The Heavenly Demon Destroys the Tower - 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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Episode 57
‘The awards ceremony. I’d completely forgotten about it.’
It had been some time since he’d cleared the tower.
FIPA had announced they’d hold a special awards ceremony at their Los Angeles headquarters and even sent a private jet, but Lee Kang-han had been so caught up in one crisis after another that he’d entirely lost track of the fact that he was supposed to leave the country today.
Shin Yu-ri smiled ruefully at his admission.
“Things have been happening so fast lately. It’s only natural you’d forget.”
“All because of this one’s exploits.”
“Uncle, you keep saying ‘this one, that one.’ Try being a little kinder with your words.”
“Hah. Hey, the Cheonma said it was fine. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, I’m fine with it.”
In the car heading to the airport.
Lee Kang-han was making conversation with Shin Yu-ri and Shin Dong-seok, who had come to see him off.
“It’s a shame we won’t be able to do a run today to celebrate reaching Bronze.”
“Why not do one at the airport? You usually finish a game in no time.”
“We’re leaving before the twenty-four hours after Kang-han’s tower climb are up, so the timing at the airport won’t work out.”
Since yesterday’s tower climb had taken place during the day.
There was no way it would align with his eleven o’clock departure time.
“Can’t you play on the plane?”
“No. There was a player once who got drunk and entered a tower on a plane, and when he logged out, he fell straight out of the sky.”
“……Fell out of the sky?”
“Yes. Since the plane doesn’t stay in one place…….”
That meant you couldn’t play in cars or subways either, then.
“I suppose I’ll just have to get some sleep.”
As they passed the time talking like this.
The airport appeared.
Word of his departure had already spread.
Reporters were stationed everywhere.
“Look at all these reporters. When did they get here?”
“It’s a good thing we arranged security.”
Walking through the airport under security escort.
“Lee Kang-han!”
“There are rumors that this departure is connected to the situation with Congressman Ju Yong-wan!”
“President Alfred posted a message welcoming the Cheonma to America on his official SNS account—what do you make of that?”
“Do you have an appointment to meet with President Alfred?”
The reporters began bombarding him with questions as they pushed through the security line.
“I’m just going to receive an award. There’s no need to read too much into it.”
“President Alfred…….”
“I’m hearing about what he posted on SNS for the first time right now, actually. I should get going.”
What on earth had President Alfred written on SNS that prompted so many of the questions to revolve around him?
Lee Kang-han pulled out his phone and searched for it.
Then.
[Welcome Strong Lee to America!]
[It’s unfortunate that I’m in Europe right now. The NATO meeting should have been held in Los Angeles! But if he stays a bit longer in the United States, we will absolutely meet!]
[The greatest player must be in the greatest nation. Strong Lee knows this too. Now is the time to make a great decision!]
‘What is this guy doing? Why is he making such a fuss?’
The president was already famous for being active on SNS.
But Lee hadn’t expected him to make such a spectacle over his visit alone.
-Alfred’s shoutout lol
-Why is the US president so fixated on one player?
-NATO meetings? Who cares lol
-Honestly, what good is a NATO meeting? You need a player to block the towers lol
-What if the Cheonma doesn’t come back to Korea? ㅋㅋ
-South Korea throwing contract tantrums VS America’s president personally begging him to come…
After seeing President Alfred’s SNS posts.
People were genuinely starting to wonder if the Cheonma might leave for good.
After all, never before had a sitting US president given such explicit attention to a single player.
This kind of reaction was only natural.
“Your processing is complete.”
Meanwhile.

Once Lee Kang-han finished the departure procedures.
He tilted his head upon noticing that Shin Dong-seok was also in the middle of his.
“You’re coming with us too, Uncle?”
“……Sigh. Yes.”
So he was ranked eleventh among Diamond Players.
Did he have nothing better to do?
Lee Kang-han gazed at Shin Dong-seok with curiosity.
“I can’t send you and Yu-ri off alone!”
He crossed his arms with a stern, solemn expression.
“I’m not a child anymore. And there are more than just the two of us going—there are company employees being dispatched to America too.”
“Either way, that won’t work!”
“Come on, how much longer are you going to overprotect me? I’m twenty-four, for crying out loud.”
