blood and reformed into their original shape was swift enough to be clearly visible to the naked eye.
The Elf Queen gritted her teeth.
“Press harder! Pulverize it until nothing remains!”
Guooooo!
The Spirit King of Wind unleashed a furious barrage of punches.
Blade-like winds lacerated the Bone Dragon’s entire body, while heavy fists pounded its bones like a blacksmith’s hammer.
Craaackboom!
The tempest howled.
Thunder crashed against her ears.
The Bone Dragon attempted to resist with breath, but under the Spirit King’s violent onslaught, its jaw flew away and its wings snapped.
The Elf Queen glanced sideways at Lee Ah-woon.
That human male remained ensconced within the black cocoon.
From the black aura flowing across the cocoon’s surface, an ominous sense of alienation emanated.
‘Before that thing opens its eyes, I dispose of this familiar first!’
The problem was that the Elf Queen was dispersing far faster than the Bone Dragon was breaking apart.
The strikes landed. Bones shattered.
Yet the recoil from that impact returned in full, wounding the Wind Spirit King that had launched the attack.
The Bone Dragon, meanwhile, regenerated without a single scratch above the pool of blood.
Infinite power.
An indestructible thorn shield…!
“So you persist stubbornly like a beast until the very end.”
A haughty sneer played across the Elf Queen’s lips.
“Let’s see how long that paltry regeneration can sustain you.”
In a battle of regeneration, she had no shortage of resources either.
The Elf Queen drew forth the infinite life force of the World Tree to its maximum and poured it without restraint into the Wind Spirit King.
Whoooosh—!
The moment the Bone Dragon surged forward, a colossal whirlwind swept in, and the Wind Spirit King’s massive form swelled to twice its size in an instant.
Crack!
The merciless fist of the towering Spirit King came down and crushed the Bone Dragon’s entire body flat.
The typhoon’s grain wrapping around the fist ground the Bone Dragon’s form to dust like a mill.
It was perfect destruction—enough that it would never rise again.
Groooahhh…
Simultaneously, the Spirit King, having received equally tremendous reflected damage from that single blow, scattered and dispersed.
“Phew. So then… huh?
Tap. Tap-tap-tap.
The Elf Queen’s gaze, which had been releasing a sigh of relief, snapped urgently toward the Bone Dragon’s remains—no, the blood-red lake scattered with bone fragments.
‘…It’s regenerating? Surely not… in this state?’
It was a sight that defied the Elf Queen’s every understanding.
The undead could only be restored if a ‘core’ containing mana remained, or at minimum if the skeletal ‘form’ persisted.
The Wind Spirit King’s final blow had been thorough destruction—leaving behind neither core nor bone fragment.
The very medium of regeneration had been annihilated. How was this possible?
Yet the blood pooled at the bottom began to bubble with a squelching sound, drawing the bone dust scattered through the air together like a powerful magnet.
As if death itself refused to accept obliteration.
[…]
Without any roar whatsoever.
The resurrected Bone Dragon gazed quietly at the Elf Queen.
* * *
If frost mana tears through flesh and freezes blood vessels, then dark mana is fundamentally the energy of negation and death that devours reason and soul.
Death, despair, anguish, terror.
A sinister force that burns on nothing but such negative energies as sustenance.
Therefore, the instinctive ‘safety mechanism’ of a human’s will to survive could only be in perfect opposition to dark mana.
The more Lee Ah-woon tried to control mana safely in order to live, the more dark mana mocked his weakness and resisted.
How could a lord who commands death truly wield that power if he himself feared his own demise?
The moment Lee Ah-woon, saying “I’m fine with dying,” finally severed his own lifeline.
Paradoxically, the moment I planted both feet firmly on that desperate threshold of death, the dark mana finally acknowledged its master.
Only those who do not fear death can truly command death itself.
Within Lee Ah-woon’s body, which had shed its shallow attachment to life and merged completely with the abyss of death, the dark mana cried out in ecstasy.
