I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 18

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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 18
The moment I released the reins that had been holding back the manifestation of magic.
I felt an overwhelming sense of liberation.
Whoooosh—!
The world turned white.
* * *
Flash!
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“M-my eyes…!”
Every monitor in the War Room blazed with light simultaneously.
The overwhelming torrent of luminescence pouring through the screens sent the War Room operators screaming, clutching at their eyes.
It was impossible, yet… that light felt as though it possessed physical force.
Despite being transmitted through electronic monitors, the overwhelming wave of mana from beyond had engulfed the War Room itself.
“Ugh…!”
Min Ji-hee gritted her teeth and barely held on.
As a non-mage, Min Ji-hee could not interpret magic.
But her superior predictive instincts led her to a conclusion.
‘Even if I were a mage, it wouldn’t matter. There’s no human alive who could interpret that.’
My legs trembled.
Tap-tap-tap!
Min Ji-hee’s hands moved frantically.
“The site… I need to see the site!”
From Incheon to Pyongyang.
Every CCTV camera positioned along that 200-kilometer route was called up simultaneously.
And Min Ji-hee held her breath.
‘Hah…’
It was as if a ruler had been placed on a map and a line drawn.
A pure white line beginning in Incheon stretched in a perfect straight line to Pyongyang.
Everything that had existed along that line had vanished.
Buildings, forests, mountain ranges, rivers—every substance caught in that diagonal path had been erased as if wiped away.
All that remained were ice crystals scattering like diamond dust.
As if a god’s finger had rubbed away the filth of the earth,
A landscape so pristine and so cruel.
“Pyongyang! What happened to Pyongyang?”
Min Ji-hee cried out in anguish.
The most critical question was whether the target, Scathaha, had been eliminated.
And—whether Han Seol-ah was alive or dead.
Crackle.
[No Signal]
[Connection Unavailable]
Dozens of monitors went dark simultaneously.
“They’re gone…? All of them?”
Min Ji-hee’s pupils trembled violently.
The deepest bunker positioned to account for the aftermath of battle, underground facilities, and even drones kilometers above—
Hundreds of ‘eyes’ had been strategically planted—
Yet with a single spell,
all visual data of the city of Pyongyang had been completely erased.
Min Ji-hee’s trembling hand reached for her phone.
Speed dial 1. Jin Cheon-jin.
If it was him—he would have succeeded.
‘Please….’
* * *
[00:02]
Two seconds before the two minutes the Apostle had allotted came to an end.
Jin Cheon-jin, concealed behind a pillar in the abandoned building, moved.
The ring on his finger—he pressed the jet-black gem firmly.
[00:01]
Pop!
Jin Cheon-jin’s form vanished,
and appeared beside Han Seol-ah, who was beginning to collapse.
In that instant, Scathach, sensing the anomaly, shifted her demeanor.
A fleeting moment.
The predator’s killing intent raked across space.
Goosebumps erupted across Jin Cheon-jin’s entire body, and cold sweat burst forth explosively.
At the same time—
A pristine white radiance began to bloom at the corners of Scathach’s mouth.
[00:00]
The moment the two minutes the Apostle had promised arrived.
From an immeasurably distant point, reaching to Scathach’s massive form—
an infinitesimally thin white line was drawn.
And then.
As that line expanded, his vision was consumed by brilliant white.
Jin Cheon-jin understood instinctively.
‘Ah, I’m dead.’
A kaleidoscope of memories flashed before his eyes.
Jin Cheon-jin reflexively pressed the gem.
* * *
Shortly after Han Seol-ah departed for the operation site,
Jin Cheon-jin received a summons from the Apostle.
And—
I received shocking news.
“If the operation proceeds as planned, Han Seol-ah will die.”
“…What?”
Jin Cheon-jin’s response was brief, yet it carried a mixture of denial and bewilderment.
The Apostle’s eyes were cold.
Like someone gazing back upon a future already concluded.
“Han Seol-ah will endure for two minutes.”
“…She will definitely succeed.”
“But.”
The Apostle’s words overlapped with his.
“The moment those two minutes are up, I will immediately cast my spell. Then, including Scathach—the entire Pyongyang region will be annihilated.”
“Then…!”
“Yes.”
The Apostle nodded.
“Han Seol-ah cannot escape the range of my spell. She will perish as is.”
Jin Cheon-jin’s mind went blank.
“If she wishes to live, she must withdraw from the battlefield the instant those two minutes elapse.”
Was that even possible?
In a situation where merely enduring two minutes would be a miracle?
“There is a way.”
At the Apostle’s words, Jin Cheon-jin instinctively lifted his head.
“…I would be grateful for your counsel.”
“Let me confirm first. Does the Korean Hunter Association possess a blink artifact—one capable of short-range spatial displacement?”
