I Conquered the Tower with the EX-Class Character That I Raised - Chapter 91

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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 91
The world’s most cutting-edge military satellites.
Renowned S-rank detection Hunters.
Tens of thousands of intelligence operatives.
Despite pouring all those resources and astronomical sums of money into the effort, Pandemonium’s heart—the Ghost Fortress—had eluded capture for a full decade. Not once had anyone caught its tail.
Standing above the West Sea, I finally understood why the concealment had succeeded.
“It was never optical camouflage to begin with.”
Magic.
Not ordinary magic either, but a vicious concealment incantation so twisted by the Outer God’s followers—warping the very laws of dimensions—that no earthly common sense or modern science could ever penetrate it.
But.
Nopi’s EX-rank graphics card’s power.
With the ability to perceive the “threads of mana,” there was no escaping my sight.
Mana flows and circulates endlessly, like clear water.
And before my eyes, the transparent threads of that mana began to unravel, strand by strand, like a tangled spider’s web.
“Found it.”
The empty expanse of the West Sea’s sky.
There, I could see mana pooled and stagnant—grotesquely clotted like putrid, blackened water.
A mechanical war machine in the shape of a spider with eight legs.
Its carapace flattened broad as an aircraft carrier—a bizarre mobile fortress itself.
I drew Mudan 2.
“Hmm.”
Pointing the blade’s tip, I calculated that a single swing would reach it in one breath.
But then, a strange sense of dissonance washed over me.
‘…Why does it look so far away?’
The fortress before my eyes was close enough to reach with a single leap and slash through empty air.
Yet the moment I pointed my blade with the intent to “cut through” that foul concealment magic shrouding the fortress, the entire structure warped through space, receding far beyond a hazy mist—a spatial distortion that defied logic.
‘Space magic that detects killing intent and increases distance? The Remnant of Foreign God’s techniques had such an advanced mechanic?’
In this very moment.
I raised my alert level toward the Pandemonium Guild Master by one notch.
Clearing the 90th Floor range, I’d encountered many of the Outer God’s puppets.
And I hadn’t missed a single one—I’d slaughtered them all.
Even for me, this spatial distortion mechanic was something I’d never seen before.
The meaning was unmistakable.
Whatever crouched in this fortress was far more troublesome and formidable than the Outer God’s forces I’d cut down climbing to the 93rd Floor.
Swish.
I slowly lowered Mudan 2 and withdrew my killing intent.
Then, like a mirage, the mechanical spider fortress that had receded suddenly rushed back to its original close distance.
“Annoying design. I’ll need to find its weakness.”
All magic serves its own purpose.
Freezing barriers freeze,
The flame system is about burning things.
The Outer Gods’ magical framework has only one purpose: concealment.
And this crude concealment spell comes with one additional, rather filthy auxiliary function.
‘Throwing a tantrum like a disturbed hornet’s nest when discovered’—that’s precisely it.
If I touched it clumsily, they’d trigger alarms in all directions to distort my vision, then escape or attempt mutual destruction in the chaos.
As I was considering the worst-case scenario.
Whiiiiiing—!
Nopi trembled violently, shrieking.
“Just hold on a bit longer, Nopi.”
I carefully examined the mana’s grain.
If Nopi hadn’t possessed such advanced specifications, this would have been quite troublesome.
“Found it.”
Indeed, there was a weakness.
The mechanical spider’s abdomen.
The mana grain at that passage—where air subtly flowed between inside and outside—was noticeably loose.
“Then, shall we begin pest extermination?”
I left the mana stone helicopter hovering nearby in the airspace above, then threw myself forward without hesitation, stepping through empty air.
Pushing off the air and moving between the spider’s legs, I positioned the concealment spell’s weakness above my head and drew forth the blade’s mana.
Shiiiiing—!
Peony No. 2, brimming with azure blade energy, cut sharply through the void.
Like splitting taut fabric with sharp scissors, space tore open with a spine-chilling sound of parting air.
Beyond that rent, the lower section of the steel mobile fortress revealed itself.
Because I’d severed it so instantaneously, the defense mechanism hadn’t even noticed the damage.
