Chapter 114
“…Could it be that?”
I doubted it.
In this endlessly stretching desert, the only thing that could be considered a different space was the Pit.
The Pit was where the sandworms popped out.
They must all be crawling around underground before popping out to the surface…
In other words, wouldn’t there be an underground space?
I didn’t have any other ideas coming to mind.
It was definitely worth a try.
I should try going inside the Pit.
“But how…”
Am I supposed to go in.
The sandworm had died without its body fully emerging, leaving the Pit blocked.
To go in, I had to do something about the corpse first.
Should I just wait until another sandworm pops out and go into a different Pit?
…No. It’s a waste of time.
I didn’t know what the compass number doubling every 2 minutes meant, but I felt like I should let it increase as little as possible.
I paused for a moment and then used Time release.
Kwaaaaang!
First, I fired a Flame strike.
By concentrating the fireballs in one spot, I completely blew up the torso of the sandworm blocking the entrance of the Pit.
The ground was dug out, and the entrance of the Pit was revealed more widely.
Now the remaining corpse inside the Pit was the problem.
I jumped and then used stop Time.
After finishing Mental Concentration, I fired a Full Charge Line of Destruction toward the Pit.
Paseuseuseu…
After erasing as much of the sandworm corpse blocking the Pit as possible.
I attempted to enter the Pit.
I moved forward with skin hardening activated.
The darkness wasn’t a problem since I had Suggestion.
“Ugh.”
A disgusting stench pierced my nose.
Soon, I faced the remaining chunks of the corpse.
Thinking this wouldn’t do, I called Ma-wang.
“Demon Lord, please put up a Barrier and just charge straight ahead.”
The sandworm’s bodily fluids were toxic.
Skin hardening was a skill that blocked physical hits, not chemical ones.
Still, seeing as my Sixth Sense didn’t give me a very dangerous feeling, it seemed I could just endure it with my bare body and push through…
My clothes would all melt too, so it was better to just leave it to Ma-wang.
“Please keep your power consumption to a minimum.”
- I know, so stop chattering about every little thing.
Ma-wang took over the body.
A Frost Barrier wrapped around the entire body like armor.
Kwagwagwagwagwa!
With the Barrier up, Ma-wang flew through the Pit passage, piercing right through the sandworm’s corpse.
But how long was this guy’s body?
It was only after advancing much further than expected that we could pass through the entire corpse.
“Phew.”
I took the body back and moved forward through the wide-open underground passage.
The passage, which had been a steep slope, gradually became gentler.
…Is this the right route?
It should be.
As I continued to advance while harboring no small amount of anxiety…
A fork in the road appeared.
I used stop Time and Hada to find where to go.
On the outside, both passages looked no different.
Then I had no choice but to guess.
I moved to the right.
As I advanced through the passage, a space like a cavern soon appeared.
It was a dead end with nowhere else to go.
Hmm… Did I pick the wrong one?
Just as I was about to turn around,
Suddenly, intuition’s warning rang out.
I quickly threw my body toward the cavern entrance.
Chwaaaaa!
Green liquid poured down from the cavern ceiling.
The floor where I had been standing just a moment ago melted away.
Was it a poison like the sandworm’s bodily fluids?
Seeing how strongly my Sixth Sense reacted, the toxicity seemed much stronger.
“A trap…”
To me, it felt like a bit of good news.
There’s a trap here for a reason?
Because it seemed like proof that there was indeed something in this underground passage. As expected, the underground was the right answer.
I returned to the fork.
This time, I moved to the left passage.
As I went straight ahead, another fork appeared.
…What is this.
Are they telling me to solve a maze or something?
[2,048]
I moved to the right path.
Not long after, another dead end appeared.
I clicked my tongue. Without stepping foot into the cavern, I returned to the fork.
It moved to the left.
As I advanced, a third fork appeared.
Thinking it would really be the right side this time, I picked the right path again, but…
When I went, it was yet another dead end.
…Anyway, it seems luck has never been on my side while doing a Nightmare Strategy.
I went back and moved to the left at the third fork as well.
But why do forks keep appearing?
The traps are also bland, unlike a Nightmare, so is anything even progressing?
Around the time I had that thought
“Oh.”
This time, a wide space appeared instead of a fork.
And there was something there.
“…A puzzle?”
In the middle of the cavern’s floor.
There was a large square border, and next to it, rocks shaped like puzzle pieces were scattered about.
And besides the passage I had come through, numerous passages were open in all directions of the cavern.
I approached closer.
Seeing as there were pictures drawn on the stone pieces, it was indeed a puzzle, but…
‘I’m supposed to put this together?’
I was dumbfounded when a random puzzle appeared.
