The Heavenly Demon Destroys the Tower - Chapter 39

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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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Episode 39
‘Where is that coming from?’
No matter which direction he looked.
The ship was nowhere to be seen from the rock where Lee Kanghan stood.
Even accounting for cannon range.
‘Could it reach all the way out here?’
When Columbus’s ship had first fired its cannon, Lee Kanghan had harbored such doubts.
Whiiiing…….
The distant air shimmered, and then—
A cannonball shot out of nowhere.
As if it had teleported, the projectile crossed space itself.
[Watch out!]
Whoosh!
Heeding the Divine Maiden’s warning, Lee Kanghan leaped from the rock to dodge the cannonball.
But the projectile had never been aimed at him in the first place.
Boom-boom-crash!
The rock shattered completely the moment the cannonball struck.
Lee Kanghan’s footing vanished entirely.
‘Damn…….’
Splash……!
When Lee Kanghan, flailing awkwardly in the water, hauled his upper body above the surface with clumsy strokes.
Crackle crackle crackle…….
Columbus’s voice came down from above his head.
[Well then, challenger, go ahead and find it—my Santa Maria!]
And with that, Columbus launched no further attacks.
Had he achieved his goal by destroying the rock?
Then.
Ding.
[B1 Floor Adversary – “Sentinel of Desire” Christopher Columbus]
[Clear Condition: Locate the Santa Maria and subdue Columbus.]
The clear condition materialized before him.
So the ship’s name was the Santa Maria, then.
He had to find that ship and subdue Columbus to clear this floor.
But this—
‘How am I supposed to find it in this endless sea……?’
Swimming itself wasn’t his strong suit.
But with a body as robust as his, he could keep swimming in the sea regardless.
Yet searching for the Santa Maria while thrashing about in the water was another matter entirely.
As Lee Kanghan gazed out at the vast expanse and felt despair creeping in.
[Heavenly Demon! The Water-Skimming Technique! Unfold the Water-Skimming Technique!]
“Water-Skimming Technique…… means walking across water?
[Yes. From the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Sutra formulas…….]
The Divine Maiden’s spirit was teaching Lee Kanghan how to employ the Water-Skimming Technique.
The investment of 3 Mana had clearly borne fruit.
She offered him precisely the method he needed most.
Following her instructions, he attempted to deploy the Lightness Skill.
But then.
The sea’s color turned ashen.
[Wraiths now inhabit the Dark Sea…….]
Pale smoke billowed upward.
“Huh?!”
Whoosh!
Lee Kanghan’s body, half-floating above the water, was suddenly
pulled downward.
More precisely, a powerful force seized his ankle and
dragged him beneath the waves.
‘What is this……?’
Opening his eyes underwater, Lee Kanghan’s face went rigid.
In the murky blue depths.
Pale forms began emerging one after another.
They bore the shape of human forms.
Yet they appeared as wraiths with limbs missing—a hand here, a leg there.
[Graaaaaah…….]
[We curse you……. We hate you…….]
[You too…… must die……!]
Even beneath the water, the wails of vengeful spirits echoed.
They swarmed around Lee Kanghan, clawing at his feet and lower body.
Though individually they seemed weak enough.
The sheer number that descended upon him so suddenly made them nearly impossible to shake off.
And Lee Kanghan, unaccustomed to fighting underwater.
Found resistance all the more difficult.
Then.
[These minor ghosts……!]
Flash!
From the body of the Divine Maiden, who had followed him down into the depths.
A brilliant light blazed forth.
And then.
Whoooosh!
The malevolent spirits clinging to Lee Kanghan’s body dissolved into smoke and vanished.
[Now! You have to leave quickly!]
Though the spirits had vanished for the moment.
The vengeful spirits converging from all sides remained undiminished.
Lee Kanghan heeded the Divine Maiden’s words and rushed back toward the surface.
“I owe you my life.”
[I used up all the Mana you gave me. Next time I won’t be able to help! You have to use Water Surface Flight right now!]
“Got it. Heavenly Demon Divine Art.”
With the Heavenly Demon Divine Art activated.
Splash!
Lee Kanghan burst upward through the water with all his strength.
‘This…… there’s no winning underwater. Water Surface Flight has to work. It just has to.’
Perhaps because of the near-drowning he’d just experienced at the hands of those spirits.
Lee Kanghan’s mind worked faster than it ever had before.
He recalled the incantation of the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Sutra that the Divine Maiden had taught him.
Simultaneously remembering the sensation of when the skill ‘Heavenly Demon Sovereign Sutra’ had activated.
‘Like this…… right?’
Whoosh!
His foot touched the water’s surface.
Precarious, teetering on the edge of sinking at any moment.
Slash. Slash!
