Chapter 724
Ding!
[You have reached the most dangerous and secretive location in the Tower for the first time.]
[A special quest has been triggered!]
[Enter ‘Azathoth’s Room’.]
Difficulty: Immeasurable
Details: A vast chamber where Azathoth sleeps. Enter it and secure the ‘Flower That Cannot Bloom’.
Reward: ‘Flower That Cannot Bloom’ and ‘Eight Droplets’.
On Failure: Azathoth awakens from slumber.
[Will you accept? Y/N]
Status Windows flashed into view one after another.
And the contents were incredibly enticing.
‘I didn’t expect this….’
It was not merely my own death at stake.
‘Annihilation.’
The aftermath could spread to the Tower of Trials and even erase the modern world itself. One mistake could mean the end of the world.
However.
‘The reward is ridiculous.’
The Flower That Cannot Bloom was a personal possession of the being slumbering inside Azathoth’s chamber. A flower literally known for being unable to bloom.
Of course, that was only what the Ancient Beings believed. In reality, there was exactly one way to make the flower bloom.
Namely, by using the ‘Eight Droplets’ possessed by the Elder Gods.
‘I never even managed to bloom it myself.’
Back then, I made countless attempts, but at best I only managed to obtain one of the two. I never succeeded in acquiring both at once.
And now, the chance to make it bloom had appeared.
I could not even begin to imagine what kind of reward it would produce.
“Hehe. You’re not going to do it, right? Right?”
Cheongha asked with an anxious look on her face.
“Yeah. I’m not doing it.”
Jinhyuk slowly ran a finger across his lips as he sank into thought.
“You say you’re not doing it, so why do you look so conflicted? Huh? Why are you making that face!?”
“Be quiet for a second.”
Push! Push!
He shoved away the clinging Cheongha and began weighing the possibilities.
The original plan had been to steal mainly Divine Seedlings and seeds from inside the palace. Just enough to secure the bare minimum necessary for conquering the 50th floor and for the battle over the base against Eden.
If I got greedier, the furthest I had planned to go was securing a few devices that could suppress Azathoth’s abilities.
But now, with a quest this absurdly tempting in front of me, the original plan needed a major revision.
The deliberation did not last long.
Quickly adapting to irregular situations had always been one of my specialties.
“Alright. I’ll accept it.”
[You have accepted the quest!]
[Because one party member has accepted the quest, the remaining party members have also been forcibly assigned the quest.]
“Nooooooo!”
Cheongha’s sorrowful cry rang out.
What had started as a light outing had now turned into a hell train with the fate of her entire clan on the line.
Regardless, now that the decision had been made, Jinhyuk moved quickly.
‘With just this lineup, it’s too much.’
I need a capable ally.
Someone trustworthy, tight-lipped, and competent.
‘One more person….’
Right now, I had adjusted the system through [System Manipulation] so that only 3 people could enter the 50th floor. If I used the separately prepared [Summon Scroll], I could bring in one more person.
‘Fortunately, it looks like Alice inside the Ring of Brahma is excluded from that number.’
Just to be safe, I had checked the access permit after coming here with only Cheongha…
[You may summon 1 additional person.]
Since the permit still showed the count as 2/3, Alice was clearly not included among the three.
In other words, I could summon one more person.
[Checking the target’s intentions.]
Jinhyuk sent a note to the person he had in mind, omitting all the important details and only writing about the good parts.
And naturally.
[The target accepts your summon.]
An innocent lamb, knowing nothing, had now joined hell.
===
Whoosh!
Wrapped in a bright light, the final member arrived on the 50th floor.
“It’s been so long! I missed you so much, hehe!”
Andrea came running over with a bright smile.
“Have you been well?”
Jinhyuk embraced Andrea as she ran into his arms and asked how she had been doing.
“Of course! Just like you said, I’ve trained every single day without missing even once so I could get stronger!”
Andrea clenched both fists tightly.
It seemed she had pushed herself hard in hopes of being even a little help. The quality of the Mana flowing from her body was completely different from before.
‘At this level, she should be able to unlock the fox orb all the way to its final stage.’
I kept going back and forth between Pesis and Andrea until the very end, but in the end, I judged Andrea’s abilities to be slightly better suited for this task.
Jinhyuk took out an orb shining with a mysterious light from his Subspace.
It was something he had created by fusing together the Sacred Relics and materials he had stolen… no, received from the vault of the Awakened Association.
[Blue Fox Orb]
Acquisition Difficulty: SS
Details: The oldest fox orb, holding the power to recreate the origin of the nine-tailed fox. One of the Sacred Relics that existed in ancient times. If used by someone who possesses the power of a nine-tailed fox, it grants the additional effect of increasing all stats by +20%.
“Wow!”
Andrea could not hide her joy as she received the gift.
Despite her overwhelming personal growth, she had inevitably been undervalued. The reason was simple: because she had to remain on the lower floors, she could not obtain top-tier items.
But thanks to Jinhyuk’s support, that story had now changed completely.
“You like it that much?”
“Of course! I want to try out the new abilities right away!”
How many combinations and synergies would be possible with her existing abilities?