Just before the magical circle’s restoration could stitch the cut closed, I dove through the gap and settled inside the fortress.
I immediately shut Nopi down.
In that brief time, the battery had already dropped to the 80 percent range.
Though I’d entered the interior, a thick special alloy door—a physical barrier—blocked my path ahead.
Fortunately, it was electronic.
[Hacking complete. Opening door.]
That’s what Whitey lives for.
Whoosh—
Beyond the silently opening door lay a long corridor with cool air circulating and doors packed closely together.
“Whitey, run a scan of the surroundings.”
[Heat sources in the vicinity: zero.]
“A map… there won’t be one, I suppose.”
I started to ask Whitey to display a map, then stopped myself.
This would be the first time Pandemonium’s mobile fortress had been observed from outside, so there’s no way an internal map would exist.
[Actually, there is one.]
“?”
How would you know that?
[I managed to swipe some data while hacking the door just now.]
“Excellent.”
[I’ll pull up the internal 3D map for you.]
Whitey projected a hologram into the air.
Elongated corridors and angular rooms materialized in three dimensions.
[Power charging is available in the room directly adjacent to your entry point. Would it not be prudent to charge Nopi in preparation for the battles ahead?]
“No, skip it.”
I had no way of knowing when the next attack would come.
From this moment on, it was a race against time.
“Move in silence, take the head, and extract.”
[Understood.]
Whitey projected an arrow in my field of vision.
[I will guide you along the recommended path to the central hub where the Guild Master is strongly estimated to be located.]
I began walking carefully—no, perfectly—erasing every trace of my presence.
Back when I had just climbed the Tower, when I possessed no abilities and barely a shred of strength.
The silent footwork I had mastered solely to survive—my own technique.
The only grappling method usable even in an Awakening-disabled state.
I swept through the corridor with ghostly steps, not a sound from my feet or breath, when some time had passed.
‘It’s wider than I thought.’
The interior felt at least twice as spacious as the mechanical spider’s external dimensions suggested.
Space-expansion magic was clearly active throughout the entire interior.
Reaching the target location would take longer than anticipated.
Moreover, the internal structure displayed on the map was a deliberately twisted labyrinth itself.
In other words, wandering through this vast fortress like a rat in a maze was both a trap they had laid and a serious waste of time.
“Whitey.”
[Yes, Agent.]
“Forget this winding maze. Draw me a straight line from here to the central hub—whether there are walls or not, ignore them—the shortest distance possible to where the heat signatures are densest or where the boss is likely holed up.”
[…The straight path you describe is blocked by 14 thick special alloy bulkheads and 5 layers of defensive magic circles, however.]
“That’s fine. Draw it.”
Ding.
A bright red straight line was drawn across the holographic map, completely disregarding all the winding corridors.
I opened Nopi again.
“I’ll finish this as quickly as possible.”
Click.
I activated synchronization.
I drew mana up from my core.
“Hah.”
Gripping Mudan 2 lightly, I stepped toward the first steel wall blocking my path ahead.
Covert infiltration?
No one was around anyway, so there was no one to notice. Then it was covert.
Assassinate just the leader quietly?
Smash everything to pieces and charge in—as long as there are no witnesses, that’s assassination.
‘The fastest and most certain way…’
KWAAAAAAANG—!!!
The explosive azure sword aura that Whitey 2 unleashed tore through the steel bulkhead—dozens of centimeters thick—like tissue paper, obliterating it without mercy.
The entire fortress shuddered as if struck by a magnitude-7 earthquake, and a deafening roar that could rupture eardrums erupted in all directions.
‘Just demolish everything and charge straight through.’
Whiiiing—! Beep beep! Beep beep beep!
[Intruder detected! Sector 1 external armor compromised! All sectors emergency! All sectors emergency!]
Red alarm lights spun frantically from every direction, sirens wailing like madness.
I brushed the crumbled debris from myself and stepped through the shattered wall.
“My knock was a bit loud, wasn’t it?”
It was as I was pulverizing the second and third bulkheads like tofu, charging forward with brute force.
I sensed something odd.
