I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 57

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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 57
Pyongyang fell silent.
‘W-what… what just happened?’
Resonar was dead.
The moment the system displayed the subjugation notification, it became certain.
Yet there was no cheer of victory.
Everyone remained frozen, desperately trying to comprehend the ‘impossible’ spectacle that had just unfolded before them.
Awe, or perhaps terror at glimpsing the unknown.
Thud!
A heavy shield clattered from someone’s hand, breaking the silence, but no one paid attention.
All eyes were fixed on the crater carved deep into the earth.
Min Ji-hee forgot even to breathe, replaying the grand magic she had just witnessed.
‘How… didn’t it revive?’
What first halted Min Ji-hee’s thoughts was not the destructive power of the magic itself, but the collapse of this world’s very laws—the phenomenon itself.
Resonar was a boss with an absolute rule called ‘Resonance’—if one half died, it would inevitably revive as long as the other half remained alive.
Even Pandemonium’s strategy guides had declared it an unchangeable ‘absolute law’ set by the world itself.
There was no way to circumvent it through any method.
Because it was a rule—a law set by the system itself.
Yet the moment the Apostle unleashed grand magic while pouring forth pitch-black mana like fog, that absolute law stopped functioning as if it were a lie.
How was that even possible?
It was a feat beyond even Min Ji-hee’s boldest imagination.
All Min Ji-hee’s eyes could perceive was the overwhelming result.
‘…Magic that transcends the rules set by the system?’
Did such a thing exist in this world?
Grand magic that overwhelmed even the system itself?
‘Can that even be called magic?’
Should it be called a miracle instead?
‘And the result of that… that horrifying necromancy?’
Min Ji-hee was witnessing necromancy for the first time.
Necromancy existed only in classification; it was an unknown magical system that had never properly manifested on Earth.
When the Tower first appeared and Awakened ones began to emerge.
Many realized that ‘this is a system similar to a game,’ and gathering their collective intellect, they began to classify Hunters.
That became the foundation for the current Hunter classification system.
Among them, the unknown magic that sparked both humanity’s greatest fear and ethical controversy was ‘Necromancy—the art of commanding the dead.’
According to widely known lore, the material for necromancy was ‘corpses,’ and among them, the bodies of humans who had possessed mana were considered paramount.
The primal terror that one’s own body, or that of a loved one, could fail to rest in death and be controlled as rotting, crumbling bones.
‘How should corpses be treated if a necromancer appears?’ sparked discussion, which split into ‘Is that really important now?’ and ‘Then what is important?’—brief, heated debates that caused temporary uproar, which was all necromancy amounted to.
When Lee Ah-woon summoned skeleton soldiers from the wreckage, it was surprising, but compared to the necromancy the Apostle displayed, there was a clear difference in magnitude.
The Apostle had infused dark mana into the thousands upon thousands of spirits and skeletal remains scattered across the blood-soaked ground, resurrecting them as a ‘Legion of Death Knights’ radiating sickly blue light from their eye sockets.
Yet what shocked Min Ji-hee most of all was the ‘most sinister material’ standing at the center of this grand magic.
‘The break boss of Floor 94, Resonar Type 2’s corpse… used as material for necromancy? Raising that monster as an undead?’
The Apostle didn’t stop at commanding the Floor 94 boss as his own limbs—he sent that colossal boss-class death knight and thousands of legions charging forward.
And with a single snap of his fingers, he transformed that entire undead army into massive time bombs, obliterating what remained of the boss.
Raising an immortal legion from the boss’s corpse, then using that legion as explosives to erase what was left—such irrational, overwhelming violence…
*Gulp.*
Intellectually, I understood it.
But I couldn’t easily accept it.
The Apostle’s limits…
I simply couldn’t see them.
* * *
Han Seol-ah gazed down into the crater.
“What is it?”
[This is ‘dark mana’.]
Frozen spoke in a grave voice.
[You know that the mana hunters use each possesses its own attribute, right?]
“Yes. Just as I wield frost mana.”
[Dark mana is what you might call the pinnacle of ‘black magic’ among all mana types.]
Han Seol-ah nodded.
The very residual energy lingering at the crater’s bottom made every hair on her body stand on end, and an ominous chill washed over her as if her soul itself were being tainted.