Just imagining it made it impossible to stay still.
“Alright, alright. Since I gave you such a nice gift, our Andrea can grant me one simple request, right?”
“Of course!”
“No matter what it is?”
“Of… course?”
Sensing something odd, Andrea finally tore her gaze away from the Blue Fox Orb.
Only then did the scenery around her come fully into view.
-Contractor.
“Yeah.”
-That child is crying too.
“It’s okay. Even a nine-tailed fox has times when she wants to cry.”
With that, all the pieces were finally in place.
Snap!
Jinhyuk flicked his finger.
[1,094 Barriers are activated.]
Whoosh!
Blue ripples connected tail to tail.
Preparations to raise the odds, even slightly.
The minimum safeguards required to enter Azathoth’s domain had been put in place.
“Then shall we go?”
Jinhyuk looked toward the staircase, several meters wide.
Within the purple flames burning brightly,
the path leading to Azathoth’s Palace had opened.
===
How far down had we gone?
By the time the path we had come from could no longer be seen, a long corridor appeared. Calling it a corridor was almost an understatement. It was an enormous space stretching for kilometers in either direction.
In place of pillars stood grotesque plants.
Giggles echoed from every direction.
And between the pillars far in the distance, things of unknown identity could be felt wandering about.
The floor was not an ordinary floor, either.
The stones, faintly shifting in place, instinctively warned us not to step carelessly.
“Eeek!”
“Ugh….”
Andrea and Cheongha clung to each other, their entire bodies trembling.
Though they had only just met, being together on the worst floor in existence had rapidly deepened their bond to an absurd degree.
“It’s more dangerous than I thought.”
Jinhyuk licked his lips.
At a glance, I could already see more than ten things guaranteed to kill us. On top of that, there were another five or six whose identities were either unknown or things I was seeing for the first time.
In a place like this, the probability of reaching the deepest part without Azathoth noticing us did not even seem to be 0.01%.
However.
There was no reason to be overly pessimistic.
I had obtained a Hidden Piece specifically for times like this.
[[Page from the Necronomicon] is unfolding.]
The strategy guide for the 50th floor that had been lying dormant in the deepest part of my Subspace.
The time had finally come to use it.
[Deciphering ability for [Lost Language] has increased by 30%!]
The Barrier techniques and interpretation skills I had obtained from the Arrogant Assembly.
Everything I had gathered through all sorts of effort was finally ready to shine.
===
At the same time.
In Eden, which stood opposite the Demon Realm, the final preparations for the siege were underway.
“Perfect.”
Raphael smiled in satisfaction as he looked over the endlessly sprawling walls and all the defensive equipment.
Whatever else happened, they had poured every available resource into this one thing.
If this operation ended successfully, the Ancient Dragons and the great beings above them would grant them complete dominion over the 44th floor of the Tower.
At long last, it meant they could put an end to their long territorial struggle with the Demon Realm and claim the 44th floor entirely for themselves.
And that was not all.
The 42nd and 43rd floors, ruled by Egypt and Olympus, which had dared side with Veteran Corporation, were also destined to fall into Eden’s hands.
‘The only shame is that we can’t lay a hand on the 45th floor, where the Celestial Order resides.’
Raphael glanced toward the figures standing beside him.
The higher Divinities of the Celestial Order, including Brahma and Asura, were also stationed here, accelerating the war preparations.
Since they too stood on the side of the great beings, they would receive their share of the reward.
“What kind of promise do you think they received?”
Israfil, the angel who proclaimed the final holy war, spoke from beside him.
“Well. There is still only one likely possibility.”
There was one floor in the upper levels where the imbalance of power was extreme.
Namely, the 47th floor, where the third faction resided.
The floor where Son Oh-gong, the Primal Monkey King, one of the strongest absolutes known to exist, held his ground.
A floor with little practical value, since it lacked resources and possessed only a handful of ruins and labyrinths.
That was why the 47th floor had never become a true target for the other factions.
Because the risk far outweighed the reward.
However, if the balance of power among the upper echelons completely shifted, the 47th floor would no longer remain a safe zone. Even if its practical benefits were meager, the symbolic significance of the 47th floor itself was not something to be ignored.
When that time came…
neither Son Oh-gong nor the Demon King alone would be able to withstand the combined assault of the other absolutes.
“So you’re saying that while pretending to grant us many things, they will actually hand the most important matters over to the Celestial Order?”
“Because the Celestial Order is more useful than we are, they will likely favor them more, especially with the Archangels already divided and at each other’s throats. The fact that Asura of the Demon Realm is now cooperating with the Celestial Order because of Kang Jinhyuk is also painful for us.”
“So even knowing that, all we can do is stand here and watch….”
“…”
At Israfil’s words, Raphael’s mouth tightened into a thin line.
Naturally, he had no desire whatsoever for things to proceed that way.
But with no clever solution in hand, silence was all he could offer.
And then, right at that moment.
“So this is where you all are.”
A third party, one completely unrelated to either Eden or the Celestial Order, appeared.
“How did you get here…?”
Raphael’s eyes widened in disbelief.