The terrible agony that had been tearing through my veins ceased as if it were a lie, and in its place, an unfathomable power black as pitch began to pour in like a waterfall.
The cyan ghostfire that had flickered in Lee Ah-woon’s eyes blazed up enormous enough to engulf the entire battlefield.
It was the true descent of the Undead Lord.
* * *
‘So far.’
Infinite power surged through my entire body.
Yet strangely, at the same moment, a terrible sense of helplessness overwhelmed me.
The broad back of Older Brother, forging ahead.
When I didn’t know better, I had thought that silhouette was simply ahead of me.
Now that I had awakened to the Undead Lord’s power and stepped into that tier, it had become distant beyond sight.
Could I truly, like Older Brother, transform the resonance Resonar into an undead?
It was impossible.
I couldn’t even comprehend how it was possible.
Older Brother’s strength was incomprehensible to me.
I wondered if he was even human.
‘He truly is far away.’
My loyalty toward Older Brother burned all the more fiercely.
Always advancing ahead.
Simply by running in his wake, I evolved to a dimension entirely different from before.
Beyond merely growing stronger, I felt the sensation of becoming something more than myself—a ‘transcendent.’
Yet when I looked back.
There was Lee Ah-woon, filled with vengeance for a lost sibling, tormented by the curse imposed upon him, cursing the heavens.
Though only a short time had passed.
It felt strangely unfamiliar.
‘Is this what it feels like to grow stronger?’
Older Brother’s indifferent, composed gaze.
Was it a gaze that could only be held because humanity had faded with each transcendence?
Or was it the opposite—that one must strip away humanity to transcend?
‘I don’t know.’
So then.
Let me open my eyes.
Let me face the present.
“You… demonic creature!”
Before me stood the Elf Queen.
A fierce torrent of mana was bearing down from behind.
Though formless and soundless, a killing intent so dense it was incalculable materialized and fixed itself upon me.
A giant forged from fire, water, wind, and earth displayed its might in turn.
Above the Elf Queen’s head, a mana sphere gleaming with pale green light vibrated heavily.
‘….’
A situation on the brink of explosion.
But Lee Ah-woon…
felt bored.
What I had just closed my eyes and witnessed was Older Brother’s back.
Compared to that distant, unreachable figure… ‘this’…
How small and insignificant it was.
“Authority.”
“Die!”
Crash—!
The moment the Elf Queen’s full power descended upon Lee Ah-woon.
“Avatar of Demon.”
Boom—!
[Authority: Avatar of Demon] activated.
A tempest of dark mana consumed the surroundings, pronouncing death upon the Elf Queen’s magic.
Simultaneously.
Crack—!
The Bone Dragon’s massive form shattered, and its remnants shot toward Lee Ah-woon like arrows.
Whoosh, crackle!
The bones compressed and converged, forming the shape of thick bone armor.
The bone armor wrapped snugly around Lee Ah-woon’s body without a gap.
With the Bone Dragon’s skull settling onto Lee Ah-woon’s head like a helmet as the final touch.
A sickly blue light ignited in the eye sockets.
The Bone Dragon’s tail bone was drawn into Lee Ah-woon’s grasp as if sucked in.
Soon it exhaled streams of pitch-black dark mana, transforming into a sword with a white bone frame and a black blade.
‘For now… this is my limit.’
An 80-level authority spell of the Lich Lord.
Avatar of Demon was a fusion and transformation skill that borrowed the ultimate ability of the Warlock.
The fusion target Lee Ah-woon had chosen was the Bone Dragon.
Beyond this lay the authority spell Metamorphosis.
And above that, the ultimate skill: Grand Necromancy, ‘Grand Harvest’ existed.
But using these two spells was impossible at my current level.
However.
‘I can grow stronger…’
Lee Ah-woon swung the Bone Dragon’s tail bone.
Screeeech—!
A bone-chilling shriek erupted as dark mana stretched like a whip, slashing the Elf Queen.

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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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