The twisted space slowly converged. The shattered fragments of the abyss melted into the air, and the cracked ground caught its breath. I sheathed my sword and took a slow breath.
At the edge of my vision, I saw Seo Jun kneeling in the writhing darkness.
“How is your body?”
Seo Jun barely nodded. Leaning on his Soul Sword, he lifted his sweat- and blood-soaked face.
“I barely… endured.”
His voice was cracked, but his eyes remained clear. There was no fear, no confusion. Only a burning will remained.
I approached him and surveyed the surroundings. The black energy had already scattered. But I knew this was not the end.
“…It was only a part of Nepas.”
At my words, Seo Jun nodded quietly.
“I felt it. That was… not the main body.”
Nepas, whom we had faced, was only a fragment. Having made contact with the Source of Fear, his consciousness had already split into many pieces. Cutting off a part of it was only a temporary victory.
I looked into the air and spoke.
“Since you made contact with even a part of the Source of Fear.”
“He will now completely ignore even the rules of the Tower.”
“Not only will the number of corrupted floors increase… he will prepare something beyond that.”
Seo Jun clenched his fist. The memory of nearly being swallowed by darkness reflected in his eyes.
“There is something deeper inside that.”
“He will surely do something unpredictable with it.”
Just as I was preparing, the grown Seo Jun was also preparing for Nepas and what was to come.
And that was not a prediction. It was preparation for what was to come. He is definitely plotting something. A stronger army, a more vicious trap, or… something that could distort the very essence of the Tower. What exactly that is, I still don’t know. But there was one thing I was certain of.
“He will… appear again soon.”
“When he does, he will be stronger and more cunning than now.”
“It is no coincidence that he targeted you this time.”
At my words, Seo Jun’s expression hardened. He took a moment to steady his breath and met my gaze.
“Next time… I will be prepared.”
“I won’t be swayed like this time.”
“And…”
His voice lowered, gaining strength.
“I will cut him down.”
I nodded without a smile.
“Good.”
“Whatever he prepares, in the end, we will overcome it.”
“Whether it be this Tower or his plans.”
A brief silence passed. From beyond the cracked space, in the distance… somewhere, a faint alarm from another floor resonated. A signal that he was moving.
*
Change. It started in Tokyo. The sky split open. What burst through the crack was not light, nor clouds. It was a crimson abyss.
Ziiiiik!
The buildings in the city center twisted. Walls and windows made of concrete melted. They writhed and distorted like living flesh. There was not even a scream. It was not mere mutation. It was a replacement of existence. The laws that made up reality were torn away, and in their place, the order of the Tower—already corrupted by Nepas—was overlaid.
Next was Osaka. The river turned black. Not flowing water, but writhing tentacles of the abyss rode the river and devoured the city. Highways crumbled. The ground rumbled. Endless black fissures opened in the sky that covered the buildings. And from those fissures poured grotesquely twisted monsters. Aberrations of the Tower. Shards of the Abyss. And the remnants of corrupted humans. People fled. But… there was nowhere to run. Because all of Japan was transforming into a single space. All the way to Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. The entire Japanese Archipelago was dyed red. The sea surrounding the islands boiled, and soon even those waves became corrupted. A sea like a mass of flesh from the abyss slowly overwhelmed and enveloped Japan. The entire island. Reality itself. Was becoming part of the Tower.
[Floor 73 of the Tower, fusion with reality initiated.]
This phrase appeared on satellite images worldwide, as if manipulated by someone, despite there being no system.
[Reality erosion rate: 13%]
[Entire Japanese Archipelago confirmed as part of the Tower.]
[Space of the corrupted 73rd Floor fixed.]
[Global warning: Japan is no longer recognized as part of the real world.]
I was watching that spectacle. No, more precisely, I was feeling it. My perception was like a Thousand-Mile Eye; even from afar, I could recognize it at a glance. That place was already… no longer a place where people lived. A crimson wave of the abyss covered it, and instead of city lights, aberrant monsters crawled about. Even the sky was split, the boundary between reality and the Tower completely collapsed. Standing above it was Nepas. He had long abandoned his human form. Wrapped in the twisted flesh and tentacles of the abyss, he looked down upon reality with blazing red eyes.
「Look.」
His voice echoed. To the world. To the Tower. And to me.
「There is no longer even time to choose.」
「If you do not conquer this place, starting with Japan, the entire world will become the Tower.」
There was no falsehood in those words. The spaces of Japan, mutating in real time, had already fully accepted the order of the Tower. If we did not conquer that place, the boundary between reality and the Tower would collapse. And the foundations of humanity would be consumed in turn.
I closed my eyes. A cold warning flowed across my skin. Yet, there was no fear.
“…Not broken yet.”
I could see it with my eyes. Even though they had changed due to the reality of the Tower, even though they had become monsters, there were still beings with humanity remaining. I quietly gripped my sword. A red flame flared up. That flame was the will of humankind.
“I will reclaim that place.”
“Whether it is the Tower, the Abyss, or the Source of Fear.”
“I will not stop.”
The mutated Japan, the corrupted 73rd Floor. That was now the next battlefield.
*
At the Dawn East Sea Station, the boundary between the sky and the sea blurred indistinctly. The deep blue surface was calm. But beneath it, ordinary currents no longer flowed. The sea had already become part of the Tower. The grain of space was misaligned; the currents flowed upward or twisted sideways. Nevertheless, the two people were calm. Seo Jun looked down at his feet. The water where his toes touched did not ripple. No, more precisely, he was not walking on water. His composure, his intention, and the energy of his soul pressed down on the space, suppressing the boundary between the air and the water’s surface. As a result, he was walking on this unstable sea as if it were solid ground.