“You need overprotecting. Do you have any idea how many heart attacks I nearly had back then?”
“But that Tower Syndrome was so long ago…….”
Lee Kang-han, listening to the uncle and niece’s squabble from the side.
Opened his eyes wide the moment Shin Yu-ri brought up “Tower Syndrome.”
“Tower Syndrome?”
“Oh, yes……. I had a rare illness called Tower Syndrome a long time ago.”
“It’s a funny name, isn’t it? But the condition was serious. I never expected Yu-ri to balloon up to 150 kilograms…….”
“Hey, why are you bringing up weight? Seriously! And 150 kilograms?! It was nothing like that!!!”
Shin Yu-ri shrieked unusually loudly at those words.
Weight really was a forbidden topic, then.
But.
‘This is the first time I’m actually hearing from another Tower Syndrome patient.’
Other than Lee Kang-han, every other patient.
In addition to sleeping twelve hours.
Either became completely skeletal or ballooned up—one extreme or the other.
He’d never expected to actually meet someone who’d lived through the illness.
“With that kind of body, for some reason she suddenly wanted to read martial arts novels, so I kept bringing her books to the hospital room.”
“I wonder why I felt that way back then. I’d never been interested in martial arts stories before…….”
“Those books are still sitting on the shelves at our house.”
And there she was, bedridden because her own body was too much to manage.
Yet somehow she’d wanted to read martial arts novels?
‘Hmm…… Could this be connected to the Cheonma Trial somehow?’
The Cheonma Trial, where a thousand candidates supposedly competed for the Cheonma qualification.
When Lee Kang-han had entered with his “Awakening.”
A message had already appeared announcing victory, and no trace remained of the other candidates.
But listening to Shin Yu-ri’s account of actually having suffered from Tower Syndrome.
A thought occurred to him—perhaps Tower Syndrome patients and Cheonma Trial candidates were somehow connected.
“I suffered from Tower Syndrome too…… It’s interesting.”
“My goodness. You had Tower Syndrome as well?”
“Yes.”
“Were you overweight or underweight back then?”
“Well…….”
It was still his current build, after all.
But since he was just now receiving his boarding seat assignment.
Lee Kang-han decided not to explain at length.
“I was on the lean side.”
“So the opposite of Yu-ri.”
He simply let it pass at that.
“It’ll take about ten hours, so get some rest.”
“All right, I will.”
Settling into the spacious, plush private jet seat.
Drowsiness gradually crept over him.
After the Tower Syndrome cleared, his stamina had become so vigorous that even sleep required conscious effort.
‘Strange—somehow sleep comes easily here…….’
And so, not long after the plane took off, Lee Kang-han closed his eyes.
After sleeping soundly and waking as they touched down.
Ding.
[You have now confirmed recognition of the third-ranked candidate of the Cheonma Trial.]
[You have absorbed the residual energy of the Cheonma Trial from the same space.]
[The First Tower Seal has been enhanced.]
[An Entry Ticket has been added (1).]
[Your Entry Tickets will charge up to 2 total.]
These messages hung before his eyes.
* * *
‘Third candidate?’
Lee Kang-han blinked.
Third place.
‘Could it be talking about Yu-ri?’
A fellow Tower Syndrome patient.
When they’d discussed martial arts stories, he’d only casually wondered if there was any connection between her and the Cheonma Trial candidates.
He’d thought nothing of it at the time.
But waking up to see this message left him bewildered.
‘If she was really a candidate, third place meant she was quite skilled.’
And in the end, it was he who became the Cheonma…
‘Did Yu-ri lose to me?’
Now that he thought about it, her trait was “Failed ***” too.
Had she actually been a failed candidate?
As Lee Kang-han stood lost in thought, gazing at the floating messages,
“Cheonma? Are you still groggy? Should I tell them we’ll head out in a bit?”
Shin Yu-ri approached from the back seat and asked him that.
“No, I’m fully awake now.”
The Cheonma Trial, the candidates—
It was hard to believe. There was no need to mention it.
Whoosh.
With that thought, Lee Kang-han rose from his seat,
and was guided to a hotel in Los Angeles near the headquarters of the International Players Federation.
It was 11 p.m. local time when they arrived in Los Angeles.
By the time he unpacked at the hotel and lay down on the bed, dawn had broken.