“…We do not.”
“Is there any way to acquire one immediately?”
“Spatial-class artifacts are classified as strategic resources. Personal transactions are prohibited from the outset, and supply is extremely limited. To my knowledge, only two nations on Earth currently possess them—the United States and Japan.”
“As I expected.”
The Apostle murmured without particular interest.
“….”
A brief silence.
And then—
The Apostle threw something.
Thud.
Jin Cheon-jin reflexively caught it.
It was a ring set with a black gemstone.
“This artifact contains both short-range and mid-range spatial displacement, one of each.”

The Apostle spoke without emotion.
“Its name is… yes. Just know it as the ‘Black Ring.'”
“!”
Over the jet-black gemstone, intricately inlaid ancient characters gleamed with a soft radiance.
In that instant—
Jin Cheon-jin’s eyes widened dramatically.
‘No way…’
He recognized it immediately.
‘The final S-rank Hunter of fallen India, Vayu’s artifact— “Vishnu’s Six Steps”…!’
Three short-range teleportations, two mid-range, one long-range.
A total of six spatial displacement incantations embedded within India’s national treasure.
Yet most of its charges had been consumed during India’s struggle,
and with Vayu’s death, this legendary artifact had vanished from history.
‘How could this possibly…’
Questions cascaded, but the Apostle’s explanation cut through them.
“The moment it reaches exactly 2 minutes.”
The Apostle’s voice dropped low.
“My spell activates, and a brief gap opens before reaching Pyongyang.”
Jin Cheon-jin pushed aside his thoughts and clenched his teeth.
“Use that opening.”
The Apostle’s gaze pierced through him.
“Save Han Seol-ah and escape.”
“….”
“If you fail.”
The Apostle’s voice remained perfectly calm throughout.
“You and Han Seol-ah both die.”
Jin Cheon-jin bowed his head without a shred of hesitation.
“I will succeed, no matter what.”
* * *
Pop!
“Cough, cough!”
Jin Cheon-jin’s eyes snapped open as he spat out blood-tinged coughs.
A sensation as though his entire back had been torn away flooded through him.
A bizarre agony—too scorching to be cold, too frigid to be anything but burning flesh.
It was the mark of destruction left as his cloak and shield silently evaporated, grazed by the absolute zero’s trajectory.
“Gasp….”
Had he survived?
He frantically checked his arms.
The unconscious Han Seol-ah lay cradled against his chest.
Her face was dusted with white frost, her lips drained of color to a pale blue.
Yet her heart, however faintly, continued to beat.
“Ha… haha….”
I’d saved her.
Or rather—I’d simply moved according to the Apostle’s design.
The moment I tried to relax in relief,
Jin Cheon-jin felt something unnaturally light about the sensation behind his back.
With trembling hands, he reached over his shoulder to feel.
“…What?”
It was gone.
In that brief instant of turning while holding Han Seol-ah close,
the cloak hem he hadn’t managed to dodge, and the A-grade artifact shield strapped to his back—
had cleanly vanished.
The cut surface was smooth as glass.
An ultra-low-temperature severance so precise it left no pain.
If the artifact the Apostle had given me hadn’t been there—
if I’d been even 0.1 seconds slower, my entire back would have disappeared like that.
Jin Cheon-jin lifted his trembling gaze to look ahead.
There was nothing there.
No Scathach, no ruins.
Not even the forest of buildings where he’d stood moments before.
As if a god had poured white paint across the world,
everything had transformed into pure white.
Even sound had frozen.
There was no thunderous crash of collapsing buildings, no screams from the earth.
Only the wind’s whisper brushed across the empty glacier.
“….”
Jin Cheon-jin traced the marks of destruction with trembling eyes.
From Incheon to Pyongyang.
A perfectly straight trajectory stretched across the earth as if drawn with a ruler.
The mountain ranges that grazed that line had been hollowed out like tunnels bored through them,
and the river remained frozen in the exact form it had been flowing.
And—
at the end where that line reached.
The center of Pyongyang, where Scathach had existed, was far more grotesque.
“Ah….”
From the point where the line had struck, a massive circle bloomed across the earth.
It resembled the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, but instead of a mushroom cloud, an eternal glacier swelled like a dome and spread outward.
Within that circle.
In the white expanse spanning several kilometers in radius, not even the concept of ‘ruins’ remained.
No collapsed buildings,
There were no broken steel beams either.
Everything had been caught in the absolute zero cold, decomposed down to the atomic level, and now existed only as glittering diamond dust scattering through the empty air.
The map had changed.
The basin that once cradled the remnants of the city called Pyongyang
had transformed into the smoothest, whitest ice desert in the world.
Jin Cheon-jin trembled silently.
Buzz—
The phone in my left chest pocket rang.
