I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 54

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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 54
—Ooooooooo!
A resonant cry poured from the distant sky, tearing it asunder.
It reminded me of Scathaha’s descent.
As if invisible giant hands were forcibly grasping and rending the space itself, the void split open with grotesque violence.
Accompanied by a piercing screech like metal scraping against metal.
The very atmosphere shrieked in terror.
—Aaaaaaaa!
A bizarre vibration that shook the heart and mana circuits directly cascaded down.
“Ugh…!”
The tanks arrayed across the battlefield gripped their shield-shaped artifacts tightly in their hands.
As if seized by fear, the artifacts in their grasp trembled faintly in response to the vibration.
‘It’s different…!’
Han Seol-ah, who had witnessed Scathaha’s descent firsthand, felt the stark difference between these two entities acutely.
During Scathaha’s descent, the mana particles in the atmosphere had fled in terror at the predator’s arrival.
Now?
This time, the entire space resonated like a single massive tuning fork gone mad.
A repugnant, nauseating vibration burrowed into the brain, scraping at the hunters’ survival instincts.
Crack!
Beyond the torn void, the sound of an invisible barrier shattering pathetically echoed.
—Ooooooooo!
Within the void was absolute darkness.
Faintly, an ominous green aura seemed to drift through it.
If one had to compare it, it resembled the sight of oil spreading across stagnant water.
And from deep within that darkness…
Two white larvae began writhing and crawling toward ‘this world’.
“Ugh!”
“Retch!”
The healers who witnessed this sight collapsed, tears, mucus, and vomit pouring from them.
Even while protected behind the tanks.
Such a horrifying, revolting spectacle!
At last.
Crackle—Boom!
The moment the vibration reached its apex, the void rippled like water’s surface, and cracks formed.
Through the fissures flowed a pallid abyss that devoured all light and heat.
The surrounding landscape faded into murky grayscale, and a horrifying sensation washed over the Hall—Earth’s physical laws were forcibly overwritten by the ‘monster’ beyond that door’s irrational laws: the absolute rule where if one side takes damage, the other gains complete immunity.
‘…Huff. Huff.’
And then, silence.
The vibration and noise that had twisted my insides moments before ceased as if it were a lie.
In that chilling silence, hell finally opened.
With a squelching sound, what emerged from beyond the fissure was a grotesque creature shaped like an enormous worm.
A worm?
No, it was far too alien to be called merely a worm.
Beneath its slimy teal-blue skin, dark crimson veins pulsed like a heartbeat, visible through the translucent flesh.
It bore none of the overwhelming majesty that the Dragon Polyp had exuded.
Rather, its grotesque form inspired primal revulsion and spiritual unease merely by looking upon it.
Yet the dense magical aura and oppressive weight radiating from that repugnant body were no less formidable than Scathaha’s.
‘That’s… Resonar—the Resonance Entity!’
Han Seol-ah trembled as she sensed the malevolent malice emanating from Resonar.
She drew upon all her mana reserves to resist the sickening aura descending upon her.
Yet Han Seol-ah’s senses detected something far more sinister.
“The sky…!”
A metallic scream pierced through the ranks of healers.
All eyes reflexively snapped upward.
The sky itself gaped open like an enormous maw.
There was no other way to describe the sight.
A chasm incomparably vaster than the fissure on the ground—black as an abyss—had materialized.
It had taken its place without warning.
The absolute silence of its appearance stripped away all sense of reality, amplifying pure terror.
And from within it, a second entity slithered forth.
If the creature on the ground embodied ‘revulsion,’ the one from the sky was ‘despair’ incarnate.
Its size dwarfed the first form by a factor of two.
Viscous black liquid like tar glistened across its skin, emanating an ominous presence.
As the massive form of the second entity finally crawled free of the fissure, an invisible pressure crushed down upon the entire Open Field.
A scarlet System Message blazed before everyone’s eyes.
[Tower Break – Floor 94]
[Tower Break Boss: ‘Wondrous Echo’—Resonance Entity Resonar has appeared]
It possessed nothing that could be called eyes.
Yet all instinctively felt that it perceived every living being in the Open Field.
“Ugh…!”
A presence so overwhelming that its mere existence crushed all who stood before it…
The inaudible ‘echo’ resonating from both entities was physically pressing down upon the hunters.
A-rank tank Kim Tae-wan found even breathing a struggle.
Newly appointed as tank squad leader following Kim Min-seok’s departure, Kim Tae-wan was known as South Korea’s second-strongest tank.
Where Kim Min-seok endured through Survival Instinct (A), Kim Tae-wan was an orthodox tank who enhanced his defense through Iron Wall (A).
Since bosses had grown strong enough to pierce even his reinforced defenses, he had since retreated to the second line.
“Gasp…!”
His lungs felt crushed. The flow of mana throughout his body seemed to stagnate.