‘I should check the seal.’
Once he was alone,
Lee Kang-han decided to examine the overcharged First Tower Seal.
“Inventory.”
He selected the seal from his inventory.
[First Tower Seal – Cheonma +1]
The First Tower Seal bestowed upon the Cheonma.
Upon use, you enter the First Tower.
Only players with the Cheonma Body Constitution trait can use this.
The higher your level, the longer you can remain in the First Tower.
Entry Tickets [1/2]
Cooldown – 14 days
He noticed the item description had changed from last time.
With the enhancement, a +1 now appeared after Cheonma,
and the Entry Tickets showing [1/2] meant he could enter once more out of two total attempts.
‘Hmm… but why did it enhance today when it wasn’t enhanced before?’
On top of his suspicion that Yu-ri had some connection to the Cheonma Trial,
was it because they’d flown together for so long?
The message window had clearly stated he’d absorbed residual energy in the same space.
‘In any case… now I have the opportunity to enter both the First Tower and the Bronze Tower.’
There was the Bronze Tower he hadn’t had time to play during the flight,
and the seal whose Entry Tickets had increased by one.
Now he had both options available.
Lee Kang-han weighed which to visit first.
‘It said the higher my level, the longer I can stay in the First Tower… so I should level up at the Bronze Tower first.’
To increase his time of stay in the First Tower,
he decided to enter the Bronze Tower first.
[Infinite Tower, Floor 11.]
[Entering Bronze Tower No. 56.]
And so Lee Kang-han entered the Infinite Tower.
The chat immediately filled with messages.
-Oh, so you really went to LA and entered the tower ㄷㄷ
-With a 17-hour time difference, it must be 1 AM in LA
-Wouldn’t it be better to sleep at 1 AM? ㅠㅠ
-You’ll just wake up and fall asleep again anyway…
-ㄹㅇㅋㅋ
The viewers already knew from the news that Lee Kang-han had gone to LA.
“I got plenty of sleep on the plane, so I thought I should do some exercise here to help me sleep better.”
Lee Kang-han replied.
-Plus the Bronze Tower is basically just a warmup for you anyway ㅋㅋ
-But when you enter a tower in LA, doesn’t your US Score go up?
-I think so?
-Oh you need to be in the top 50 on the Score rankings ㅠㅠ It’s wasteful to earn points here
-If you end up dropping to 51st because of today, that would be rough ㄷㄷ
Lee Kang-han entered the tower in LA.
The chat filled with worries that maybe he wasn’t in the top 50 in Korea after all.
‘Well, I doubt the ranking would shift over just a day or two.’
Still, he was grateful for their concern.
“I’ll be more careful from now on. Anyway, once I receive the award tomorrow, I’ll head straight back to Korea, so this won’t happen again.”
-Oh so coming back tomorrow is confirmed!!!
-Whew, so you’re not moving to America permanently… thank goodness…
-ㅋㅋㅋ But nobody’s even asking which tower he got
-Probably because he clears it instantly anyway ㅋㅋㅋ
Once Lee Kang-han entered the tower, everyone knew he’d finish in a flash.
Even after entering the tower, they had less interest in the tower number
than in other things.
“The tower number is 56. Does the difficulty increase a lot once you reach Bronze?”
-The difficulty would be hard no matter what…
-But 56 is the Colosseum
-Isn’t this a Competitive Mode map?
Competitive Mode.
Lee Kang-han had knowledge about this.
He’d climbed the towers solo up through Iron.
‘From Bronze onward, there are separate Competitive Mode towers and Cooperative Mode towers.’
In Competitive Mode, you climbed the tower while competing against other players.
In Cooperative Mode, you climbed while cooperating with other players.
And that’s why even Shin Dong-seok had said before
that the higher your tier, the more you can’t clear by being good alone.
And the No.56 Colosseum was
[Blood and flesh scatter across the battlefield. You are entering the ‘Colosseum’.]
[Defeat your opponent and advance to the next stage!]
widely known as the very symbol of Competitive Mode.
The Cheonma Shatters Towers (Ongoing Series)
Author │ Yeom Bi
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daeloong Post Tower 1st)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒYeom Bi 2025
※This work has been published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder. The content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and 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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