Beside him, Kim Si-won was expressionlessly looking forward. Not a single ripple formed under his feet. He was as natural as if he were born to walk on the sea.
“Master…”
Seo Jun spoke carefully.
“I can see the destination.”
His gaze was fixed. Far in the distance, the Japanese Archipelago was visible. But it was a sight that could no longer be called Japan. The sky was torn apart. The land was stained red; the sea and the ground writhed irregularly. Buildings were entangled with each other, transformed into structures of the Tower, and the remnants of the Tower rising to the ends of the sky had swallowed the Japanese Archipelago.
“It has become part of the Tower.”
Kim Si-won’s low voice spread quietly.
Seo Jun swallowed.
The sight was enough to provoke anxiety and fear. But there was no wavering in Kim Si-won’s eyes.
“Maintain your composure.”
“Even if space is misaligned, there is no need for us to collapse.”
Seo Jun nodded.
Walking on this sea was not a simple skill. If one falters even a little, they would be sucked into the twisted space. Walking on water means imprinting one’s intention and composure onto the ground beneath.
Creeeak!
A cracking sound came from afar. Beyond the twisted Japanese Archipelago, the structure of the Tower was assembling itself. The screams of monsters, the distortion of the floors, even the breath of the Source of Fear were drawing closer.
Kim Si-won took a step forward.
The energy of his composure spread over the water. Upon that energy, the two silently advanced like people walking on the sea.
And they finally arrived.
At the same time, they looked at each other. There was no hesitation. They had come this far to save Japan and the people within it. There was no help from others. Only they—these two people—were the only ones in the world who could save Japan.
Therefore.
Thud—
The sound of toes touching the ground rang out. But the ground was no longer ground. This place on the coast of Tokyo, which should have been a mix of sand and concrete, had turned into the surface of the twisted Tower. A huge red crest was engraved on the ground, and the sky was twisted like the ceiling of the Tower.
“This is…”
Seo Jun swallowed his breath.
The moment they stood on the mutated Tokyo, the space split.
Ziiiiik!
Cracks spread through the air. Centered on the two of them, a boundary formed as if forcibly torn open.
At that moment.
“What is this?!”
Kim Si-won instinctively reached out his hand. But it was already too late. Seo Jun’s form vanished beyond the distorted light. His fingertips only grazed the air. At that moment, a familiar system message rang in his ears.
[Reality Tower – Personal area separation initiated.]
[Entrant will be guided to an independent space.]
“…!”
Kim Si-won’s eyes darkened.
It was just like the Tower. A structure that forces each person to undergo their own trials, preventing them from relying on each other. Now that reality and the Tower had merged, the same rules were being applied here.
‘I didn’t expect this.’
That was the problem. It wasn’t that he didn’t know Seo Jun’s skill, but this place was no longer a simple Tower. It was a part of a completely corrupted reality, fused with the Source of Fear. It was far too dangerous for Seo Jun to endure alone.
Kim Si-won calmly took a breath.
He clenched his fist. The responsibility and anger rising from the bottom of his chest were suppressed.
‘He will die.’
Seo Jun could not last long in this place. Even if he had will, life is finite. In this twisted Japan, where a part of the Source of Fear writhed, weakening meant being swallowed immediately.
“I’ll finish it before that.”
A cold resolve leaked through his lips.
There was no way to find Seo Jun again. For now, only one thing mattered: conquer this Tower of Reality, reach the summit, and return the space to its original state.
He exhaled and raised his gaze. Tokyo had already disappeared. A maze-like space where the structure of the Tower was entangled, this mutated land where the breath of monsters mixed—that was now the battlefield Kim Si-won had to break through.
Crack.
The ground beneath his feet broke, and the Tower’s trial began.
Kim Si-won drew his sword.
And silently, he took his first step.
Thud.
One step.
Thud.
And another step.
Every time Kim Si-won’s toes touched, the space screamed.
Tokyo was… no longer Tokyo. A group of towering buildings. Covering them were not glass and steel, but red flesh and black tentacles. Along the outer walls of the skyscrapers, masses of flesh throbbed like the pulse of a giant heart. Buildings and organic matter combined, making the structures themselves monsters merely imitating architecture.
In the middle of the street, Shibuya Scramble Crossing. A place where tens of thousands of people should normally be crossing, there were no people. Instead, aberrant beings crawled over the ground. Their heads retained human form, but their bodies were completely distorted. Tentacles attached to human upper bodies, twisted legs, mouths gaping and bloody. No pupils. Only black holes were drilled in.
Kim Si-won silently gripped his sword.
And looked up.
The sky. Instead of clouds, red blood vessels were tangled. It pulsed and writhed like the entire sky was a living body. Between them, through cracks that spread like black hairline fractures, the interior of the Tower was visible.
‘This place… has completely fused.’
Reality had not just been eroded by the Tower; reality itself had been transformed into the structure of the Tower. Concrete became flesh, roads were covered with the tentacles of the abyss. Buildings became nests for mutants, and even the air was stained with a viscous sense of alienation.
Rumble.
A sound of collapse came from afar. Tokyo Tower. That massive steel structure, covered in red flesh, collapsed. From within it, giant limbs and tentacles surged up. Red blood scattered through the air. It was as if the entire city was the inside of a living monster.
‘It has transcended the corruption of the Tower.’
Kim Si-won’s eyes shone sharply. It was on a different dimension from mutations within the Tower. This place was a new realm where reality, the Tower, and a part of the Abyss had completely combined. It was the result of a part of the Source of Fear awakening.
“Let’s go.”
Kim Si-won quietly raised his sword high.
There was no place to evade, no place to hide. This was neither a human city nor a simple trial of the Tower. But it was also a land he could never turn his back on.
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