Lee Kanghan moved his feet faster than ever before, striving to maintain the Water Surface Flight.
[Wow, success on the first try? It feels a little unstable though……!]
“Don’t overthink it. Just run. Plant the left foot before the right one sinks, right?”
[Well, that’s not exactly how it—… Ah, forget it! Let’s go with that for now!]
Watching Lee Kanghan use the Water Surface Flight with an almost instinctive urgency.
The Divine Maiden decided it was better to keep him focused than to correct his form.
Under her guidance, as Lee Kanghan ran across the water’s surface for several minutes.
[We curse you……!]
Splash splash splash……!
The seawater churned and turned opaque.
The vengeful spirits began to rise.
Not dragging from below this time.
Were they trying to emerge onto the surface itself?
But.
‘How many spirits are there?’
So many vengeful spirits were rising.
The dark blue sea looked as if it had been shrouded in mist by their numbers.
‘This…… the difficulty isn’t even in the same league as normal towers.’
Lee Kanghan, who had only ever experienced smooth ascents through ordinary towers until now.
But the First Tower from B1 Floor onward presented a difficulty that was no joke.
If only Columbus would bring the Santa Maria and fight alongside him—though fat lot of good that would do.
There was no point in just smashing rocks and disappearing.
[Come here too!]
While Lee Kanghan was running hard.
Whoosh!
A colossal spectral hand brushed past his feet.
No, looking closer, it wasn’t a hand at all.
It seemed the vengeful spirits from the seabed were tangled together, forming something hand-like.
And from the appearance of those wraiths.
‘They look like they’re wearing Native American clothing.’
Lee Kanghan spotted several ghosts wearing feathered headdresses.
The vengeful spirits in this sea.
Were they the wraiths of Native Americans?
Now that he thought about it, Columbus had pioneered the New World, and the damage to the indigenous peoples had supposedly been enormous.
‘But why are they attacking me? They should be going after Columbus.’
Whish. Whish.
Lee Kanghan dodged the vengeful spirits that burst up from the sea, weaving left and right.
He hurried about searching for Columbus’s Santa Maria.
But then.
[The duration of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art has ended.]
Before he could find any trace of the ship.
The Heavenly Demon Divine Art’s duration ran out first.
‘Fifteen minutes have already passed…….’
And the moment the Heavenly Demon Divine Art ended.
Lee Kanghan’s posture, which had been sustained by the power of the technique to perform the Water Surface Flight, began to falter immediately.
[Oh, this won’t do! The power of the technique……! Concentrate!]
The Divine Maiden called out to Lee Kanghan in a voice tinged with regret.
Ssshhh……!
Before long, pallid wraiths were swarming around his ankles.
‘Damn it…… they’re stronger than before.’
If I get pulled down this time, I won’t be getting out easily.
Lee Kanghan’s expression hardened.
Ding.
Suddenly, before his eyes.
[Your stay duration in the First Tower has expired.]
“What……?”
A message appeared announcing his stay time had ended.
* * *
‘My stay duration is up?’
The First Tower’s stay duration was proportional to one’s level.
He’d spent quite a bit of time in the Mana Training Hall earlier.
Was it because of that, his time ended so soon after entering B1 Floor?
[You are being returned to your original world.]
As the return message appeared.
Lee Kanghan’s body turned transparent in an instant.
[No, this can’t be! Where are you going!]
Then the earlier screen flashed back into view, and.
Columbus, who was blowing a bugle, shouted indignantly.
Whoooosh……!
A red portal materialized above Lee Kanghan’s head.
Before he knew it, his body was being pulled inside.
[G-Good thing! Master!]
With the Divine Maiden’s words as an ending, the return completed.
“……It’s my room.”
Lee Kanghan had returned to his own bedroom.
“I almost died twice in one day…….”
Once in the Mana Training Hall.
And if he’d fought any longer in Columbus’s battlefield, the Dark Sea, he would’ve drowned.
Lee Kanghan recalled the Water Surface Flight that had become drastically unstable after the Heavenly Demon Divine Art ended.
‘In the end, it was the Heavenly Demon Divine Art that allowed me to deploy the Water Surface Flight.’
The Divine Maiden’s guidance was helpful, but.
In that urgent moment, as the power of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art drained away, Lee Kanghan glimpsed his own limits.
His concentration shattered by the wraiths rising from the sea.
Unable to maintain the Water Surface Flight properly, his body threatening to plunge at any moment.
It was a disgrace he’d never experienced once in all his tower climbing.
“Ah…… this is infuriating.”
Had he grown arrogant from too much success?
Lee Kanghan kept seeing himself floundering on the sea in that moment of crisis.
And what the Divine Maiden had taught him in that situation
was the incantation from the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Sutra side of the original Heavenly Demon Divine Art scriptures.