‘We’re supposed to face that…?’
Every artifact, every hour of training, every ounce of resolve felt like dust before that unreachable despair.
Kim Tae-wan surveyed his surroundings.
His fellow hunters gripped their shields with faces that looked ready to crumble at any moment.
Then it happened.
“…!”
The back of his neck prickled with dread.
It felt as though the Grim Reaper himself held a razor-sharp scythe beneath his throat.
The oppressive weight he’d felt upon seeing Resonar evaporated entirely, replaced by a shock of cold so profound it was almost incomprehensible.
When he’d first glimpsed Resonar, he’d felt ‘terror’.
But this sensation now was terror itself—the very essence of death.
Kim Tae-wan froze, not daring even to move his eyes.
* * *
Min Ji-hee felt the same sensation.
Pushing her willpower to its absolute limit, she fought to suppress the suffocating dread of death that clung to her, and turned to look behind.
The distant sky.
‘…Darkness?’
If darkness swirled like mist, would it look like this?
Trailing an ominous black aura beneath their feet, someone walked across the sky with heavy, deliberate steps.
‘Could it be… could it really be?’
The Apostle?
“…Yes. It’s the Apostle, isn’t it.”
“…This… this doesn’t make sense. No. This is impossible… what on earth?”
When Jin Cheon-jin confirmed it beside her with a trembling voice, Min Ji-hee’s eyes widened in shock.
The Apostle was an Eternal Winter hunter!
Moreover, one so formidable that even Han Seol-ah, now EX-rank, would concede to him!
And such a being…
‘A different ability’ was manifesting?
In Min Ji-hee’s memory, during the operation to subjugate Resonar, when it was noted that ‘two or more elemental attacks’ would be necessary, she recalled what the Apostle had said.
—I’ll handle it myself.
‘The reason he said not to worry, that he’d handle it himself…’
‘Was because he possessed a second ability?’
‘That’s impossible!’
That ‘darkness’ of the Apostle’s was undoubtedly a second ability.
It was reality unfolding before her eyes.
Yet Min Ji-hee could not easily accept it.
No matter how exceptional a hunter’s abilities might be.
There existed no method to transcend the ‘awakened ability’ granted at the beginning.
‘Is it truly possible? To obtain a second awakened ability?’
It was the trauma of Min Ji-hee, who had awakened ‘Mystic Eye’—such a useless ability.
Born with such brilliant intellect as I possess.
Why did the Tower bestow upon me such an ability as Mystic Eye?
Why did I have to become someone incapable of protecting South Korea?
So I accepted it, and made my Mystique seem like ‘something different’.
I spent my entire life hiding the fact that Min Ji-hee, called South Korea’s ‘Iron Blood’, possessed only a B-rank Mystique.
‘…There was a way.’
The Apostle shattered Min Ji-hee’s long-standing trauma in a single appearance.
The Apostle walked through the sky with an eerie grace, standing before Resonar.
The ominous aura radiating from the Apostle easily consumed Resonar’s oppressive presence.
The Hunters, initially paralyzed by the fear of death, regained their composure the moment they confirmed he was an ally.
‘…He changed the entire atmosphere with just his entrance.’
Min Ji-hee quickly grabbed the communicator.
“Apostle, this is Command. Preparations are complete.”
The Apostle’s emotionless voice returned through the communicator.
[Begin.]
“Understood.”
Min Ji-hee switched the communicator’s channel.
“All units, commence operation.”
* * *
[…This is absurd.]
Frozen, witnessing the Apostle’s second attribute, muttered in a daze.
Contrary to that shocked reaction, Han Seol-ah smiled calmly as if she had anticipated everything.
“I’m not particularly surprised.”
Even as she felt the terrifying aura emanating from the distant sky, Han Seol-ah’s face showed not a trace of tension.
That fearsome presence felt to her like a greeting—’I’m here.’
‘The Apostle is more straightforward than I expected.’
“Let’s prepare.”
[…Right. Let’s do this.]
Han Seol-ah began releasing the pure ice-attribute mana she had absorbed for a long time from Pyongyang, the ‘eternal repository of ancient frost’.
At that very moment.
[Seol-ah, operation commencing.]
“Confirmed.”
The order to begin the operation came down.
“Exhale.”
Han Seol-ah began channeling her mana at full power.
Whoooosh—
Han Seol-ah’s white hair lifted into the air, and the atmosphere froze solid.
“Exhale.”
The breath Han Seol-ah exhaled became an extreme cold that cut through the air.
[You’re doing well.]
Frozen didn’t need to intervene.
Frozen focused entirely on ensuring Han Seol-ah’s interior didn’t become an ice bomb.
It was an epiphany born from witnessing the Apostle’s arrangement.
‘A mana hall is a spring.’
From Han Seol-ah’s mana hall, the Eternal Winter mana flowed forth naturally.