…Then again, a cube appeared on the 3rd Floor. So, is there nothing to be dumbfounded about?
Anyway, there was no time to dawdle.
I immediately prepared to put the puzzle together.
I used stop Time and counted them; it was a 100-piece puzzle in total.
I used Time release again and was examining the puzzle pieces that were almost the size of my body.
Kuuuu…!
A vibration rang out.
Suddenly, a sandworm emerged from one of the cavern’s passages.
…What now?
Kwaaaaang!
I blew up the sandworm’s head before it could pull its body out any further.
After dealing with it quickly, I turned my attention back to the puzzle.
Let’s see.
I first moved the pieces one by one.
I started by laying them out on the floor so they could be seen at a glance.
Rather than doing it haphazardly, doing it like this would make putting it together much faster.
“Starting with the corners.”
Then I used stop Time again and found the corner puzzle pieces.
As I was putting them together one by one.
Kuuuuu…
Along with a vibration, a sandworm emerged from another passage. Again?
I dealt with that guy by blowing up his head too and continued putting the puzzle together.
But a moment later, a vibration rang out once again.
With a slight time gap, sandworms continued to emerge.
“Damn it…”
What is this supposed to be.
Are they going to keep emerging and interfering?
At this rate, it was hard to fully concentrate on the puzzle.
If so, it’s Ma-wang’s chance again.
“Demon Lord, please freeze all the passages and block them. As solidly as possible.”
Saaaaaa-!
Ma-wang-emon froze all the passages as requested.
I focused on putting the puzzle together without having to care about the sandworms anymore.
Kuung.
I moved the large pieces one by one and put them together.
It wasn’t difficult, but with the large number of pieces, it inevitably took time.
There wasn’t exactly a Time Limit like on the 3rd Floor, though.
Still, I felt impatient.
Because…
[131,072]
The number on the compass was continuing to grow exponentially.
I saved time to the best of my ability by alternating between stop Time and Time release.
After putting the puzzle together to some extent, I could recognize the picture…
An antlion?
The identity of the picture was a monster in the shape of an antlion.
Whatever it was, I continued putting it together.
And only after quite a long time had passed…
“…Done!”
I finally finished putting the puzzle together.
As I inserted the last piece.
Paat!
The puzzle emitted a faint light for a moment before fading away.
I looked at the completed puzzle.
An antlion.
And maze-like lines drawn on the antlion’s torso?
I wondered what this was.
[33,554,432]
The number on the compass had already surpassed 30 million.
I put it together as fast as I could, but it still took over 20 minutes.
Since it doubled every time, the increase happened in an instant.
What in the world is this…
Since I couldn’t understand the meaning, my anxiety grew as time went on.
I looked around.
…But what am I supposed to do now?
Even though I finished putting it together, there was no other change besides the puzzle glowing.
The thing that stood out was the maze drawn on the antlion…
Is this important?
The maze started from the antlion’s mouth, and a heart-shaped picture was drawn at the destination.
I couldn’t tell what it meant.
I first used stop Time and found the path through the maze.
Just in case, I memorized the path completely. It felt like it took a few hours.
I used Time release, and that’s when I thought about whether I should go back outside now.
Gugugugugu-
A vibration began to ring out.
A massive vibration that couldn’t even be compared to that of the sandworms moving earlier.
“…!”
Intuition’s warning.
It was below.
“Demon Lord!”
I immediately swapped with Ma-wang.
Ma-wang covered the entire body with a Barrier as earlier.
And right after that.
…Kugugugugu!
The ground surged up, and my body was slammed upward.
I didn’t take any hits because I had the Barrier up, but my body continued to be pushed away.
Something massive was coming up from the underground.
That was the only thing I could tell.
“Tsk.”
Kwaaaaaa!
Ma-wang even wrapped a small Frost Pokpung around the body and pierced upward.
He pierced all the way up to the surface just like that.
As I looked down while soaring high into the sky…
“…Crazy.”
What is that?
The desert was fluctuating.
Sand was being sucked in entirely, centered around one point.
Like an antlion’s hell.
Geuoooooo-
The form that soon revealed itself from the sand was a massive antlion.
No, it was a super-super-super-massive monster, a size that the word 'massive' fell far short of describing.
I could see the corpses of the sandworms all being sucked into the antlion’s maw.
Even the sandworms that were the size of buildings were no different from ants compared to that guy.
I could tell immediately.
That guy was the boss of the 8th Floor.
“No, but what…”
Isn’t this a bit too much?
The largest monster I had seen so far was the Frozen Hydra in Sector 4.
This guy was at least 10 times that size.
It was an absurd size.
“Demon Lord, the body please.”