‘…Somehow it didn’t break.’
The caller was Min Ji-hee.
“Operation successful.”
Cheers of “Woooooo!” erupted from the other end of the line.
Jin Cheon-jin let out a small laugh.
We’d escaped the brink of annihilation.
[Phew… How’s the situation?]
“Weren’t you monitoring it?”
[All the cameras got blown away.]
“Ah… I see.”
Jin Cheon-jin compressed the landscape of Pyongyang into a single statement.
“From now on, Pyongyang will need to be erased from the map.”
[…I expected as much. It’s completely gone, isn’t it?]
“Yes. Both Scathach and Pyongyang.”
[…Association Chairman, but…]
“Hmm?”
[Is it really over?]
“…Why do you sound so anxious?”
[Something feels off.]
The line went silent.
[The System Message hasn’t appeared.]
“….”
Now that I thought about it…
When a boss is subjugated and the Break ends, the system sends a message to all hunters belonging to South Korea, notifying them.
But now?
Nothing appeared.
Like the ominous calm before a storm.
At that moment.
“…Huh?”
Whoooosh—!
As if a storm were tearing through a vacuum-sealed zone.
The frigid gale was sucked into the heart of Pyongyang. It seemed as though an invisible “hole” had opened there.
Jin Cheon-jin sensed unmistakable malice in this frigid wind.
The killing intent that creature had emanated in that fleeting moment before Scathach—it was woven into this very gust…
‘Frost Field mana? No, it’s different!’
The unique energy that beasts emit.
Mana from a magical beast.
That much was certain!
‘How is this possible? Scathach was definitely annihilated!’
[Chairman?]
The fragments of the dissolved Scathach drew together the ice dust of the white desert, reconstructing their form.
What emerged there was a colossal heart made of ice.
Thump!
In the heart of the white desert.
A blue heart pulsed in the empty air like a newborn fetus.
And then.
Crack. Crack-crack!
Ice pillars thrust upward around the heart.
Crackle-crack!
The scattered ice dust gathered, defying gravity.
A skeleton was erected, flesh was attached, scales were layered on.
Transparent, solid ice fused together, sculpting a massive form.
“…!”
A statue carved with exquisite precision, like fine jewelry work, was completed.
A translucent body with hollow innards, only the heart glowing blue—a sculpture of an ice beast.
“Surely not….”
[Hello?]
Whoosh!
Frost Field mana surged through, and the ice sculpture’s eyes snapped open.
Roooooaaarrr!!!
The completed sculpture spread its wings and roared. Ice fragments clinging to the shockwave scattered like buckshot.
“Gasp…!”
In the instant Jin Cheon-jin gasped in shock, Scathach’s head turned southward.
Toward the sniper who had killed it. Toward Incheon.
Snap!
The air tore open as a dark portal materialized, and the colossal ice dragon was sucked inside.
‘…!’
“It’s alive! It’s transitioned to Incheon!”
[This can’t be! There’s only the Apostle there…!]
“What’s the Apostle’s status?”
[Critical! He’s been coughing blood repeatedly just to supply the mana needed to cast spells!]
Jin Cheon-jin immediately called for a helicopter.
From Pyongyang to Incheon—a helicopter powered by a mana engine could make the journey in under five minutes!
The sensation from when I’d rescued Han Seol-ah still lingered within me.
The sensation of charging headlong toward certain death.
Yet Jin Cheon-jin had survived.
‘This time too….’
If chaos erupted on the battlefield, I would be the first to fall.
Jin Cheon-jin steeled his resolve.
* * *
“Ptui.”
I spat the blood pooling in my mouth onto the ground. When I cleared my nose, blood clots mixed with the discharge.
My insides were a complete mess.
“I need to lower my life-force threshold.”
My body couldn’t withstand even 50,000 MP.
It would be safer to operate within 40,000 MP.
I picked up the Eternal Winter and charged it with a precious 10,000 mana.
“This should be enough to use the Genesis trait several times.”
I pushed myself up from the sniper’s chair. Forcing strength into my trembling legs, I leaped to my feet.
The ‘third request’ I’d given Min Ji-hee.
Scout out an open field near the sniper’s chair and ensure it’s properly cleared for landing.
I descended into a vast, open expanse.
‘She certainly gets things done.’
This had once been an Elementary School Grounds.
But now there was no athletic field, no school building, no flagpole.
Only the flattened earth remained—a perfect arena.
“It should be arriving soon.”
I loosened up my body and waited.
Before long, the space above me tore open.
A pitch-black portal.
From within it crawled an ice dragon, dripping with murderous intent.
Seeing that furious visage.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Welcome.”
I adjusted my grip on the staff.
“To my home ground.”
This place lay within the effective range of my synchronization.
And what did that mean?
“You’re finished.”
I am invincible.

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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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