‘A mana road is a river.’
Mana surged steadily along the mana roads that extended throughout my entire body.
And then…
Han Seol-ah raised Eternal Winter high.
Shhhhh—
Like a giant drawing in a deep breath.
The mana of the entire region converged toward the jewel of Eternal Winter.
Han Seol-ah controlled that Eternal Winter mana with extreme concentration.
‘All of it is me.’
I activated the spell.
“Genesis Manifestation—the winter that heralds the end.”
The Genesis attribute inherent in Eternal Winter.
The miraculous power that negates all resistance.
That power opened its eyes under Han Seol-ah’s guidance.
Complex runes blazed across the entire staff.
Hummmmm—!
The staff trembled violently.
Han Seol-ah gripped the trembling staff with both hands and aimed it at the colossal worm-like creature that had descended to the ground—’Resonar Type 1′.
[Preparation complete. Go!]
“Absolute Zero—”
The grand spell that the Apostle used to erase Scathaha in a single strike and transform Pyongyang into a land of white death—that spell’s name was ‘Absolute Zero’.
That grand spell was something Han Seol-ah could not use.
But I knew that spell represented the ‘end’ of the Eternal Winter lineage.
Though the destination still seemed distant.
A pinnacle of the Eternal Winter lineage that I could one day surely reach.
By degrading a portion of the spell the Apostle used…
And blending it with the enlightenment the Apostle granted me.
I created a single spell.
“White Apocalypse.”
A soft incantation.
As I spoke the activation words.
Kuuuuuu!
A biting blizzard erupted outward from the staff as its center.
The atmosphere screamed and crackled as it froze solid, and the whirlwind of cold began compressing to an extreme degree, following the guidance of the pulsing mana with a piercing whine—!
At the end of that terrible condensation, even the surrounding space seemed to warp.
Fwooooosh!
A white beam that blanched the entire field of vision erupted forth.
The white thread of energy reached Resonar’s first form in an instant…
Whoooosh—!
Leaving behind a resonance like the sound of wind, it froze Resonar’s entire body a pristine white.
Absolute Zero—White Finale.
The moment Han Seol-ah’s new finishing move appeared—one that ignored all resistance and guaranteed freezing.
* * *
“First form frozen! Confirmed!”
“Excellent…!”
Min Ji-hee, who had been watching the spectacle unfold, let out an exclamation of admiration.
Min Ji-hee recalled the Apostle’s operational briefing.
The method for confronting Resonar.
The first point.
—Never startle Resonar under any circumstances.
Never trigger Resonar’s ‘core rules.’
Resonar was a boss with two critical rules.
The first of those rules was ‘Echo: Resonance.’
Complete immunity to identical attributes and energy amplification reflection.
When one entity of Resonar took damage from a specific attribute, the opposite entity would gain ‘complete immunity’ to that attribute’s attacks.
Simultaneously, the damaged entity’s energy would be absorbed by the opposite entity and fired back as a beam hundreds of times stronger than the original attack.
The ‘identical attribute immunity’ had been triggered.
“Resonar’s second form is undergoing a transformation…!”
The massive Resonar’s second form floating in the sky.
Its body had taken on a bluish tint.
‘In that state, Resonar will now be completely immune to freezing attacks.’
Gulp.
Min Ji-hee reflexively swallowed hard.
‘If the Apostle hadn’t brought a second attribute… the strategy would have ended right here.’
Min Ji-hee instinctively glanced at the Apostle, who was emanating darkness.
One of the core aspects of resonance—’complete immunity to identical attributes’—had already been overcome!
Now, if they could just safely navigate the ‘energy amplification reflection’…!
“What’s the second form’s response?”
“It’s moving…!”
Thick beads of cold sweat dripped from the control operator’s forehead.
Min Ji-hee likewise held her fists so tightly that blood couldn’t flow, unable to even breathe audibly.
Han Seol-ah’s role in this operation was singular.
To freeze Resonar’s first form completely without dealing any damage to it whatsoever.
The freezing had succeeded.
‘Had they achieved the objective of not dealing damage?’
Both Min Ji-hee and the War Room watched Resonar’s response with bated breath.
‘If a beam appears, we’ve failed.’
Whirrrrring—!
Beams of light converged around Resonar’s second form.
‘…If flames appear, we’ve succeeded.’
As the second form began to glow, everyone held their breath, thinking ‘surely not’ in that very moment.
Whoosh!
Flames ignited.
“Observing the precursor to a firestorm!”
“We did it!”
“Success!”
Roaaaar!
Cheers erupted from the War Room.
‘Phew….’
Resonar Raid, first phase.
100% clear.
* * *
‘Good, exactly as planned.’
Now then…
Phase two begins.
“Tanks, it’s your turn.”
Time to earn your keep.

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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
—————