Chapter 193
Suhyeok's blacked-out vision suddenly brightened.
The scenery around him had completely changed.
What entered his sight...
Could only be described as hell.
Everything around him was engulfed in flames.
Judging by the corpses, armor, and broken swords scattered everywhere...
A battle had only just ended.
"Where is this...?"
He knew this was Ruzian's Memory Space.
So this scene had to be one point in Ruzian's past.
The problem was...
Unlike before, when Suhyeok had viewed memories as an incorporeal observer...
This time...
He had entered directly into the memory itself.
"Cough... cough...."
A sharp pain pulsed through his right arm.
For some reason...
His body was already battered beyond recognition.
He was on one knee.
And all of his original Stats and Rank were gone.
Bruises covered his body.
When he lowered his head with difficulty...
He found himself wearing blood-soaked armor on the verge of falling apart.
Then...
He saw a face reflected in a pool of blood.
It looked strangely familiar.
This isn't my body.
The face reflected there...
Was Ruzian's.
"...Don't tell me."
"I didn't just enter his memory..."
"I possessed Ruzian himself?"
Before Suhyeok could fully process the situation...
Messages appeared one after another.
[The Tower and System take great interest in Ruzian, the last surviving human.]
[You are this Tower's first Player and its final remaining Player.]
[Soon, your world will be destroyed and deleted── Crackle!]
[1 surviving Player remains.]
Light flashed beside him.
Suhyeok turned his head.
A woman wearing similar armor lay collapsed nearby.
Her breathing was shallow and ragged.
Drip.
Drip.
"...?"
Tears kept running down his cheeks.
They wouldn't stop.
Even while staring at the woman's face...
As her life visibly slipped away...
Suhyeok...
No.
Ruzian...
Grabbed her hand and wailed.
Thud.
The strength disappeared from the hand he was holding.
Her arm dropped lifelessly to the ground.
Her ragged breathing stopped.
The faint light in her eyes vanished.
Suhyeok couldn't control the body.
As though showing exactly how Ruzian had felt in that moment...
His eyes rose toward the sky.
Filled with hatred.
[You have been appointed as an Administrator of the Tower.]
[From now on, please manage Players from the next world as a Lower Administrator.]
Ruzian stared at the message.
His trembling lips clenched hard enough to bleed.
Even when blood flowed...
He kept biting down.
Harder.
Suhyeok had never seen anything like it.
Ruzian always carried himself with composure.
He hid his emotions so well that it was almost unsettling.
Yet here...
He hated someone so deeply...
And showed that hatred so openly.
[Warning!]
[System forcibly executes the Administrator appointment.]
[Shortly, all memories you possessed until now will be erased.]
His vision went black again.
Several seconds passed.
Then...
Voices reached his ears.
"..."
When his eyes opened...
Countless people were standing in confusion in the middle of a vast field.
[Welcome, Players.]
[This is the 0th floor of the Tower.]
Above them...
Ruzian watched from the air.
Perhaps because his memories had already been erased...
He looked much closer to the Ruzian Suhyeok knew now.
Scenes continued one after another.
For nearly ten thousand years...
The pattern remained almost identical.
Players were summoned.
Not long afterward...
Their world was destroyed.
Then...
A new group of Players arrived.
Again.
And again.
During that endless cycle...
Suhyeok saw many floors that had existed in the past.
He also witnessed entire floor-worlds vanish in an instant...
Only for the empty floor to later be replaced with a completely different world.
...So this is how Ruzian's world disappeared.
The scene changed.
The view before him resembled the very first memory.
Another Player knelt on the ground...
Battered and broken.
His eyes were filled with hatred as he stared at Suhyeok.
Suhyeok was startled.
Because that surviving Player...
Was Taeo.
The former Upper Administrator.
"Why...?"
"How can you people do this...?"
"If we had never been dragged here..."
"If you bastards had never brought us here...!!!!"
Taeo could no longer resist.
Just like Ruzian before him...
He held a woman whose body had already gone cold.
And just as Ruzian had once been...
Taeo was forcibly offered an Administrator position by the Tower and System.
Watching it...
Suhyeok thought,
...Strangely...
I don't feel anything.
This body belonged to Ruzian.
Was it because he was seeing this after his memories had been removed?
Or...
Had Ruzian simply grown numb after witnessing the same tragedy over and over for so long?
As those questions filled Suhyeok's mind...
Ding.
Ruzian suddenly clutched his head.
Pain exploded through him.
It felt as though an axe had split his skull in two.
The agony transferred directly to Suhyeok.
"Ugh...!!"
"AAAAARGH──!!"
Then...
With one sharp scream...
The pain stopped.
The scenery changed again.
He was now inside a small office.
A lamp softly illuminated a desk.
On it...
Sat a single notebook.
Suhyeok stared at it.
Page after page...
There were traces of drawings.
Half-finished sketches.
Lines erased and redrawn.
Attempts abandoned midway.
Flip.
Eventually...
He reached the final page.
A woman's portrait was drawn there.
"This woman...."
It was the same woman who had died beside Ruzian.
Ding!
[Warning!]
[The memories beyond this point have been restricted by Administrator Authority.]
[Forcing access may cause severe mental collapse.]
[Warning! Warning!]
[If your mind collapses, your consciousness will be trapped permanently inside this Memory Space.]
[If you refuse, you will immediately leave this space and regain consciousness without any restrictions.]
[Continue watching?]
Dozens of warning messages appeared.
Suhyeok didn't hesitate.
There has to be a reason.
There has to be a reason Ruzian sent me into his memories.
[Highest-Level Administrator Ruzian's memories will continue playing.]
[Leaving midway is impossible.]
[...Current mental collapse rate: 9%.]
Meanwhile...
