Chapter 44
[Stella, the One Who Embraces the Stars, smiles slightly.]
The Twentieth Floor had been cleared.
Kang Ha-min let out a sigh of relief.
He had known the Second Floor Realm was connected to the Heavenly Slaughter Star.
But he hadn't expected the Tower to build the entire Floor Realm specifically to torment Baek Cheon-myeong.
The Tower really is vicious.
What kind of place was the Tower?
Just thinking about it made chills run down his spine.
Once again,
Kang Ha-min firmly decided he would never climb the Tower himself.
Another decision added onto the previous decision.
Meanwhile,
the place around Baek Cheon-myeong changed.
[The Realm Lord of the Second Floor Realm invites you.]
The Second Floor Realm.
Just like the First Floor Realm,
they needed to defeat its Realm Lord before moving onward.
Mr. Baek Cheon-myeong.
Baek Cheon-myeong had just suffered a mental attack throughout the Second Floor Realm.
Maybe they should wait a little before...
"Let's go immediately."
Of course.
Baek Cheon-myeong never backed down.
Judging by his expression,
he probably intended to defeat the Floor Lord afterward too.
There was nothing Kang Ha-min could do.
Sometimes using your body was easier than thinking.
"Hunter Kang Ha-min accepts the invitation."
The scenery around Baek Cheon-myeong changed.
He left the muddy land where blood-red rain had fallen.
What appeared instead was a massive forest of dead trees.
Not a single leaf remained on the enormous ancient trees.
Massive trunks that looked hundreds of years old reached toward the sky.
The scenery was strangely grotesque.
A forest perfectly suited to the word death.
Hundreds,
thousands of dead trees surrounded the center in a massive circle.
At the center stood one ancient tree large enough to support the sky.
Its trunk was thicker than a fortress wall.
Its twisted branches covered the heavens.
Moss and fungi covered its surface.
BOOM!
Then the entire forest flipped over.
A network of roots surrounding the entire forest shot upward at once.
Baek Cheon-myeong leaped high to avoid the flying dirt.
His only reason was that he didn't want his clothes to get dirty.
Below him,
a massive body slowly rose.
Thick branches became arms.
A split trunk became a chest.
Roots torn from the earth twisted into legs and a tail.
Where the head should have been,
there was only a black hollow.
Inside it,
two dark green flames burned fiercely.
"At least this one has a brain."
If it had appeared slowly like the previous opponent,
Baek Cheon-myeong had planned to cut it apart before it finished emerging.
This creature had appeared instantly.
[Realm Lord of the Second Floor Realm]
[Silent Forest King (默林王)]
A ruler on a completely different scale from the Realm Lord of the First Floor Realm appeared.
Kang Ha-min felt dizzy just looking at it.
We're only in the Second Floor Realm.
What kind of monsters would appear in the Third, Fourth, or Fifth Floor Realms?
He couldn't even imagine it.
But Baek Cheon-myeong didn't blink
even as he fell toward the Silent Forest King.
Instead,
he tightly gripped his wooden sword.
Crack!
Fine fractures spread across the wooden sword.
The cracks covered the entire blade
and instantly reached the handle.
The energy inside could no longer be contained.
It began running wild.
The surrounding space twisted.
The atmosphere split.
Even the sky tore apart along the shape of the sword.
The world groaned simply from Baek Cheon-myeong raising his blade.
[Heaven-Destroying Sword Flow (滅星劍流)]
There was no sound.
The attack was so fast that even the wind couldn't follow.
A white flash traveled in a straight line along the sword's path.
Then,
the earth split in half.
Naturally,
the Silent Forest King at the center was no exception.
Its enormous body was split into two.
"Oh?"
BOOM!
But the Silent Forest King did not die.
Its roots beneath the ground had absorbed the life force of the ancient trees for an incredibly long time.
As a result,
even after its body was split apart,
its vitality still overflowed.
As though declaring that it was now its turn,
the Silent Forest King fired dead trees like bullets.
Baek Cheon-myeong kicked off the air
and casually dodged them.
At the same time,
he used the flying trees as footholds
and charged forward even faster.
BOOM!
Baek Cheon-myeong landed on the Silent Forest King's body.
The monster immediately grew vines from its own body
and attacked him.
Baek Cheon-myeong swung his wooden sword.
The vines shattered.
His wooden sword shattered too,
but that didn't matter.
Crack!
Baek Cheon-myeong grabbed one of the broken branches
and instantly turned it into a new wooden sword.
The sword in his hand released a dangerous aura.
"A return gift."
His crimson eyes flashed.
Then Baek Cheon-myeong stabbed his sword into the Silent Forest King's body
and began running.
CRAAAAAAAAACK!
Everywhere he ran,
the monster's enormous body was ripped apart.
Its outer shell was harder than steel.
Yet everywhere Baek Cheon-myeong's sword touched,
it was cut apart like paper.
Baek Cheon-myeong carved apart the Silent Forest King with a vicious smile.
Even Kang Ha-min felt sorry for it.
He silently offered a moment of prayer for the Silent Forest King.
[You have defeated the Realm Lord of the Second Floor Realm, Silent Forest King.]
[Congratulations!]
[Hunter Kang Ha-min has been granted permission to enter the next Floor Realm.]
At last,
the Silent Forest King's painful journey ended.
With that,
the Second Floor Realm was cleared.
They could now challenge the Twenty-First Floor.
At this speed, we can stop the Second Trial too.
There was only one reason Kang Ha-min had allowed Baek Cheon-myeong to climb the Tower.
They had to stop the Second Trial that would occur because the Tower's progress had stalled.
Looking at the remaining time,
they still had plenty.
With Baek Cheon-myeong,
they should be able to climb without any problems.
"That was refreshing."