Following the cliché script of third-rate villains, once the alarm sounded like this, hordes of underlings should come swarming in, spouting predictable lines like “Who goes there!” or “Intruder! Kill them!”
But it was far too quiet.
According to Whitey’s thermal signature display, there were people around…
No, more precisely, they weren’t coming.
‘They can’t come.’
Beyond the shattered bulkhead, I caught a glimpse of small-fry trembling in corners, their legs giving out beneath them, crushed by my overwhelming presence.
They’d instinctively realized that approaching meant death, so they’d hidden like maggots.
‘Hiding won’t help. You’re all dead men walking today.’
Everyone connected to the Outer God dies.
That’s the fundamental principle I learned in the Tower.
The moment I moved to step over the crumbled debris.
[A single heat signature detected in the central forward sector.]
At Whitey’s notification, I stopped in my tracks.
At the end of the corridor, where steel wreckage lay scattered as if swept by a tempest.
In the center, as the acrid dust cloud slowly dissipated, someone stood motionless, draped in a pitch-black cloak.
The sole heat signature standing firm against my overwhelming aura while everyone else trembled in fear and hid.
‘Is that tiny thing the Pandemonium Guild Master?’
The frame was so diminutive that I couldn’t imagine it belonging to an adult male.
Yet the figure stood squarely at the threshold leading to the fortress’s most vital heart, gazing directly at me and walking slowly forward.
Step. Step.
Though the aura of the blade pressed down on all sides, the gait was leisurely—as if taking a stroll.
Then there could be only one conclusion.
And what else could I do about it?
—I’m going to kill them all anyway.
I concentrated mana into both feet, kicked off the ground lightly, and sliced through the air in a smooth glide.
Fuuuuuong—!
Dozens of meters vanished in a single bound.
A thunderous strike that afforded no opportunity to evade.
I drove Mudan 2 down toward his shoulder, infusing it with weighty mana that could cleave through an arm as easily as paper.
CRAAAAAASH—!!!
The catastrophic impact—far beyond mere fracture—unleashed a deafening roar that shook the Fortress itself.
And yet.
My Mudan 2 had not severed his right arm.
Instead, it vibrated as though repelled by something, bouncing back.
The black cloak he wore.
No—what I’d mistaken for a cloak rippled and transformed like a beast’s foreleg, intercepting my blade strike head-on.
‘What is this…?’
Up close, the truth became unmistakable.
This was no woven fabric.
Putrid black sludge, slick with viscous corruption, writhed like living tentacles—wrapping around the man’s entire body like armor.
“This bastard…”
A sickening sense of déjà vu flashed through my mind.
I knew the nature of this abhorrent magic.
The first of countless vile powers wielded by the Apostle’s servants.
‘Mud of Decay.’
A broken growth-type spell that grants the user the ability to imbue the sludge with countless curses and abilities as they evolve.
Yet for all its broken characteristics, there exists only one method to ‘grow’ this magic—one so grotesque it renders all other properties trivial.
…Sacrificing members of one’s own kind.
In this case, humans…!
If the sludge’s density and hardness had increased enough to repel my strike head-on, the truth beneath was obvious.
“How many humans have you devoured?”
The black sludge covered his upper face like a helm, obscuring his features.
But the youthful jawline barely visible beneath it met my gaze directly.
In response to my accusation, the corners of his mouth twisted upward in a sinister arc, curling into a sneer.
Brazen, arrogant mockery.
“Why so shocked?”
A voice still bearing the softness of youth, not yet past adolescence.
“I only did what you taught me.”
“…!”
…And that voice was unmistakably familiar.
‘Surely not…!’
The man tilted his head upward.
The black sludge covering his upper face melted away like shed snakeskin, finally revealing his complete visage.
“Long time no see, First.”
‘….’
A face I could never forget.
Inside the Tower.
Those days when my sole purpose in life was to ascend relentlessly upward through “clearance”…
In that hellish place, my one and only disciple—the one to whom I imparted every technique and survival method I possessed.
Iransu was there.
“Should I call you Master?”
“You…”
I had no chance to finish.
Whoosh!
Eternal mud exploded in all directions.

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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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