[If the frost mana you wield tears through flesh and freezes blood vessels, dark mana devours the user’s reason and soul. It is the energy of negation and death, after all.]
“Negation and death….”
The tragic demise of Resonar Type 2 flashed through Han Seol-ah’s mind.
[If a mere ordinary human had drawn forth dark mana on such a scale—enough to raise a Floor 94 boss as undead and summon thousands of legions—their sense of self would have been consumed before the spell even activated, transforming them into a mindless monster.]
“But….”
Han Seol-ah’s eyes lifted toward the sky.
There, the Apostle hovered, scattering dark mana like black fog around him.
“The Apostle wasn’t affected at all.”
The Apostle had cast black magic of this magnitude as naturally as breathing, with a simple snap of his fingers—no incantations, no agonizing backlash, nothing but effortless grace.
[…That’s precisely why it makes no sense.]
Frozen’s voice trembled slightly.
[Look at the mana texture remaining in this crater. Such vile and malevolent mana… yet there’s not a single trace of it running rampant. It’s the mark of mana that wouldn’t dare defy its master’s will—mana that wagged its tail in obedience.]
“….”
Han Seol-ah swallowed hard.
She had lived her entire life grinding through excruciating pain to master frost mana.
She had thought she finally understood the flow of mana and broken through her limits—yet the Apostle reigned above mana itself, as if it knelt beneath his feet.
[Moreover, the great one recently planted ‘Absolute Zero’—the very pinnacle of frost magic—into this land of Pyongyang.]
“…Yes, he did.”
[A being who wields two miracles in perfect opposition without any restriction whatsoever, alternating between them freely… it is a realm no human could ever aspire to reach. For that one dominates the very ‘principles’ of this world itself.]
Han Seol-ah stared down into the crater, lost in thought.
Over the cool touch of frost that had bleached Pyongyang white, there now lay a dark mana as black as pitch—mana that had overwritten even the system’s absolute rules.
* * *
“…It’s over.”
One of the tanks muttered, staring blankly up at the System Message.
“Over?”
“Really?”
The other tanks nearby who heard that voice asked back in a daze.
The System Message before their eyes was certainly not a fake.
But this situation was unbelievable.
They had witnessed the overwhelming majesty of the 94th Floor Break Boss with their own eyes.
There had even been moments when the word “death” was etched into everyone’s minds.
And after the battle unfolded exactly as the Apostle had briefed them beforehand…
The “Resonar Subjugation” had ended without a single casualty.
Was this reality?
Not a dream?
Kim Tae-wan turned to look back.
His vision filled with the vacant, foolish faces of his comrades staring at him as their leader.
Their faces were a mess from the aftermath of blocking the firestorm that Resonar had spewed forth.
Their skin was blotched with heat rashes, and some had blisters—hardly a pleasant sight.
“Ha…”
But looking at those faces, Kim Tae-wan let out a hollow laugh.
The Scathach Subjugation was a calamity resolved by the Guardian Han Seol-ah and the Apostle alone.
Just the two of them.
The Resonar Subjugation?
It was a raid of truly national scale, with all of South Korea’s hunters mobilized.
Kim Tae-wan remembered the previous Break defense battles.
As an A-rank tank, he had always fought on the front lines as the tank squad leader.
He had gritted his teeth and held the line until the moment Han Seol-ah sniped and killed the boss.
Blood bursting forth, bones shattering, then healing and mending, only to become soaked in blood again…
An endurance of such agonizing pain that consciousness nearly shattered.
After gritting his teeth and holding the line through all that, when the defense battle ended and I turned to look back…
Familiar faces had vanished.
‘When did it start?’
At first, I wept.
Then I raged.
Gradually, I grew hollow.
Until finally, I gave up, thinking, ‘I’ll be going soon too.’
Before this Resonar Subjugation, Kim Tae-wan had set out with the thought that this operation would be my last.
But…
Look at this result now.
Only trivial burns marring their skin…
No one had died.
Everyone was alive.
“Hahaha!”
Tears streamed down Kim Tae-wan’s face.
Yet from his lips burst a tremendous laugh.
“Puhaha!”
“We won! We actually won!”