‘I should have studied the original scriptures more seriously, rather than just reciting them.’
The answer had been in the incantation all along.
But thinking he didn’t understand what it meant, he’d simply memorized it.
Yet even if he didn’t understand,
he should have tried harder to grasp its meaning.
Since his body responded even from mere recitation,
he’d never bothered to delve deeper—just memorized it.
‘I was careless.’
Lee Kanghan reflected on his own failings.
“Besides, in the First Tower, Columbus was ultimately just a Sentinel—barely above a Minion, so not that formidable an opponent.”
The ‘Minions’ and ‘Sentinels’ that had appeared when his current Rank was Iron.
As his Rank climbed, the probability of encountering beings stronger than these would only increase.
If B1 Floor was already like this,
descending to B2, B3,
how much stronger would his opponents become?
‘From now on, I need to focus and concentrate harder on growing stronger.’
He’d survived thanks to his Stay Duration ending.
But Lee Kanghan felt it unmistakably—he had been ‘defeated’ today.
And once he accepted that,
unlike usual,
a strange heat began to roil in his chest.
Self-reproach for his complacency, and a fierce competitive spirit that vowed to win next time—
coupled with a burning desire to land a blow on Columbus as he stood on deck blowing that Bugle while drinking wine.
‘That’s strange, though.’
Lee Kanghan found himself curious about this change.
When he’d been suffering from Tower Syndrome, he’d genuinely lacked ambition for most things.
His grades had hovered around the class average.
His body was fine, but he’d never felt any desire to compete with anyone through athletics.
He’d possessed no competitive spirit to speak of.
Just assuming he’d coast through life like this and be done with it,
he’d lived without drive in anything he did.
So he’d thought this was simply who he was,
‘Yet I harbored such feelings all along.’
The emotion he’d felt upon essentially losing to Columbus was utterly novel to him.
Anger born of defeat.
Self-recrimination for his negligence.
And a hunger to crush him utterly next time.
The heat boiling up within his chest was unfamiliar to Lee Kanghan,
‘but perhaps it’s not so bad sometimes.’
For it had jolted him awake, sharpening his focus.
Next time he’d wreck Columbus and the Santa Maria,
settling today’s debt in full.
“So…… let me look around the room first.”
The Sanctuary had activated when he searched behind the drawer looking for his Passport.
Lee Kanghan scoured the room to find something connected to this.
A portal had appeared when he’d touched the drawer’s base, so
he reasoned there must be something in this room.
But.
‘It all looks fine on the surface.’
Even after dismantling the drawer and desk entirely,
even after flipping the bed over,
Nowhere did he find anything that appeared to have a connection to that nameless Sanctuary.
Especially the wooden floor of the dresser that had been the starting point — he’d touched it over and over again.
But this time, there was no red light flickering like before.
“This is strange…… what is it?”
Looking at it now, it’s just an ordinary piece of furniture.
Could I have been dreaming?
Just to be sure, he checked his Status Window.
His Mana was indeed raised to 10+.
‘Maybe my current level is too low to detect it.’
After overturning the room several times without finding any trace,
Lee Kanghan shook his head.
This won’t work right now.
He’d considered getting rid of all the furniture and replacing it,
but stopped himself. ‘No. I can’t just throw away something connected to the Sanctuary.’
Even if he couldn’t find the trace now,
when his strength grew, he might discover a trace connected to the Sanctuary there.
Lee Kanghan decided to leave his room as it was for the time being.
‘Then next is…… the Heavenly Fate Tower.’
He still didn’t know why he’d been approved,
but in any case, thanks to the Divine Maiden, the Heavenly Fate Tower could now be built.
‘I should construct something.’
He’d have plenty of Tower Points for it.
Lee Kanghan opened the Ten Thousand Demon Hall function to build the Heavenly Fate Tower.
“Come to think of it, I never tested whether it works on B1 Floor.”
The Ten Thousand Demon Hall function that didn’t activate in Heavenly Demon Valley.
He’d wanted to test whether it would work on the floor below,
but he’d been too preoccupied with falling into the water and never got to summon anything.
‘I’ll definitely try it next time.’
Thinking this,
Lee Kanghan gazed at the Ten Thousand Demon Hall.
Then from the center of the revealed screen,
‘This is…… something I’ve never seen before?’
A flame dyed pure white
was maintaining a faint spark, as though it would extinguish at any moment.
The Heavenly Demon Shatters the Tower (Serialized)
Author | Yeom Bi
Publisher | Kim Joo-hyung
Publishing House | J-Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing | Han Jae-hyuk
Address | 204th Floor, Digital-ro 288, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1st)
Email | [email protected]
Website | www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Yeom Bi 2025
※This work is published by J-Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the contents may not be used in any form or manner without permission from the company and the author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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