After I took the body back from Ma-wang.
I used stop Time and cast a Full Charge Line of Destruction downward.
I aimed for the antlion’s head, but…
…Geuoooooo!
The antlion let out a cry that seemed like it would tear my eardrums.
Bodily fluids spewed out like a waterfall from the spot where the Line of Destruction pierced through.
The attack worked.
It worked, but…
The guy was so massive that even firing a Line of Destruction felt no different from merely pricking it with a needle.
It seemed like it would take an eternity to kill it.
I used stop Time again.
‘This doesn’t make sense…?’
Such a ruthless monster appeared as a boss on the 8th Floor?
Because it’s me, I can at least consider taking an eternity to try and kill it.
It would be at a level where fighting it would be completely impossible for other Nightmare Clearers.
No, they wouldn’t have even been able to escape to the surface in the first place and would have just been eaten… Huh?
A thought suddenly came to mind then.
“The maze.”
…Could that maze picture be?
Was it an internal map of the antlion’s body?
And the heart at the destination was the guy’s weak point?
If so, it made sense.
That is, if it wasn’t about defeating it the standard way, but going inside its body to find its weak point and clear it.
“Was getting eaten the right way originally?”
If so, I could just go into the antlion’s mouth right now, but…
How much time would it take again?
The number on the compass bothered me greatly.
I had memorized the entire maze, but I couldn’t know how long it would take to reach the weak point.
“…Demon Lord.”
I asked Ma-wang.
“How long do you think it will take to defeat that guy?”
The boss appearing meant it was almost the end…
Wouldn’t it be better to defeat it as quickly as possible with Ma-wang’s power instead?
If it were possible, that is.
- Does it matter if I overdo it a little?
‘As long as it doesn’t cause an overload…’
- Then hand it over.
I immediately handed the body over to Ma-wang.
Ma-wang looked down at the antlion and brought his hands together.
Then…
Saaaaaaa-!
The energy of extreme cold began to gather.
It was compressed endlessly.
To the point where it was so compressed it looked like a water drop.
Willpower hit rock bottom in an instant.
“Charge.”
At Ma-wang’s words, I used stop Time and used charge willpower.
When I filled the Willpower, Ma-wang continued to compress the energy.
A massive energy that gave me goosebumps just watching it was entirely contained in a size no bigger than a water drop.
I refilled the Willpower several times.
I stopped right before the load hit.
Ma-wang waved his hand downward.
As the Extreme Cold Water Drop fell toward the antlion,
Jjeojeok.
From the point where the water drop touched.
The antlion began to freeze at an incredible speed.
It didn’t even take 10 seconds for that massive body to completely freeze over.
Kugugugugu.
The frozen antlion soon crumbled into pieces.
“Wow…”
It was a complete, instant death.
After finishing off the antlion boss, it was done.
After coming down, I took the body back.
Seueueu…
I looked at the boss’s corpse, puffing out white breath.
One side of the Desert had completely collapsed.
Even though I had caught the boss, the clear complete message had not popped up.
I checked the compass.
[134,217,728]
A number had surpassed 100 million.
Then, a change occurred.
[0/134,217,728km]
“…?”
Next to the number on the compass.
The unit km had appeared.
…What does this mean?
Unable to understand the meaning, I continued to look at the compass.
But there were no further changes.
Even after 2 minutes passed, the number didn’t increase.
I raised my head with a furrowed brow.
“…”
I noted the direction the compass was pointing.
The oasis was still there.
In the end, is reaching that place the clear condition?
Wondering if something had changed, I moved toward the oasis.
After moving a bit.
[1/134,217,728km]
The number on the compass changed.
I stopped walking again and glared at the compass.
“…Wait a minute.”
Could this be right?
Saying that the remaining distance to the oasis is 100 million kilometers?
I moved toward the oasis again.
[2/134,217,728km]
As I moved a bit more, the numerator increased to 2.
As expected, what I was thinking seemed right.
“This is crazy…”
You want me to travel a distance of over 100 million kilometers?
I calculated it with a bewildered heart.
Right, I still have the warp device…
What if I keep warping every 10 minutes?
I can travel 60,000 km per hour.
Plus, I travel that distance myself, so it would be slightly more than that.
Then, assuming I travel roughly 1.5 million km a day…
It meant it would take roughly 90 days to reach the oasis.
“…”
90 days?
Did you say 90 days?
…When the remaining Nightmare Time Limit is only 20 days?
[Nightmare]
Participants: 476,805
Time Limit: 19 days 22 hours 52 minutes 1 second
Floor reached: 8th Floor
Cold sweat flowed down my back.
Only one thought lingered in my head.
I’m fucked.