“Waaaaaaa!!!”
Every tank bore the same expression as Kim Tae-wan.
Kim Tae-wan gripped the empty potion bottle he’d drained during the operation, squeezing it tightly in his fist.
A perfect clear of an extermination raid incomparably more difficult than anything before—and not a single tank had fallen.
This miracle was possible thanks to the Apostle, who had poured forth consumables and tank-class artifacts without restraint.
Moreover, it was thanks to the Apostle, who had sealed away Resonar’s core rules and personally intercepted every anticipated danger with his own hands.
And those two were the same person.
Kim Tae-wan thrust both arms skyward.
“Long live the Apostle!”
Kim Tae-wan cried out, his voice overflowing with jubilation.
“Long live!!!”
“Thank you, Apostle!”
“You’re the greatest!!!”
Tanks and healers alike shouted as they hurled their distributed artifacts skyward in wild arcs.
Like graduates tossing mortarboards at an ivory tower, equipment of all kinds scattered across the heavens.
“Wahaha!”
“Hahaha!”
“Long live!!!”
All of Pyongyang resonated with cheers of triumph.
* * *
Jin Cheon-jin did not relax his vigilance.
“….”
Without shock, without awe, without joy—only tense and watchful, he stared into the void.
When the Tower Break had been cleared of Scathach before, the system had promptly displayed the message: ‘[Alert: Tower Break difficulty is rapidly increasing.]’
A wheel of destruction rolling toward oblivion that would not cease until the 94th Floor was cleared!
‘…How many days of reprieve this time?’
After Scathach’s subjugation, the grace period had been three days.
‘The Apostle and Han Seol-ah managed to buy time through an unexpected method, extending it to fifteen days, but….’
Then what about this time?
‘Surely we won’t be given less than three days?’
Hope and dread coexisted within him.
After that prolonged silence, Jin Cheon-jin, unable to bear the uncertainty any longer, muttered aloud.
“…What is this?”
The message confirming Resonar Type 2’s subjugation had appeared.
But nothing came after that.
“So what about the next Break Boss?”
* * *
I let the cheers erupting from the surface wash over me without truly hearing them.
[Gulp.]
Min Ji-hee’s reaction—the constant swallowing of saliva through the communicator—betrayed her tension and fear.
[Incredible… absolutely incredible. This is…]
Han Seol-ah’s voice, beginning to murmur incomprehensibly once more.
None of it mattered right now.
‘….’
I.
My skin crawled with goosebumps.
‘What was that?’
In the moment I killed Resonar Type 2.
Time had stopped.
But no one else knew that.
Yet I…
Perhaps I alone in this entire world could perceive that frozen moment.
Within that suspended time, I read countless golden messages embroidered across the void.
Those messages were neither Korean nor English—a third language I had never seen before.
Yet strangely, I could read them.
Was it because I was synchronized?
Because I was borrowing Nebula’s power?
I didn’t know the reason.
What mattered was one thing.
‘Clear judgment… it said.’
Resurrecting Resonar through Great Harvest just now was a kind of exploit.
In that brief window before the corpse judgment disappeared.
If I used necromancy-type skills, I could resurrect Resonar as an undead.
But there was a reason only Great Harvest could pull off such a miracle.
I had to forcefully inject dark mana at tremendous speed and power, overwhelming Resonar in that fleeting instant before resurrection could occur.
Only Great Harvest possessed the caliber of magic to accomplish this.
It was a trick I’d learned from attempting it several times in the game…
And it worked in reality too.
Or rather, precisely…
It might not have worked, but my ‘clear intention’ of injecting dark mana aligned with the system’s parameters and was permitted.
‘Ha… haha.’
I laughed silently.
Those who stopped time and conversed through golden text.
They must be transcendents of an absolutely staggering caliber.
Perhaps they are the very ones who operate the system on Earth and created the Tower itself?
Yet even those transcendents…
…were seeing my ‘strategy’ for the first time.
‘In Lost Honor, I’ve already tested and discovered this strategy thousands of times over.’
What does this mean?
It means the ‘strategy’ I’ve accumulated in Lost Honor is the answer.
Even those transcendents…
…don’t know how to conquer boss-class demonic beasts the way I do!

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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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